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"Paris Report #3: Paris --> Bilbao --> Paris" posted June 25, 2005 at 07:38 PM

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Saturday, June 4
We flew Saturday from Paris to Bilbao, in the Basque country of Northern Spain. We arrived in the afternoon at the gorgeous Calatrava-designed airport with its JFK/TWA-inspired terminal. We checked into our rather ugly, but extremely comfy hotel. The bathroom was the size of my New York apartment. We cleaned ourselves up and had the hotel pick up a load of laundry. It was the most expensive load of laundry I have ever done: one small load of cotton shirts, underwear, socks, and hankies, plus pressing two suits and two shirts: $185. All I can say is, I saved $2500 on hotels by doing an apartment swap, so....c'est la vie (or rather, que será será).

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I planned this vacation around these three days in Bilbao. My company is designing the book for the Richard Serra exhibition that was opening that weekend at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. The exhibition is called The Matter of Time, and it's a new, permanent installation of 8 monumental sculptures filling one vast gallery within the museum. For the book, we've been working very closely with the artist and his wife and with the Guggenheim publications department. Richard and Clara, along with the Guggenheim's curators, planned an amazing three days for us, with official museum events and organized bus trips to nearby sites.

That first evening Carter and I walked along the river toward the Guggenheim museum at about 7pm. Frank Gehry built this landmark museum in 1997. It is indeed everything it is cracked up to be--large and magnificent, glimmery and metallic, twisted and grand. It's a building that is difficult to get a good sense of when standing right in front of, but as you walk toward it and it grows before you like a strange spaceship, one feels a great connection between the old European industrialized city and this new, New World architecture that blossoms on the bank of the river.

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As we gathered in front of the museum, we greeted all the New Yorkers we knew and met a few we didn't. Then we piled into a caravan of mini-busses and headed into the countryside for a dinner at the home of one of the museum's board members. It began as an extravagant garden party, with champagne, wine, gorgeous Spanish girls passing hot hor'deurves, and views of rolling green hills.

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At about 9pm, at the request of our hostess, we drifted inside for dinner. There were dinner tables set throughout the house, and I took a seat at an upstairs table with Carter, my partner Anthony, Richard's gallery's director Elan and his wife Melinda who happens to be an old friend of mine, and Heidi, an editor who I worked with on the last Serra catalog we designed, and her husband. The menus on our plates spelled out the delights we were about to be treated to:
Cold lasagna of king prawns, leek and fresh garlic with crab
Charlotte of leg of lamb in gravy with crispy sweetbreads
Fruit salad with creamy yogurt on a caramelized puff pastry
Coffee
Cava, red wine from Rioja, rosé wine from Navarra, white wine, and mineral waters
When we sat down Heidi leaned over to me and quipped, "Oh I was hoping we would have lamb, especially after seeing all those grazing sheep on the drive here!" Everything was delicious, and the service was truly amazing--everything served perfectly, despite the inherent difficulty of a sit-down dinner for 200! When we returned to Bilbao, everyone gathered for a nightcap in the bar of the Gran Domine Hotel.

Sunday, June 5
The next morning we were back at the Guggenheim, again climbing into the mini-busses. This time we were off to the fishing town of Getaria on the Gipúzkoan coast, a picturesque town of winding streets and a small, fantastic port with tall, colorful fishing boats. We entered a small stone church to find a local brass band playing Italian folk songs (O Sole Mio!), then we strolled the harbor for a while looking at the beaches, the rocks, the cliffs, and the gorgeous blue water.

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Lunch was served at a restaurant that seated us on the second floor at three long banquet tables. Carter and I were among the first to enter the dining room and claimed for ourselves prime seats facing the open windows with an unbeatable view. The sky and the water of the Bay of Biscay were the same light blue, and the hills were a distant green. Warm sea breezes were blowing as the feast began--a six course fish lunch. Served family style, we started with marinated anchovies that were fresh and fishy in their sweet olive oil. Next came a small fish that was lightly floured and fried (there was a confusion later about whether these were small, butterflied fish or the cheeks from a larger fish--I never learned the answer). Our eyes widened when the servers brought out the crab dish that came next. A saucy, meaty gratin of crab meat, served in large spiky shells. To our amazement the next course was a half lobster for each person. These had been roasted over an open fire--so fresh! When we cleaned ourselves up after cracking open the lobsters and digging out the tender meat, we thought there couldn't possibly be more, but there was--the town's specialty: turbot. Everyone received a huge filet of turbot, also cooked over the open flame. Dessert came in two parts: mascrapone ice cream served on a tuille with a raspberry sauce, and a millefueille with cream. Coffee too. Throughout the lunch, we talked art and politics, drank endless supplies of champagne, wine, and sparkling water, made toasts, and took in the beautiful views. Toward the end of the meal Anthony moved to our end of the table to chat. I told him it was too bad that he had been facing away from the window because when we sat down the sea and the sky were same color, but I had watched them slowly change, with the sea darkening and the sky lightening in a private light show from God. He replied that he had watched the same thing in the faces of the people across from him! This meal was three hours borrowed from Heaven, simply the greatest lunch of my life.

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I drifted in and out of sleep on the bus ride back to Bilbao, listening to art-world bigwigs discuss the new MoMA building, the politics of the New York Public Library's recent selling off of fine art to raise money, and the like. It was dreamy. Back at the hotel Carter took a bath in our amazingly huge tub, and I went down to the sauna to sweat myself back to consciousness after our dreamy lunch. That evening was a preview of the exhibition. Richard gave a fantastic, concise talk before we entered the gallery. I usually hate hearing artists discuss their work, but Richard's discussion helped me better understand the mind-altering experience of walking through the sculptures. The sculptures are truly great--they're bigger and more complicated than Serra's other recent work, and they powerfully play with your sense of space as you move through them. The installation fills the enormous atrium and the work is a great addition to the grandeur of the building. Dinner consisted of simple, tasty small dishes served right in the museum. Lots of champagne was consumed, and again we followed all this with hotel bar hopping.

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Monday, June 6
Monday mornings always come too soon, and June 6 was no different. We were asked to reconvene in front of the museum at 10am for further touring of the beautiful Basque countryside. We drove first to the mediaeval town of Laguardia. Small and ancient, modern transport--their cars, our busses--are parked around the periphery of the town, with the narrow internal streets for pedestrians only. I hung out with new friends, Richard's nephews Ivory and Shelter, and Trina and her wonderful family (her precocious 10-year-old son proclaimed: "I am a Communist. And I'm addicted to CNN!"). We saw the lovely Church of Santa Maria de los Reyes, and we ate sweet, cakey bread from a little bakery. I had a bit of motion sickness from the bus that morning, and Carter bought me a mineral water that was so salty and minerally and delicious, and it did help settle my stomach. The views from Laguardia were stunning--hills, valleys, farms, and vineyards as far as the eye could see.

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One of those vineyards--Remelluri--was our next stop for lunch. This is the heart of Rioja country, and let me tell you, you can taste it in the air. Nestled into the hills we had more lovely views, and another fabulous lunch. We dined with the writer Hal Foster and his wife Sandy. We were served chorizo, then a sausage and potato stew, then a crisp salad, then wonderful platters of lamb chops--all served, of course, with the vineyard's own wines. The white wine was especially great, though they produce it only for themselves and not for distribution.

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Back in Bilbao that evening we dressed American style for the Black Tie Gala opening of the exhibition. The locals indeed wore tuxedos and evening dresses, while we imports dressed in suits and ties. It was an elegant event, more so than ever gets pulled off in New York. The food was terrific--again an amazement given this was a catered dinner for 300! Foie gras of duck with cream of peach, vanilla and mustard leaves was followed by mushroom ravioli with sautéed squid and lobster with a fennel sauce. Then came baked back of hake on couscous. Dessert was red berries in Greek yogurt with mango ice cream, and coffee. Wow.

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One last night of nightcaps with old and new friends, one last night in our comfy hotel room, then Tuesday morning we checked out, paid our exorbitant laundry bill, and caught a quick flight back to gay Paris.

Did I mention this was a work trip? Ha! A dirty job, but someone had to do it.


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