Fin De Semana

My first weekend in Bilbao was something I was really looking forward to. My experience in Spain thus far has been nothing short of incredible, but it also has been a little rushed. Friday night was the first night I felt ready to go out and enjoy the evening without having a bedtime in mind.

There are several people in the Meddeas program and I have only met one, Adam. I reached out to the others to see if they were interested in getting together and we made plans to meet at the Teatro Arriaga.

Jose and Heather come from America and Teagan is from Australia. They are a lovely group of people and we had a great time walking around getting to know one another. The girls had tickets to a concert so after they left, Jose and I went for pintxos and drinks.

José is an incredible resource. He has a degree in teaching and has even worked as a volunteer in Mexico for 6 months teaching English. One thing I’ve noticed is how aware of my English I have become. I mentioned this to him and we talked about difference in format, usage of tenses, and even the differences of UK English and American English. (I literally had to teach my 1st grade class to say “Do you have a rubber?” meaning “Do you have an eraser?”)

After getting to know one another and eating some delicious food, we headed to Somara which is a street in Casco Viejo filled with bars. On the way we ran into Darragh, a person whom I met a couple days ago, and we went to go meet up with Adam and Ollie.

Drinking in Spain is pretty cheap. Depending on the place I can get a beer and a pintxos for 3–4 euros. Also some bars are open extremely late. I realized this after the bar we were at was closing at 2am and instead of going home, the group I was with decided to go to another bar. I finally made it home around 5am.

The next morning I slept in until noon, completely exhausted from the night before but even more excited for the day to begin. I got ready and left the house to go to a local market that Darragh told me about. We planned to meet up around 1:00, but life in Spain is not dictated by the time. I walked around, looked at what the market had to offered, ordered a cafe con leche and some interesting tortilla thing with cheese and olive oil. I ended up wandering into a bar with live jazz music and told Adam and Darragh to me meet there.

So far in Spain I have walked everywhere with the exception of catching the school bus to work. I mentioned to Adam and Darragh that I am terrified of trying to navigate the metro and they both informed me that this was the weekend to conquer that fear. We decided to head to the beach and enjoy the day.

The metro is honestly a little overwhelming. We purchased a ticket but it ended up being the wrong one. We had to go back and the lady was helpful in showing us how to purchase the correct card. We then walked through the gate and caught the next train out.

The ride wasn’t too long, maybe 30 minutes. We played some card games to pass the time. I got a little motion sick from riding backwards but we were off soon enough.

Algorta was beautiful but still very similar to Bilbao. The houses are built on hills so wandering around consists of walking up and down stairs. Seeing the beach was breathtaking. There was a local music festival going on near by so between the music, the smells, and the sights, I was overwhelmed with taking it all in.

We walked on the beach, laid out, went for a dip and even played beach tennis. Afterwards we went to the music festival and looked at the food trucks. I ordered croquetas calamar en su tinta, which were croquettes with calamari cooked in their ink. I have only tried calamari once before and it was when I was little. My uncle told me it was fried pasta and I ate it, didn’t like it, and as I was chewing he told me it was squid. Ever since then I have been completely opposed to eating squid but man have I been missing out!

After eating Adam was very persistent in me trying my first gin and tonic so we found another bar, and enjoyed a drink while telling stories. On the way home we stopped for some fresh pastries and caught the metro which I am no longer completely terrified of. (Adam told me to check under the seats for monsters… no monsters but I still think being afraid of the metro isn’t THAT silly of a thing).

We all parted ways and planned to meet up later but I went home, showered, and immediately fell asleep.

-Kristina

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