The perfect day

Yesterday (and part of today) was a perfect day! By day, I literally mean 24 hours, where 22 of those hours elapsed from the time I left the flat shortly after 8am Saturday morning until I returned to the flat shortly after 6am Sunday morning. It was a day that was packed full of adventures and fun! After I left the flat on Saturday morning, I headed to the metro for the commute to Plentzia to meet up with 11 other people from the lab. Once we were all together, we rented some kayaks for the morning. The adventure company provided us with everything we needed and made us look very professional, then, drove us close to Butron Castle in what we thought were Jurassic Park vehicles. I only got a glimpse of Butron Castle but what I did see was breath taking and I will go back there just to see the castle in the near future.

After a quick lesson, our guide got us all in the water and we headed down the river back to the sea by Plentzia's beach where we started. Eva and I shared a boat, which was a bit of a gong show. Eva sat in the front and was terrible at looking out for rocks and sand bars, so we hit a few things and got stuck on two sandbars. I sat in the back and wasn't very good at maneuvering us through the harbour of boats that we had to go through. But we laughed the whole time and had a lot of fun, nonetheless.

When we had de-saltified after the kayaking, we made our way to Eva's to have a BBQ in her backyard. Koke and Rober BBQed all sorts of meats, sausages, and vegetables and it was all delicious! Then, Eva and I surprised Carolina with cake for her birthday and she got serenaded in three languages - Basque, Spanish, and English. After digesting the huge meal, some of us enjoyed the sun and the pool while others enjoyed a siesta on the lawn.

Eventually, Leire, Naiara, Jon, Ivan, and other friends started to show up, and some of the people from the lab went home. Eva, Sandra, and I ventured to make a large batch of Sangria despite that none of us knew how to, but it turned out to be delicious!! With plenty of beer and Sangria to enjoy, the pool party continued well into the night. Eva's backyard is on top of a hill over Sopelana in Urduliz, so we could hear the concerts from the Sopelana festival and at midnight we had an excellent view of the fireworks from the pool.

Around 2am we decided to pack up our large group of people and head to the festival down in Sopelana. Here the streets were packed with people, crazy-loud music, and SO many bars - outdoor bars, indoor bars, and a variety of bars that were both indoor and outdoor. It was the first official festival of the summer; San Juan starts it all, and then they continue in different places around the metropolitan all summer long! I love living in a place where there are fireworks at least 3 nights of the week, everyweek, all summer long!!

We finally decided to call it a night around 5am and managed to get back to Miribilla around 6am. Wow, was I TIRED!! What a day! We couldn't have asked for better weather and everything from kayaking to fireworks to great people really made the day absolutely perfect!

Hasta la proximá vez,

Kathlene