My First Saturday in Bilbao

    I accidentally slept until 12 today.  If it wasn't for the jet lag, this whole trip would be a piece of cake right now.  I'm sure my host family thinks I'm lazy.

    Today, I was supposed to get a Spanish cell phone.  My host dad had an old one that we were going to have activated, but the company didn't have the right SIM cards.  That wouldn't be a problem at the UNL Phone Shop!!!! ;) I guess I will have to go a few more days relying on Facebook to communicate with my classmates here.
   

This is my apartment building, right in the center of the
Deusto neighborhood in Bilbao.

  I spent the early part of this afternoon exploring my neighborhood.  So far, I've had a really hard time finding my way home after the sun sets.  The roads here go in every direction making it hard to know exactly where you are. I would walk around each block and see exactly what each store was.  The blocks in my neighborhood are about double the size of regular city blocks in America so they were loaded with shops and restaurants.  Across the street from my apartment is a small grocery store with almost all of the necessities.  I was finally able to buy some much needed lotion even though it doesn't smell all that great.  Across from that is going to be one of my favorite stores this semester.  It is a small shop called Boom which sells anything you can think of that is fun.  Half of the store is a candy shop, which also sells Coke (thank God!).  They also sell many trinkets that say Bilbao like a cute, but tacky, pig magnet that said "Bilbao."  You can also rent DVDs there.  Most of them are American movies translated into Spanish.  Someday on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I plan to rent a few and hopefully improve my Spanish a little bit.  

    After lunch I went out shopping again with my friend Mary.  The mall is only a 5 minute walk from our apartments.  I fell in love with the store Zara!  It is the Spanish version of Macy's and I have never fallen in love with so many pieces of clothes in my life.  Apparently in Spain, people will not buy clothes if they aren't on sale.  At this time of the year, all of the stores have incredible sales and the stores are packed!

   Tonight it was just me and my host mother at home.  We had a tortilla de papas for supper and we spent the rest of the night looking at some of my pictures on Facebook.  I told her (in my best broken Spanish) about our traditions like prom and homecoming.  I showed her a picture of my friend Nicole and I in our prom dresses and she thought I was a guest in Nicole's wedding!

    I have no idea what tomorrow brings.  I would love to explore the city a bit more but I'd rather spend the day sleeping.  Classes start on Monday and tomorrow is my last free day of the semester.  Luckily I only have class before 10 am one day a week!