el fin de semana!

Here's the weekend recap

SATURDAY- "plants hold the secrets to the world"
We visited the famous Guggenheim museum. Modern art really isn’t my thing, but a lot of the stuff was pretty interesting. I still prefer the French impressionists though. Several of us from the program ate pizza at an American pizza house. It was amazing and a nice change from the pasta, etc. that we’ve eaten a ton of since we’ve been here. That afternoon, the two girls who live near me and I went to the beach for a couple of hours, just to relax. We enjoyed our time, flipping through a Spanish phrase book and laughing. We left and went on a crazy search for a bakery. I was craving some sort of pastry. For real, Basque cake is NOT a pastry. Our hunt proved to be successful and we found a great bakery close to the metro stop. We had what I’d call a cupcake with chocolate on the inside. It was wonderful, and exactly what I wanted. At night, a whole bunch of us met up from Deusto and headed to Areeta (the Las Arenas metro stop) for a festival. Sadly, when we got there, the festival had ended. We headed back into Bilbao to Casco Viejo, an area of town with discothèques, etc. It was a great night!

SUNDAY- a day of rest
The Spanish understand the part of the Bible that describes the Sabbath. Everything is closed and life just slows down, a lot. They truly rest on Sundays. I slept in and then headed to the beach. The beach is so pretty! A bunch of us from the program met up and enjoyed the afternoon on the beach, eating bocadillos (kinda like a sandwich on French bread but the middle is this egg and cheese thing), laying out, and getting in the frigid Atlantic. The water temperature is colder than Cave Springs and slightly warmer than the upper Taylor River, which basically means that it’s somewhere between 40 and 60ish degrees. In the deep South that means it’s freezing! The day was definitely well spent even though I got a little burned. When I got back, I showed my host mom pictures of school, home, and summer. I had to explain everything in Spanish, as she speaks very little English. All I have to say about that is it’s hard enough to explain Derby Day to a person who’s unfamiliar with the Greek system, but in Spanish? Are you kidding me? I have no idea how I did that, and really, who knows if my explanation was even close to what it actually is.