It's October!

Hey everyone,

I can't believe it's already a week into October, how crazy! But, it's my favorite month so I have no complaints :) My first Spanish class is over and I did much better than I expected so that's a relief, on to the next level! I was finally assigned an intercambio (a native student who knows a little English but wants to learn more in exchange for helping me with my Spanish speaking skills) so I'm very excited to get that going! I think we'll be meeting once or twice a week for an hour or so. I'm starting to catch myself thinking completely in Spanish (so cool!) so hopefully with her help I can start translating thoughts into actual words so I can carry out full conversations without over-thinking how to reply.

Yesterday my culture class took a field trip to the Biscay Executive Council Building (or Disputación Foral de Bizkaia as we were told) in Bilbao and got a tour of the palace. It was the meeting place of major political Basque figures and used for many years. It's main importance came when they were banned from meeting under the Oak Tree in Gernika, until Franco banned the fueros (laws created by and for the Basque that were viewed as "unfair to the rest of Spain" by the Spanish government) and any meetings had to be in basements or in France. The architecture plans were too large for the original location of Bilbao at the end of the 19th century so they had to jump across the river, thus beginning the creation of the existing city. We learned a lot more, but I can't recall it all at the moment; overall it was a great excursion!

Last night my friends and I decided we were really craving something "American" so we decided to have a simple, quiet pizza and movie night. While we ended up with the pizza it was far from "simple". We got there at 6:30pm assuming we'd order, wait no more than 30 minutes since everyone eats around 9 here, and walk back to my apartment. To our surprise, there was an 11 year old's birthday party going on and unlike in America where parties usually order a few large pizzas and the kids eat whatever is ordered, these people decided to get each kid their own individual sized pizza and there was only one person working. So, after waiting almost 2 1/2 hours we finally had the food. Then on the walk home it started pouring and we didn't have umbrellas so the pizzas got drenched. Oops. Always an adventure in Spain!

My roommates are gone for the weekend so I thought I'd do a little tidying up around the apartment this morning and ended up cleaning for 2 1/2 hours, this place was gross! Let's see if they notice a difference. The weather has been really abnormal, we've only had 3 days of rain/cold weather since I got here! All the locals are very confused, and I'm a little upset that I only packed 4 short sleeve v-necks and 3 pairs of shorts for hot weather. On the plus side, I've had lots of time to wander around and explore before my schedule gets very busy (but ridiculously exciting) soon!! I was telling a friend from home last night that while I am so happy to be in Spain, I feel like I don't have any super exciting stories to share right now because things people at home may find exciting, I now view as every day life. Maybe I need to start reality slapping myself to make sure I take it all in!