it was a long week indeed

Hola! So, it’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to write, but I decided to write at home and post this at school. My host family doesn’t have internet, so it makes communicating with the rest of the world pretty difficult. Spain has been wonderful. For real, it’s beautiful- pictures to come soon!

UN POCO SOBRE BILBAO y BASQUE- a little bit of info about where I live
Bilbao is a port city on the northern coast of Spain known for industry and Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum. It’s the capital of Viscaya, a province or something like that. Bilbao is also in the heart of the Basque country, the northern part of Spain that has its own language and flag. The Basque want to secede from the rest of Spain and create their country, from what I understand it’s kinda like the South during the Civil War. They have yet to succeed, but they do have a terrorist organization (ETA) that’s targeted a few government officials in Madrid. The cease fire ended in June of 2007, but fortunately, most of their actions are verbal, directed at the Spanish government, and if they chose to attack, they make the target known before hand. Unlike the other crazy terrorist organizations in this world, ETA is not all about killing a bunch of random, innocent bystanders, which is fortunate. The only signs we’ve seen of ETA are the dudes with machine guns that stand outside of the main plaza in Bilbao by what we assume is the Basque government headquarters. Sidenote- there was an attack this weekend in San Sebastian, a city about an hour away.

TUESDAY- my first day in Bilbao
So, on Monday, I got up and went back to the Madrid airport to catch my flight to Bilbao. I didn’t have any problem getting to the Madrid airport, but for real, the traffic was insane! I’m talking Fort Worth on a Monday morning kind of bad. I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare which was fortunate because I was dropped off by the shuttle at the wrong part of the airport. I had to trek across the whole dad gum airport with my life in two suitcases and a backpack. Really, it wasn’t that much fun. I finally found SpanAir and checked in and headed to the gate. In Madrid, they don’t give you your gate at the check-in place; you have to rely on the monitors. Well, they change the gates a lot, and as the periodic announcement said, they don’t announce gate changes. My gate changed three times, and fortunately, I was paying attention. I got on the flight, and once again like in Amsterdam, there were small children running up and down the aisle during the flight. All instructions were in Spanish and the flight attendants gave us hard candy during the flight. I landed and got plugged in with Deusto. I was dropped off and met my host mom. She lives in Las Arenas (translation- very far away from school). That night, we met up with some of the other girls in the program and their host moms. We bought our metro passes (we had to get an ID too… weird) because little did we know but we’d be riding the metro a bajillion times a day everyday. We watched the sunset at the beach and ate incredible ice cream (cremabaska es muy fabuloso!).

WEDNESDAY- beinvenidos a Deusto
So what do you think the school would do with 35ish jet-lagged college kids? Ah yes, make them sit through an eternal orientation session and then walk them around the city. Basically, they told us all about Deusto, showed us around campus and the city, read our manuals to us, talked a whole lot in Spanish, and fed us an insanely large meal. The campus is really pretty, although Ole Miss is still prettier to me (I’m a rebel for life- haha). Spanish customs are pretty different than those in the US. The first one I really took note of was meal times. We also experienced our first real Spanish lunch. Lunch is eaten at like 1:30pm and is the biggest meal of the day. We had a three course lunch, and it was pretty good. I’m not really used to eating that much food, but when dinner isn’t until 9pm, I’m learning to get used to it. People take over an hour and sometimes two for lunch- I’m not sure the workaholics in the US would be okay with that- haha. The Deusto people showed us around the city, and alas, flying all the way across the ocean has not helped my direction sense. I still get pretty turned around in the city, but who’s surprised. Don’t worry Mama- I’m getting better and I’m able to ask for directions in Spanish. The city is beautiful; the architecture is 19th century or something like that. After the tour, I walked around the city with some people; yes, I am making friends. We found a park and some other stuff, but I probably won’t be able to get back to any of those places- haha.

THURSDAY- Spanish placement test and the eternal bus ride
On Wednesday, we took our Spanish placement test. I placed into the Spanish classes that I needed, but for real, the test was flipping hard. After our test, we toured the beaches of Plentzia and Las Arenas. Plentzia is about 45 minutes away and is known for the prettiest beaches in the area. The water is a deep blue, a drastic contrast from the aquamarine blue waters of the gulf. We ate another really huge meal and enjoyed yet another Basque cream cake, yum but not so much. We walked a lot and rode the bus a long way which was mildly entertaining. We finally made it to Las Arenas, near my house. We walked up and down lots of hills and enjoyed the view. Our last stop of the day was a bar for some Spanish sangria. Spain is known for their wine, specifically their sangria.

FRIDAY- the day they kept us over
We went to Deusto for academic orientation. Basically, we go to school all day Monday through Thursday. I’m taking 10 hours of Spanish grammar, comp, etc, Europe in the World, and Contemporary Spanish Culture and Politics class. They read our manuals (that were printed in English) to us. We were supposed to get out in an hour, but alas, that did not happen. That afternoon, some of us went to the beach at Las Arenas. FYI- the beaches are all topless in Spain. I went for a run, and sadly, I’m still paying for it. I went back to campus to check and send a few emails, etc. That night, I met up with some of the people who live in the dorms and we went out in Bilbao. We had a lot of fun and hung out with some of the other international Deusto students. Also, how random is this but I met a guy who graduated from Wyomissing High school in PA with my secondish cousin Allie. He’s the first person I’ve ever met outside of PA that’s heard of Leesport as well. What a small world…