Bryan's Visit :)

So I guess I didn't notify everyone, but Bryan surprised me with a visit during his spring break! He wasn't here for very long, but he was definitely a trooper through the jet lag and it was wonderful to see him 2 months early!

Here's what we did during his visit:

Wednesday:
A bunch of my friends, Bryan, and I went out to lunch at a Chinese restaurant (SUPER cheap and SO much food!). Then Bryan watched me play a soccer game with my ISA girlfriends and he played goalie for a bit because the other team never showed up so we scrimmaged together. Afterwards, we took my professor Francisco a peanut butter sandwich (crunchy!) because we were originally going to go to that class and Francisco jokingly told me that Bryan could only come as well if he brought him that sandwich. This is because every time we watch a movie in that class (Lit & Cinema) I bring an awesome spread of snacks and Francisco gets jealous. Then my Mama Christina made us a MASSIVE Spanish meal and went all out with the txacoli (choc-o-lee) (the local white wine that's delicious!), pintxos (peen-chos) (local appetizers), and TWO main courses! And her friend Marta made us a delicious brownie for dessert. I really appreciate all that she did for us.

Thursday:
We went to this pueblo called Bakio on the coast for the txacoli festival. Didn't see much of the festival because it was farther from the part of the city that we were in, but we hiked up to this church on a rock in the ocean and enjoyed ourselves and killed our legs. We were told that the hike would take only 20 minutes, and it did on the way back, but it took us over an hour to get there! This is mostly due to the steep incline of the path and the fact that it was up THREE mountains...

Friday:
We went to the beach with a few of my friends. It was kind of windy and chilly, but fun nevertheless. We played soccer for a bit and soaked up some sun. My face was burnt (now tan) as a result. I'm catching up to you Lish!

Saturday:
I took Bryan on a brief tour of Bilbao (to my favorite eating establishments of course) and then to the Guggenheim. What I learned: the Japanese are MESSED UP. This one artist made a sculpture of an anime character getting friendly with himself and making a lasso with his... fluids. He is named "My Lonesome Cowboy." Across the gallery there was a very well endowed woman anime sculpture jumping a rope made out of her breast milk. Like I said, the Japanese are messed up. A Chinese artist that the museum is currently featuring works a lot with gunpowder on canvas. His works were really neat.

Sunday:
Mama Christina took us on an excursion to a pueblo close to Bilbao. We hiked in the mountains to this forest where this guy painted the trees and if you stand the right way they line up and make images. That was pretty neat. Then we ate lunch with like the ENTIRE family and relatives of Mama Christina (think Christina, her sister, her sister's husband, her sister's husband's sister, her sister's husband's brother and his pregnant girlfriend, and her sister's two daughters). It was a lot of fun, but we were beat by the end of the day.

Monday (Today):
Woke up at 4 am and took Bryan to the airport. He's taking back my suitcase full of stuff I don't need anymore so that I don't have to ship it home.

I'll post pictures later!!