First Impressions of Bilbao

This morning we woke up around 7am in Toledo and after breakfast, we took the coach bus back to Madrid, and were dropped of at the public bus station. We took the ALSA bus, a Spanish version of the Greyhound, to Bilbao, which is about a 4 1/2 hour bus ride. As we started to approach Bilbao, I started to internally freak out because what did I see looking out my window? SNOW. Uhg and I thought that I had left all the snow behind in Minnesota. But immediately after we crossed the Bilbao city limits, all the snow suddenly disappeared and I was happy and relieved to see green grass and even some palm trees.

My host mother Jone, or Juana in Spanish, is very kind and my roommate Summer and I decided that she looks super fun and laid back...and I'm guessing purely on initial judgment, that she was quite the party girl back in her day. Anyway..she introduced herself and immediately established that she doesn't speak any English at all...this will be interesting. We drove back to her apartment, which is a sort of suburb of Bilbao, and I love it..it's super cozy and clean here, and each of our rooms are more modern and sort of Scandinavian in design and decoration. She made us pasta and fed us ice cream cake and peaches for dessert, and I have a feeling that I will return to the States about 500lbs heavier with all this food! After settling in, Jone showed us how to get to the metro from her House, and we were able to walk down to the sea! Yep, I live about a mile and a half from the Bay of Biscay..

Tomorrow we're meeting up with the rest of the girls in the city center for a little tour and shopping. It will be interesting because I've never taken the metro before and Summer barely speaks Spanish..an adventure for sure!

written by

Laura Hanson on January 10, 2010 from Bilbao, Spain

from the travel blog: Un Semestre en España

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