Given that I got ten hours of sleep last night, it's been a pretty good day (I'm going to try for 8 hours tonight, but the local hard-core rock concert is blaring through my closed window...all of a sudden I'm glad I didn't buy a ticket, considering that I'm getting a free concert here...)
We went to a local school today, and spent some time talking to the teacher and hearing about their bilingual immersion program. When I say bilingual, I mean Spanish and Basque, though they do start teaching English at 4yrs for a couple hours a week. It was very cool, and when I went to the bathroom, I found an escapee! They also have a day-care program, and this little girl--couldn't have been more than 3 or 4--popped her head around the corner as I walked in. Big brown eyes and little brown ringlets--the cutest little thing! (Her skirt was up around her neck and her undies were around her knees, but I'm pretty sure that those days are obligatory for every little girl.)
After hanging out at the school, we went back to the Deusto for our grammar teacher (Bego--short for Begoña) to pass us off to our culture teacher (Ana). Ana took us out to Plaza Nueva for a pintxos sampling (pintxos is the Basque name for tapas), which included samplings of local wines as well. The pintxos were so good! I ended up eating a lot of goat cheese and ham, but, like I said, SO. GOOD. ;) After lunch, we were conversing over our "samplings" of wine, and the conversation invariably led to profanity. Yami, our resident Colombian, helped us with the Colombian perspective, but then Ana--yes, our TEACHER Ana--piped in. If something is really awesome, like our lunch, it's "de puta madre." If it's terrible, it's a "coñazo." And since I know my mother is reading this, I'll stop there. As Ana said, "if my grandmother hear me saying these things, she'd turn in her grave!"
After a rather delicious and entertaining lunch, I made to walk back to the college--by the way, the short way is about a mile--but of course I didn't go straight to the college. Oh, no. Given that the whole of Spain's retail stores are on their summer sales FOR A MONTH, I finally decided to hit the shops. After about 5 hours and a few euros later, I did eventually make it back to the dorms.
*SHOPPER ALERT* You can skip this paragraph if you don't care about what I found*
I ended up finding some really good deals! Things that, even conversion factored in, were still great deals. I started at Women's Secret...I think you can guess what that's trying to emulate. I found a pair of running shorts with nice pockets for 5 euros--yessss! I wandered around for a bit--a lot of shops were closed due to siesta--and ended up at el Corte Ingles. I am not hard-core enough to be able to shop at el Corte Ingles. It's like the Macy's in New York City or Harrod's in London: 7 floors packed with STUFF. I made it through half of the first floor and then left. I hit the grocery store for some peanut butter (I was craving it, and I like that it's imported from the United States!), hit a few other little shops along the main drag (of which there are many), and then went to the mall near the dorms. There, I found a couple other cute Spanish-y things, including a t-shirt with cartoon character Mafalda on it and a sweater that essentially has Spanish graffitti all over it (I plan on using this as a teaching tool--just watch me...)
Welp, shopping, dinner, chatting with the ladies, and here I am. Another great day in beautiful Bilbao! Thanks for stopping by! :)
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| Zorilla in the kiddies' playhouse! |
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| At the lunch table. Nobody except Krista noticed, but she's used to me. ;) |
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| A photo of half of our group. Starting from me (upper left corner and going clockwise): Joe, Krista, Marc (hiding), Brian, Melissa (also hiding), Lynne (OSU GRAD!), Valerie, Lisa, Michelle, and Yami. |
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