Modern art is big

My hostel is fine. It´s fine. It´s cold. And loud. But it´s fine. It may be the nicest place I stay this trip, so it kinda has to be fine. I try not to touch too much in the (shared) bathrooms. Both the hot water and the pressure in the shower come and go. The water pressure really comes and goes. The shower is the kind with a wall mount, and when the pressure finally kicked in, it sent the shower nozzle flying off the wall, soaking the bathroom, hitting me in the head, and leaving me blindly fumbling for the spewing thing, because of course this all happened when I had soap on my eyes. I´ve gotta get a benefactor. I had another Chevy Chase-like moment today using a public (pay) toilet. I was mixed emotions about using it (I´m cheap and there´s the ick factor), but I was kinda curious and I kinda had to go, so I paid my 30 centimos, the door opened, and I went in. I didn´t really want to be seen using a public toilet, and I really didn´t want to be seen, you know, using a public toilet. I wanted to lock the door. But there was only one handle on the inside of the door, and moving it made the door open again. I stubbornly tried three times to lock the door, each time just opening it, thereby causing more or less the result I had hoped to avoid, that being seen in a public toilet. In the end I just chose to believe the door was locked from the outside, and no one walked in on me.

The police here are scary. They drive green army issue-looking Jeep Cherokees and, in addition to the pistols in their pants, they wear these rifle-type guns slung around their necks. I know nothing about guns, but the rifles look really old, like something you might see in a museum from a long-gone war. Like they might just as easily backfire as hit their intended target.

Anyway, today I did museums. I don´t usually do audio guides, but the Guggenheim Bilbao is so interesting architecturally that I thought I might learn some cool stuff. And the audio guide did point out some things about the building that I wouldn´t have otherwise known or noticed. But mostly I just laughed at the British announcer´s deadpan speaking. In addition to "Modern art is big", some of my favorite quotes were the following. "The curves are gentle but...powerfully sensual. You´ll see people going up to the walls and stroking them. You might feel a desire to do so yourself." "...walk into the atrium. Isn´t it a wonderful place." (No question mark there, it was definitely a statement.) And, talking about how in most museums the rooms connect and you visit one after another, "Sometimes it can feel as if there´s no escape. But here there is an escape: this space [the atrium] to which you can return after every gallery to refresh the spirit before your next encounter with the demands of contemporary art." So the Guggenheim was very cool, but most of what was on display was this big exhibition of Russian art. Which is great; I´m into Russia, and there´s good Russian art that most people haven´t seen and don´t know about (I once got into a fight with someone about the mere existence of Russian art. It exists.) It´s just that I already saw that exhibit at the Gubggenheim New York last fall. Oh well. Worth seeing again. The New York exhibition had Russian translations of everything, but there was no Russian here, which was kind of disappointing. There are definitely way more Russians in New York than in Bilbao, but Russians both live in and visit Spain, and the translations were already done since they had them in New York, so I don´t know why they weren´t displayed. Everything was already in three languages (Basque, Spanish, and English), maybe they just didn´t have room.

Bilbao also has a nice fine arts museum, focusing mostly on Spanish and particularly Basque painting and sculpture. It had a lot of good stuff, especially a lot of good modern art. There´s this Basque painter Juan de Echevarría who did really cool impressionist still lifes (lives?); check him out if you´re into that sort of thing. There was this old guy who wouldn´t stop talking to me in the modern art section. I might have liked talking to him if I could have understood him, but he had this really raspy voice that made him hard to understand and he wouldn´t speak up or slow down. He seemed to be complaining about the choice of works on display; I think he thought some of the artists had done better work than what the museum was showing. He was also saying something about artists being poor and I think he called van Gogh a sellout.

I had some other strange interactions with people today. I was buying a sandwich at this bar and talked briefly with the bartender and this other guy sitting at the bar (both older guys), first about what kind of sandwich I wanted, then about how I´m sunburned. I told them I´d been at the beach in Cadaques, they´d never heard of Cadaques, I told them it´s on the Costa Brava. I clearly don´t speak Spanish well, but after all of that they must have known that I speak some. We did have a conversation, after all. But then they started talking to each other about how I´m guapa (good-looking)! Did they think I wouldn´t understand? Did they not care? Were they trying to get a reaction? Maybe I should have asked, but I just left with my sandwich and went to it in the park. Where some guy exposed himself to me. Classy.