First day of class

Happy Wednesday!

Today was my first official day of class, and it was quite an interesting one. The schedule for my classes was a bit different than I expected. Meaning that during the week I have two classes (and I will have 3 in March). I am doing the Spanish 3 track, which means that the first class is from January to February, the second class from February to March and so on. In addition to this Spanish track I also have a Spanish literature and culture class. This week was only the Spanish track class so I only have one class a day this week in the morning.

Today was the first day of having this class and even though I was nervous, I love my professor and can't wait to see how the course goes. After class I took advantage of the free time to go straight to the Guggenhei

m Museum! It was interesting, but slightly underwhelming. However, they made up for it with great pintxos (tapas) and beer. Once we finished seeing the different floors of the museum, we headed out to lunch and had amazing nachos and chocolate cake (thank you Damiana for sharing her food with me). Afterwards, we began to walk outside to explore and it started to hail and pour. I am talking heavy rain that made it hard to see. Even as an Oregonian, this rain was intense by Oregon standards (Washington too). This week in Bilbao, I have been told that it will be the rainiest week for the entire season. Of course this was the time that I forgot my umbrella and had to share. By the time we had reached the apartment I was soaked and the rain had seeped through my jacket into my shirt. We were all freezing and so we ran home, got into warm clothes and used the hair dryer to dry what we could (we don't have a clothes dryer haha).

While we waited out the rain, a few of us decided that this would be the best time to book plane tickets

to Ireland for St.Patricks day in March. Working together we all managed to book relatively cheap flights! We were all giddy and excited that we had managed to pull it off.

In this giddiness, we put our dry clothes back on, grabbed our umbrellas and headed back out. Realizing I needed a thicker jacket we ended up spending several hours shopping. It was interesting to shop and use my Spanish to ask for sizes and to pay. I can feel myself getting a little bit more comfortable speaking Spanish with locals and workers. Overall, it was a great day and I can't wait to see what the week has in store!

Agur! (which means goodbye in Basque)

-Ana