So you think your family reunion gets awkward....

Then try one in basque! Most awkwardest situation of my life. After all this time living in Spain and speaking the best spanglish known to man, you think I would have known a lot more about uncomfortable language barriers, but when it comes to basque, i'm not even going to try. So today was the first communion of my host mom's grand daughter (yes church is involved in this story too, which personally i think makes it way better.) But the whole service was in basque, so I had no idea what they were saying the whole time. Totally felt like the awkward foreign exchange student just sitting there uncomfortably when everyone started singing in basque, plus the "gesture a cross on your chest" that Catholics do is a way more confusing and intricate gesture here so I wasn't even going to try that. The whole process was so detailed and elegant. Plus the whole family was there, and Uxue (pronounced is-u-ay) was wearing a HUGE white cinderella type dress. It was really interesting to watch but for some reason I just felt so uncomfortable. Maybe it was the basque mixed with spanish, or maybe just cause it was intimidating to have the whole family there and having to speak spanish with all of them. Still I'm glad I went. I love Ana's huge family with all her grandkids. It actually reminded me of my family when we conveniently go to church on Christmas and Easter because all the grandkids were laughing and 'quietly' joking around during the service like we used to do. It definitely made the whole service feel more relaxed to me.

Pamplona

So I have a few weeks to catch up on with my blog, i've seriously been slacking :( but a few weeks ago we went to Pamplona Spain! (Where people run with the bulls! I actually just learned that it's called fiesta de san fermín, and it happens in July.) We just decided to go for a day but it was so much fun. The best part was listening to the huge band play "oh when the saints come marching in" in the middle of the street and watching all the basque people start dancing in large groups in traditional basque style dancing, so different and fun!

trying...

Hoy yo aprende sobre de lenguas porque fui a la casa de mi estudiante. Yo aprende que ingles es muy dificil porque no escucha como español, acentos de españoles son muy fuerte y es dificil dicir algunas palabras porque los sonidos no existe en España. Lenguas son interesante porque es mas facil aprender cuando se está joven y es mas dificil aprender cuando se está viejo. Pero tengo que usar mi español para mejor aprender español, y tengo que creer en español porque caundo creo en ingles, pero entonces hablo en español, no lo me acuerdo bien. Me encanta trabajar con mi estudiante, ella es muy simpatico sobre de mi español, me ella enseña español, y le enseño ingles a ella. (just cause I said I would do my next post in spanish, have fun translating this into english mom and dad... there's a little called "google translate" that might help :) )

You never realize how american you are until you leave america.

I've developed a pretty horrible cold here in the past few weeks and going out to experience another average night club is just not gonna happen tonight. So I realized I had to do a post on what being American means to me and what it's like being a foreigner in a new country for the first time. There are things I already miss from America, and things I realized we can live without in America too. For example, I miss Taco Bell and McDonalds dearly. (I've actually been craving fast food pretty bad and I just found a McDonalds in the mall in Bilbao! So Micky D's is now on my go to list.) I also reallyyyy miss Port Of Subs and Subway. The sandwiches here are very basic, bread, meat and cheese or vegetables. They're actually very good, and I like the simplicity of them. But I miss ordering a huge BLT with lots of different veggies and cheese. I love all the fresh fish and meat here though and I LOVE the pastries and coffee!

I've realized we don't need dishwashers in the United States. It's a lot easier and sustainable to just wash your dishes in the sink when your done with them and put them on a rack to dry. They never stack up too much and you never have to unload the dishwasher, so much more efficient. I also don't miss drying my clothes as much as I thought I would, my clothes dry in half a day after hanging them up. I miss driving a car but I don't miss Seattle's traffic at all and I don't mind taking the metro in the morning at all. In fact I love that most people don't drive in Europe. Walking around the old district of Bilbao today I realized how quiet and low key the city is without a ton of cars everywhere and especially in the old district of bilbao, my favorite part as of today, (I'll talk about that later though.) The parking garages are also all underground as well as the metro stops downtown, this definitely makes the city feel less cluttered and leaves room for all the beautiful buildings and parks.

Anyways on another American note, what I miss the most about America is the language... I miss hearing everyone around me speaking english and being able to understand what people are talking about. I miss speaking and not feeling foreign and looked at like I obviously said something wrong when trying to talk to people. I will do my next post in all spanish, I promise :)

Attempting to surf!...

My expectations of taking a surfing class in spain consisted of me and a few other kids out in the water catching a few big waves and owning each and every one of them. I snowboard, i wake board occasionally, this has got to be just as easy. Nope. Nooooooo way as easy... to be completely honest, surfing kicked my ass. There are about 20 of us in the class, plus a few little spanish kids who tag along, plus all the other surfers out there you have to watch out for. I mean, trying to stand up and not get trampled on by a wave is hard enough but having to watch out for a ton of people while trying to catch a wave is just impossible, eventually you start hoping that people will just get out of the way. Definitely got hit by a few surf boards and hit others with mine, not so much fun. Also consumed about two gallons worth of salt water, half of that going up my nose. (Which is really not fun when you stand up and realize you have snot all over your face right after you got trampled by what seemed like a tsunami but what was really probably just a four foot wave. If only someone took videos of all these precious moments...) Now I am sure I'm sick from all the salt water and about to give up on my hot surfer chick dreams. (Considering that snot all over my face probably wouldn't be a good look for quicksilver.) But I won't give up until the class is over! Then I'll most likely give up :)

hope to get some rad pics of my epic surfing skills soon brahs!

A seven flore club, what more can i say...

Our last night in Madrid was spent at the seven story night club called "El Kapital." It was something I had heard of before even coming to Spain and it was like no club I had been to before! (obviously it was 7 times better.) Most clubs these days are filled with horrible pop music sped up and paired with the same techno beat in the background. And as soon as a techno version of Call Me Maybe or Somebody That I Used To Know starts to play, your ready to be out of there in a second. (Somebody That I Used To Know is actually a great song until some idiot thought turning a slow, sad break up song into a fast paced dance song was a good idea...) But anyways, the first 3 floors of this club consisted of huge dance floors with house music of course, the next was karaoke, the next was pop hits from the 90s and early 2000's (AWESOME) the next was salsa, and the top floor was more relaxed music with lots of tables and seats, the roof also opened up on this floor so it was cooler and you could see the stars. The karaoke floor was a hit of course. As soon as we got to karaoke on the 4th or 5th floor they started playing backstreet boys, which is a classical favorite for white american girls and we obviously had to start singing along to I Want It That Away.(I probably shouldn't be admitting to this, but hey you can't deny that I Want It That Away is a good song. This also unfortunately reminds me of Jenna Marbles' "white girls in the club" video on youtube, best jenna marbles video by far.) The salsa floor was also awesome even though I can't salsa for the life of me... The bus ride home the next morning was not so awesome though... we ended up getting home around 5 and had to get up to take the bus at 7. So an hour or so was not nearly enough time for sleep, but a short and bumpy sleep on the bus ride up to bilbao was of course all I needed to start off my year in this beautiful city. As we started to drive through the basque country, the hills just kept getting greener and greener and I knew that this part of Spain was going to be just what I needed to remind me of home in Seattle.

Driving through the basque country on the way to bilbao :)

Valley of the fallen, Franco and the civil war.

on the third day we went to a part of the country that is very controversial to spaniards, but also is gorgeous and breathtaking, I really just wanted to hike the whole area. When we were driving to the valley of the fallen I realized just how much this area reminded me of Tahoe and Lake Shasta. The auburn colored trees and the soil and the bright green hills, and the beautiful sunny day of course , was very similar to this part of California, made me miss Tahoe :)

The controversial part of this Church is that Fernando Franco was buried here underneath it and built this church so that it would be his burial area. Right near the alter is his tombstone with flowers on it. Our tour guide told us that a lot of people won't even come into this church (including our bus driver.) And some people go to his tombstone, put one foot over it, and say "you stay down there" to him. Also 50,000 soldiers' remains are buried in separate rooms on each side of the alter, and 97% of these soldiers are unknown. The church itself was beautifully constructed and made out of 100% granite and decorated with beautiful murals on the ceilings and sculptures all over. But it still had a very eery feeling and honestly just had me creep-ed out a little. In the entrance of the church, their were two huge tall sculptures of angels with swords, and smaller ones with capes inside the church on the isles up to the alter. Kind of reminded me of the dementors in Harry Potter (Just to convey to you what kind of creepy feeling I actually had...) Our tour guide also said people sometimes get married here. Sounds like a horrible start to a marriage to me! "Honey let's get married on top of the dictator who killed thousands of people and started a civil war, it will be a perfect way to symbolize our new life together!" Very strange. Could almost feel ghosts in there, but again very beautiful, historic, and spiritual.