I think I became a true European last night... or at least a true European tourist. I bought a three-foot baguette from a panaderia. I'd bought some other food at a market and had put it all in my backpack, so the sick of bread went in, too.

My small backpack is perfectly designed for bread transport. You can zip it commpletely shut around the baguette, which then sticks out the top nearly to the top of my head. I thought I looked like a television news live truck... the ones with the sixty-foot mast that sticks up and has a small dish on top. I'd heard in Europe you're required to walk around with a huge piece of bread sticking out of your backpack. Otherwise, how will people know you mean business?

"Getting to the station isn't so easy."
I discovered a beautiful park in Bilbao today. I found the station for the funicular that Matt and I had tried to locate our last time here. From nearly anywhere in the city you can see the inclined railway going up the nearby mouuntain. But getting to the station isn't so easy. Matt and I walked nearly all the way up the mountain looking for the station only to discover we'd walked nearly to the top of the railway.

But this park is at the top of the funicular and the top of one of the mountains that surround Bilbao. One side looks out over the city and gives an interesting view of the Guggenheim museum. The other way looks onto the next valley, home to lots of agriculture and Bilbao's brand new and seeminly deserted airport. Even in January the hedges ar well trimmed, the grass mowed, the litter mostly cleaned up. Groups of older people are out for their afternoon walk.

"Remember Basque terrorism?"
Bilbao is at the heart of Basque country. It's the part of Spain that likes to say it's not part of Spain. Actually I think there are a few parts of Spain that like to say that, but this is the one that gets all the press. Remember "Basque terrorism?"

For hundreds of years Basque country was ruled by the Spanish monarchy but give self-rule and a wide berth by the crown. That all went away under, I think, Franco... who wiped out self-rule and incited a rebellion against Spain. It continues today with the ETA, a political group that I think still considers terrorism a viable weapon in their struggle for independence. Never anything on an Osama scale, but they've blown up some cars and killed people. I think, though, that political terrorism kinda went out of fashion after September eleventh. It's said that basques, while desperately wanting independence or self-rule, are deadset againt the use of terrorism in pursuit of it.

Sometime this week I plan to take in the fine arts museum here in Bilbao. Now completely overshadowed by the Guggenheim, I hear it's home to lots of stuff from the French Impressionists (were there any other kinds of Impressionists?). Supposedly locals will tell you it's still the premiere museum in the city.

My only other goal for the week is to find a huge grass area I can see from the park. It's maybe a quarter of a mile from my hotel, but I had no idea it was there. Even though it's so big, finding it may be a bit like finding the funicular station. Easy to spot from a distance, but you completely lose your way when you start to get close.

"A lone brick smokestack."
And can I just say one more time how beautiful this day is? I've actually now found the park I'd seen from the top of the inclined railway and am sitting at another park bench overlooking the city from a different angle. This one's better because there are no power lines or communications towers in the way. I think the park used to be a factory since there's a lone brick smokestack standing in the middle of this open grassy field. DOnt they usually leave a smokestack or two for old time's sake when they tear down factories?

With the execption of one morning last weekend, it's been quite cold, cloudy and occasionally rainy since I got here. I don't mind that, really. I knew what I was getting into coming to Europe in winter. But today has been such a great surprise. It's maybe sixteen degrees Celsius. I have no idea what that is in Farenheit. Maybe sixty.

It's funny with Celsius that you start thinking in the new system rather than converting back to your own. Kilometers and kilograms I always convert to miles and pounds, but Celsius is Celsius. Below ten is getting really cold a nice, cool day is maybe fifteen to twenty, and it's getting hot over twenty-five. Maybe it's because it's so hard to convert. It's something really absurd to get Farenheit out of Celsius. Something like multiply by five-eights and add thirty-two. I'd do almost anything before being asked to do that in my head.