Trip to Pais Vasco, Part II: Bilbao

Sunday began with a city tour of Bilbao. It was very similar to that in San Sebastian. If you wanted to hear what little they had to tell you about the different places in Bilbao, you had to fight to stick to the front, because they didn’t wait for everyone to arrive before speaking and they didn’t talk loud enough for everyone to hear.

You can barely see Bilbao's newest and tallest building.
This picture shows the mix of new and old architecture in Bilbao.

Look at the lovely brown river...

This is a theater that unfortunately hasn't had
as many productions put on because of the crisis.

Finally, it was time to go to the Guggenheim Museum. 

No pictures were allowed inside, unfortunately, but actually my favorite part was probably the building itself. 

'The Puppy'

My favorite piece in the museum was called ‘The Matter of Time.’ 

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You could walk through it or view it from above. You can read more about 'The Matter of Time' here. 

On our way home from Bilbao we stopped at a castle (that had a fence blocking it, but some people cross to go under the fence anyway) and a church on an island (more like a peninsula). 

Some people chose to hike out to the church. I didn’t go because I thought they had said we couldn’t because it would get too dark, but then people went anyway. Finally, we returned home.

I do not plan on traveling with ESN again. The trip seemed very unorganized and they changed the schedule randomly. The city tours were not worth my time, and I don’t enjoy traveling in a huge pack with 50 Americans. I have concluded that even though it’s more cost effective to travel with group rates, I would rather take fewer trips that I actually enjoy than more trips that I do not.

¡Salamanca!

This past weekend 3 of my friends and I took a trip to Salamanca and Segovia. We were intending to leave Friday afternoon, but had to leave later because the bus we were going to take was sold out. Lesson learned: next time go to the bus station before the day of to buy your ticket.

We arrived in Salamanca at 1:30 a.m., but unlike the United States, the bars in Spain do not close at 2 a.m., so we were able to meet my friend Nathan, who is studying in Salamanca.

Saturday was a beautiful day. I didn’t even wear my coat half of the time. First we checked out the Roman bridge.

 Then we met Nathan and went in the cathedral. In Salamanca there’s an old and new cathedral that are connected to each other. 

We elected to go into Ieronimus, which allowed us to climb up into the churches and see some exhibits, such as these musical instruments.

Instrumentos de viento - madera
Chirimia contralto.
Barrilete de bombarda torneado con respiraderos en roseta.
Constructor: Bassano

Instrumentos de viento - madera.
Orlo bajo, oboe barroco (sin pabellón) y chirimía contralto.
Constructores: Hans Rauch y Jeorg Wier?

Trompeta marina

Music by Antonio de Yanguas who was  the Maestro de Capilla
at the cathedral in Salamanca from 1718 to 1753.

Throughout the morning we also visited La Casa de Las Conchas, the grand entrance of the original University of Salamanca (it is said in order to pass your exams, you must find the frog hidden in the façade), and the Plaza Mayor. 

Casa de Las Conchas

Point to the frog!

Plaza Mayor

Eventually Nathan went home for lunch and the girls stopped somewhere to get food. We got the menú which lets you pick 1^st and 2^nd courses, dessert, and drink. My first course was paella, which was delicious, the second was pork stuffed with cheese and peppers, and dessert was natillas, which tasted kind of like pudding. 

Paella

Natillas

We then headed back to the hostel for a siesta and later made a picnic-type supper and met up with Nathan again.

Our hostel was in a very ideal location, it was very close to the Plaza Mayor. We got a 4 person private room, since there were four of us. What we got was 2 double sized beds and a bathroom to share. What would have been really awkward is if there were 3 of us and a random person.

The next day we were off to Segovia!

Trip to Pais Vasco, Part I: San Sebastian

This past weekend, I travelled to San Sebastian and Bilbao in a trip led by the ESN Oviedo organization. We left at 7 in the morning on Saturday and took a 5 hour bus ride to San Sebastian. Upon arriving in San Sebastian we went up in a funicular to see a panoramic view of the city. 

We hiked up to El Christo later in the day.

There were some people sailing in the bay.

At the top there was also some carnival type rides including this sketchy rollercoaster. Not many of the attractions were open however.

After that we had time for lunch. Most of the students on the trip had lunches packed by their host mom. My mom gave me a huge chicken sandwich and 2 clementines. My group ate ours in a park that had this interesting clock.

After this, the ESN members led us on a city tour. I was a bit misled when I saw there would be a city tour on the schedule. I thought it meant there would be an actually tour guide, instead it was members of ESN who didn’t know very much information about the things they were showing us, giving the tour in English to 50 students who are supposed to be studying Spanish.

The following day was a holiday celebrating Saint Sebastian. Festivities technically began at midnight Saturday, but we did see some people already dressed up and this band of middle school aged children performing. 

In addition, San Sebastian was also hosting a soccer game against Barcelona. I believe they said that these flags were in support of the San Sebastian soccer team.

The last item on the agenda in San Sebastian was to climb up to El Christo. El Christo is up the mountain in a fort.

We were told to not climb on the canyon.

Then we got back on the bus to head to Bilbao for the night.

Stay tuned for Part II: Bilbao!

Excursión a Gijón

On Monday, ESN led a trip to Gijón, a city about 20 minutes away from Oviedo by bus. Only Iowans and 1 girl from Arizona went. Everyone else was discouraged by the raining we were having in Oviedo, but ironically, it didn't rain at all while we were in Gijón.

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As you can see in the map, Gijón is next to the ocean and is a port city. It is also the largest city in Asturias. This is where the fishing boats used to dock, but now it's a marina.

This is a statue of the founder of Asturias.

The patron saint of Gijón is Peter.

And these are the Plaza Major (main plaza) and the town hall. 

On the top of a hill by the sea there is this structure. When you stand in the middle of the circle, you can hear the ocean.

Other pretty pictures of Gijón:

It was a rather quick trip, only about 4 hours. A bit disorganized, which is annoying, but good overall.

*all pictures personal unless otherwise noted