Bilbao and San Sebastian

This past weekend, everyone from IES went on a trip to the Basque country, which is in the north of Spain.

Friday morning, we drove from Madrid to Bilbao and took a tour of the city. Bilbao is much more chill than Madrid. Seeing so many more dreadlocks and people dressed not like they're going out in NYC made me feel at home. Bilbao is right on the ocean, and there's a brackish river that runs through the entire city. Friday night was legit...we found a discotheque, but didn't even go in...just hung out outside and talked. It's too bad that some people need alcohol to be able to open up even just a tad. I end up having great conversations with people that are usually pretty reserved, but are hilarious (in a good, not obnoxious way) when they're out having fun. It does go both ways though...some people just get obnoxious. I guess it could be kind of like one period of a sine or cosine graph. First instance: starting at zero, the more people drink (horizontal axis), the more fun they get, but after a point, they just start becoming obnoxious, and their coolness factor goes negative. Once they start sobering up, they get back to zero (normal, not necessarily uncool). Cosine would represent someone who is really cool sober, but gets annoying when they're drunk. When they stop drinking (horizontal axis at half way), they start becoming interesting again.

Sine:
http://www.wsd1.org/waec/math/pre-calculus%20advanced/Trigonometry/Graphing/images/sinxbasic.gif

Cosine:
http://www.biology.arizona.edu/biomath/tutorials/Trigonometric/graphics/trig_cosine.gif



Saturday in San Sebastian was dope. It was raining the whole day, and I loved it (see previous post). We took a tour of the city with Mario the tour guide (great guy). Favorite part by far was seeing the ocean, and the gorgeous waves (waves = kayak surfing). I'm considering going back for a weekend, since it's only $30 round trip on a bus. You can rent kayaks there too. Check Facebook for pictures. Lunch on Saturday was...yeah. Awesome. I love grass fed beef, nuff said.

Saturday night, back in Bilbao, we went out for pinchos (tapas (little appetizers at bars that cost about $1.50 each)). Soooo good. I had one (they're on toast/grilled french bread) with ham, cheese, a quail egg, peppers, and potato. Awesome. Ham in Spain is so much better than it is in the U.S.. I literally always thought that I didn't like ham until I started eating in here.

This morning we hit up Guggenheim Bilbao. It's a modern art museum, and it was super interesting. I like Andy Warhol's work the best. Lots of real social commentary...if a picture is worth one thousand words (I don't love that saying, but whatever), then a wall of really deep pictures just makes you think, and think, and think. Maybe I was just wiped for the Prado, but I think Guggenheim hit me better. I bought a Basque Cookbook there. I love Spanish food. If I can make it at home, this would be good.