Nov 21st. 10.30 pm. 18 degrees! On my way back from seeing Bilbao Symphony Orchestra in a great performance of Shostakovich's 1st Symphony, it is so warm I have to take my jacket off (no pullover) and buy an ice cream (!) The cobbled streets of Casco Viejo are quiet until I turn into Calle Somera, where we live. There, as usual, two or three hundred people are congregated outside our flat drinking and talking. It's particularly lively tonight as it's Friday night. As I carve a path through the happy drinkers (none of whom is, or is likely to be, drunk), a fantastic Txistulari band (Basque pipes, accompanied by drums) comes by and plays a mixture of Basque and Spanish folk and dance tunes. They stay outside our flat for half an hour playing superbly. People on the street clap and cheer after each song. This happens once every couple of weeks on the street, though this is a particularly good band.
We are moving to a new flat on Monday. This is partly because it transpires our current landlord has an elaborate tax avoidance scheme which means we can't become 'empadronado' - full citizens of Bilbao - because our flat isn't registered as a rentable property, and so we can't register with our local doctor's surgery. It's also partly because a shop has opened up on the ground floor which pumps music up through the floor all day. It's not because of the street itself: we like the energy of Calle Somera and the buzz of people talking outside doesn't disturb us. We'll miss it. However, we're moving to a triangle of streets on the other side of the Casco Viejo (about 3 minutes' walk away) which is just as lively as Somera...
Owing to the staggering incompetence of the phone company here, our phone and internet connection was cut off two weeks before we leave ,and they couldn't put it back (!) so we've been surviving on a dongle for the last 2 weeks, which is painfully slow about 95% of the time. Hence no blogs recently. Fingers crossed we should be back in business next week.
We are moving to a new flat on Monday. This is partly because it transpires our current landlord has an elaborate tax avoidance scheme which means we can't become 'empadronado' - full citizens of Bilbao - because our flat isn't registered as a rentable property, and so we can't register with our local doctor's surgery. It's also partly because a shop has opened up on the ground floor which pumps music up through the floor all day. It's not because of the street itself: we like the energy of Calle Somera and the buzz of people talking outside doesn't disturb us. We'll miss it. However, we're moving to a triangle of streets on the other side of the Casco Viejo (about 3 minutes' walk away) which is just as lively as Somera...
Owing to the staggering incompetence of the phone company here, our phone and internet connection was cut off two weeks before we leave ,and they couldn't put it back (!) so we've been surviving on a dongle for the last 2 weeks, which is painfully slow about 95% of the time. Hence no blogs recently. Fingers crossed we should be back in business next week.
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