Unexpected

 Our friends behind the bar now have names: Nico and Aitor.  Though when we asked them, they both claimed that the other was named Aitor.  Apparently they love confusing non-native Spanish speakers.  

Rachel and I arrived in Pamplona yesterday, after driving from Bilbao on the back roads to avoid tolls.  

The scenery was pretty spectacular.

This time, we had Google maps directions, including small maps of all the ways we should go.  We thought we were prepared.  We were wrong.  Once in Pamplona, we got completely lost.  Instead of street signs in different languages, they have decided to not have street signs at all.  And every street changes names at least three times as you drive along it.  So the motorway became Avenida de Guipuzcoa became the Calle de Taconera without any warning, and within minutes of entering the city center we were hopelessly lost.  We found a parking place near a lovely park and decided to cut our losses and walk to the hostel.  I had to ask at least three people for directions but eventually we made it.

We had to go and get our bags from the car, but that was actually a good thing, considering that we decided to have a picnic lunch in the park close by:

And then we were walking around and I decided to go up to a wall over which I thought I would be able to see a view of the river, or something of that sort.  But no, what we saw was a park containing chickens, deer, peacocks, geese and swans.  Consider this the Unexpected Peacock:

We looked at the animals and then walked back to the hostel with our stuff.  We went out for pintxos and made friends with Nico and Aitor, as Rachel previously mentioned.  We also met some hostel-mates from the US, Patrick and Jeff, who are pretty nice guys.

This morning, we woke up, ate breakfast, and spent an hour or two changing our reservations and plans.  We've decided that maybe a car rental isn't the best option (hallelujah), so we're going to be dropping the car off in Barcelona and then taking planes, trains and buses the rest of the way.  We haven't totally finished changing our reservations, but most of the important stuff is done.  I'm pretty happy about that.  

After spending some time doing all that boring stuff, we went out to see Pamplona.  

This is Pamplona's City Hall.  I really wish government buildings in the US were more like that.  We wandered around for a bit and then happened to meet up with Patrick and Jeff in the square right here.  We all went to the Museum of Navarre, which is free on Sundays.  It was laid out very well, with the prehistoric artifacts on teh first floor, working up through the Roman, Romanesque, Renaissance, Baroque and Modern art and artifacts form the region.

Pots from the hunter-gatherer Celt-Ibericos

Part of a Roman mural

A gravestone mounted over the buried ashes of a Roman Iberian citizen

Detail from a column in the old Catholic Cathedral of Pamplona

We walked around the city center some more, bought an entire wheel of cheese at the local food and craft market in the square, and took a siesta in our hostel.  After we woke up from a lovely nap we had to go move the car, since we were parked in a spot that would require you to pay come Monday morning.  We drove around some more and eventually found a spot just outside of the city center where some locals confirmed that we could park for an unlimited time.  Huzzah! 

I'm actually glad we did that because walking back towards the centro we crossed a bridge with this view:

Lovely.  After some more pintxos, some more wine, and a bit of a locally produced liquor called patxaran, which tasted of anise, we called it quits and walked back to the hostel.  Tomorrow we explore Pamplona some more.