Out of Office

For me, the best part of being a freelancer is the freedom to choose when to work – and where. My friends think I travel all the time (to be fair, I do travel a lot) but usually I take my laptop with me so that I can work; I do miss paid holidays...

My mom came for a visit last week, and I worked like a maniac for 15 days (8–10 hours or more each day) because I didn't want to turn my laptop on while she was here. We had a wonderful time together – she's been here before, so we didn't do the typical touristic things but went to Bilbao instead! I knew she would fall in love with the Basque Country, and we were really lucky with the weather as it was around 23 degrees the whole time (it's been around 30 degrees both in Finland and Catalonia). We had plenty of pintxos, explored Greater Bilbao and visited Gernika, and I even got to speak some Basque. This was my third time in Bilbao, I was really looking forward to going back there.

We spent one day here in Barcelona before taking the bus to Bilbao. It takes 8 hours by bus, but we both love to travel by car or by bus so we were really excited. I had managed to get the front seats for us, and we were able to see plenty of landscape. The bus driver we had from Barcelona till Zaragoza kept whistling and singing along to the music on the radio during the whole 4 hours. It was pretty hilarious. Our hotel was in Zazpikaleak, the old part of Bilbao, and our room had two massive, comfortable beds.

Tortilla for breakfast.

FI-EU-FI dictionary, so strange! I didn't buy it though.

I wanted to show my mom one of my favorite places I've ever been to, so we took a train to Gernika. We saw the Oak of Gernika, Gernikako arbola, and visited the old Assembly House and the Euskal Herria museum before having some pintxos and heading back to Bilbao.

The old trunk of Gernikako arbola and our travel buddies Stitch and Nalle.

om nom nom

Dark clouds over Portugalete.

These texts on top of Artxanda were new...

Obligatory plank since I hadn't done one in Bilbao yet.

Pintxos for breakfast.

After 4 nights in Bilbao we took the bus back to Barcelona. For the next 3 days we shuffled about in the city. We even went to the beach in Castelldefels, it was my mom's first time swimming in the Mediterranean! One morning I woke up to the smell of scrambled eggs – I had slept like a rock and had no idea that my mom had gone shopping in the neighborhood and made breakfast for us. Her scrambled eggs are the best, I have tried to copy her many times but they never taste as good as hers.

Not nearly as crowded as Barceloneta.

My mom left yesterday morning, and now it's strange to be alone in the flat. Luckily work kept me busy all day yesterday, and today I had planned to do the dishes and tidy up the place but ended up getting lost in Wikipedia... for several hours! Wild Saturday. I'd rather have pintxos with mom.

Next week I'll be working until Thursday, when I'll take the bus to Madrid. Yes, that's another 8-hour trip, and I can't wait – and I paid 16 euro for the ticket! I'll spend 2 nights there, hanging out with an old friend of mine before taking a bus to Extremadura, where I'll attend an Esperanto congress. After that I'll continue my travels in Portugal in a camper van with a friend. And yes, I will be taking my laptop with me.

Meeting old friends, making new ones, drinking vinsiru (kalimotxo, or as Esperantists like to call it, vino por komencantoj), seeing new places and hopefully getting to use my still-quite-bad Portuguese... I'm so excited that I'm not even worrying about the crippling feeling of emptiness that will hit me once I'll get back to Barcelona.