Petra's Birthday

On the Sunday of the long weekend, some of the international students I know from spanish class got together the celebrate Petra's birthday. Petra is a girl from the Czech Republic who is in my spanish class. In the afternoon (keep in mind that in Spain afternoon is considered 12 to 8-9pm, so I'm referring to 5:30pm), Petra and I did a bit of exploring in Casco Viejo and climbed the giant staircase to Parque Etxebarria. It was a big climb since Etxebarria overlooks the entire city. But, it was a beautiful place to be at dusk! The views were remarkable and there were all sorts of dogs and people walking around.  Also, I discovered a second random outdoor elevator! For 40 centimos (0,40 €) you can ride the elevator to get up to the park, or go down to the city. I'm still amazed by these random outdoor elevators. Although, the guy that sits in the elevator to collect money the tariff looked like the most miserable man I'd ever seen.  I suppose riding up and down a random elevator all day just to take change from people could suck all will to live from a person. Needless to say, he didn't share my enthusiasm about the existence of the elevator.  

Afterwards, we went back down the stairs to Casco Viejo for dinner. We didn't go until 8:30 as this was the earliest time we could sit down for dinner. There are a few strange things about restaurants here. The first, is that they don't open until 8 or 9 for supper and never serve dinner before 8:30 at the earliest. The second is that they will not allow you to sit at a table unless you are there for dinner. If you are only interested in drinks and pintxos, you stand even if there are open tables that no one is interested in sitting at for dinner. I don't get it. You have to go to cafe or bar to sit down for drinks with your friends. Anyway, we went to a cute restaurant bar called Xukela in Casco Viejo. It was small with a nice atmosphere, good food and delicious wine. We had people from all over the place, and 5 blond girls at a table which drew all sorts of comments. It seemed that we had gathered all the blondes in Spain at one table. From my class there was Petra, Berines from Austria, and Marek from Poland. Also, Ida from Finland, Eliska from the Czech Republic, Lorenzo from Italy, Melody from France, and Mateusz from Polland from the higher level spanish class. Eveline, Petra's roommate from Holland also came for dinner. We went through quite a bit of wine and had a great night.

Hasta la proximá vez,

Kathlene