A visit from Ma & Pa (and Pooey)

The afternoon after I arrived back from Spain, I furiously cleaned my apartment and changed the sheets. Why? Because Ma, Pa, and Pooey were arriving to stay for a few days! This has been the longest time I've ever been away from Ma - I hadn't seen her since I left Munich 18 months ago. Well, that's not completely true. We have had awkward Skype conversations, usually conducted while I'm at work meaning that she tells me to get back to work. And okay, I haven't seen Pa in over a year but he visited me 6 months after I moved here so it's been less traumatic :P


Having spent a couple of days in London to recover from jetlag, Ma & Pa were going to spent a couple of days in Munich further recovering. Unfortunately (for reasons what will become apparent later), I was only able to take half days off to hang out with Ma & Pa. Luckily Pooey knew what she was doing and had an idea of the places they should see, and more importantly, the things they should eat!  (The photos are therefore from Pooey.)


First stop, Viktualienmarkt!

People in the biergarten.

Oh, hurrow!

Patiently waiting for some scraps.

Ma was pretty impressed by the crackling...

...so much so that they bought a slab to eat.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't really on our side. We had organised to meet at Odeonsplatz to walk through the Englischergartens but it was pouring rain by the time I made it there. This was ultimately not such a bad thing because Ma told me she had been awake for 23 hours the previous day due to jetlag. After ushering them home to sleep, me and Pooey went out to dinner with Swisschris. 


The next day, the sun was (kinda) shining and a visit to the Chinesischer Turm Biergarten was finally made!

A schweinshaxn was ordered...

as was a currywurst.

Pa has a go at eating the haxn

Time for a lovely postprandial stroll!

At the Monopteros

Compare this view to this one taken in February!

Unfortunately the weather didn't hold and Ma had to help Pa get rugged up for the rain

Look at how high the Schwabinger Bach was!

Nice umbrella, Pooey!

Apparently Ma & Pa were amused by the number of ducks and geese in the gardens, and how delicious they look. 

I'll take that one!

And finally all the way back at the Residenz.

For dinner, we decided to go to Swisschris' local Viet restaurant because, lord knows, Asian food would be unlikely to be had until Paris, and my parents unamusingly told the waiters who worked there of my unattached status. >.<

Pooey's Hu Tieu

My Bun Bo Hue.

Only in Germany are the Eroticshops decorated with ugly cartoons of dominatrices...which are then closed at 8pm!

And next, the beginning of the Epic 2012 Trip. 

Guggenheim Bilbao

Unlike the last time, when the queue into the Guggeheim Bilbao stretched out of the building and onto the terrace, Hito, Mel, and I were prepared by pre-booking tickets! It turns it that wasn't necessary because the weather was still gloomy and there were not so many tourists around. 

Ohai again, Puppy!

Close up pic of Puppy's fur

Cool building, bro.

The interesting shapes don't stop with the exterior!

One of the criticisms I'd heard of the gallery was that it's permanent collection itself isn't that great, while the visiting exhibitions are more interesting. I slightly beg to differ. I quite liked the permanent installations we saw...

Such as Koons' Tulips. So soft and squishy looking despite being made of steel.

And from another angle!

Richard Serra's A Matter of Time

Walking in, around, and amongst the piece is pretty trippy!

I can't remember what this was called but it was pretty cool as well. LED lights with moving sentences in English, Spanish, and Basque

At this point, I was stopped by a guard who told me no photography was allowed. This is a real shame because the temporary exhibition was a collection of David Hockney's recent works. It was really fascinating, not only because Hockney really is a great artist, but also about how he integrates old work, e.g. Claude's Sermon on the Mount, with new technology e.g. using an app on a iPad to create these amazing canvasses. I was also particularly impressed with the videos showing the progression of a painting on the app. My pictures don't look that good when I scribble colour on top of colour!


And then afterwards, before heading out to the airport, we ate one last Basque meal.

Here is my tripe with chorizo.

Adios, Bilbao y San Sebastian. ¡hasta luego! 

San Sebastian and Bilbao Redux

One day, Hito emailed me to ask if I wanted to go to Porto. May had been....uninspiring in terms of weather and he wanted a beach getaway. In my reply, I suggested San Sebastian as a beach AND food getaway. A few links to mine and Pooey's trips there last year and he was sold! As was his colleague Mel!


Flying into Bilbao late at night, we decided to crash at a hotel in San Mames near the Termibus terminal where we'd take an early bus to Sanseb. This kinda limited our late night dinner options. The hotel reception guy said there was a Chinese place nearby that opened late, but his expression and tone were kinda sheepish as he said this to the three Asian people. I can't remember the name, but we ended up in this so cheesey it was funky 50s style cafe.

Melinda ignores the cheesey colour scheme and decor to examine the menu which consisted of burgers, pizzas, fries, those kinds of things. 

The booth wasn't the only cheesey thing in that place!

My club sandwich was also cheesey

Bright and early, we got up and took the 1 hour bus to Sanseb, and arrived, ready for pintxos breakfast! Except no one else was ready and what we ended up having was substandard and disappointing. 

I wonder if it was leftovers from the day before.

Continuing on the theme of disappointment, we walked from the Old Town to La Concha where we got to admire the gloomy cloudy sky over the Atlantic.

St. Mary's bathed in morning gloom

The gate as we left the Old Town.

Not so many people wanted to go sailing

:(

D:

Despite the weather, we're still going to be tourists, dammit!!!

Eventually, I declared that, cloudy or not!, I was going to lie on the beach dammit and we all decided to go back and gear up. In the time spent gearing up, the town had also geared up and we could finally start the task of eating to our hearts' content. First stop, La Cuchara de San Telmo.


This place had been talked up (and how!) by Pooey and it lived up to the recommendation! The mood had been pretty sombre up until then but after a few bites of delicious food, I did say to Mel, "Hey! Look at that huge smile on your face!"

Crowded, even though it was about 12:30.

Waiting for the pintxos with our cidre and bread

First up! The pork cheek! Mmmm, it fell apart with some prodding from our forks.

The foie a la plancha. As good as this was, I was miffed that part of our foie was burned *huff*.

King Scallop - seriously, one of the biggest single scallops I've ever seen!

Grill rock octopus. A bit salty :( 

As much as we would have been happy to stay at La Cuchara, we decided to stroll around. I can't remember the name of the next place we went to, but it was near St. Mary's. 

Kalimotxos rears it's head for the first time! An excellent cheap and nasty drink to wash down our delicious pintxos. 

Oh noes! Eating the foie before photography! It was not burned and hella delicious. 

That night, wemet up with Patri who is now working in SanSeb (!!!) and after a night of repeated walking to a bar, ordering pintxos, long cidre pouring, and dancing cycles, I declared Spain my spiritual home. There are no photos from this period of time, for which we should all be thankful.

With mild hangovers, we got up the next morning, checked out of the hotel, and went to the Old Town for pintxos brunch and shopping before meeting up again with Patri again who was going to drive us back to Bilbao. Before that though, we took a look at her digs - a building that was set up to house visiting academics to the research institutes of Sanseb.

OHMIGOD, THIS IS THE VIEW FROM THE SHARED ROOFTOP TERRACE

Really, that's a view to turn a frown upside-down

 

Big smiles all round!

For dins, Patri had booked us in at a local place that had been recommended to her. Always happy to try out local places, we were treated to a feast of epic proportions.

The starting queso y jamon plate. *food gargle*

The mixed salad.

The octopus (pulpo)

The grilled fish

The food coma clearly stopped me from taking a photo of the dessert, a bowl of orange ice cream in liquer. Believe it or not, we then went to a series of bars and ended up crawling home at an ungodly hour - Spanish style!