Alas, catching up again.

My ability to slack and get a week behind on this thing amazes me. I´ll do what I can to make it brief.

Last Thursday:

Ironically, I stayed in Wednesday night in vain. I woke up about five minutes after my 9 a.m. class started, and I was so annoyed with myself that I got up anyways, and made it to the second half of class. She took attendance, and I guess I participated enough in the second half for her to be okay with counting me because I had to tell her my name to put on her roll since we weren´t yet registered, and she did it. Swell.

Between that and my next class, I made my way to the cafe, and this girl named Svetlana came with me because we both had a two hour break. We ended up having coffee and talking the whole time. I found out she was born in Russia, but has lived in Germany the past six years. She´s 23 and she can speak Russian, German, English, French and Spanish, and just for fun she´s learning Turkish, Portuguese, and Chinese. So now, I feel like the biggest slacker, most uneducated, lazy American ever. And am motivated to pick up French. We´ll see how that goes. I don´t think I´ll try it whilst in Spain.

Moving on, I had class, etc. As far as I recall the day went well, and I stayed in that night because none of us wanted to be tired for our trip the next day.

Last Friday:

Lit. and International relations - oddly enough, with nine hours of sleep I had more trouble trying to stay awake than I do when I don´t get any sleep. Lindsay chalks it up to the life of a photog.

After class, I went home and got my things together to head to the bus station. Somehow, I was convinced that it was an hour later than it really was, and that I was running SUPER late, so I started to go into freak-out mode. I then realized that I had another hour, at the same time as I found my registration form that I was supposed to turn in that day. So. I got to hike to school, run around the Fcom building during siesta trying to find some way to turn it in (a nice man who was still in his office said he´d drop it off for me at four when the secretary got back), and then run all the way home, pick up my things, and book it to the bus station. Not to mention it was the hottest day we´ve had since we arrived. Awesome.

So I made it to the bus station, we all got our tickets (with few complications) and boarded our two hour bus to Bilbao. Halfway through the trip I went photo-nuts with my point and shoot out the window, and yet still missed every opportunity to photograph the sheep on the countryside. Alas.

We got to Bilbao and figured out how to get to the tram from the bus station, drove through most of town along the river, and got off within a few blocks of our hostel. One hike up a massive hill, and we arrived at Hotel Bilbi, where the staff is super friendly, and the hotel is super sketch. The rooms themselves were nice, but one of the elevators wasn´t to be used - something we didn´t know until we saw the strategically placed sign on the seventh floor door (not on the first), the hallways had creepy green lighting, and the door numbers were written on the doors in sharpie. It was...an experience.

So we dropped off our things, and went for a stroll through the historic part of town, did some shopping, happened upon a political rally of a basque seperatist party that was banned by the Spanish government, wandered through a carnival and ate some churros, got dinner and made our way back. The way home was a bit convoluted, and somehow we ended up taking a shortcut down this one street - San Francisco. We ended up having to walk about four or so blocks down a street that was lined by (in the space we were walking) near 80 to 100 men, all quite sleazy who cat-called and harassed us the whole way. Very. Uncomfortable.

By the time we got back to the hostel we were pretty freaked out, and weren´t sure if we were gonna leave our rooms again. We later found out that that street is where men pick up hookers. How lucky that five American girls, three of whom are ´blonde´per their standards, managed to find their way there, no?

Either way, we settled down and decided to go out, found a discoteque in a map/guide of Bilbao, and wandered over to find it completely empty. So, we strolled for a bit and met these genuinely nice Basque girls who invited us to come with them to a club closer to the center of town. Apparently, the area we met them in is the gay/lesbian part of town (also close to our hostel, which is why we were there) so these girls thought we were a group of lesbians at first, until they joked about it and we awkwardly navigated out of that situation. One of the girls had studied in Brussels and spoke excellent English and they were all really nice - older, about 23 or so. One was a lawyer, another a physical therapist, and I think the third a nurse. Very nice - they introduced us to more of their friends when we got to the bar, and we proceeded to have a good time.

Enter the creepers. I´ve decided that Kate´s SUPER blonde hair is a beacon for all creepers in any "social" setting to swarm and then realize that she is, in fact, surrounded by four other American girls, so we all get to enjoy the creeping. My creeper for the evening was this guy Brian, who attempted to convince me that it would be a great idea to make out with him. Yeah no thank you. Were it not for Kate attempting to fend off her creeper (and his friend) I would have completely abondoned the situation, but then Kate would have had two creepers to deal with. No bueno. In the end we had a good time, but I still vote we dye Kate´s hair brown.

Last Saturday:

We got up pretty early, wandered in the most beautiful weather along the river and through some cool parts of town. We went to a really pretty cathedral and ran into some American guys who introduced themselves and were very polite. It was a photo field day - cute babies everywhere, street performers, people with their dogs, awesome architecture. I was thrilled, to say the least. Eventually, we ended up at the Guggenheim, and Stacy and I ventured up about four stories of stairs to get onto a highway overpass above the museum so that we could take aerial pictures. Awesome, minus her semi-fear of heights, and the lack of a crosswalk. Two mad dashes across four lanes of traffic, and plenty of stairs later, we both had good pictures, were alive, and Stacy didn´t hyperventilate.

The museum was really cool! There was a Richard Serra exhibit of sculptures you walked through that messed with your perception of space and what was vertical, etc. that I really liked. The main exhibit was Takashi Murakami, a Japanese pop artist, who did the cover art and video for Kanye West´s album with the song Good Morning on it. He had paintings, figurines, sculptures, and video animation. All very cool, although some of it was hyper-sexualized as a social commentary, and it was a bit uncomfortable.

Moving on - we found a Subway that had a Ben and Jerry´s in it! We went there for lunch, wandered some more, and then got our things and headed to the bus station. On the bus ride home we brainstormed about what all information we plan on putting into the Spain program presentation for next year (as we hope to be in charge of it), and then we all went home upon arriving in Pamplona.

Last Sunday:

I´m pretty sure I slept most of the day. I know for sure I never left my apartment. I felt like quite the hermit. I may or may not have gotten a lot done on the computer (next fall´s schedule, setting up Santander online banking, building a budget, etc.) but still. I didn´t leave.

That night, Rocio´s dad came buy and I signed my contract, and got a reciept for rent this month. He was really great, and complimented my Spanish, which was awesome. That was...about it for Sunday. Oh, and fourth roommate got back into town - Marta! She´s super nice.

Monday:

Class, grocery shopping, and then I cooked dinner for Roomie Dinner. It was really nice - I made a penne pasta with a spinach cream sauce and chicken, something none of them were used to eating, but they all really liked it and cleaned their plates, so I was really excited. It was fun to sit and have dinner with them - as a group we seem to work pretty well together, so I´m really excited about that!

Tuesday:

Class...and then..I dunno. OH! I went to a classical concert on campus with Lindsay, celebrating St. Cecilia´s day. There were about 10 or so solo performances - two accordian, one classical guitar, multiple piano, one jazz saxophone. At the end, the orchestra and choir performed together. It was a good time! Then I went home for Roomie Dinner: Part II, for which Marta made tortilla! It was really good - and she said she´ll teach me how to sometime, so that´s one more thing off my list, right? : )

Tuesday night there was a communication school party at Reveren2 (reverendos) because Wednesday was our Día del Patrón, so we didn´t have school. We all elected to go - the first time all five of us have gone out at the same time - so after dinner I met them all at Leslie´s apartment, and we went from there. It was a really good time! Lots of dancing, a lot less American music, we ran into some friends of ours, and made some new ones. Hilarity ensued.

At the end of the night, our friend Pedro was super nice and walked us home, because his car was parked over on the far side of Iturrama, by my apartment, so we were basically on the way for him. I enjoyed not arriving at my apartment totally paranoid and jittery. Success!

Wednesday:

I slept in until about 1, and then we all tried to get together and go watch a soccer game that was happening on campus by the gym, but when we got there (after walking through the cold rain) it was apparent that it wasn´t so popular to watch the rec sports here, and there were no spectators or bleachers, so we kind of wandered off before we were super awkward. Or atleast more awkward than usual.

We all ended up in the Communications building, where celebrations were being had for our patron saint (which one, I still don´t know) and we sat, I had a sandwich, and we recieved raffle tickets. Nobody won - and we didn´t want to - for most of it, and then Lindsay´s number was called and she won a free t-shirt! We found out we could buy them for 5 euro as we were leaving, so now we all have Fcom 50th anniversary t-shirts. You´re jealous.

Kate, Lindsay and I ended up wandering trying to find this one Mexican restaurant that we saw and were then craving, but when we finally found it they were closing, so we sat ourselves in a bakery and had tea and pastries. It was nice.

Later, I met up with Stacy and we went shopping. We made our first venture to Corte Ingles, the hugemonguous department store/supermarket with all sorts of imports. P.s. Lee jeans can run up to 100 euro here, and peanut butter is 3.50 for the tiniest container you can imagine. And Miss Sixty, the clothing brand, is like designer clothing here. Who knew?

After shopping, we each went home, changed/got ready, and went to dinner at the Mexican restaurant, all VERY excited about having something with spices in it. Needless to say, Spain doesn´t quite to Mexican food the way it should be. Salsa? More like ketchup. And the smallest basket of cold tortilla chips I´ve ever seen. Spanish rice? Tomato flavored rice. It was all just...a little bit off. But we ate and now we know.

After, Lindsay and I walked Leslie home, dropped some things off at my place, and went over to hang out at Garland´s apartment with a group of international students before we went out to the International Student party/event. It was super crowded when we first got there, and really not too much fun, but after awhile it cleared out a bit, and we found some more people we knew, and things improved. It was a good time, all in all. After, we all walked home, and bedtime was upon us.

Today:

Class. Really really really early 9 a.m. class. Oh, and it was snowing outside. Big, fat, wet snowflakes. Exactly what you don´t want to see when you´re already freezing inside your apartment, and you know you have to go outside. Anyways, that´s about it - we have roomie dinner again tonight, which I´m looking forward to - Rocio is cooking - and then I plan on sleeping for as long as possible.

Hasta luego!
Alex