Don't I just live the exciting life?? ;) Today we were in Bilbao only, but it was the kind of say we'd been waiting to have. It didn't rain--3 days straight, some sort of record!--and we got to really explore the town. By bike.
Now I'm sure that sounds like some sort of punishment for some, but for those of us that went, it was AMAZING. Bilbao is a river town, and there has been this huge urban development in the last 20 years. Part of this development has been BIKE TRAILS. Take note, other river towns!! We were originally planning to do this bike tour at this community center place, but we called, and they said we had to provide our own bikes, but in order to rent the local bikes--from Bilbao Bicis--we had to be from Bilbao. Well, we never actually made it to that tour (just as well), but we went to rent bikes at this other place that I originally found for Dad when we thought he was going to go riding. When in Bilbao, rent your bikes from Alquimoto!!
So Alma, Brian, CoCo (her real name is Socorro, which means "help" in Spanish), Laura, and I hit the urban bike trails! Alma is a cyclist in her spare time, and I like to ride myself, so she and I took the lead. Brian, being 6-foot-something and more macho than he'd ever admit, fell in behind me, but somewhere around the hour mark we lost CoCo and Laura (as in they decided to sit it out in this really pretty park and we'd meet them back at the bike place). In all fairness, Bilbao is NOT a flat town, and Alma and I may or may not have been going kinda fast...oops. Brian's words: "it was like trying to keep up with a couple of bullets!"
After two and a half hours, exhausting all the close trails as well as our muscles (great workout!!), we returned our bikes and headed back for lunch. Spaghetti--like they knew we were going riding or something!
This afternoon, we did some "group homework." Before all my fellow teachers report me to PCTA, let me explain: our teaching resources teacher, Francisco, gave us a movie to watch. Now we're actually pretty close as a group--there are only 20 of us, and we live in the same hallway in a dorm--so we all got snackies (meaning: cheese, chorizo, wine, and dessert) and settled in to watch the movie. It's called Los Girasoles Ciegos ("the Blind Sunflowers") and it deals with the "moles" that existed during Franco's dictatorship. NO, Mom, you can't use this movie in your classroom! It was a really good movie, but depressing as all get-out, and I don't want to think about the type of permission forms the parents would have to sign. But if you like somewhat controversial movies, this was excellent. (And they do have subtitles in English--we ended up having to put them on because the speech track was so low.)
Now we actually have another field trip tomorrow, and I still have more homework to do (it was only assigned yesterday!), so I'm signing off for the night! Buenas noches! :)
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| Of course Zorilla got to come along for the ride! |
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| You probably recognize them by now, but L-R: CoCo, Alma, me, Laura, and Brian |
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| Me in front of the Guggenheim Museum, along the Ria Nervion |
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