A Day in Lekeitio

    I've been pretty horrible about getting out and actually doing things lately.  The weather went back to crap, particularly when I leave my room until the time I decide to go back home.  We can't even plan on beach weather for at least another week.

    Yesterday Isabel and Perico took me on a road trip to Lekeitio which was about an hour and a half away from Bilbao.  It used to be an old fishing village, but through the years it has become a vacation town for the people living in the cities.  Martin says it's because it is home to the most beautiful beach in the world.  Since I haven't seen many beaches I would have to agree with him, but it is a pretty cool place.  The beach wasn't particularly big but off about 100 yards from the beach there is a small island which is pretty cute.  Isabel said that during the summer on low tide the kids can walk over to the island and they play there all day.  Now i just want to go back there in the summer and walk to the island.

    It stopped raining just long enough for us to walk on the beach for awhile.  Isabel probably thought I was incredibly sheltered when I got excited over finding a seashell on the beach.  At least she helped me find more.  Apparently when Perico was really young, the Queen of Belgium spent her summer in Lekeitio and had a spot reserved on the beach for an entire summer right by Perico's family.  Apparently she even stuck her hand in Perico's sister's mouth to pull out a bee.

    After the beach we went to take a quick break at Isabel's family's vacation apartment.  It was more like a giant house and I had to follow Isabel around so I didn't get lost.  We finished the day by walking through the pouring rain to see more of the town.  It was a pretty nice day, overall.  I'm sure it would have been a ton nicer without all the rain.

    This week we don't have class on Wednesday because it is Spanish Worker's Day, so pretty much Labor Day.  This would be exciting if it wasn't going to be raining all day.  The only things open are the metros and the bars.

 

Dublin

    So I am back from a longish weekend in Dublin, Ireland and it was definitely worth skipping class for.  Not that I like those classes anyway..

    A group of 6 other girls and I left Thursday mid-afternoon to catch a bus to our flight out of Santander.  We flew to Dublin around 6:30 and sat on the plane by a local from Northern Ireland who had tons to tell us about Ireland.  He even told us what not to say to stay out of trouble since there is still a lot of turmoil between the Irish and Northern Irish.

    Our hostel was so easy to find!  Probably because it was right in the middle of everything!!  We were so lucky to be paying so little to be right next to everything.  The staff was beyond awesome at helping us with even the stupidest little questions.  They even let us move beds so we could sleep by the plug-ins to charge our phones even though they have a strict no moving rule.

    The first day we started out bright and early with a bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher which are on the opposite side of Ireland.  We drove through the countryside and stopped occasionally at old castles and churches.  We learned the ABC's of Ireland (Another Bloody Church, Another Bloody Castle, and Another Bloody Cliff).  We listened to traditional Irish music the entire 4 hour ride there which normally would have made me wish for death, but it actually helped me get in the spirit.

    Our first big stop was at the Mini Cliffs.  The land was so rugged here that it was crazy hard to walk out to the actual cliffs.  There was a lot of hopping from rock to rock.  The cliffs weren't terribly high.  50 feet would be my best guess.  Probably more though.  The waves crashed like crazy so it was a sure death if you fell.  The tour guide made me stop running once.  Not sure why :p  After we visited the Mini Cliffs we ate lunch and headed to the Cliffs of Moher.

    The Cliffs of Moher was absolutely incredible.  The cliffs were triple or even quadruple the size of the Mini Cliffs and went on for as far as you could see.  The majority of the land surrounding the cliffs were was walled off because it's such a popular suicide spot.  There were still search boats in the water looking for the most recent suicide.  There is a section that isn't walled off and that is exactly where we hurried off to.  You had to be very careful, though, because the land surrounding the cliffs was all grass that was wet underneath. The wind was pretty crazy too and could be enough to through you off the cliff if you were close enough to the edge.  There were signs everywhere giving you a number to call if you wanted to hurt yourself and needed help.  Our tour guide said that in the summer months there are volunteers that go around talking to all of the tourists making sure they aren't depressed.  I'm sure if someone was trying to evaluate me, it would be enough for me to throw them off the cliff.

    We finished the tour in a small town an hour or so away from the cliffs.  There is a river that runs through that sometimes has dolphins.  We unfortunately didn't get to see any.  We then drove the remaining 2 hours home and were very thankful for regular paved roads since the majority of the journey to the cliffs was bumpier than a gravel road.  That night we went out and checked out Dublin's famous Temple Bar scene and hung out at a few different pubs.

    The next day we were able to sleep in a bit and we went on a guided walking tour through the city.  It was great because we got to hear the history that went with the buildings that we were seeing.  It lasted way longer than necessary though and I was so glad when we were done with the tour to have lunch.  After lunch we visited the Guinness Factory tour and got to see what all goes down there.  We got to do a taste test and practice pouring our own.  The tour itself was pretty expensive but I justified it because we got about 6 euros worth of free beer along the way.

    That night we were so tired that we barely made it out of bed to eat dinner.  We might as well have skipped it.  The "best fish and chips place in Dublin" that our hostel suggested was nasty.  It had no flavor, just grease.  We didn't even contemplate going out that night.  Our shuttle to the airport was going to leave at 7:30 am anyway and we couldn't even stay awake long enough to get ready.  We barely woke up the next day either and someone else's alarm finally woke us up with 20 minutes to spare before we had to leave.

    I absolutely loved Ireland and would definitely go back if I had more time.  The people there are amazing. You don't have to ask for directions.  If they see you are lost they will do anything they can to help you.  They start conversations, offer to take your picture, you name it.  And their accents are awesome!

    Only 24 days left in Europe!!

Beautiful Week in Bilbao

    So we've been experiencing highs in the 80's all week, so that's been nice :)))  In honor of the sun finally shining, I spent my Sunday at the beach!  We went to Sopelana which is about a half hour metro ride from my house in Getxo.  It's absolutely beautiful there.  Before I had visited I wanted to plan a trip to one of the Spanish islands, but now I'm saving my money and going to the beach in Bilbao every chance I get.

    Just so you all know, Sopelana is a nude beach.  This is one of those things that you know you will run into when you go to Europe, but you forget until you see the boobs staring you right in the face.

    I turned in my first major Spanish paper this week and I'm sure it caused more stress than it was worth.  My guess is the teacher won't even read it since there are 30 kids in our class and the papers are all around 5 pages.  But I guess whatever!

    Tomorrow I leave for a long weekend in Dublin.  I'm not sure of much that's going on over the weekend.  It's more of a spur of the moment trip for me and my friends have done most of the planning.  I know on Friday we will be going to see the famous cliffs and countryside in a tour.  At some point during the week we will be touring the Guinness factory.  Should be a fun weekend!

The Rest of Spring Break

    I've been pretty lazy about writing my blog lately with all of my homework and naps.  My mom said yesterday that she was ready to read about herself and I needed to hop to finishing my blog and only to say nice things about her so I will give that a try.

    I only had a day and a half in Prague.  To actually see the city, I definitely needed more, but I was so happy to be able to leave when I did.  Prague is known for its incredible castles and cathedrals which make a fantastic view for the entire city.  It's a small city compared to all the other main attractions in Europe.  Most people get around by taking the tram instead of the metro, which I never once (technically) paid for... the city was backwards about some things...
 
    The sites definitely were beautiful; the cathedral was probably the prettiest I've seen in all of Europe.  And there were tons of great things to see.  It would have been wonderful if it hadn't been so cold.  At one point to escape the cold my friends Tyler, Alexa, Kassi, and I visited the Mid-evil Torture Museum just to warm up.  I learned too much.  Also that day outside one of the cathedrals, we saw two girls in the biggest most ornate ball gowns we'd ever seen.  They were being photographed with the city skyline in the background and there was a crowd gathered around to watch.  We stopped and watched for a bit too and found out that they were 15 years old and their families had flown them to Prague from Mexico for their quinceneras.   We took their pictures too :)

    My least favorite part about Prague was without a doubt the people.  The best way I could come up with to describe it is that the city and everything inside of it is stuck in the Cold War.  The non-touristy buildings were crappy and falling apart and very dark looking, but not as dark looking as the people.  It was like they didn't want the tourists in the city, especially if they spoke English and they would not make it easy for you if you did speak English.  Let's just say I felt very uncomfortable the majority of the time and was very happy to be leaving.

    By far the best part of the trip was the food.  I ate hotwings in the hostel but that was nothing compared to the food in Prague.  I couldn't tell you what I ate or even spell it, but I was in heaven for the 2 dinners I ate in Prague.  Everyone else who visited the city for Spring Break said the same.  They are also known for their cheap beers in Prague.  Though they cost 35 crowns (Czech money) it came out to be a little over a dollar in American money :) Beer is definitely cheaper than water.

    The biggest snag in that part of the trip came when I tried to leave the city.  I had plans to fly back to Bilbao by myself and so I took off for the metro to the airport.  It isn't necessary to show a ticket to get on the metro and you can get through the gates without even paying.  This had been what I did all weekend, but this time it didn't work out.  There were ticket guards waiting at the entrance to the train and they were randomly asking people to show their tickets.  I knew right away that me traveling with a suitcase, I would be racially profiled.  They asked for my ticket and I played dumb until they started speaking English.  I pretended to look for the ticket that I knew I didn't have and finally I said that I would just have to go buy another.  But the guard wouldn't accept that.  She said I would have to pay 800 crowns or be arrested.  I had spent all of my money before arriving at the metro so I tried to explain to the lady that I would have to go to an ATM.  Her lack of English was frustrating.  Finally she said that I would just have to go to an ATM (oh, really?).  I was going to try to run from there but she followed me to the ATM.  Luckily it was only 40 US dollars that I had to pay which probably would have been close to what I would have paid for an all day transport pass for the 2 days.  I'm just happy I'm not in Czech prison.

    From there I spent a day laid over in Milan where it was too rainy to go out and see anything, so I stayed in the airport until my plane left for Bilbao.  The next morning I went with my host family to a small town outside of Bayona, France to stay in their friends' vacation house.  It was a calm 3 days without wifi which I somehow survived.

    We returned to Bilbao on Sunday with just enough time for me to eat and pick my family up from the airport.  They got in at 5 and I took them straight to our hotel, which was by far the nicest place we've ever been allowed to stay in.

    We had dinner with my host family the first night which went much better than expected.  My family loves them and my host family speaks much better English than they let on.  My family even enjoyed the food besides Jake who was still suffering from a bad experience at an airport restaurant.

    We left the next morning at 8 am for Barcelona which meant we were up by 3 am.  Waking up at 3 am was a common theme for the week.  It was a little tough to find the hotel that first day and we knew right away why.  It was in the middle of Sketchville, complete with the prostitutes to greet us at the door.  And of course this was the first hotel in the history of the world that refused to let anyone check in a minute before the scheduled time.  So no rest for us, we had to start on the city right away.

    It was rainy and a bit nasty outside and we couldn't find a city map or anything (and of course I forgot that there is an app for that).  We spent the day exploring La Rambla, the main tourist street in Barcelona.  It actually completely sucked.  We aren't souvenir people and all of the real stores were closed because it was the last day of the Easter holiday.  Every restaurant we went to was a fight so we didn't get a lot done and everyone was exhausted.  Finally we decided to go back to the hotel an hour early and see if the room was ready.  We should have known it wouldn't be.  So we pretty much slept on tables for an hour before the lady let us into our rooms.  We napped for quite awhile after that.

    The next day we had an equally early flight to Paris but it was definitely worth it.  We got to see nearly everything that first day.  We somehow managed to convince Jake to go up on the Eiffel Tower which was more difficult than it sounds.  We were sad though because the top deck of the tower was closed to the public.  We still enjoyed our view.  When we got down, everything was surrounded by military men with gigantic guns and a crazy amount of cops.  We kept running into them and decided it was probably smart to get out of the area.  It didn't work.  They were all over town.  We later found out that there had been a terrorist threat a few days earlier which would probably explain all of the guns.

    Our second day in Paris we went through Notre Dame Cathedral and my parents put a lock on the Lover's Bridge (which was gross).  We finished the day "at the museums" before we had to pack up and head back to the airport to catch our flight back to Barcelona.

    Our second day in Barcelona was much better.  We got away from the touristy street and went to see the real attractions.  Sagrada Familia was incredible like I had thought it would be but by the time we got to Park Guell it was pouring and everyone was tired.  We voted that instead of staying in our nasty hotel one more night that we would spend the night in the airport since we had an early flight back to Bilbao.  The sleeping thing worked out great.... Jackson and I watched ladies clean the bathroom and walked around a bit.  That was the extent of our sleep.  Lucky for us, the actual nice hotel in Bilbao let us into our room right away so we could sleep all morning.

    Of course Bilbao was ready to welcome my family with its usual weather.  We broke 3 umbrellas that first day in Bilbao.  That really ruins plans when all of the attractions are outdoors.  We went and saw the Guggenheim and my University and shopped at the mall.  The next day it rained even more.  That turned into a mostly napping and shopping day even though we did get to go look at Casco Viejo.  We were invited to another supper at my house that night.  I also took Jackson out for his first bar experience.  We were up by 5 the next morning to get the family back to the airport.

Spring Break- London

    Well I'm home and alive.  I'm exhausted and I barely remember anything about my trip.  There was too much going on and too little sleep.  But I will do my best to fill you in on it all (probably not all at once).

    We started in London where our flight didn't get in until around 11 at night.  By the time we took the bus into the city, we had already missed the metro closing, which got us stuck in the train/bus station without a very good idea of where we were going.  The locals we asked all said it was best to take a taxi to our hostel.  It was sleeting that night and for some reason there was a line to get a taxi.  We were about 10 deep in the line which ended up being over a half hour wait with barely a jacket on and not wearing the warmest clothes.   Other taxi drivers kept driving by to look at the line but not to pick people up, so it must not be normal to have to wait in line.  Anyway, it was 2 am before we got to our hostel.

    The hostel had a bar on the main level and of course the party was still going strong when we checked in.  The guy at the front desk wanted us to go have a beer before we checked in, but we were too cranky and he was annoying.  Our first night was in a 22 person room which was a huge mistake.  People came in at all hours of the night and had "whispering" conversations.  We didn't sleep that night.

    When we woke up, we were going to go on the free walking tour of the city because none of us were very confident about navigating the city on our own.  We waited forever for the tour guide to get to the hostel before someone at the front desk called to see where he was.  Apparently the tour  guide had gotten in a car accident and wouldn't make it.  We were given 15 minutes to run to the next site where another free tour would start.  We were in a group with other girls from our hostel who had all the information on where we were going..... or so we thought.  When  we were buying our metro passes, they all left without us and we had no idea where we were.  We decided to make our own walking tour and found the London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and Tower of London all on our own.

    We did the Tour of London tour and got to see all the sites where royals were killed over the centuries.  My favorite part was seeing all the crown jewels.  I was meant to be a princess I believe.  After the tour, we ate at the best fish and chips restaurant that exists.  I had a fish the size of a large plate and absolutely loved it.  It was probably one of the top 5 moments of my trip.

    The entire time in London was absolutely freezing.  There was sleet or snow the entire time and no matter what you did to stay warm, it wasn't enough.  The second day, we went to a street market in a lesser known neighborhood where they sold brand new clothes for dirt cheap.  I bought a military jacket for 5 pounds!  And of course they also had London souvenirs where I bought my Will and Kate mug :)))

    We saw pretty much everything of any importance in London.  Of course both my camera and phone were dead for Westminster Abby, the only reason I was in London.  One of the highlights of the trip was visiting Kings Cross Station where I got to see Platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter.  We waited in line nearly half an hour to get our picture taken pushing our cart of belongings through the brick wall into the Hogwarts train.  It was worth the wait for sure!  After you take your own picture, there is a professional photographer there to take pictures of his own for you to buy.  I absolutely hate buying pictures from tourist traps, but guess who spent 8 pounds on a picture of herself.  This girl!! Worth every penny :)

    We had to leave our hostel at 3 in the morning to get to Prague once our time in London was over.  It was the first time I'd ever flown alone.  More in the next blog.