About two weeks ago we didn't have class because there was a conference about construction (I believe) that all the Spanish kids in our class went to. Finding out about this, we decided to go to Bilbao to visit the Guggenheim Museum as we kind of got on this kick about visiting all 1000 Places to See Before You Die. Bilbao is only an hour and a half or so away by bus so we thought why not.
Bilbao is a pretty industrial city, but it has a nice old part of town and the Guggenheim is the main attraction anyways. We spent a few hours wandering the galleries of the museum. One of the most impressive pieces of art was this gigantic hangar sized room with equally gigantic steel structures winding around the room. Another piece that really struck me was this series of scrolling LED signs that extended probably 30 to 40 feet into the ceiling above. All in all, the museum was really interesting, full of modern art, but after a while we got hungry and left to eat lunch on the steps. We wandered la parte vieja a little bit before returning back to Santander.
The next day I met up with Kasia and Michal, two Polish kids I have class with. We sat through a little concert in a bar down in the centro. The singer was really good and I met a bunch of Italians and English from Kasia and Michal's Spanish class with whom I agreed to have dinner with. We are all going to cook a dish from home and bring it to share, a little International Potluck. One Italian, Marco, made Kasia promise to make "un monton de pierogies" or literally a mountain of pierogies.
Last weekend we met up with the Spanish kids from our class for a dinner at Pinocho, this pizza place that is Pinocchio themed. It actually had pretty good pizza (much better than Telepizza's) and was nice to finally hang out with the Spanish kids without being the ones to invite them. We all then proceeded to Peter Pan, this bar a lot of students go to for big cheap drinks, and played some dice games.
The following day we had our first excursion for our Prehistoric Art class. This has got to be one of the most dull classes I have taken. Sorry prof. The class is essentially our professor pointing out legs, backs, and horns of animals that were painted 12,000 years ago. Thrilling, truly. The tours of the caves we went on were pretty much the same thing. The caves themselves were really interesting though. The stalagmites, stalactites, and these formations that could be played like xylophones were really neat.
While all of this has been going on, I have been on another quest of sorts. I think I have been getting obsessed with completing lists of somewhat epic proportions. First the 1000 Places list (which isn't going to happen anytime soon, I am at around 50). More recently I have been watching movies from IMDb's top 250 list. In the past two weeks or so I have watched 10 of the movies and am up to a total of 76. Now, I am not going to watch all 250, because most movies made before 1970 just bore me to death (I am ignorant, I know). That leaves me with 163 total. I am almost halfway done and am kind of on a roll (but don't worry mom, homework comes first. Also, I am watching these in Spanish so that should count as productive).
On the cooking front, we have been getting creative lately (and partially cultural). We celebrate Falafel Fridays every Friday. I have to admit, our fried chickpea concoctions have been pretty mouth watering. Not so successful was our attempt at gnocchi. Some of them turned out like mashed potatoes while most of them just were too mushy. I think we have to figure out the cooking time and add more flour to be more successful. Last night we actually ate out. This is a rare occasion because I would rather save money for travelling. I have to admit though, the restaurant was delicious. We went to Dia Delsur and ordered a bunch of different raciones (large portions of tapas) to split. The food was excellent. I was particularly a fan of the patatas bravas we ordered. In Madrid the patatas bravas we got were like roasted potatoes drenched in this delicious red sauce. Here, it was home made potato chips with two different sauces, a red sauce resembling a salsa and this sour cream-ish sauce that reminded me of the Chives n Fries dip you get from Saz's (Wisconsin people know what I am talking about). The Tikka Masala chicken kebab and rice was really good too. The only thing we got that I probably wouldn't order again was a vegetable plate. It was super oily and salty making everything really soggy and heavy. Finally, today, in celebration of Mardi Gras, Hillary and I are going to fashion a King's Cake out of Cinnabon's Cinnamon Rolls. It should be delicious.
