"And I Would Build a House Around Her"

This morning was my choir disaster... and I also met some college students at the ISA office. I'm going to meet with their group to tour the Museo del Bellas Artes this Friday as well.

The Afternoon:

At 5 me and Iciar went to get the kiddos. Me and Jon left first to have some 1 on 1 time. He had one euro to his name so we decided to go to the store and get some juice and then go have a picnic on the way home in this little plaza he loves to take me. (I'll post a picture asap). He buys three apple juices for 98 centimos. We go eat... talk and make up a fantastic secret handshake (or 5).

As we are leaving we saw this lady playing the accordion. Yesterday when it was just me Leire and Jon I gave them each 20 centimos coins to give her because they thought she played so well. Then when they give it to her they were so sad by how little people were giving her that I gave them another euro to give to her. Seeing her today Jon immediately became very upset with himself and (sidenote: Jon is the most ANIMATED boy I've ever met. He should be an actor) saying he wouldnt have used that euro had he known etc... So after sitting and thinking awhile before walking past this lady... Jon screams (literally screams.. or maybe "shrieks" is a better word) that he has a great idea. He is going to offer her his remaining 2 apple juice boxes. So we walk up to her and before saying a word she recognizes us and calls Jon cariño. Jon apologizes for not having any money but asks if she would like his last 2 juice boxes instead. She seemed very grateful and he then proceeded to tell her how great she played and that he hoped to see her again tomorrow. Then as we were leaving he tells me if he were a rich man... he would build a house around her while she slept and fill it with beautiful furniture and new clothes. This kid is really great. 

Tonight everything was pretty normal. Except Leire has a fever and will be staying home tomorrow. 1 on 1 she is easy as pie and extremely sweet. It will be much easier if she stays home alone but we will see - I cant imagine will let that happen without a fight. 

I do not know HOW I got them to look at me while watching TV... especially while watching Shin Chan - their favorite show about a very poor mannered asian kid who really likes to flash people and do inappropriate things. 

Choir Practice...

Today's been a good day. Dropped the kiddos off at school. They were in very very bad moods but Iciar was with me so it was no big deal. Then worked out at the Met... came home - had the house to myself a bit.

And here begins the story of the choir.

As social of a person as I usually am, It's HARD to meet people here. My hours are completely opposite everyone elses and I can really only go out at night on the weekend. So that first week when I went to ISA- Genaveva - the woman who works there told me that every Tuesday and Thursday at the University a choir group meets. So I'm thinking high school choir where no talent is really required and the bad people blend in with the good ones etc... but no. Wrong wrong wrong. I show up and meet like 4 really sweet girls... then am sat smack dab in the front row center. Inaki - the choir director - then proceeds to have me sing in front of the entire choir to hear my voice and see if I'm a soprano or whatever else there is. Then asks if I can read sheet music which obviously with my luck I cannot. So he leaves me where I am and we begin to sing... very strange songs in English I've never heard of. Where I then realize this choir is incredible and everyone in it sounds like a professional. I'm sure I was bright red at this point after butchering a simple set of oh-oH-OH-oH-oh-oh-oh's.

If that wasnt TERRIBLE enough... the practice lasted the FULL 2 hours and then some. AND they got my name number and email for all the listserv stuff. AND gave me all the sheet music for all the songs they cover. I feel like a jerk enough already (given that I KNOW I will never go back...)

Bullet Points

In reality I'm writing this thing more or less for myself. I know the entries are long and all over the place... but I did not want to keep a blog and a journal.. so for that reason I am doing this and that way I can print it all out when I leave.  To any loyal friends or family members who are indeed interested in what I'm doing - I AM trying to keep this as interesting as possible haha. 

This Journal Entry is going to be all over the place so I'm just going to hit some bullet points...

1. The Beauty: Pretty much everything that has been built in the last 20 years - which is a LOT of the city... is VERY beautiful. The architecture here is just AMAZING. I can remember thinking while I was in Sevilla that everything in Europe is just so much more beautiful and detailed than everything in America. Well here that statement is exponentially more true. You notice everything from curved staircases and details in the facades of random buildings to colored windows. I dont think I realized just how beautiful and different Bilbao was until Rachel and her friends told me they had come just to study the architecture here. 

2. Las Tiendas de los Chinos: I bought a pack of batteries from a small chinese store for .75 euros and all 4 of them lasted in my camara MAYBE 5 minutes total... Once I buy some better batteries I will take some pictures of random things to put on here. 

3. Sea of Neutral Colors: Hmm.. what else do I notice here. NEUTRAL COLORS. If you are over 15 - you wear neutrals, neutrals, and more neutrals. White, Navy, Black, Brown, Tan, Gray, and MAYBE a Camo green every now and then. Everyone  here also dresses extremely well all the time. It was a lot like this in Sevilla but Sevilla also had more of a punk/grunge population than Bilbao. 

4. Inferiority Complex: I'm also pretty amazed and intimidated 1. by how BEAUTIFUL everyone here in Spain is and 2. by how YOUNG everyone looks. Nobody here looks their age. 

5. Calimocho: This is a very typical drink here in Bilbao. It's 1/3rd wine and 2/3rd coke. It is kind of like the Tinto de Verano that we would drink in Sevilla except Tinto de Verano is made with yellow fanta, orange fanta, or just soda. I tried Calimocho with Rachel and her friends and did not think I would like it but it is very good. 

6. Walking: I don't know how but the people here walk at least twice as fast as I do. I don't know if they are taking more steps or if they take larger steps or they just have longer legs than I do but they walk exponentially faster. This reminds me of when I was with Abbie in Sevilla and she was always telling me to slow down... She'd hate it. 

7. Temperament: The people in Spain in general - not just Bilbao -either  have a New York state of mind, or they just seem to dawdle. Most of the time they either seem to be very late for something, or they seem to have no place to go. Either way - the people always seem very business like. I learned last time I was in Spain that although it is normal to smile at people when you make eye contact with them in America - it is not normal to do that here. That's something I am constantly reminding myself here. But I also have to note that the people here are very very kind. This time - as opposed to when I was in Sevilla - because I'm living with this amazing family - I kind of feel more like I belong. Although I had many more friends in Sevilla - here I feel more like a local. 

8. Conversions: I MUST MUST MUST get used to using the Celsius scale, the metric conversion system, and military time. Those are the hardest things for me to get used to. I'm constantly hurrying home because I think I am late for something only to find I am an hour early. 

9. My Spanish: Because with the kids I am constantly speaking in English - and with Joseba I'm pretty much always talking either in English or in Spanish - Yo tengo que intentar mas para aprender Espanol. Because this family's English is very good and I can get by on minimal - and I mean MINIMAL- Spanish - I really need to start trying harder to learn more. I need to get a notebook and start writing stuff down. 

10. Time: It seems like I have a lot of free time. 9 to 5. That's 8 hours. But that FLIES by. In reality it's 9:30 to 4:30. So that's 7 hours. Then if I go to the gym in the morning... that lasts until at least 12 with showering and getting there and what not. Then I have 4 and a half hours left. With going to and from the house for lunch... that's about 3. I want to be reading a lot. I want to be writing a lot. I want to learn and study more Spanish. I really just need to get into a better routine. 

11. Lessons: I need more lessons or learning games for the kiddos. If anyone does by chance read this thing - and you know of anything - let me know. 

12. Tortilla: In Sevilla we had Tortilla Espanola. Here... we also have that but it's just called Tortilla or Tortilla de ... Whatever. I don't know if it was just that my old host mom - who I'm being generous when I say was somewhat sub-par - was not a very good cook or if the Tortilla in Basque country is just THAT much better. Who knows. It's made of eggs and potatoes mainly. Then you can put cheese, mushrooms, ham, peppers...or really just WHATEVER you want in it and it is GREAT. The key is cooking it so it's goopy (for lack of a better word) and not dry. 

13. Vasco/Euskera: One thing I am AMAZED by is that everyone here speaks both Castellano and Vasco. Castellano is the Spanish we learn in the United States and what most people think of when they think "Spanish". Vasco is a special dialect they speak here in Basque country. I THOUGHT that I would be able to understand some of it... but I understand NOTHING. It is a COMPLETELY different language. I could understand more French or Italian or Portuguese than Basque. For example here are some of the words I have learned.. and I am not even sure the spelling is correct:

Mom: Ama (Vasco); Madre (Spanish)

Dad: Aita (Vasco); Padre (Spanish)

Congratulations: Zorionak (Vasco); Felicidades (Spanish)

Grandma: Amuma/Amama (Vasco); Abuela (Spanish).

Street: Kalea (Vasco); Calle (Spanish) 

The first two days here... I thought about a million of the streets ended in Kalea. Because on the map.. it says for example: Calle Fontecha y Salazar Kalea. So I was going to ask Iciar where something was and I was going to say... I am not sure where it was but I know it is one of the ones that ends in Kalea. Then after exploring that day I realized that every single street sign had Calle at the top and Kalea at the bottom. Aka Kalea is street in Vasco. Just barely escaped that embarrassing moment. Most of the signs here have things written in Castellano and in Vasco. 

Also apparently everyone on the street speaks Castellano but that many people grew up speaking only in Vasco and many of the schools (including my kiddos' school) teach only in Vasco. It amazes me that kids that young (beginning at age 3) can differentiate between the two languages. It is very very impressive. 

El Virus de Bilbao.

So It's Monday and a LOT LOT LOT has happened. I'll give the short versions... mainly because I can't remember everything... and I'm in a cafe and really have to go to the bathroom and don't want to pick up all my stuff and then set it all out again...

So I joined Joseba's gym and I like it a lot. It is incredibly nice and not very crowded... It's also smack dab in the middle of everything I do so I can't make excuses. 

What else... last week was a really freaking stressful. I'm extremely grateful that I have had a lot of experiences away from home otherwise I would be a mess. First off, starting Wednesday - I had absolutely zero time to myself.

Wednesday I had to bring the girls home from lunch... so I dropped them off in the morning, went to the gym with Joseba, went straight to pick the girls up for lunch and then took them back at 3… so I had until 4:30 to myself.

 Then Thursday... Leire apparently got the "virus de Bilbao" which pretty much meant she woke up in the middle of the night to throw up for like 3 hours straight. So of course of course of course I knew I would get it. The kids are pretty obsessed with my water bottle and even though I tell them not to - they often use it. So the girls stayed home. I got to go to the gym, but then had to come straight home to help with them. Then Jon came home at 5 and Iciar went back to work. So from 12:30 until about 9:30... I was alone with the kids. In the house. and we couldn't go outside. or watch TV. My goodness. I wanted to put benadryl in their drinks ahah They were SO HYPER... bathing them was tought. So when Iciar and Joseba got home they told me to go do whatever I wanted and they would give them dinner and put them to bed. That was nice. Then when I came to eat dinner with them they kept saying... Tu tienes la cabeza ASIIIIIII (making a huge circle with their hands... pretty much saying my head must be the size of this room because they drove me crazy today). I have much more respect for mothers now. 

Here are some pictures of the girls the day they stayed home.

I wondered where she wandered off to. Without saying a word she decided to stop playing and go do her homework. 

Happy little thang

Pans for Toys

I've also realized there is a HUGE difference between watching one child (easy). watching two children (still easy). and watching three children (a whole new ballgame). They're catalysts for each other... it's crazy. 

So Thursday was a bit crazy. But then they told me that since I have friends coming in town this weekend (Rachel Westmoreland - correction:friend haha) that I can do whatever I want tomorrow. So I told them I'd still help in the morning but that after that I was going to go meet up with Rachel and her friends from her Architecture program. They all go to A&M and are doing a study abroad program in Barcelona. We walked all over Bilbao. We went to the Casco Viejo to a bar called Guri Take which was great (This is the bar that Genaveva (ISA) told me belonged to her family). Then we went shopping and sight seeing. We went to the Guggenheim but I only went into 2 galleries then went to look for a hair wand because I bought a year long pass to the Guggenheim and wanted to go back another day when I was alone and had nothing to do. That night we went and had Chinese food (real authentic I know) and then we were all so exhausted and I started to feel a bit sick... 

We get back to their hostel and I realize I am going to be VERY sick. I hail a taxi as quickly as possible. My taxi driver (Emilio) was very nice... He walked the thin line between friendly and creepy and I really don't know which he is. He gave me his phone number and said we could be friends and he would show me Bilbao. He seemed very earnest but I really have no idea... He said to call him on Wednesday. I'll admit I am hurting for friends a little bit... but I don't think I'll be indulging that friendship... 

So I get home... and I wont go into graphic detail - but I spent the majority of my night on the bathroom floor. Saturday I had plans to go with Rachel and the other Aggies to San Sebastian - a very beautiful beach town but instead I spent the ENTIRE day in bed. I literally was vertical for maybe one hour of the entire day. I must have slept 20 of those 24 hours. I was very dehydrated and my whole body hurt. then of COURSE Sunday I woke up feeling spectacular. It was a real shame and horrible horrible timing. 

Joseba and I have gone for walks the past 2 days to practice his English. We walk the length of the river until the sidewalk stops and then turn around, cross a bridge and go back to the house on a different route. I can already tell his English is going to improve tenfold by doing this. He is really hell-bent on learning English. Today he admitted he is a bit obsessed with it. But good for him... He wants to be able to teach in English. He said this time last year he knew almost nothing. 

ISA and First Solo Exploration

Tuesday January 21, 2013

Yesterday was a good day. I already feel like I have been here much longer than I have. I woke up and walked the girls to school with Iciar. Then I had saved pictures of maps on my iPad and started exploring. It was pretty difficult. I'm starting to realize how I am ENTIRELY too dependent on Google Maps... 

I started the day by walking to find the ISA Bilbao office. ISA (International Studies Abroad) is the company who I went abroad with in Sevilla. The office was in an office building near the University of Deusto. The woman there - Geneveva - was extremely nice and very very very welcoming. She gave me a map and spent probably 40 minutes going over it with me, telling me where the best gyms are and some bar/cafe and restaurants to go to.

Straight from her office I went to find one of the gyms that was near there to check it out but never ended up finding it. Instead I just explored a random neighborhood, which I liked a lot. There were lots and lots of retail stores and bookstores and randomly a playground dropped in the middle of the block. 

From there I crossed the bridge and walked by the Guggenheim and through the Zubiarte mall to look for a hair wand but they didnt have any. I did talk to some cell phone companies to start getting that ball rolling. 

Then I went to El Alhondiga. Genaveva told me that I can take my passport there and get a "carnet" made to use at all of the libraries in Bilbao. That will be good because buying books is expensive and I wont want to bring them home anyway. El Alhondiga was very very cool. I don't really know how to describe it. It has almost everything you could want. A gym, a movie theatre, a place for art exhibits, a pool - and that is just all that I know of... There is probably much more. 

After El ALhondiga I probably walked a mile to find another gym to check out. I hadn't been there 5 minutes before she told me that I can ONLY join if I have a Credit Card... which I don't. And it has to be European... which it wouldnt be even if I did... haha I wish that had been on the website. 

After that I went home to make the merienda with Iciar and we went to the school. At some point in this day I had a really good lunch Joseba made.... but I've done so much its really all a blur right now. 

Picking the kids up from school was pretty darn stressful. They are really tired come 5 o'clock but can easily be excited... so pretty much their emotions range the whole span and can change in an instant. They often go from whining to screaming to laughing to crying to refusing to move to jumping all over you. To get the girls in a better mood last night I made my way into their circle of girlfriends and said I had a game. Then had all these 5 year olds put their feet in a circle and for literally 20 minutes over and over and over I did Down by the Banks ... one by one eliminating someone's foot. My parents told me on Skype they'd been laughing while thinking of everything I was going to experience and I think I'm starting to understand. The things you will do to try and distract a kid from being in a bad mood... 

Iciar and Joseba also never really told me what their rules are... So when they are doing stuff that I imagine... would not fly in my household I kind of try to stop them but then this family is SUPER relaxed so I don't want them to look over at me telling them not to do something like... jump on the couch and be like no no that's cool or something like that. For instance Jon and Leire grabbed a toy out of another mom's diaper bag and were playing with it and I kept telling them it wasn't theirs blah blah but wasn't all that forceful cause Iciar and this woman are super close... Then they started trying to feed this baby stuff... haha So then I think... well - these women aren't watching so if I pretend to preoccupy myself with one of the other kids... It can't really be my fault if the women look at whats happening and don't like it cause I also dont want them to look over and have me be trying to stop them from doing something random that they always do... Besides being unsure of how to discipline/act when they do stuff like that everything is really really good. 

Besides a very bad little tiff between Jon and Maia over something they were making for Iciar, last night was pretty good. I had to give them baths and everything all by myself which went pretty smoothly until Maia used almost half a bottle of soap when I stuck my head out of the door to see what the other two were doing. Maia and Leire both wanted to stay in there longer than normal and play "spa" just relaxing and pretending to be pampered... so I figure these first few weeks I'm going to try to be the cool/fun person and let them do whatever they want within reason... I talked to the parents about this also and they agreed. We're trying to make it so I am the fun cool friend that they WANT to be with. They pretty much said they will be my scapegoat for anything negative until the kids know me better and like me more. 

For Story Time - I was going to tell Hansel and Gretel... but they already knew it. Then I was going to tell Goldilocks but they already knew it. then I was going to tell Sleeping Beauty... but they called me trying to change it haha So I had to make up a story.. which weirdly stressed me out way too much haha. So I just started talking. I told them a story about two friends who went into the forest and were playing and touched this tree trunk with their entire palm and when they did that - the tree opened and it was the entrance into this magical world. and In that world everyone has super powers. So I was telling them random Harry Potter and X-men crap I had seen. So once you know about this world... as long as you are good - you can leave and go as you please just by knowing where the tree is. So in the world there was this bad guy who was trying to freeze the whole world... which was his power... and he had not been leaving the world lately... because he knew if he left he couldn't find it again cause he had gone bad so he was trying to conquer it. So everyone tricked him and used his ice to make him slip and they pushed him out of the tree. And then he could never enter again. I'm not saying that would make a great children's movie or anything... but yeah. Jon told Iciar and Joseba that I told them a SUPEEEEER bonita story. As I walked to my room - I was kicking myself for setting the bar high. I pretty much saved nothing for... ever again. haha Super powers and witches and wizards and everything... all done. 

Today has been a good and again VERY busy day. I walked the kids to school then came home for a 20 minute nap. Then Joseba took me to his gym - El Metropolitan. It's on the river and is in between the school and the house... so its location will never be my scapegoat... haha. 

He is a PE/Health teacher like I said for high school students so he came with me and showed me everything then made a workout regime for us. He says he is going to train me and I can teach him English in return. I liked the gym a lot so I joined it... It's pretty darn expensive because it's the nicest in Bilbao... but I literally couldn't find the other gyms that were somewhat near me or some technicality kept me from joining .. I never actually went to El Alhondiga's gym but I'd rather go to Joseba's due to the location and so I have someone to work out with and the prices were very similar. 

After the gym I went directly to take the twins home for lunch which is a HUGE HUGE treat because it rarely happens. I'm glad I did it cause they really liked it... Iciar had promised them they could come home on their birthday but she was showing me Bilbao that day so we didn't have a chance. We ate and played Down by the Banks and then snapchatted everyone I know and took some videos of us singing You Are My Sunshine... They're so stinking cute. 

We had to get the girls back by 3 and since we forgot umbrellas and had to go back and get them I was literally PULLING the girls. I am surprised they didn't get tired... they only whined a few times and I was POWER walking and they were like jogging haha. At one point I was power walking with umbrellas and as everyone knows all serious power walkers swing their elbows a lot... and I literally hit Leire in the chest with the blunt end of her umbrella.... poor thing. She was a good sport. plus there literally wasn't even time for whining haha. Apparently to them - getting to school on time is of the utmost importance. 

So now I'm just hanging out near the school at a pretty cool cafe... I'd probably come here a lot but there isn't WiFi so I will have to find a new place. I want to make sure I don't get too comfortable and start going to all the same places because I dont want to stop exploring Bilbao. It's not very big anyway so I want to try to get to know a lot of it. I think the time is REALLY going to fly by. Pretty much everyday one of the museums is free... and I want to work out almost everyday and read a lot. I also want to meet some people and possibly start tutoring people for extra money... I feel like I have to hurry and do all these things and I keep having to remind myself that it's only my third day here. 

The next real step is getting a cell phone and getting into a routine of going to the Met right after dropping the girls off. That way I could be done everyday... by like 11:30 and have 5 hours to explore and do other things before getting the kiddos again. 

This morning I was very tired!