Hello alllll, sorry about the lag in my blogging, I've been getting pretty busy over here. Beautiful weather lately here in Bilbao, a nice change of pace from the usual rain. Belen and I took advantage of the weather today and did some walking around/shopping in between lunch and class. Great day! Luckily I have a lot of deberes to look forward to tonight- presentation, debate, and test all tomorrow. fortunately we had an essay due on thursday that got pushed to next tuesday so after tomorrow, I'll be able to prepare for my WEEKEND IN AMSTERDAM! But first let me update you on my last couple weeks....
Barcelona- Incredible trip!! Belen and I left on a Friday morning, cabbed to the airport and found our gate easily. Boarded and had about an hour long flight to Barcelona. Met up with our friends Victoria and Shavie (shah-vee) and took a cab to our hostel. Their computer system was down at the time so we couldnt check in but they let us put our bags down, gave us a tour and then we took off into the city to explore. BEAUTIFUL city BEAUTIFUL weather. the architecture is just incredible and it was amazing being in a spanish city COMPLETELY different than bilbao. After visiting barcelona and madrid though I am VERY thankful I chose to study here in bilbao. Barcelona/madrid are great for visiting on weekend trips, but I would not be able to handle the constant stream of tourists-- so many PEOPLE and tour buses and americans and people speaking english everywhere. We even went to starbucks in barcelona haha. However, barcelona was great. We spent our first afternoon eating and walking around and exploring the city. Later, we were able to get into our hostel and meet some of the other people staying there. We stayed in a room of 8 of us total, boys and girls, with bunk beds and 8 lockers. My first hostel experience and a very interesting one to say the least.
Me and my friends decided to check out this bar we had heard about from everyone that's been to barcelona with over 600 kinds of shots. After referring to our map several times, we finally found our way over to the bar, El Gato Negro. SO MUCH FUN. You pretty much tell the bartender you want something, for example, strong and sweet, and he'll whip you up something great. This was a cool bar because not only were the shots good, but it's more about the show that they put on leading up to taking the shot-- most every one involved setting half of the bar on fire (not kidding). There are MANY pictures but unfortunately none of my friends have posted them yet. I will post them here as soon as theyre posted on facebook! So we stayed there for a while and then went over to a club with a bunch of people from the hostel. Unfortunately our friend Victoria got pick pocketed at the club shortly after arriving there (sigh) so that kind of put a damper on the night, for me at least. The club was right on the beach though so after that happened we went and hung out on the beach with some kids from the hostel which was fun. There are Paki men everywhere that come up to you EVERY five seconds and offer you cans of beer, but really they're all selling marijuana and cocaine. Really annoying and really sketchy. Another reason I'm glad I'm studying in bilbao- barcelona is beautiful in the day but one sketchyyyyyy place at night.
Saturday, we got up and decided to be VERY touristy and buy a ticket to one of the tour buses that takes you ALLL over the city- you can choose to stay on for as long as you want, get off when you want, hop back on another bus whenever you want, all day. Though a liiiiittle expensive it gave us the chance to do and see all the things we wanted to. Highlight- la sagrada familia...... STUNNING! All the intricate details are almost unreal. The line to actually go inside wrapped around the building and we still wanted to see other things so we didn't go inside, but just seeing it from the outside was enough for me.
We also saw Parc guell. beautiful as well. (again, waiting on the pictures from my friends....)
Got back to the hostel and saw Laetitia - chloe's best friend from home, goes to JMU, is studying in antwerp for the semester - who ended up being right next door to my room in the same hostel! So we all got ready, got some dinner, and then went back to the same bar, el gato negro. We ended up just hanging out in the street with random spanish people we met haha and it was pretty fun. Caught the flight back early the next morning.
--Have some homework now but will update more, post more pics soon!
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