Change of Plans

We have a slight change in our itinerary due to some unhappy French mariners. We were originally scheduled to dock in La Rochelle, France on Thursday, but due to the strike the port is closed and thus we are unable to dock. Instead of La Rochelle, we’ll be going to Bilbao, Spain which is in the northern Basque country – hopefully Thursday will be terrorist attack free! We are still able to go to Brest, France on Friday because that is a military port.

I’m actually excited about the change in itinerary because of the Guggenheim Museum that is in Bilbao. It is suppose to have one of the most impressive collections of modern art in the entire world. The building was designed by Frank Geehry (?) who I think may have possibly done the new wing of the Denver Art Museum, but I can’t remember if that is the case – if anybody can verify or correct my information that would be great. I feel slightly embarrassed that I can’t recall the famous architect’s name since there are a few architects in the family – sorry Uncle Bob and Oscar!

I spent my day Tuesday walking the streets of Lisbon. The city is situated on 7 hills (just like Rome) and is located on a seismic fault line which has caused quite a bit of destruction throughout history. There is only one district that survived the devastating earthquake in the 18th Century – the Alfhama. It still retains many of the Arabic influence in the building and street design. Lisbon was once a great maritime center and Portugal had quite a large nautical Empire. The aforementioned earthquake pretty much caused the Empire to crumble. I can’t quite recall the exact numbers, but it was something like 60,000 people out of a population of 230,000 perished that day.

Of course it was raining and cold yet again, but did end up clearing up in the afternoon. Rain is supposedly incredibly rare for Lisbon and they usually have 340 day of sunshine a year and because of the lighting in the city many filmmakers use the city as a backdrop. I guess you can’t really trust any weather patterns as our world climate has been completely altered.

One of the unique features of Lisbon are the British Tram cars that carry passengers around the city. They look very much like the trams in San Francisco and can be very helpful in navigating all the steep hills.

I think that’s all the excitement for now. Oh wait, there’s one other thing. I’m going to be switching rooms on Saturday. I’ll be moving in with my radical bass playing friend.