Bilbao!

So...as I mentioned before, I am in Bilbao, Spain. When I first got here, it was raining every single day. It was pretty lame. The weather was crazy for the last month: cyclone warnings, flooding, wind, cold and rain. But, in the last week all has been changing. The sun is out and it is beautiful. We are surrounded by both the mountains and the ocean and everything is green! It makes me really excited about spring. My friend Colleen and I went to the tourist office and got a few books about the many hikes in the Basque country. I hope we will be able to explore a lot!

However, even when the weather is bad, because it is Spain, nothing stops the people from going out and having a great time. There is so much activity in Bilbao. It is a relatively small city (about 300,000 people) and it used to be totally industrial, but in the past couple decades, it has become a location full of life. There is a University here, which means lots of folks my age and tons of restaurants, bars, clubs, and festivals. 

The family I am living with is very nice and understanding about the life of a 20-something year old. I work in the evenings, but I have almost the entire day free (until 5:00pm) and the weekends are mine to do whatever I please. During the day, I am taking Spanish classes. My Spanish has improved a lot. I am understanding so much more than at the beginning. Speaking is still difficult for me. I know in my head what I want to say, but I often get flustered when I actually start talking. But I have come to accept the fact that I will make a lot of mistakes and that I have to speak anyway because that is the only way that I am going to learn. I have a few language exchanges with Spanish students who want to improve their English. We go out once a week and speak half the time in Spanish and the other half in English. It's very good practice and a fun way to meet people.

Today is the beginning of Carnival...so I'm off!! But if you are interested, here are some pictures of Bilbao. I don't know exactly what people are interested in hearing about, so if you want to know something specific, preguntamelo!! Until next time...

Trying Again

So...Lev nominated me as the worst blogger of all time. Frankly, I quite agree with him. However, I have decided to start again. Its tricky, you see, because I'm just not sure how much people care. People can't be THAT interested in my every day story because although I'm abroad, I'm still me and living a fairly normal life.  But, I am doing a few interesting things, photos are always fun, and many people have recently asked me for updates, so I will try and write every now and then. However, because it has been such a long time since I last wrote, I may start by going backwards. I promise I will put pictures of Bilbao and share a little about my life here, but first, I will start with the most recent: Biarritz, FRANCE!!

Last weekend, three of my new friends (Colleen from Wales, Nadine from Germany, and Lizi from Cali) and I went on a road trip to Biarritz France. Lizi had access to a car so we decided it would be cheaper and more fun if we drove, instead of taking the bus. We only had 2 days to explore a new country so we woke up incredibly early on Saturday and all piled into Lizi's car. Of course, the weather had been so nice all week, and just Saturday morning as we started getting excited about our trip to the beach town, it dropped about 10 degrees and started to pour. We started on our journey, convincing ourselves that the weather would not get us down, and teniamos buenas caras until we realized that neither the heat nor the defroster worked in Lizi's car. Colleen sat up front, wiping the windshield for Lizi every ten minutes during the entire two hour journey. Nadine and I sat in the back - trying to use body heat to keep warm - but both our feet were numb by the time we arrived.

So, although it rained almost the entire time we were there, we had a great time. It was my first time in France and I loved it. I can't speak but three words or understand anything, but, luckily, Colleen speaks very well and was the translator for all of us. Biarritz is a beautiful beach town in the southwest of France and I would love to return in the summer. My favorite part?? I bet you can guess...THE FOOD!!! The food really is as good as they say. Well, at least the bread, cheese, and pastries. That was pretty much all I ate, so I can only comment on that BUT it was amazing. I don't understand how bread can be so different in one place, but it was.  And the cheese. Well...we were in a grocery store on saturday trying to figure out which cheese to get, and Colleen (who is not shy to speak her French to the locals) decided to ask this woman standing next to us which one was the best. They talked for awhile and, of course, as eager as I was to know what the lady was saying, I couldn't understand anything. Afterwards, Colleen told us that the woman said that all the cheese in the store was crap. She said that sunday morning, there is a huge indoor market and we should go and ask for misour ou petit (don't know if i spelled that right - French is impossible). So we went to the market the next day and there was SOOOO much fresh cheese. It was amazing. unfortunately, there was no tasting, but they would just give you a little slice - a euro or 2s worth. So we got a few different kinds and they were all sooo good. Cow, sheep, goat, soft, runny, hard. It was pretty amazing. Unfortunately, we were so awed by the entire market that we forgot to ask for our cheese man. I wasn't too sad when I had figure this out though because I was already stuffed full of delicious food.

Overall, the trip was a blast. It was a quick, but great way to see another part of Europe. Its so interesting that you can drive just 1.5 hours and all of a sudden you are in a different country, with completely different food, culture, language, and overall feel. If you would like to see the pictures from the trip, you can check out my album.

I hope everyone is well and I love receiving emails!! Also, I am on skype a lot so if anyone has skype, or wants to get it, we can talk!! My skype name is: laelenab

Bilbao updates soon - I promise!