I haven't been doing a ton out of the ordinary lately. I go exploring with friends every once in a while and buy more clothes than I need at stores you can't find in Nebraska. But every once in a while, I find things worth sharing (like the building that I kept seeing on Pinterest but never found until Wednesday!).
On Saturday it was nice and warm (50 degrees!) so my friend Mackenzie and I went walking around the city. I was determined to show her the Pinterest building but of course I didn't remember exactly how to get back. Luckily, my lack of directional ability lead us to an awesome store that we will be visiting again sometime soon. Let's just say I really need to stop finding new stores! We did eventually find the building and after we took off toward the end of a street where there was a large statue that we wanted to see up close. The statue wasn't anything exciting, but up the block there was a beautiful huge building behind stone fences that had to be a castle. We went to see what it was and found out nothing except that there is a security entrance and there was a man in a creepy mask sitting on a bench inside the gate. Now I have to know what the building is!
On our way back we realized that a protest was starting. There were only around 50 people when it all began and we figured we would stick around and see what was going on. The protest was for some type of Basque rights. That's all I figured out since I don't speak the language. We were bored of the protest pretty quick so we kept walking and a few blocks up the road, the police were blocking off traffic. The protesters were going to march. We decided again to stop and watch. It turns out this was a lot bigger than a 50 person protest. We estimated that we saw around 5,000 people walk by us and we stopped watching before we could see the end. We guessed that there were approximately 8,000 people marching for whatever the cause was. I will be asking about that in class tomorrow too.
My favorite part about the protest was all of the Basque people. Many Basques have a pretty extreme look so it's always fun to people watch. That's all I will say because I want my parents to be shocked when they get to Bilbao and see the Basque "look."
Today I joined my family on a hike through one of the mountains in a neighboring village. It was a guided hike for kids going to school in Bilbao that are Martin's age. In total, there were probably 250 people including lots of parents to help supervise. I had never climbed a mountain before so I had no idea what to expect. Isabel had let me borrow her spare pair of hiking boots which I am so thankful for now that I've experienced the mountain. It wasn't nearly as difficult as I thought it would be, but I was imagining not making it down from the mountain. It took awhile for my body to get used to the climb, but after that I was completely in love with everything. At some point we reached the steepest part of the mountain, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't covered in snow. Climbing up that was very slow and I kept thinking that maybe I didn't need to go to the top that bad, but I was more scared of going down than going up, so I kept going. Of course the view from the top of the mountain was worth it! Down wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it would be either. I did slip a few times in the snow, but after that it was way too easy. Well, except for the part where my legs were shaking the whole time from lack of moving lately and all of the loose rocks. I was definitely relived when I made it to the bottom but at the same time I felt amazing. I never even imagined actually climbing to the top of a mountain. And really, I did it all by myself wondering off on my own. I hope we go out on another mountain soon, but I'll let my legs take a bit of a break for now.
So even though a lot happened this weekend, it's definitely the last truly calm weekend for awhile. Next weekend is our class trip to Madrid and Segovia. The weekend after that will be for last minute Spring Break arrangements and the next THREE weekends will be spent traveling. So I definitely appreciate every weekend I get to spend in Bilbao, even if I just sit in my room the entire weekend.
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