Besos de Bilbao

Hola todos,

I am writing from a cafe across from the beach. It's 4:30pm here, raining and dreary but the beach, imo, is still beautiful. I just had a huge lunch with my host family and am now having a cafe con leche (espresso) at the cafe. We had a vegetable cream soup, a fish fillete, and bread with cream cheese for lunch and a baked apple for dessert. As big of an eater as I am I have a hard time finishing lunches here. I had cereal for desayuno (breakfast) for the first time since being here. She asked me if I wanted the milk heated for my cereal and I just kind of gave her a blank stare thinking milk...warm...in cereal. ha!

We start school again tomorrow and I have a little bit of homework to do tonight. The weekend was nice. We don't have class on Friday so Thursday the director of our program invited everyone to listen to a live band. About 40 of us went and had a lot of fun. They sung a lot of American songs like "Sweet home Alabama" with a spanish accent. It was fun and entertaining. Friday after another huge lunch with my host family I went with 3 other girls into Bilbao and walked around. We had delicious Churros from a street vendor and then walked to Zubarte which is a big mall in the center of Bilbao. We walked around for a few hours but I didn't find anything I wanted, aside from a large diet coke at the foodcourt's McDonalds. It was so delicious! I've been missing my fountain drinks but now I know where I can find them. Friday night there was a cyclone!! My friend Jamie lives in an apartment like 3 blocks from me so I walked there to visit her. My ama told me "hold onto the walls while you walk!" When I first walked over I was like "yeah ok, this is like another day in chicago!" but when I returned like 3 hours later the wind had really picked up! It wasn't like a tornado in Urbana but it was pretty windy and parts of Bilbao ended up losing power later that night.

Saturday (yesterday) was rainy too. I had lunch with my ama and Inigo and then went to meet my friend, Charlena, in Las Arenas (about 3 metro stops from Algorta). We went for cafe con leche (espresso) and when it stopped raining we walked to the beach in Las Arenas. The beach in Las Arenas is more like a harbor and has a much smaller sand beach than Algorta but it is still pretty. And the houses along the water are beautiful! Last night I hung out with ama. We watched American movies on tv that have been dubbed in Spanish. After she went to bed I stayed up and read for awhile and started looking into flights for traveling. We have a four day weekend in March when I think I might try going to Rome... we'll see.

Prices- My mom was asking about prices here, Bilbao is I believe cheaper than most of Western europe. Some things are cheaper here than in the states but most things are about the same price HOWEVER the euro is worth more so if something is 4 euros here and 4 dollars in the states its cheaper in the states with the exchange rate. But the espresso I'm drinking now was 1 euro...I think in the states it would be more expensive. I haven't bought anything yet aside from like going to cafes so I don't exactly know how much everything costs. I take that back, I bought a phone and minutes and a metro pass too. My metro pass is an unlimited month pass which was 35 euros. My phone was like 20 euros and I bought 20 euros of minutes which are still going strong!

Today is my ama's granddaughters 9th birthday! She is so sweet. She came over last week and we played Oca Loca (I think I already wrote about this). She and her family are coming over tonight for birthday cake. I really like my host family and think it will be fun to be with them during a "family get together" and of course, for the good chocolate cake.

Basically, I am having a really good time here. I still can't really believe that I am in Spain and living here--more or less!! I've loved it since the beginning but I think at first I was like OMG 5 months I'm going to get homesick. Now, I've had a change of mind and I'm thinking "ONLY 5 months!" Don't get me wrong, I do and will miss all of you but I think this is going to go by really fast and then I'll be back and probably will never study in another country again (not bc I don't want to but bc I'll be graduating soon). I told Charalena, "We're twenty, so we've been alive about 250 months so 5 months is like a blink!"...I think she thought it was weird that I had figured out how many months we had been alive but agreed that she loved it and could'nt belive how fast time is going....hahaha!

Observations--I think people here have a greater appreciation for rest and relaxation than in the US. It isn't to say that people don't work hard here but their job isn't their identity. I think in the US your work kind of becomes who you are. My spanish culture teacher the other day was talking about how there is no spanish translation for "work ethic". It's hard to explain my point but talking about your work is just plain taboo here. People talk about their family, what they like to do, where they'd like to go. They have long breaks for lunch were they go home and take their dog for a walk, and have a long lunch. After work, people meet friends for an early evening espresso and talk. People bring their dogs (you would love it mom!) and babies to cafes and relax for like 3 hours before dinner. I don't know, it's quite lovely I think. Also, I think it is why their life expectancy is longer than in the US (84 for women and 79 for men).

This week--As I stated before, school starts again tomorrow but we have wednesday off for St. Thomas holiday. It is suppose to be nice wednesday so I'm taking a bus (a hour) to San Sebastian. San Sebastian is a beach community an hour north from here. I hear it is beautiful and is a summer hotspot for European travelers. It's also on the French border. Jess's (my former roommate) parents have been and loved it so I guess we will see if I agree!

I still haven't posted pictures but I will try uploading some tonight--I promise!

Ok, the clouds have cleared and the last remnants of my espresso are cold so I'll sign off now.

Love you all and thank you for the comments.

Besos y Abrazos,
Marissa