Carnaval y El Puente Colgante

So currently Bilbao and from what my host mom tells me, all over Spain the Spaniards are celebrating Carnaval.  So I am not exactly sure what this festival derives from but being that its Spain I am sure it has to do with some sort of patronage to a Saint, as everything related to Catholicism here.  But whatever it's derived from, in secular terms its basically Halloween.  So the festivities are in different suburbs of Bilbao all through the month so even last weekend we rode the metro and saw people in all sorts of get ups.  On Thursday night the girls and I all went to a costume party decked out in our usual party outfits but with awesome masks.  Other students were in full costumes, just like Halloween, it was super awesome.  Friday was another themes party and Saturday is supposedly the biggest of the celebrations with parades and special parties...thats when Laura and I plan on wearing costumes, too bad I didn't know prior to getting here, there is a whole bag of costume get ups in our linen closet at home. 
  
Yesterday afternoon my abroad group went to visit the Puente Colgante, which is the oldest suspension bridge in the world and is located on the river, at the mouth of the sea, between the towns of Areeta and Portugalete. It's super tall to prevent the waves from the sea from hitting it, and we took an elevator and crossed it at the very top.   There was a little woman who gave us the tour, all in Spanish of course but I caught the gist of everything.  Some of the girls were scared because the footbridge was made of wood and it always rain is Bilbao and even snow recently...can you say erosion!  It was super windy and wicked cold up there but being above the entire town was super beautiful and its always nice touring the historical parts of Bilbao. 

I've been tarvelling Spain

So Bilbao is a beautiful city and the suburb that I live in, Getxo, is super quaint, beautiful beaches! Everyone knows about the Guggenheim here and i saw it with a tour guide but will have to do it again because she just picked what she thought was important and I was of course a little lost in translation.  
Last weekend for a four day break some friends and I went to Barcelona and it was absolutely amazing.  Barcelona is a super huge tourist area and everyone spoke English, so that did set me back a little.  The city is fusing with history, known for the works of Gaudi.  So we explored the city and saw La Sagrada Familia a huge church by Gaudi, Casa Mila La Pedrera which is his former apartment/turned museum, Parc Guell another Gaudi masterpiece, beautiful churches, and Gothic architecture.  Four days surely was not enough to do that city justice but it was bursting with life and just an awesome place to be.

The weekend of the 23rd my abroad group took a weekend trip out to Logroño, the capital city of La Rioja, a community in Spain.  The city is also the capital city of the Rioja wine trade and so we toured "Bodegas Otanon" a winery sort of place but not like Napa Valley exactly, it was more of a museum and the tour guide showed us the process for making wine and all sorts of information.  We concluded the tour of course with a wine tasting retreat, and I have tasted wine before, not a fan, but she showed us all these tricks for looking, smelling, tasting that made the experience much more pleasurable.  And from there we headed to Pamplona.


Pamplona holds the third largest bull fighting ring in the world and this is the town that is known for "Running with the Bulls."  We learned all about the running of the bulls every year and how the real danger is not so much the bulls as are the people trampling over one another.  This city was Ernest Hemingway's favorite place and there were all sorts of places around town dedicated to his days spent in Pamplona.  The Cathedrals here were some on the most famous and this is the starting point for the Camino de Santiago, the way of Saint James.   


A few weeks back we visited Gernika a city that was bombed by Spain for political purposes but is now infact a historical heartland known for peace.  There is a famous tree in the city that somehow managed to not burn in the attacks.  Small city but beautiful landscape and known for its famous red bean soup!  This same day we went to a biodiversity museum in a small town, Busturia, that looked what I imagine Ireland to be.  


I first arrived in Madrid we saw alot of Picasso pieces and Toledo was ancient and amazing.


So I realizing that  I have really been so many places and thought I should finally record the memories!