Monday, July 23, 2007

Haizetara - Amorebieta


On our second leg, we left Hamburg in the early afternoon flying the infamous RyanAir which was a more pleasant experience then we had been lead to believe it might be. We had a 3 hour layover in Marsaille which was rather pleasant as our holding area was well appointed and included many French ladies with who apparently has no underwear on according to my observant bandmates. We then landed in Madrid and into the arms of the beloved Joel and Raoul, who held us for brief one night stands before we headed out toward Basqueland. We arrived road weary in Amorebieta - Extana for the Haizetara Festiva where we met our guardian and consort Miete. We stayed at the very much top notch staff at the Harrison Hotel. We were thrilled with the playground right next door.

We were ready to go full force HMB with all the themes, dances, ensembles and throw of our tunes one the table. We played nearly nonstop for three days when we weren't being stuffed with sausages and strange wine.

While in Amorebieta we were able to make a quick stop in Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim. We spent most of our time outdoors and decided against paying the $12.50 admission fee as we had such a limited amount of time having been delayed by band business affairs and taking the long way to get there. We were four and it didn't seem worth it to pay $48 for the half an hour we had before we had to leave so we enjoyed what the ourside of the museum had to offer, which was substainal.

On the way out of town, we stopped in Biarritz, an Espana seaside coastal resort and apparently one of the oldest resort communities known to the world, originated by the Basque. We had stopped to Busque but were soon run out of town by the police having made a rather clutzy bull entrance by stampeding into town illegally parking 2 vans and a car unloading our full ensemble of non resort attired musician types who had caffeine and toilets foremost in their minds.