Last week with Constitution Day and the Immaculate Conception, we only had school on Monday and Wednesday. So, I took the oppotunity to travel into the northern part of Spain that I have not had the oppotunity to visit yet. I highly recommend visiting the area, it is an amazing place that is very different from the rest of Spain. I traveled with my rooommate Kathleen and a friend Kelsey. We didn´t plan our trip together, but by happenstance, we all ended up in Bilbao the same weekend. I was planning on travelling by myself, which I did a couple of times during study abroad, but as always it was nice to have company :)
We started our trip on Thursday around 2 pm and arrived at our hostel around 9 pm. The first night we were there, we asked the man at the front desk for some suggestions of where to eat. We went out for pinxtos (tapas, but on top of bread). The way it works is that you just go into any bar or cafe, approach the bar and point out what pinxtos you want. One of my favorite ones that we got while we were there was the first night. It was jamon serrano, 1/2 a hard boiled egg, mayo, and a shrimp. Eating it was kind of difficult, but it was a lot of fun and it was delicious! We went to a bar where our hostel man said a lot of young people hang out and got delicious mushrooms that were cooked in garlic.
The next morning, we got up and headed out to see Bilbao. We went to the San Nicolas church where they were having a nativity exhibit. The exhibit was very intricate. Since Spain is such a Catholic country, the nativity scenes are a HUGE deal here. They were really cool, they even had parts that moved, like a stableman nailing a horseshoe onto a horse. I really enjoyed it. After that, we had some churros and chocolate, a very typical Spanish snack during the winter. Then, we walked over to the funicular that took us up to the top of a mountain. The town was called Atraxanda and had an amazing view of the entirety of Bilbao from above. We tried the cider, which is made up at the top of the mountain and it wasn´t my favorite drink, but I´m glad I tried it. We walked around all of the pedestrian shopping streets to look at the beautiful Christmas lights. Then, we met up with Andrea who is my friend from when I was very little. It was great to see her and meet her friends. I really enjoyed being able to catch up, even in a country so far away and hope we can met up in Chicago soon!
Saturday, we took a day trip to San Sebastian, a beach town about an hour away from Bilbao. I would love to go back to San Sebastian during beach season because it was an absolutely gorgeous town. We spent the day exploring the beach, the old part of town, the Cathedral and of course eating. The pintxos in San Sebastian were so delicious because they were topped with fresh fish from right next to where we were sitting. After having a filling dinner, we went back to Bilbao to catch the end of the Classico. This is one of the biggest games in soccer, it´s between Real Madrid and F.C. Barcelona. Barça won, obviously, so I was very excited!
Sunday we went to the biggest tourist attraction in Bilbao. We went to the Guggenheim museum. Let me tell you, the building from the outside is beautiful and so cool to look at, it is a work of art in itself. I loved walking through the museum. My favorite part was a piece called Humans. It was in a room lit with dim lights that were hanging from the ceiling almost down to the floor. On the walls, there were hundreds of pictures of random people´s faces that I guess were taken from newspapers and magazines. I thought it was so interesting. Then we headed home.
The only thing I can complain about is that I caught a terrible cold on my trip. Other than that it was an amazing experience to leave Andalucia and experience a different culture. Euskari (the language spoken in the Basque region) is one of the oldest languages. I am glad I went there and learned more about a new culture.
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