Good/Bad

Good: We had a four day weekend! I get every Friday off and today (Monday) was the holiday of the patron saint of the university. I went to Plentzia, which was very pretty

There were also lots of boats

 

Bad: Conchi was gone from Friday night to Monday morning, so I was really lonely.

 

Good: I got to cook! I love cooking and, once I started, I realized how much I missed it. It was nothing fancy, just some soup, but it was nice to be able to do it.

 

Bad: I came home this afternoon for lunch to see two pheasants hanging over bowls, blood draining. Conchi is a hunter and went hunting this weekend at her cottage/other house. She said that the bird is really good, but I might not like it since I don’t eat meat. I don’t think this means she’s going to prepare it for me, but we’ll see. Coming home to two pheasants hanging over bowls filled with blood, guts on counter, feathers strewn about the kitchen…well that’s an experience (particularly for a vegetarian). They’re down now, but I wish I would’ve gotten a picture of it before I left the kitchen (and then nearly threw up). Meat is gross as is, but usually it’s behind a counter or wrapped in plastic. This was very much there.

 

Good: Bilbao Athletic (soccer team) played Barcelona last night and tied! It was an incredible game and very fun to watch.

 

Bad: I watched it in a café, alone (with all the other people there watching it, but still). I was going to buy tickets, but they only had 70 and 80€ ones left by the time we got there. I was going to go with two of my friends, so we decided to watch it at the café instead. About an hour later one of the girls got a call from her host dad saying that he had a friend who could get two tickets to the game. The other two girls were better friends and were both here last semester together so they went and I watched it alone. It was interesting though, I learned a lot of words that relate to soccer, and commiserated with the other patrons when Barcelona scored first. I also partook in the “all bar drink to the team” when we scored, so that was fun. Everyone cheers really loudly and jumps up and down when they score. Then, at that bar (and many others, I’m sure) all drinks are 75% off for the next 5-10 minutes, so everyone gets a drink and says cheers to the team and drinks up- quite an event, actually. It’s a good thing that soccer games usually aren’t too high scoring around here.

 

Good: We’re getting internet today! The guy is coming at 3:30 so, as soon as I can do so, I’m going to post this with my OWN internet connection, and not one stolen from the neighbors.

 

Bad: A while ago (back in the states), I noticed that my computer frequently had problems charging. I took it into Best Buy and they checked the power cord and said it was bad. They also said that my computer might be bad, but there was no way to check. I got a new power cord and things were going pretty well and dandy for a bit, but now not so much. I have to have the cord at the right angle or else it won’t charge, and the battery doesn’t keep a charge for more than about an hour. It works alright as long as I’m not trying to do anything crazy (like watch a movie in bed with the computer on my lap- like last night, all of a sudden the computer just turned off midway through). Oh well, at least I have a computer. This isn’t so much of a “bad” as a “bothersome.”

 

Good: Next weekend we’re going to Madrid and Segovia!! I’m so excited about this!!! One of the nights we’re in Madrid, I’m going to try and meet up with some friends who are studying there from back home! YAY!!!

 

Alright, that’s about it. Now that we have internet, it should be a lot easier for me to update and contact everyone. I’m going to finish up some homework and try and figure out the hours of the castaño stand (chestnuts). I’ve been craving them since I got here and I have NO idea when they’re open! Sometimes they are and sometimes they’re not. I hope they’re not seasonal, because I really really want some. The churro stand that was at the end of my street was seasonal, apparently. This was both a good and a bad thing because I could see myself buying a churro on a semi-regular basis (every other day or so? Yes) and that might lead to me being a gordita (fattish person). But those chocolate churros…oh jeepers they were good. Chocolate covered fried dough? Salty and sweet? Hot? PERFECT. I can think of nothing more delicious than a fresh, hot, chocolate con churro. It works as breakfast. Great for a late afternoon snack. Also good at night, after dinner as desert. On your way home from meeting up with some friends at a bar or café? Grab one because they put extra chocolate on them at night.

Enough blabbing about the churros. I’m going to look up chestnuts.

 

p.s. Since this is a knitting blog, here is some knitting content:

The Lelah top in Elsebeth Lavold silky tweed

 

Also, this is for Alex…I bought new shoes J

 

Around the town

Since not much exciting is happening right now (aside from the fact that I’m living in Spain and hear 3-5 different languages every day), I figured I’d show some things that I see every day.

Here we have the Guggenheim Museum…I see this beautiful building every day on my way to and from school. Very nice.

(click on all the pictures to see them bigger…also the funny/distorted ones below to see them correctly)

Here is my room at home, it is very small but nice. A bed that I don’t fit on and a great desk and dresser.

And now it’s off to bed with me as I have school in the morning!

Balmaseda y Portugalete

This past weekend our whole group got on buses and took a little tour around Pais Vasco, the state in which Bilbao is situated. We went to Balmaseda and Portugalete, both about 35 minutes (by bus) away from Bilbao. Balmaseda is the largest of a collection of small towns and villages in the western part of Pais Vasco with about 7,000 inhabitants in the town and surrounding area. The main attraction in Balmaseda is a really pretty Roman bridge that was built in the 15^th century as a place for tax collection on all goods entering Europe. Now the bridge is seen as a national monument for the people of Pais Vasco. Unfortunately it was raining heavily in Balmaseda, so we couldn’t go see many of the other things we had planed (including a walk along the river bank, a visit to city hall, and seeing the 6oo year old church).

After waiting half an hour in the rain for the bus (Spaniards seem to be pretty lax about time), we got on and went to a little restaurant in Vilaverde (Green Village) situated between two mountains called La Capitana. The food there was amazing! I was made (special) a salad with eggs, tomatoes, white asparagus, baby lettuces, and garlic mushrooms. The second course was another one of those egg “omelets” with more white asparagus and mushrooms that looked like little ears (no idea what kind, but very good and picked that morning by the chef and his dog, so he said). Our meal came with wine (more dirt cheap and delicious crianza- I learned it was an insult to the people and country if you ask for a non-Spanish wine in a restaurant or bar, plus it costs about three times as much) and the usual white crusty bread. For desert (three plates, remember?) we had a chocolate/raspberry mouse tart that was delicious, but I could hardly finish because there had been so much other food.

Post lunch it (finally) stopped raining for a little bit and we were able to really enjoy Portugalete, a small town north of Bilbao, right on the ocean. We saw the Salazar tower (Lope García de Salazar was a famous historian in the Basque area), Basílica de Santa María, and the bridge that goes over the river (it’s really really big). We were able to travel across it in the gondola (the thing that looks like it’s hovering over the water in the photo of the bridge below). All in all a fun day.

Classes started Monday and I’ve really been enjoying them. My teachers are all very good and very engaging. I am taking Basque culture and language, Spanish (courses in grammar, conversation, and writing), and contemporary Spanish culture and politics. I had to drop my course on Spanish cooking and theatre because I had too many credit hours and most of the food was not vegetarian friendly.

This weekend (Friday until Sunday- I get out of classes at 2pm every Thursday!) I plan on going to the naval museum and then scouting out hotels for my family to stay at when they come here. I might head out to a café with some friends, but no huge plans as of yet. This weekend is the festival of San Sebastian, so there will be some stuff for that going on, but nothing as big as the fiesta de tambores that’s happing in San Sebastian this weekend- that is supposed to be really huge (24 hours straight of drumming, from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday, people don’t go to bed).

I’m leaving you with one more picture for now…this bottle of wine I am holding was .59 €, that’s $.90 American. Crazy, eh? It was on special, but it couldn’t’ve been more than 20 or 30% off because there aren’t a lot of items marked down that much. I have yet to try it, and I probably never will, because I imagine that $.90 wine is horrible.

Bilbao (1/10/08)

The past two days have gone by very quickly. I’m still not entirely adjusted to the time change, so I get really tired at about 11am and then again at about 3pm. Luckily, I will be able to take a siesta right after lunch most days.

Yesterday morning we took a Spanish placement test to determine what level of Spanish class we will be taking. After that the school took us out to eat lunch at a very nice restaurant. There was a bit of trouble with the food for me, as most people here understand “vegetarian” to mean “I eat fish, but no meat except ham.” I ended up having a first plate* of pasta and sauce, and a second plate of tortilla de champiñones, which was delicious. It was scrambled eggs with garlic and large oyster mushrooms, served with a bit of molasses salsa (they put salsa [sauce] on almost everything here). Desert was a really pretty looking chocolate and orange torta, but I was so full from lunch that I could only eat a few bites.

After lunch, we went for a walk around Casco Viejo, the Old Quarter. This is where the original city began and now is a very pretty area that is mostly closed off to vehicles. There is a town square that is still used for a weekly open-air market and concerts. Off of the square are a dozen or so small streets filled with tieñditas  (little shops) and pincheríos (bars selling small plates of food). Apparently it is a great place to go on weekends at night, as that is when most of the street vendors and pincheríos open up.

At about 4, my friend Jenna and I met up to go to see the ocean. We ended up finding one of the nicest beaches in the area, about 30 minutes outside of the city. There was a bluff overlooking the beach, and a fairly large skate-park behind the bluff. In between the two was a grass covered area where we watched the sun set- very pretty.

Last night, Conchi and I went over to her sister’s house for dinner with her sister, her sister’s husband, their son and daughter, two of their current exchange students, two of their old exchange students, and a very close family friend. Everyone brought a little something to eat and Conchi’s sister made a ton of food for all of us. There were mushrooms in garlic and olive oil (I ate some, they were GREAT!), red pepper with garlic and olives, seven or eight different types of ham/salami/sausage, bread, tomato and onion spread, at least a dozen cheeses, ham and cheese croquets, mash potatoes, and some cut of cooked meat that everyone seemed to really be excited about. Dinner, like most meals, lasted a good hour and a half, after which we played a game that I can only describe as a cross between Trouble, Yatzee, and Sorry. I don’t know how I managed to do it, but I won.

 

*All meals in restaurants here are served in three courses; a first plate (soup, pasta, or fish), a second plate (meat, usually beef or ham), and a third plate (desert). The meal is pretty cheap if you get the “plato del día,” usually about 7€.

España

Alright, now it REALLY begins, for real this time…I swear! I´m in Bilbao, Spain and LOVING it! It is very beautiful and I am having a lot of fun finding my way around the city. My home here is about 5 minutes from the univeristy, right in downtown Bilbao. Across the river, I can see the government building and, if I go outside, I can see the Guggenheim museum. It is quite exciting!

I don´t have a lot of time right now because we´re going to go get phones/sym cards for phones (from home), but I will be sure to take some time in the next few days to give a better update of what is going on across the pond