Where's the map?

Well, it's been another accident-laden weekend here in País Vasco! As per usual, Dana and I begin our days with the best of intentions, only to have all plans fail miserably. Friday night, we planned to go out into Bilbao, but were still feeling unsure about whether or not the Maria's would be imposing a curfew. It turns out they aren't, but at that point it was too late, so we stayed in. However the Maria's have been slowly sneaking more and more ham into our diets, which has proved problematic for my digestive system.
Saturday we had planned a lovely day in San Sebastian, a popular beach area about an hour north-east of Getxo. We drove up with the family from ASB, with their two girls Ainhoa and Naroa. We had a great time chatting with them in the car, singing Adele, exchanging vocab words, etc. Then we went to an American-style diner called Peggy Sue's for lunch, which was hilarious. They served burgers named after celebrities like James Brown and Aretha Franklin, chicken fingers, and french fries (and luckily, "vegetal" sandwiches). It was the cleanest possible version of American food you have ever seen.

"We serve you!" Featuring genuine American wallboxes.

Then Dana and I walked around San Sebastian while Naroa went horseback-riding at her uncle's house nearby. It really is a beautiful city, and is known as the pintxo capital. There were tons and tons of pintxo bars, which a huge variety we had not seen anywhere else.
Here are some lovely seaside views:

 

It's always gray.

Here's an example of the weird combinations of architecture that are everywhere.

Unfortunately before we could eat any of these delectable pintxos, I was stricken with what was probably the worst stomachache of my life. I had been feeling ill since the morning, but figured it would pass. I felt dizzy and sick after lunch, and after walking around for three hours in 3 degree weather, I almost passed out on the street. Edurne went into "mom" mode and brought me back to her brother and sister-in-laws', both of whom happen to be doctors. They checked me out, gave me medicine, and let me sleep for a few hours. Their whole family is unbelievably kind, I'm so grateful for them. Our home stay family is not exactly warm and welcoming, so it was nice to be in a real family environment for a while.
Current theories:
Our home stay family is A) trying to kill us and reap the benefits of our TCNJ life insurance, B) attempting to make us sick and not hungry so they can save money, or C) just conveniently forgetting about the time I told them I can't eat meat.
A) and B) are less likely, seeing as Dana is not feeling as feverish as me, so I guess I'll have to go with C) and use Google Translate to explain, "Your cooking is making me violently ill."
Today, armed with Pepto Bismol, Dana and I adventured out towards the so-called tourist destination of Las Arenas (The Sands) area of Getxo.

This is the Bizkaia Bridge, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Las Arenas. It's the world's oldest transporter bridge.

The incredibly underwhelming, "Las Arenas."

We had the most fun on the weird workout equipment in the middle of the park.

Las Arenas was fairly boring; for a town named after its beautiful, sandy beaches we were unimpressed. Dana is from Toms River and I frequent the oversized beaches of Wildwood...comparatively, Las Arenas has nothing on the Jersey shore. Except for culture, that is.

46 Fahrenheit

That seems like an appropriate temperature at which to turn on one's calefactor (heater), right? Wrong. This house is a tundra. The heat has been on maybe once since we've been here, because it was 5 degrees Celsius, and then everyone was like, "Oh wow! It's cold."
Newsflash - it's been cold. I am wearing my heavy wool coat inside. I take two hour naps every afternoon just so I can be under the covers.
Here is the tundra, it looks like a college dorm room:

 Note the golf decor.

We live with the laundry and the Wii.

 Also because teaching is exhausting. I had the 9th and 10th graders yesterday and today. They are the worst. I do not recall being like that. There are maybe five kids in each group that do their work without hesitation, do it well, and encourage me with sympathetic smiles. The classes are 26 and 27 students. Do you know how many kids that is?? Especially when half of them are twice your size?? Especially the boys. They are preoccupied with hormones and cannot sit still for more than ten minutes, if they can, don't expect them to exert any more effort than that.

It's frustrating because individually, each kid has great ideas. Only one has been brave enough to choose to describe himself as Basque and Spanish; the rest of the kinds are leaning on Spanish, except for two that are definitely Basque. Pauline warned me this would be difficult, because there is so much political weight between identifying as one or the other. But very few of them are actually working on their projects, it's amazing how they can manage to do nothing for a full 55 minute class.

All of the teachers had warned me about 10th grade, but 9th is the one I got off on the wrong foot with. They were impossible the first day, explaining something to the whole class is useless because only five people are listening. I ended up yelling and I don't like to yell, so I apologized to each table later and explained the project again. They were more receptive after that, but I have never experienced a student actively tuning me out before. Nor have I ever been faced with a bold faced lie. In the States, high school students are more apt to sleep on desks or be listless. These kids are smart and energetic and actively pursue not working. Apparently they're always like this though and it's not me.

Today Dana and I worked together on a "papyrus" making project with her 6th grade class, as they are studying Egypt. They were angels, we had a great time and the project went really well. I'm hoping it goes as well with my 8th grade on Monday!!

And for my second Friday night in Spain, I will be sitting in my "apartment" planning our weekends for the rest of our stay.

For your viewing pleasure, the view from the teacher's lounge at school:

No one is home,

and I love it.
Last night with the family was better than usual, they actually wanted to talk to us. Laughing was involved, and weird hoof meat was not, which is a significant improvement. For the past few days, Dana and I have been eyeing the decaying leg on the countertop in the kitchen, covered only in a tea towel. It looked like a deer hoof, like some kind of taxidermy paper towel holder, but alas, it was dinner. Bits of dark red Iberian ham found their way into our pea-mixture meal two evenings ago. Aside from the fact that I am vegetarian, that hoof has been sitting out on the counter unrefrigerated for who knows how long. Apparently it is a pig leg, with meat akin to bacon in appearance.

Yum.

I have been informed by the foodie in my life that this is normal and it is not supposed to be refrigerated. I don't care. It is uncouth to keep such a thing in a house, especially with so many screaming young children.

Yesterday was better in general, we hopped on the bus after school and took it to the area surrounding the local university, to a neighborhood called Algorta. It was refreshing, there were people and bars and tortillas and a supermarket.
This is a Spanish tortilla, called either that or an omelette, though in America it would be called quiche.
It consists of mostly potatoes, egg, and cheese with a very light crust. Unappetizing at first, it is served cold and by the slice, with a piece of bread. But it is delicious and addictive.

Contains all of the Spanish food groups: fat, starch, carbohydrates...

We stocked up on snacks so we could survive the 10 hour starvation period between American lunch at noon and Spanish dinner at 10pm. Namely the Spanish version of Nutella, cookies, fruit, and whiskey.

School is still awesome. I start my postcard lesson tomorrow with the 9th and 10th grades, whom I haven't met yet. We're going to be talking about culture in terms of how the students relate to it. Since there is a big political divide between the Basque and Spanish culture, I want to see where the students stand on a personal level. They're going to design postcards that reflect the way they see the culture they identify with, or how they want others to see it. Then we're shipping the postcards to Trenton Central High School in New Jersey, where I did my junior practicum. The students at Trenton are also making postcards and will be sending us a box.

Pauline and I have been experimenting for my first project with the 8th grade...we want to try paper making, which is arduous in general. But we've concocted a sort of paper pulp from old newspapers, paper mache glue, and some kind of powdered paper we found in the back of the closet. We're winging it. But I'm so excited.

Adios,

Kelsey

It's Monday

When's the last time I posted, Friday? This is a long one. A lot as happened, and I have nothing better to do right now.
Last you heard, I was staying up all night hanging out at the hostel. Well Friday during the day, or maybe Saturday, Dana and I wandered aimlessly into the town of Atxuri, which we found by following la Ria de Bilbao. Friday was akin to Black Friday in the US, because it was the day after Three Kings Day. The streets were packed with bargain hunters....and the ETA. What is the ETA, you ask? I shall tell you.
ETA stands for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna, which translates to mean Basque Homeland and Freedom. According to Wikipedia they are an armed nationalist and separatist organization, labelled as terrorists by Spain, France, the US, and the EU a few years back for doing things like setting off car bombs and murdering police officers. NBD, am I right? Anyway, they want to declare independence from Spain, though the Basque Country is already pretty autonomous. These flags are everywhere:

 And a crowd similar to this one was marching around Casco Viejo.

Guess where they ended up after the protest? Atxuri. This lovely, riverside neighborhood is an ETA hotbed and Dana and I, tourists that we are, were getting some looks. They looked harmless enough, standard 20 and 30 something Europeans with dreadlocks and babies, eating bocadillos....we still booked it back to Casco Viejo though.
The weather has looked like this everyday, it's not just Atxuri:

 Note the graffiti, which means something along the lines of amnesty for the prisoners:

We happened to witness a protest the other day. The ETA had gathered and was making an organized plea to the government for the return of Basque prisoners. They wanted all incarcerated ETA members to be returned to prisons in the Basque region.
Saturday was our last day in Casco Viejo in Bilbao, we spent it at the Museo de Bellas Artes. They had an amazing retrospective of Antonio López, who is a hyper-realistic drawer, painter, and sculptor but with a slight Surrealist twist. Something's always a bit off...and he's extremely talented, I mean the exhibit was just amazing.
Saturday night we went out to a punk show at a bar called Azkena in Bilbao Centro. I had found these bands online, and realized they were playing nearby....the B.C. Bombs (Basque Country Bombs) and Segismundo Tóxicomano. As intimidating as the crowd seemed from the outside, it was your standard punk show. The Basque punks are super supportive, they knew all of the words and the show was surprisingly well organized, though still ran a good hour late. The bands played for an hour and an hour and a half. The B.C. Bombs are the best, I bought a t-shirt.

Since then we have moved to Getxo (pronounced Ge-CHo) a sleepy suburb about a half hour Metro trip north of Bilbao. It's a beach town during the summer, but now it's similar to suburban New Jersey. After causing a spectacle on the Metro with our luggage, (Some girl took a picture of us - look for us on Twitter! #stupidAmericans, I bet.) Maria met us at the train station, with her 28 year old daughter, also Maria. Maria (Mom) also has two boys, 11 and 8, and a girl, 6.
You can imagine our surprise, after a stressful four days, of finding out we are living with 5-7 people (include the younger Maria's boyfriend, and housekeeper-type) rather than in a quiet apartment as we had anticipated. It's still a bit stressful, our room is clearly the two boys' room, who have been moved elsewhere in the house to accommodate. We can't communicate well and can't tell if they want us around or not - every time we venture downstairs they just ask if we want something, and we say not really, I explain in broken Spanish we want to get to know them, and they stare at us blankly. We're hopefully discussing the situation with the director of ASOB tomorrow.
Otherwise, the family who drives us to school is absolutely wonderful, the girls speak beautiful English and think my Spanish is both hilarious and humiliating. The school...is indescribably awesome. I love it. All of this stress has been worth it to be at this amazing school. The building is old, and simple, with covered outdoor hallways, and a small courtyard and two playgrounds. The teachers are all incredibly friendly, ones I hadn't met kept stopping me asking, "Are you one of the new student teachers from New Jersey? Who are you working with? Wonderful! Stop by my classroom, my name is ___, I'm right over there!" Teachers go by their first names and wear jeans, it's the best. The students are normal, except much more talkative and animated than Americans. The students are 95% Spanish or Basque, 5% International. They talk nonstop, rapid Spanish and sing along to their iPods and are climbing out of their seats like first graders. But they can speak very good English to their teacher, Pauline, my co-op and to me. Pauline and I are on the same page, her lessons are really cool, and I'm starting my postcard lesson on Thursday. I love it, I can't wait for tomorrow. Pictures of the school will come soon.
Naptime.
Adios,
Kelsey

Toca el hombre pequeno, y...

Art After Dark was so bizarre and awesome. The entire atrium of the museum was filled, every hipster in Bilbao was there. There were bars and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart played there. I've never heard them before, I really don't like them too much...they try to hard to sound like they're from the 80's, I think.

  

The after party for Art After Dark was a bust, it was at a nightclub called Fever, which turned out to be a 40 minute walk away. The metro stopped running at 2am, and we didn't have a map, so we stayed at the hostel. But the hostel is always a good time at night, we drank with Ashwani and Edarto, the man who works the overnight shift. Edarto is the coolest, he doesn't really speak English so the conversation is usually half Spanglish, half mime. We played a bilingual version of Kings, and changed a lot of the rules because we didn't know how to explain them...after 10, everything was the person to your right or left drinks.
Here is us teaching Edarto how to Soldier Boy:

 Edarto Soldier-Boying:

 Ashu rocking out

 Some weird drinking rule that happened

 Dana and Edarto dancing

 Another weird drinking rule

 Edarto!!

We didn't go to bed until 6am, again.

In other news,

We´re having fun tonight. Today we took our second trip to the Guggenheim and tonight we go once more for Art After Dark, which is apparantly a party in the atrium of the Museo. Your ticket to Art After Dark gets you into a discotheque called Fever for a free afterparty, and here´s the kicker: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are playing at 1:30am. Those of you that follow me on Facebook will know I happen to have flown to Bilbao from Madrid on the same flight as them, and one of these said band members are suspected of stealing my airplane pillow. You know, those neck shaped pillows. I forgot and left mine on the plane, and a band member was sitting close behind me, and when we went to get our luggage, he had the pillow wrapped around his carry on. Most shady. This may be the best night and confrontation of my life.
Here's the Guggenheim!! The architecture is amazing, apparently Frank Gehry designed the building so the only straight surfaces were the floor. Outside there are a few pieces from Jeff Koons, Louise Bourgeois, Yves Klein, etc. and inside there's a huge Richard Serra and Constantin Brancusi exhibit. They also have a really great collection of abstract paintings.

I can sing better than Nicole Kidman.

Hostelling has been a blessing in disguise. I think Dana and I would be bored to death if we had began our journey in Getxo as we were supposed to. The past two nights we may not have done much, but we have had a lot of fun. Our first night here we made friends with three Chileans. We had already gone out for pintxos and drinks with our Russian friend from the hostel, and come back. They were up watching football and we began drinking more, when we all finally headed out to what must have been the only two open bars in Bilbao. Everything closes around 10:30, have I mentioned that? But we wandered a good half hour away and found some bars that played Spanish and American music, where the boys attempted to teach us how to dance. We wandered the empty streets, yelling and talking, and didn´t get in until 6am. They left the following morning, which was a shame, they were so much fun. They´re traveling to about nine more cities over the next two months.
EDIT! Found a charger:

Cerveza y pintxos en el Casco Viejo

The only people out past 1am in Bilbao Centro

Last night was more relaxed...first we went to a parade for Three Kings Day, which is bigger than Christmas around here. The streets were packed with families and children and the parade consisted of people in costumes of the Three Kings, pelting the crowd with candies that said "Bilbao." We got churros and hot chocolate, then wandered and got drinks at a few bars.

We ended up back at the hostel around 11pm again, where two Americans and an Indian were sitting with Edarto, the Vasco (Basque) man who works the overnight shift at the hostel. We all ended up talking until 3am, about our different languages, cultures, mostly about India since none of us had been there. Ashwani is from Jaipur, and is going to university near the Guggenheim, but living in the hostel until he can find something more permanent. He´s cool, he gave me a henna tattoo with a LePen that has mostly washed off by now but I took a picture. He also wrote out all of our names in Hindi so we could see the script....it´s interesting that the Hindi names are much more beautiful than the translated English words, the script was really meant for the Hindi language. We watched Baliwood and listened to a strange assortment of the Corrs cover of "Everybody Hurts," Pussycat Dolls, Anti Sociales (mi favorito), Nicole Kidman and Robbie Williams, etc. It was a sort of stream of consciousness YouTube session, as most are.

Today Dana and I are running to Radio America to look for a new adapter...our $30 ones from the states don´t work on our laptops, which is why I still haven´t uploaded pictures. Apparantly we can get ones for 1 Euro here that work.
Time to go somewhere, it´s almost noon here.
Adios,
Kelsey