Put the fun in funicular
We take it easier today. When I wake up, I wrestle with jet lag. I try the, ‘Five more minutes,’ excuse with Ryan, but he’s not having it. He’s right. All I have to do is throw on clothes so we can go down to breakfast. We’re eating at our hotel bodega, to keep it easy.
‘I don’t understand why you want to ride a funicular,’ Ryan told me the day we arrived.
‘Because it’s a FUNICULAR,’ I explain. It is clear that Ryan doesn’t understand.
We decide to ride the funicular today, and it ends up the only thing on our to-do list. We had wanted to shop, but the shops in el Casco Viejo where we are staying are closed Sundays. We wonder whether we’ll be able to catch some football later.
After breakfast we take an early siesta, then set out to find the funicular.
Along the way we hear the din of chatter. Following it has served us well this trip, so we do. We find a new square—literally, pun not intended, La Plaza Nueva—and a local pop-up shop sort of market going on. I get a glass of local wine in broken Spanish from a man who speaks Basque. It’s not terribly difficult to work out what I want; each shop sells only one thing. The wine costs 1,50€.
We continue wandering and eventually come to the funicular. I stop to take a picture of some plants on a balcony, and through my camera see my car. ‘Hey Miata!’ I call, too late to take a picture of it. It was very close to my model. A good sign. We are on the right path.
We ride the funicular, a sort of tram for climbing up steep hills. If I recall, there is one in Istanbul too that I have ridden. We share a cab with some kids from France, greet each other in Spanish and eavesdrop. We wear masks, rather poorly. They’re required on public transport here and folks generally observe that rule, but tend not to wear masks elsewhere. I take a selfie and send it to Catherine. ‘You guys put the fun in funicular,’ she tells us. So punny, worth every penny of this mobile data plan.
At the top we walk around. There’s a park, and we keep climbing. The view hits us at the same time, and we both exclaim how pretty it is, talking over each other, taken aback by this beauty. This is why you ride a funicular, to see where it goes.
After the funicular, we can’t decide where to go. Ryan is a bit hungry, but over pintxos, truly unfortunately. Should we go to a grocery store for some bread and cheese? Ryan knows I’ll never say no to bread and cheese. I can sense he wants to see what grocery shopping here is like. He’s worried that if we plan to eat at a restaurant, it will be closed. I can’t imagine all of the pintxos bars being closed, so I am unworried. I focus on finding Ryan food.
Ryan is leading, and on the way to a grocery store—that is open this Sunday, according to Google Maps, so not to worry—we come upon a pass that feels familiar.
‘The place we got empanadas yesterday is here. It looks like it’s open,’ I observe, ‘Would you like some empanadas?’
‘Yes.’
The place, Las Muns, is a fast food place, but has vegan and vegetarian options. I got some empanadas here yesterday (yes, can you believe there were things I left off yesterday’s post), a Mushroom Camembert and a Cheeseburger, which tastes like hamburger helper. They are good; they hit the spot. We each order an Olive Mozzarella, and Ryan tries a Cheeseburger while I try a Sun-dried Tomato Provolone. We walk towards the river to eat them, allowing them to cool along the way. The roof of my mouth is still a little tender from yesterday, when I ate them while walking away. It’s another beautiful day, and Ryan’s mood improves with a little food. What is there to worry about, anyway?
Grocery shopping doesn’t work out as we want. I pop into a smaller local-looking place with bread and cheese, but Ryan still wants to see a chain. The one we go to is more like a convenience store, and not somewhere we want to buy food. I declare it a success nonetheless because the goal was really just to check it out. By the time we’re returning, the place I had found is closed, it being just past 16:00. Maybe we’ll just go back to the hotel.
On the walk back, I want to find some of the public drinking water fountains. Ryan recalls one in the old town near our hotel, so we take a bit of a detour. Along the way we pass our pintxos bar from the first night, Bar Esperanza, and I remember where the fountains are. As we walk towards them, we pass another location of the grocery store I had found. Perfect. We buy bread and cheese, and blueberry jam. We leave, turning left to find the fountains.
As we head back to the hotel, we are greeted in the street by the bartender from Taska Beltz, the natural wine bar with excellent music. We had thought they would be closed as he had mentioned closing Sunday for an extended holiday, but they are obviously open. We chat with him in the street for a minute, then introduce ourselves to a friend of his who has moved back from LA recently, and had lived in Boston. He does the two kisses thing with me, clasps Ryan’s hand. I reposition myself to better pet his rescue terrier mutt.
‘Which town?’ I ask. No one who lives in Boston lives in Boston.
‘Natick,’ he answers. ‘I was sixteen. I spent a summer abroad to practice my English.’ He tells us stories of that summer, of staying with a host family who had a swimming pool. ‘We had beer,’ he says. ‘At the start it sits on top like this, full of ice,’ he gestures, explaining how backyard barbecue coolers work, ‘But by the end it is down to here,’ gesturing again, ‘And you reach in with your whole arm, so cold.’
‘I made love to a woman,’ he continues, his story taking a sharp surprising twist, us still following. He continues to gesture as he is telling us, now making a thrusting motion. ‘In a park. Under a full moon.’ So romantic. He sweeps his hands up, inviting us to picture a night sky under a full moon. In exotic Natick, Massachusetts. ‘And the mosquitoes, the bug bites. All over my butt!’ he ends dramatically. I have been there too, my friend.
‘What is your name?’ I ask him, and he answers, ‘Michael.’
Michael continues talking of his time in Boston fondly, and it takes me a minute to realise he continues using fucking in the Boston colloquial (probably because excessive use of fuckin… no longer registers as excessive to me). Too bad he doesn’t seem to remember wicked. We talk with Michael and his friends on the terrace for a bit, then decide we’re meant to have more wine here. It is only the second wine bar we’ve return to on any of our trips, the other having been in Paris. We go inside for a glass of wine, and remember that we can buy wine para llevar here, to take with us. We stay for a second glass and more chatter. There is a friends-and-family vibe about the place, on this the last night that it’s open for a while. When we leave we wish our bartender friend Josepe well and wish him a wonderful vacation. He wishes us the same. Natural wine people are always good people.
We have managed to do well in Bilbao with a very limited vocabulary. People are polite with our slow Spanish, or Castellano as they’ll ask us for language preferences. Hola, buenas. Sí, claro. Vale, vale. Gracias por todos, muchas gracias. I appreciate the opportunity to practice, and that people here are kind enough to practice patience with me.
Back at the hotel we linger, head down to the hotel bar for marianitos. I get a couple calls and answer, wondering how they’ll show up on phone bills. ‘Hey, I’m a little bit in Spain.’ Not really, though, this not being Spain here in Basque Country. Bye for now, Bilbao. Hasta la próxima.
