San Sebastian and some familiar faces..

This past weekend our program took a trip to the Basque country in northern Spain to San Sebastian and Bilbao. This weekend celebrates Carnival where everyone dresses up in Halloween costumes to watch street parades and hit the bars. After the 5 hour bus ride north, we were given a tour of this little beach town. The water and the entire city was beautiful. I can only imagine the city and beaches with warmer weather. After the tour we grabbed a few beers from a store and started drinking on the beach. We had a blast and it will probably be one of the times I will always remember. Beach, beer, and friends.. doesn't get too much better than that. After we finished we grabbed a quick bite to eat and got dressed up in our costumes to hit some of the bars. I didn't want to spend any money so I just wore my swim trunks, flip flops, a long sleeve t-shirt, and my sun glasses.. pretty boring I know. But other people took this opportunity to go all out with their costumes and it kind of reminded me of breakfast club at Purdue (except at night).

After a long night out, we had to be out of the hotel by 8:30am to take the bus to the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. All of us were a little hung over and were not really in the best mood to go to an art museum. When we arrived the building was stunning. The architecture was defiantly a lot better than anything on the inside. The second floor was closed and we could only really see one gallery of Murkami which was really awkward (google "My Lonesome Cowboy" and "Hiropon"). But he has also done some of the famous prints for Louis Vuitton and Kanye West's album covers. After the museum, we left for this huge buffet near Bilbao. That was by far the most food I have had at one time here in Spain.. and it was glorious. It took us 6 hours to get home by bus and I wasn't able to sleep at all. When we got back to Madrid I went home and had no problem passing out.

Yesterday James Wang and Nick Naber, who just graduated from Purdue and are in my fraternity, stopped by Madrid on their way "Around the World in 80 Days" trip. They started in Tokyo I believe and are making their way to London in 80 days. They are hitting every major city in between and they are having a great trip so far. I was able to meet up with them last night for a nice (and very cheap) dinner and a few beers afterwards. It was really nice catching up with them and seeing some familiar faces in a foreign city.

This weekend I plan to take it easy in Madrid as one of my friends from Purdue who is studying in Seville will be traveling to Madrid. It will be nice showing her around and doing the touristy stuff again because there is so much to do in this city.