I am so very sorry that I have not written in a while. I had a feeling this might happen once my weeks started to fill up with more activities, but I shouldn't neglect the blog..well since my last entry I have had many new/fun/scary experiences but I will talk about a few special ones. So a couple of days ago I went on a hike up to visit Jesus. Well, not really haha but the famous statue that is on top of the mountain here in S.S. You can climb it and it takes about 40 minutes. It circles around until you reach the top and then you are standing directly under the giant Jesus. It is pretty amazing because he is actually standing on an ancient castle that has been there for hundreds of years. It was built to protect the city from invaders. People would live in this castle and would keep a look out for any signs of invasion. This particular view is really beautiful because you can see all of Donostia. (basque for san sebastian). I was going to take pictures but sadly my camera was out of batteries. Ughh so annoying. I plan on going on a run up there again and I will be better prepared I promise. I have also found a soccer team which I have already mentioned, but I met all the players for the first time yesterday. The girls are mostly from Holland and one of them is from England and they all seem really fun and easy going. What's really funny about this team is that our team picture and scores are printed in the local newspaper. haha!! I really hope we don't lose too bad. Actually I know we won't, but still. Oh and we wear orange t shirts with no numbers but whatever!! Our first game is tomorrow at 7 pm and I seriously cannot wait to see how this works out. I am a little worried because some of the girls claim to never had played on a team before....yikes... haha. We also get a dinner for free from the club which is exciting.
My classes here are amazing. I am taking 18 units which is going to keep my very busy. I have my track 2 spanish class that is 3 hours 5 days a week, plus 2, 1 hour conversation class, plus a 1 hour class, 2 twice a week on basque culture and language. I just found out that we have a 20 page project due at the end of the semester!!! ohh man. I very happy about my teachers however, and that has not always been the case for me when it comes to spanish teachers. They are all very serious about our learning and I feel like it will push me to try harder. I have about 3 hours of hw a night....not kidding. Ser and estar are killing me. Anyways it is all worth it. Learning a second language is not supposed to be easy. Anyways my final and most exciting class is my basque cuisine class. I had my first class tonight and it is located in the parte vieja behind this amazing cathedral. When our class of about 27 people met up we had to follower our teacher down this sketch alley way that I would have never gone through on my own. We made our way up to this tavern looking restaurant and on the sign it said "Vasca de Gastronomia" which is pretty much means, "the eating society of the Basque country"...my kinda place. We went into this warm stone building with amazing smells and tons of Basque people running around tipsy off cider. I could tell that every one felt lucky to be in such a place and we were right to feel that way. We all sat down on this giant table that you would see in a renaissance movie or something and this fat, jolly bearded man came in and welcomed us and told us about the place we were in (in spanish of course) my head was hurting... but a gastronomic society is a club that is all about keeping the basque culture alive, and in this case, the food. You cannot just go to one of the places like a restaurant, you have to be invited by a basque person to go. I am not going to go in it too much, but we found out that we will be cooking and then eating a 3 course meal every tuesday. One week we will be going to a cider house, which is a place where an alcoholic drink is made from apples. You eat tons of food and you squirt cider out of barrels into your cup!! haha we all have to sign a waver to go, but cider is more important to basques than wine so it would be silly not to try it in a basque cuisine class. Anyways... we didn't cook anything tonight but we had sopa de pescado first, menestra de cordero second (which is a lamb stew....) and then for dessert a bakes apple with raisins. It was soo good. We were all so full and happy that we all sat and laughed for like 20 minutes after we ate. It was such a fun way to get to know each other! Well that's all I can manage as of now. Oh but some friends and I are planning a trip to Paris for Valentines day weekend!!! I'll keep you updated!! Miss all of u!!!
makin me jealous!
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