On wednesday night I went with two girls from school; Eli from Rome, Italy and Maria Angeles from Alicante, Spain. We went to Casco Viejo for some shopping, drinks, and delicious pintxos! (See pictures in slideshow below). Casco Viejo is the old quarter of Bilbao and is gorgeous. The shopping is amazing! We discovered great shoes stores, a Mango outlet, the Vero Moda store, and my personal favorite - DESIGUAL! Desigual is from Barcelona, exclusive to Spain, and simply amazing! I fell in love as soon as I walked into their store. (Now, when I wear my Desigual, my friends joke that I am no longer Canadian, but am Spanish). Their website is: www.desigual.com. After some shopping, we went to a little pub and had some beer and pintxos. Pintxos are the Basque version of tapas and are always delicious! They are usually made with bread, cheese, egg, ham/shrimp/crab, and all sorts of deliciousness. In the pub, we met a young man from New York who was just about to start 'El Camino de Santiago' (St. James Way) which is a 900 km walk from Santiago to France. It was nice to meet an english speaker!
The next night, the three of us went out for dinner with two professors from the UPV, Roberto and Martin, and Maria Angeles' professor from Alicante, Andrés. It was an amazing experience to go out for a real Spanish dinner! The restaurants don't open until 9pm since supper is typically a later ordeal. (Everything here is later. The work day starts later, coffee is at 11:30am, lunch is at 1:30pm and is always a three course meal, dinner is around 9pm, you don't go to clubs until after midnight and they stay open until 4am or later). We all met at about 8:45pm in Plaza Zabalburu (just down the hill from my place) and went for beer and wine in Indautxu (a very nice part of Bilbao that I believe is part of 'La noche de Bilbao') where the entire street was packed with people drinking - everyone from young twenty-somethings to business men and women of all ages were outside the bars filling the street. After we were done our drinks we went for a very nice dinner on the same street. We drank white wine that's traditional of the Basque region, and all enjoyed a large fish caught fresh that day from the sea. Before they prepare the fish, they bring the giant fish out to show you, and if you approve they cook it while you enjoy a large selection of appetizers. We went through five appetizers; a smaller version of calamari (chipirones), giant shrimp (lagostinas), mussels, large white mushrooms (setas), and a ham/cheese/mushroom/egg mixture with bread. It was all very very delicious! They don't cook with many spices (just a bit of garlic, salt, or pepper) because the food is already so fresh and delicious. After the appetizers, the giant fish came out. They spilt it onto our invidiual plates along with some vegetables and potatoes, and put the remainder of the fish in the center of the table. Afterwards, we had coffee and tarta de queso (cheese cake). We didn't leave the restaurant until after 1am, and that is entirely typical. Of course, just because it was 1:30am on a Thursday didn't mean the night was over. The professor from Alicante, Andrés, convinced us three girls to go for drinks and dancing. (Side story: I had trouble pronouncing Andrés' name. Apparently english speakers don't pronounce it correctly, and he explained that in english it should be pronounced as 'undress'. Then, I couldn't pronounce his second first name correctly either and he explained that in english it translated to 'prostitute'. True story, it was the direct translation. So... for the remainder of the night he was referred to as 'undress protistute'. A name I will be sure never to forget). We drank Whiskey because apparently that's what Canadians do, and danced. By the time the group walked me home, it was 3:30am and I had to be on my way to school in five hours. Fitting into the Spanish life is only difficult when you start to miss sleeping. My entire first week here I only got 3-5 hours of sleep a night. With three course lunches and late nights I understand the need for siesta and extremely strong coffee.
Hasta la proximá vez,
Kathlene
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