Bilbao.

Home of the Guggenheim. Largest city in the Basque Country in northern Spain. About 5 miles from the Bay of Biscay and the Atlantic Ocean along the Ria Nervión. We have arrived in our destination for our year-long (or more) residency in Spain.

Bilbao is known for pintxos, the small snacks that sit on most every bar in the region. About 3-4 bites of something delicious, a single piece of bread, and you’re done. These are characteristically different from pinchos in the rest of Spain, which are specifically skewered chicken or pork.

Above, on the right, we have Gildas, originally from San Sebastián. An anchovy, a couple pimientos de padrón, olives, on a skewer. The Gilda is one of the most famous pintxos, said to have been invented by a man who showed up to the bar hungry. The kitchen had closed, so he took matters into his own hands, and made his own snack using what was on the bar. The name Gilda comes from the film starring Rita Hayworth. On the left is chicharrón, fried pork skin, which requires no explanation.

We have an apartment for the first month near the neighborhood of Miribilla on the southeastern side of the city, about a 10-15 minute walk from either Casco Viejo or central Bilbao. The next few weeks our main task is finding more permanent housing, which is needed to satisfy the visa requirement to show a signed lease.

I look forward to settling in; as much as I enjoyed Lisbon, and the holidays with family that preceded it, the last two months for us have been constant motion as we wrapped up our jobs, moved out of our condo in DC, and flew across the ocean. Here, we will get back to something closer to a normal life, better diet and exercise, working, budgeting, and so forth. Expect more technical posts in the weeks to come as I commit more time to my backlog of projects.

Salud, to a new beginning in Bilbao.

---

Madrid

Lest I forget that we spent a couple of nights in Madrid over the weekend, before getting to Bilbao. On this occasion, our primary purpose was to reconnect with a high school friend of Rachel’s who she hadn’t seen in 15 or so years. Her friend happened to have embarked on her own digital nomad journey about 3 years prior to our own. With that being our motivation, and given that we’ve already been to Madrid a few times, it wasn’t exactly a touristy trip where we saw all the attractions. I did get a few nice photos though, which are in the gallery below.