It’s Friday evening and we’re back from our short trip to Spain. Our trip was made even shorter because Fleur has a flute rehearsal early tomorrow morning for her exam next week—and I also forgot that I was selling a car and had to be on standby to recieve calls. Thank you to those who commented and emailed me on advice on where to visit and what to eat while in Spain. After 24 hours of scrambling for maps and information we decided to go ahead and visit Bilbao—not because we’re die hard fans of The Lord of the Rings series who believe that Tolkien really based his story of middle earth in Spain and that his inspiration for the Hobbits came from a small ancient folk distinguished by their long ears (the Basque) or that he named Bilbo Baggins after Bilbao—but because we learned about a building that reminded us of the Sydney Opera House. As a tidbit, when the Sydney Opera House was taking form, the Australian people were upset to see their tax money going towards building something that they thought looked like a huge elephant on their harbour.

If Bilbao’s Guggenheim was built on Sydney’s harbour the people of Australia would have probably thought that their harbour was being overrun by elephants. Needless to say that the Dutch architect Jørn Utzon was ahead of his time for designing what has now become one of the world’s greatest icons.

Whether the two architects had elephants in mind when designing their now famous contributions to society, to be up close and personal with these monstrous forms can make one feel pleasantly insignificant.

But the Guggenheim is what the Basque people wanted no matter how it looked. If no-one were to visit their monument, the pilgrimage would be made regardless by those who wanted to see their roots stamped and archived.