The Basque Land! (San Sebastian and Bilbao)

So for all of you Anchodoguys who are, I'm sure, avidly reading every blog entry that I post, I present to you the wonderful experiences that I have had in San Sebastian and Bilbao thus far!

The gist of this post is my declaration that I either want to a) become a millionaire and own a beautiful house on the waterfront of San Sebastian or b) that I want to live here for an extended period of time in my later years (heck, why not now? Mom and Dad, permission please? haha). But seriously. The land here is beautiful. I know I've used that word a fair amount in this blog, but I mean utterly picturesqe...breathtaking, really.

The plane first touched down in Bilbao (at an airport designed by the famous Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, no less!) and as we were about to hit the landing pad, I look out the window to see a herd of sheep just hanging out on the green hill nextdoor. It totally reminded me of you, Eddie. We then went straight to San Sebastian, to this sculpture garden by this artist Chilleda who is apparently a famous Basque artist/architect/sculpture artist. The weather was supposed to be chilly with potential rain, but it was a fantastically sunny day with clear blue skies. It was almost to the point where I needed sunscreen!



For lunch we were able to go to a cooking school and watch a demonstration on how to make four pintxos (tapas, but of the Basque variety), and then we were fed and served by the students of the cooking school. We had some fantastic food. I haven't eaten that well in so long! I'll post some pictures up of the food we ate. Be prepared to salivate.

We then took a vernacular to the top of this mountain and were able to see a panoramic view of San Sebastian and the coast...It was so much fun being in a region that has much more significance because of my family's origin. I can't explain how ridiculous it is that every single picture that I take of this place is beautiful. This is quite possibly my favorite place in the world....We walked along the water and then got back on the bus to take a bus tour of the Old City.

We then drove to Bilbao and had dinner at the hotel. They served us a three course meal starting with eggplant parmesan, steak and fries, and then tiramisu, which was great, but it would have been nice to have some authentic Basque food. The Rio de Bilbao (the name of the River that runs through Bilbao) is gorgeous. It is how I would picture Venice to be. We were pretty tired so we ended up going to bed not too much after (remember that we eat dinner later here, I swear I have a social life, haha).



This morning we woke up and had a bus tour of Bilbao. We went up to a lookout point to get another panoramic view, which was pretty amazing though it was incredibly windy so it was a little hard to get a nice photo, haha. Today was altogether a fantastic day, actually. We had a lot of free time, so we walked around Casco Viejo (Old Town) and got some delicious pintxos at this place crowded with a lot of locals, we experienced a protest regarding the retirement age, and we able to buy some souvenirs such as a beret (legitimately basque!), a very nice, intricate ring, a present for my mother, a basque flag, and some postcards.



We then went to the Guggenheim!! The Guggenheim in Bilbao was designed by Frank Gehry and it is quite possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen (it kind of reminds me of the EMP in Seattle). The museum was fabulous and to be able to have actually gone after learning so much about art and the significance of the Guggenheim and the amount of Pop Art and modern art that they have, it was really really really cool! I was able to identify works the artists of works of art (like Jim Dine's Venus de Milo's), works by Robert Rauschenberg, Serra, Gauguin, Picasso and we were even able to observe a famous modern artist in action. We walked into this room with a little lookout point in the center where we were expected to look down. When we did, we saw the artist Anish Kapoor sculpting a giant wheel of red wax, he was on his hands and knees kneeding this wax and cutting it into smaller pieces. He was wearing all white and his clothes were covered with what looked like blood from the dye. It was a very interesting thing to see, and it was almost like performance art. But to be able to see the artist in person was very, very awesome.



Anyway, now we've returned to the hotel and are watching a news report about the 8.8 earthquake in Chile and the potential tsunami thats headed for the East Asian countries and Hawaii?? Good grief.....

Anyway, I'm here for one more full day and arrive back in Barcelona around 9:40 tomorrow night, so I will update this blog entry as I go.

To come:
Two friends are visiting me next week!! They're both studying abroad in Paris and they're visiting me during their time off (though at different times of the week). The weekend after next I'm going to be going to Costa Brava, and then my parents will be in town!!!

Sitges Carnival!

So there is ths carnival at Sitges and its considered one of the biggest carnivals in the Catalunya area. It spans about 4 days and its a carnival that is hosted by the gay community of Spain. Its basically like Mardi Gras, with a lot more transvestites and a parade with lots of dressed up, feathered figures. We all wore costumes and we took a bus to get there. We left to get there on Tuesday at 7 at night and stayed until 3 in the morning! Quite possibly one of the best nights I'll have here!

A Love Letter...and things

To Everyone:

I realize that this is very corny to do, but I was reflecting on the fact that today is Valentines Day and I wanted to reiterate how much all of my family means to me, extended members included.

To my immediate family, I am so thankful for everything that you have done for me. I would never have been able to even entertain the idea of studying abroad if it wasn't for you all. Thank you also for supporting me in all that I do, I believe that I have turned out to be a decnt human being and that is 99.9% because of you (I have to take a bit of credit). Love you and I hope you're having an amazing time at the cabin. I miss you something fierce.

To my extended family, thank you also for making this study abroad experience possible and for being a part of my life. I know I don't get to see you all as often as I would hope to, but for the times that we are all together, they are precious and cherished. I am proud to call each and every one of you my relatives.

Now that all that sentimentality is over with, some updates:

-Unfortunatey I was unable to go to Rome this weekend because they are experiencing the heaviest snowfall in a quarter of a century, apparently. I think I read something about how the Pope himself was enjoying the new snowfall, hehe. As unfortunate as it is, I am currently sick so this was a good weekend to relax and catch up on some sleep.

-This coming Tuesday and Wednesday are conference days. This means that we don't have normal classes, but are expected to attend the specific conferences that our professors tell us to. Tuesday night also happens to be Carnival night at Sitges (this town on the coast about 30 mins from Barcelona). This carnival is apparently comparable to Mardi Gras, albeit minus the nudity (one would hope) and you get all dressed up in crazy costumes. So a few friends and I are going on this bus that is taking a bunch of students there for Tuesday night and we're planning on coming back early Wednesday morning so we can still make the short meetings we have on Wednesday (*Don't worry mom and dad). Anyway, I'm very excited.

....I can't really think of any more updates at the moment, but I'm sure I'll think of more things. As for now, I'm going to do a bit of homewok. More later!

Interlaken Switzerland!

To sum up Switzerland, it was beautiful, snowy and didn’t have as many blondes as I expected although we were located in a small city most commonly known for extreme sports. We arrived early Friday morning and checked out the town during the day, and went night sledding at night. It was fantastic, though we did have to rent some snow gear so we didn’t freeze our tushes off. We took a train ride up the mountain and the actual sledding part was about 45 minutes downhill! The sleds were these plastic hard things which was a pain (literally—I am so bruised) and they were a bit hard to steer, but it was fantastic. There were a couple different ways to go down the hill, we went on the easy one first, then there was a steeper one which was fantastic....and of course the fact that we were located in the freaking SWISS ALPS was mind-blowing.
The highlight of the weekend, though, was this trip that we took up to Murren. We went with a few of the Euroadventure guides and some friends and went up into this town that has no cars and is right up in the Alps. The view was ineffable, there were mountains surrounding us from all sides, a quaint village with people who just skied through as their form of faster transportation and we saw paraglider after paraglider fall from the sky. It was amazingly beautiful.
Later on that day we hung out in the hostel and around town with other students, all of us still trying to grasp bits and pieces of the language, though none of us spoke German and the street names were so long that it would have put that one song in Mary Poppins to shame.
All in all, it was a very fun trip, totally worth the 12 hour bus ride it took to get there and then get back. And at least I can say that I’ve been to France; we stopped twice in France to load up on sustenance and use the restrooms, so I’ve eaten French food…kind of. Oh and I realized that Kit Kat bars in Europe are infinitely better than the ones in the states. No joke.

This is a picture of the money, isn't it beautiful?
Anyway, I’m planning on going to Rome this coming weekend, so more to come!

Castellers!

Today in my Sports and Society class we talked about this cultural sport that is very specific to Catalonia (the region where Barcelona is located) called castells. Its also known as the human tower building sport and we had four castellers come to class today and show us how to do it. I have to say, it was a lot more complicated than I thought. Of course a huge part of it has to do with having a natural balance, but it also has to do with lots of teamwork, not unlike many other sports, and trust in one another. These towers can be up to ten stories (and by stories we mean people) high. At the top of these towers they have 5 or 6-year old children! It is a rather dangerous sport since there is the inevitability of falling. The surprising fact they told us is that most common injury, even during these falls, is a sprained ankle at most. And usually the children are alright since they are on top so nobody falls onto them.....though I doubt I would ever allow my child to participate in it. Nonetheless, it was really interesting to watch clips of it, though it does keep the blood pumping and the heart racing! More later!

Check out this one video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IZ7CaGNI6w

Oh and did I mention that some of these towers have as many as 800 participants??

Feel free to post comments too in the comment box below! I'd love to hear feedback!

View of Tarragona from a lookout point

Sorry if the content is a bit blurry or gives you motion sickness....its hard to do a panoramic view without doing so. The gist of this is that the view was incredible.

Tunnel underneath Roman Ampitheater

This was pretty awesome, not gonna lie. You can't really tell, but on the sides of this tunnel, there are little arches that lead into individual rooms. I don't really remember what they were used for, but I think it was a pretty crowded area back in the day.

My Spanish class!

We started out with 12 and now we only have 5 people, mostly because its a 9am class...haha