ESN Trip to Bilbao and San Sebastian 18th-19th April

Hola Teresa y la clase de 9C de Onslow St Audreys,

Sorry about how late this post is-I have been so busy recently with all my university work and all the reading I have to do. 2 weeks ago I visited the ‘El País Vasco’ (The Basque country) with the ESN. The Basque country is a region in the North of Spain where they have their own language Basque but they also speak Spanish there. They also have their own cultural heritage.

Saturday 18^th April:

On Saturday we left at 8:00 from Valladolid but we arrived later than we should have. This meant that we had to put our bags in a room and check-in later as the Museo Guggenheim closed for lunch that day. After we dropped the bags off, we got back into the bus to go to the Museo Guggenheim as our hostel was outside the centre of Bilbao. The modern art in the Museo Guggenheim was quite interesting and I have attached some photos of the museum and of the sculptures outside which were quite strange (as we were not allowed to take photos inside). One of the sculptures outside the Museo Guggenheim was a giant tarantula which was terrifying for me-as I am scared of spiders. 

Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao

Sculpture outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao 

Sculptures outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao

Museo Guggenheim

Me outside Museo Guggenheim

Giant tarantula sculpture outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao

Museo Guggenheim

Giant dog made of flowers outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao

Me outside Museo Guggenheim

Giant dog outside Museo Guggenheim, Bilbao (close-up)

 After we had visited the Museo Guggenheim we took a walk through the city to get Pintxos (which is the Basque equivalent to Tapas) for lunch. I learned that the work for Hello is Basque is Kaixo and the word for goodbye is Augur. Then we had a city tour with a guide of the local group of the ESN Bilbao about the city and its history. I have taken some photos of what we saw-my favourite place from the tour was the Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda:

Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda

Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda

Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda

Parque Iturriza Doña Casilda

During the tour we went inside a Church which unfortunately I am not sure of the name of it as they did not say at the time what this church was called. This is inside the church in Bilbao:

 We also saw this statue in Gipuzkoa Plaza:

 And this sculpture at the part of Bilbao near the sea:

Sculpture by the sea in Bilbao

We were very lucky with the weather as it was supposed to be rainy the whole day in Bilbao. However, the only time it rained was when we were in the Museo Guggenheim. Afterwards we had free time to get dinner and get ready for the ‘botellón’ at 11:00 before going to the nightclub in Bilbao. My friends and I went to the supermarket to buy alcohol for the ‘botellón’ and we decided to buy microwaveable pasta dishes for dinner and eat it in the hostel so we would not have to try and look for a restaurant. I chose a Spaghetti Bolognese and my friend Cristina had a Pasta Carbonara. In the hostel we had to wait a little bit as the two microwaves were in use. There was a group of Basque boys who were also having dinner as well as a group of French girls from our group from Valladolid. The Basque boys were very friendly and one of them even gave me and my friend Cristina beers. I gave my beer to Cristina’s friend when she came down as I do not like beer very much but it was still very nice of them to give us drinks. Finally we got ready to go out and after the botellon near the metro station (which was right near our hostel) we went on the metro to the nightclub FEVER Disco. This was not my most favourite club and I had to stop off on the way to use a toilet so me and a small group of people were later than the others. It was very crowded in the nightclub with everyone on the first floor and I even saw one of the Basque boys from the hostel in there. Despite this it was still a very fun night.

Sunday 19th April:

The next day I go up at about 8:00 and had a shower and went down to breakfast. Breakfast in the hostel was very nice and they even had hot chocolate in the hostel which I have not found in any of the other hostels I have been to before. We checked out a little after 10:30 from the hostel and put our suitcases in the bus ready to go towards our next destination of San Sebastian. San Sebastian was only 1 hour from Bilbao but unfortunately my friend Cristina threw up on the bus so when we got there I let her out first and stayed with her during the city tour.

Once we arrived at San Sebastian, my friend Cristina was able to have some fresh air and we had a city tour all around San Sebastian. San Sebastian was huge and luckily for us the weather in the morning was quite sunny while we were walking around. We did not have a local guide here so the ESN just took us around and gave us the tour instead. Here are my photos of all the things I saw in San Sebastian:

I did prefer San Sebastian to Bilbao as there was much more to see but I liked both of these places and would definitely consider visiting ‘El País Vasco’ again when the weather is warmer. After that we went to eat more pintxos (Basque equivalent of tapas). I split off from Cristina and went with a group of Italians as the first pintxos place was too crowded and was very cramped. At the second pintxos cafe I had 3 pieces of tortilla filled with cheese and bacon which was delicious.  After the pintxos we had the option to go on a longer walk by the beach or to meet the group later. Me and the Italians that I was with decided not to go on the walk by the beach as our feet really hurt from all the walking we had done earlier and the sun had gone in. We had already seen a lot of the beach earlier during the city tour. It was quite windy and cold in the afternoon once the sun had gone in, not unlike a day at the seaside in England. We thought it would be colder by the beach so we stayed in the pintxos restaurant for a bit and then my friend Beatrice and I decided to go in search of tourist shops and see if we could find postcards. I decided not to buy a postcard of San Sebastian as there was only one shop that had postcards and there was not very interesting pictures-there was only photos of the beach of San Sebastian and not of the other attractions. However, I did buy a fridge magnet of San Sebastian which was very nice. After we had been to the tourist shop we went in search of McDonalds (as we had seen it earlier on the tour) and we found a McCafe inside so we both had hot drinks-I had a hot chocolate and my friend Beatrice had a coffee.  We stayed in McDonalds until we had to go back to Valladolid with the group. We had to meet the bus in front of the Teatro Victoria Eugenia and as we left San Sebastian at just after 18:00 it started to rain. We arrived back in Valladolid at after 21:30pm. Overall it was a very good trip and despite my fears over what the weather would be like (it had forecast rain for both days originally) the trip was a complete success. I would definitely recommend visiting these two places in the Basque country. 

Hoy el tiempo aquí en Valladolid hace sol y hace viento al momento. No soy seguro cuando fuera mi próximo ‘post’ a mi blog pero intentaré para escribir pronto. Espero que estéis bien y que haga buen tiempo en Hatfield, 

Becky