My 33rd birthday in Spain

---

Woe is me! My iPod, my best friend during all my travels, betrayed me! Or rather, lack of sleep and an uncoordinated hand did me in. I've accidently deleted all the pictures from my birthday and then some! So in a desperate and futile attempt to relive the day before my birthday, the day of my birthday, and the morning after my birthday, I'm back at travel blogging.

I had some great pictures of A Coruña. A little city near Santiago de Compostela on the northwest coast of Spain. The morning of September 23, I had taken a walk to the Torre de Hercules at 4 AM. If you have to ask what the hell I was taking a walk at 4 AM for, then I'll have to tell you. I got drunk the night before at dinner on Albariño wine and didn't quite make it to the real Spanish part of going to bars and staying up until the wee hours of the morning. I was forced into bed at 11 PM by my travel buddies, David and Lorena, after causing a scene at a bar (I threw a wet napkin in David's face after he tried to order me a non-alcoholic Mahou beer, that's just sacrilege!). When I woke up at 4 AM, they still hadn't come home, but I had a big, fat headache and could sleep no more. Under the orders of David, the old man at the reception desk tried futilely to prevent me from wandering outside the confines of the Hostal del Sol (actually a really nice affordable hotel). He asked where I was going and I told him I was going for a walk... in my best Spanish to show him I was coherent, of course. He argued that it was dangerous outside and I lied to him and told him that I was from Los Angeles, California, "una ciudad mas peligrosa que A Coruña" (a city far more dangerous than A Coruña), and that I would be able to take care of myself. Really, what could he say to dissuade me after a response like that?!!! I gave him a timeline of 1 hour for my return, smiled and gave him a kiss on each cheek.

A Coruña during the day is breathtaking, and equally beautiful at night. I had taken pictures of the lights of A Coruña, the homage to surfers sculpture, the curved beach, and finally the Torre de Hercules. All lost now, with two clicks of a button on my iPod. I've even lost the pictures of the Torre in the day time and the pictures from the top of the Torre where I took a long time to reflect on the magnificence of the Galician coast. I fell in love with A Coruña's cloudy rough coast then. On the way down from the torre, there was a guy playing the Spanish version of the bagpipes, the gaita. I took a picture of him too, because I thought it was ironic that I had started my trip in Edinburgh listening to bagpipes and now I was hearing them again in the last country on my trip. I lost pictures of David standing in front of the prison across the street from the Torre. He'll kill me for that. They were good pictures. And I lost pictures of the best freakin' Spanish meal I had in Spain, eaten during Spain's breakfast hour, but right on time for my American lunch. A plate of rice, squid in its ink, stuffed pepper in a tomato cream sauce, seafood salad, and albondigas. To die for!

From A Coruña, we traveled back to Bilbao...not quite a 5 hour drive. I saw windmills along the way. The kind you see when you're rounding the 580 freeway to the bay area from the interstate 5, the kind you see driving on interstate 10 driving into Palm Springs. My favorite kind of windmill. I lost those pictures too.

Luckily, I hadn't taken too many pictures on September 23. Another drunken night, better managed. I had nothing to wear that day and was looking pretty manly with my red, black and white Picos de Europa souvenir shirt, black yoga pants, and blue and white Asics for running. Yeah, not too sexy looking when Edu and David came to pick me up to have dinner at Mundin's, the bar/restaurant where Lorena worked at a waitress. We went to 5 or 6 bars that night until around 5 AM. That was early.

The next day, we were up at 11 AM and out of the San Jorge hotel by the 12 PM checkout. David took me to a mall in Bilbao and I shopped for shoes because I had left my good shoes for going out in Miranda de Ebro. I ended up buying 50€ shoes with 3 inch heels. I knew I had I basically bought a one-way ticket to "Slave-to-fashion Hell" but I had to look good on my birthday! I bought a cheap shirt at H&M to wear as well. When I met up with David again, because I had let him roam around on his own, he surprised me with a cute black and silver bracelet he bought for my birthday. Oh, in Spain, men actually go shopping with their significant others...I mean to say, they're not wandering alone in the mall or sitting bored out of their minds waiting for their women. No!!! I have never seen so many men in a dressing room before, waiting outside the door of the dressing closet to give their opinion on what their girlfriend or wife or daughter has picked out to wear. Seriously! It was unnerving and super cool at the same time!

David and I headed out to the arcade to play some games and then drove to Edu's place so that I could have a shower and change for dinner. So the majority of my pictures were lost at this point and my poor little brain will now attempt to remember what they were:

-Pictures of a tapas bar counter with its offerings
-the floor of the tapas bar covered with dirty napkins, toothpicks, food pieces, etc... a sign of a good place
-David, me, and Edu in the elevator in Edu's building
-All of us sitting at a table in Mundin's eating dinner (me, Edu, Txemi, Jochan, Robert, and Iran)
-My dinner plate of beef in roquefort sauce and fries
-pictures ON THE STREET at the first bar we went to, drinking calimocho (Coke and red wine)
-drinking on the street at the next bar we went to
-pictures of me and Edu sitting at a bench in a bar decorated in mosaics
-David with 5 empty glasses stacked into each other with a face of disbelief
-more drinking on the street at the next bar we went to
-drinking on the street at the next bar
-the first guy I caught pissing that night on a wall
-the same guy pissing with his friend's arm around him as he is pissing and a dude's face in my camera
-David again holding a stack of empty glasses in one hand and this time with him sticking up his middle finger to the camera
-drinking again inside a bar
-candid shots with various people in the group, Iran debating with some of the guys, Jochan and Txemi throwing up signs (Basque-side!)
-3 pictures of David amongst 3 girls (Iran, me, and Lorena), Iran almost looks like she's about to ravish David on camera!
-more drinking... etc. etc. etc.
-7 AM pictures at the last bar. I lost a great one of Edu looking like a zombie
-A final photo of David's watch at 7:45 AM the next morning... the end of our night of bar hopping... quite possible 10 to 12 bars in all, I stopped counting at 6.

David, Edu and I retired to a last bar to get a coffee and some pastries and so I could take my last pee. I never pissed so much in my life...too much information, I know. Then we headed to David's car and slept inside for 3 hours until the noise of the people on the street woke us up.

We drove Edu home and finished out the morning in Bilbao, taking pictures of the Guggenheim and the river that runs through Bilbao. All lost!

---