Bilbao Blues Festival

We spent a weekend in Bilbao for the first ever Bilbao Blues Festival (July 29-Aug 1). The festival was quite small really, consisting of only two stages, but the site of the main stage, on the banks of the Nervion River, was quite spectacular.

All of the music and events connected with the festival were free, and we spent a good amount of time each evening (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) sitting by the river and listening to music. In addition, we obtained tickets for a presentation about women and the blues at the Guggenheim Museum.

The presentation, in Spanish of course, was a combination of a speaker who talked about the history of women and blues music, along with a woman who played a number of relevant songs related to the discussion. We were proud of our ability to follow the discussion in Spanish, although much of it was about US historical events that we are familiar with -- slavery, the Civil War, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, etc. Nonetheless, we did feel that we learned something and enjoyed the presentation a lot.

Of course, since we were in town, we took the opportunity to see the current exhibitions at the museum. "Motion: Autos, Art, Architecture", which was mostly about cars, was definitely a crowd pleaser. There were a number of classic cars displayed, but also a lot of concept cars that ranged from high tech to ideas for "people's cars." The car below is a Bugatti Type 35. It is considered the most successful race car in history, having won over 1,000 races. We chose this picture because the race posters that are behind the car (difficult to see, we know) are for the San Sebastian Grand Prix, which took place from 1923-1930, and which was won by a Bugatti Type 35 four straight years (1926-1929).

We also had an opportuntiy to see drawings by the famous pointellist painter, Georges Seurat who we didn't know had done extensive drawing, and an exhibition of a modern French painter named Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985), who we had never heard of before. Dubuffet's art was "interesting", but in many ways I was more impressed with the philosophy of the meaning of beauty that was behind the art.

It did not rain at all while we were in Bilbao, which for us is unusual However, the days were somewhat cloudy, which may have helped keep the temperature modest, and also provided beautiful views from our hotel room.

Finally, we were walking through the city one evening when we noticed a statue of someone we knew (well, knew of): John Adams. So, why is there a statue of Adams in Bilbao? It turns out that John Adams visited the Basque Country in early 1780. It happened as he was travelling to Paris to work out an alliance with France (during the Revolutionary War). His ship had problems and had to land in Galicia on the western side of Spain. Rather than wait for the ship to be repaired, he travelled through Northern Spain to reach France. As a result, he came in contact with the "fueros" (code of laws) that dictated the rights and laws of Bizkaia, which had a significant impact on his political thinking and on his part in drafting the US Constitution.

In his 1787 publication A Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, Adams cited Bizkaia as one of the top republic democracies of Europe, admiring their self-governance and independence within Spain. In that document, he wrote the following, which is reproduced on the statue: "...this extraordinary people have preserved their ancient language, genius, laws, governement and manners, without innovation, longer than any other nation in Europe." Amazingly, 235 years after writing that, the Basque people have continued to do this despite the interruption of a 36-year dictatorship that definitely aimed to wipe those things out.

We thought this collision of American history with the history of our adopted home was super interesting.

Hasta pronto,

Jeff and Shana