Misfortune and Luck, País Vasco (14.03.11-27.03.11)

Two weeks ago I was anxiously awaiting my trip to Valencia for Las Fallas. Everything was perfectly set in place, and the Friday before I spent the majority of the day resting and preparing for what I would know would be an unforgettable experience. I went to bed that night, back packed and 'completamente lista'. Then I awoke, at 2 in the morning, sick as a dog! I had a fever, my entire body felt ached as if I fell down several flights of stairs, I was drenched with sweat, and my teeth chattered with the chills; I had the flu, perfect. Needless to say, I did not get to go to Valencia. I instead go to stay in my bed all day Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, completely miserable. Additionally, I'm the type of person who has to be doing something at all times, and I feel incredibly discomfortable if I don't leave the house throughout the day--so as you could imagine, three consecutive days constrained to my bed were hell. Not to mention, this feeling was augmented by the perfect Madrilean weather (70ºF) that showed up for those three days only. Overall it's not fun being sick in a foreign country, you really feel helpless. That said, this is a weekend not to remember.

No Comment!

The next week, I really took some precautions with my health. I needed to be healthy for my next trip the following weekend to the Basque Country because I wouldn't be able to bear missing another. I stayed mostly in my apartment studying, except for Wednesday night. On Wednesday, I went to a famous tapas bar in Madrid called El Tigre for the first time. This place is great, because with a glass of beer you get literally an entire plate full of 5-6 different types of tapas for free. So yeah, me and my friend Ali went to El Tigre and, as it's always packed to the brim with people, met some Spanish and enjoyed an overwhelming amount of free food: croquetes (fried balls of potatoes, cream, cheese, and meat), tortillas (NOT like Mexican tortillas, a thick omelette cake with potatoes), patatas bravas (potatoes with a red sauce), tostas (like bruschetta, but with various ingredients), aceitunas (olives), salchichas (sausage), and more. It was great, and I'm sure I will return multiple more times, when I'm hungry!
Friday morning I awoke at 6AM to leave for my Erasmus Student Network trip, exhausted because my nerves had prevented me from sleeping hardly at all. However, as 7AM in Spain is as early as 4AM in the US, I figured that all the students going on the trip would want to sleep during the five hour bus ride to our first location, San Sebastián. How wrong I was. No, instead, a group of Italians and two Finns, still drunk from the night before, started a 'Disco Bus' with blaring music the entire way! Needless to say, I and a large majority of the others, were quite annoyed and sleep-deprived upon arrival. Yet how my mood changed!

The Beach at Dusk in San Sebastián

Our first stop of the trip was a sidrería (in English, cidery) outside of the city of San Sebastián. Sidrerías are typical of Northern Spain, where during the late winter and spring they brew la sidra, an alcohol of fermented apples. In the sidrería we ate a large meal of croquetes, bread, seafood tortillas, steak, and cheese with fig marmalade and also had unlimited sidra and wine. Completely full and even more sleepy, we left to enter the city to the hotel. With only an hour of free time before our city tour (insufficient time for a nap), me and some others took a seven minute walk to the beach, perfectly illuminated in the light of dusk. That is when I fell in love with San Sebastián.
That night, we took a short tour through the city. Afterwards me and some new friends (I hadn't known anybody before I left attending the trip) bought some food from a supermarket as well as a couple bottles of wine. We spent the next several hours dining casually on the beach in the dark, enjoying what I would call paradise. I returned to my bed that night exhausted, sandy, but more than anything, enamored.

Climbing the Mountain in the Funicular

View of San Sebastian from Above

Saturday morning, I awoke early and went to a cafeteria for breakfast with some of my aforementioned friends, Renata from Hungary and Sibil from Germany. Proceding that, we left to ride the city funicular up the mountainside. The view from the top was incredible--if possible, I was even more in awe. Afterwards, we lowered the mountain and took a walk along the beach to El Peine de Viento (Comb of the Wind), a unique rock formation with some added sculptures. Next me and my friend Sibil decided to head to the downtown to look for postcards (I'm collecting them now in my travels) and something for lunch. We ended up buying some bocadillos so that we could take our food outside and enjoy the incredible weather, 78ºF! I took a bocadillo de tortilla relleno de jamón y queso, and as it was well over the size of Subway foot-long with REAL bread and REAL food, for around 3EUR it was a steal. I was stuffed after half of it, saving some room for an ice cream afterward :).
Later that afternoon we returned to the hotel to board the bus for Bilbao. How hard that was, to leave. Honestly, I have never had such an impression of a city before. Looking around the city, seeing the content of the citizens, the beautiful houses, the adorable children, I imagined myself living there. So much so, that I took note of the university and nanoscience research center we saw upon leaving and I'm going to do some grad-school/career research! One thing for sure, I have to return...

Me, Sibil, and Renata

El Peine del Viento

 Rock Sculptures on the Atlantic

Perfect Weather!

Bilbao Soccer Stadium

We didn't arrive in Bilbao until it was about nighttime. Again we left for a city stroll, this time guided by a local. That night there was a soccer game, so the streets were filled with fans partying. While there isn't so much to see in Bilbao (it's a modernized industry city), it has a nice river walk with several beautiful buildings including the famous Guggenheim Museum of Bilbao. Even though it was raining, the entire Erasmus group left for the same bar, where we all danced the night away (I came to realize in only three days of travel sleep is a waste of time).

Guggeheim (1)

River Walk in Bilbao

That Sunday morning we visited the Guggenheim, a Frank Gehry masterpiece of a building. However, one could say that the architecture trumps the art inside; the German Classicism exhibition seemed out of place and otherwise the museum was pretty vacant of artwork. After enjoying Gehry's magic, Sibil and I left to explore the city because we had free time until our 5PM departure. The only problem was that it was pretty cold and rainy outside, and even worse, a Sunday (i.e. no stores open). So for around five hours, all we could do was hop from various cafeterias and bars in typical Spanish style. Luckily, the Basque Country is known for great food and especially gourmet tapas called 'pintxos'. If the spelling doesn't seem Spanish, it's because it's not. It's in Euskera, another Iberian Dialect that a large percentage of Basque people speak. For example, all of the street signs and other announcements in the Basque Country are principally in Euskera, then in Spanish. So in away, this trip was in another 'country'.

Pintxos

By the time 5PM rolled around, everyone was more than ready to leave for Madrid. The three days had been wonderful, but our bodies couldn't handle anymore activity or any less sleep. By 11 o'clock that night, I was walking to my apartment, showering, and falling in to my bed.

Bridge by Architect Santiago Calatrava

Guggenheim (2)
Today was Monday, meaning the beginning of the week! Having no time for study this weekend, now I reap the consequences as I scramble to get academically organized again. Yet I still lament not to travel this weekend, I think I'm becoming spoiled!