WARNING: THIS POST IS GOING TO BE SUPER LONG! Today was a day filled with so many new experiences! A lot of laughter, some pain, frustration and success. I woke up at 6 am to catch my 7:30 am bus and when I stepped out the door...SUPRISE it was pitch black. Side note: for a second I was locked into my apartment because I couldn't figure out how to open the door! Getting to the bus station was pretty easy. If you take the metro to the San Mames stop and walk for a minute you are there! Joe was cutting it really close by having an extra bowl of cereal and made us wait until 7:26 am. The anxiety was high. But he made it! The bus ride was quite nice the chairs were comfy, we saw some amazing views and there weren't that many people so we all got to sit by each other! Once you figured out where the bus terminal was in relation to our place to stay, we enjoyed looking around at all the natural beauty. It involved A LOT of walking. I even set a new record at 21,740 steps! On the way to our villa we stopped at a bakery cafe for a snack and to burn some time up before we could check in. I wasn't planning on getting anything but Joe convinced me otherwise and I'm glad he did! The sweets were amazing. One resembled a cinnamon roll and the other was similar to the apple dessert I got at the half price Tuesday's bakery. Once we got to our villa it looked just like it did in the picture (except without the edgy Instagram filters), it was absolutely gorgeous! We were welcomed in, given a tour and the keys, and settled in. It's actually more of a bed and breakfast because it had multiple rooms and bathrooms. We figured out what we wanted to do for the day and set off to enjoy ourselves. In the last picture you see a bunk bed. This is actually a collapsable bunk bed. You just lift up the top bunk and lock the legs and ladder in place. THE CRAZIEST YET MOST INGENIOUS INVENTION EVER. It was super sketchy though and we didn't trust it; so Joe pulled out his bottom bunk and slept on the floor. We grabbed lunch at a restaurant which was pretty pricey (at 20 euros) but definitely worth it! Since lunch is the most important meal of the day, it's the biggest and most extravagant. Almost every single restaurant has something called menu del día, which is basically a 3 or 4 course lunch where you pick dishes from a set menu for a set price. Usually, the menus range from 7 euro - 30 euro (depending on how fancy you get). Our lunch was more expensive because we were in a highly tourist area. I had unlimited fresh bread and drinks, a GIANT plate of spaghetti bolognese for my first course, grilled steak with red peppers and potatoes for my second course, and flan for dessert! The flan definitely wasn't as good as my moms but pretty close! Everything was spectacular! After lunch we went walked around and walked toward the beach. AMAZING. Just look at this view! Joe and I were pretty excited to try surfing and found a place on the beach to take a class. BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE. The whole group ended up taking the lesson, which came out cheaper for us and it was so much fun! I swallowed so much sea water and got hit so many times but it was definitely worth it! At the last minute of our lesson I got bombarded with a giant wave, couldn't get on my board in time and the board ended up smacking me on the head really hard. It was the most intense pain in ever felt in my head and I got a slight concussion. Luckily though, Joe and Matt are both life guards and checked to make sure I was okay. Instead of hiking up the mountain, I took a cab home and ended up stopping at a bakery to buy a cake for Joe since his birthday was on Saturday. The funniest part is, we were planning on surprising him at midnight with the cake and were trying to figure out how one of us could get away without him noticing or suspecting anything. My slight concussion did just the trick. After I got to our place, I showered and felt much better! I met up with my friends and we went out for pintxos and gelato. We got back to our place at 11:30pm and stalled until midnight to make sure Joe was up. At about 11:50pm I went to go change into my pj's and grab the cake. At exactly 12:00am I opened the door to our room singing happy birthday and everyone joined in. Joe was so surprised. Best face ever, he turned into a tomato! Unfortunately, we didn't have any utensils or plates to cut and eat the cake and we ended up using dental floss in substitute for a knife. This is how memories are made. It was absolutely spectacular. By the end of the night I was definitely beat and could not wait to get some well deserved rest. Too bad the mattress was worse than sleeping on the floor. It was terrible. I did not sleep at all! In total I had about 3 hours of sleep. While everyone was peacefully sleeping I was too uncomfortable to fall asleep. At 5 am I gave up and just sat in my bed until 8:30am when everyone else woke up. What did I do you ask? Well, mostly I was wishing I was home. I miss my family, I miss my bed, I miss Cilantro, I miss Julian. It sucks to be completely alone. Sure I have my friends here but in reality I've only known them for 2 weeks and that definitely doesn't substitute for my family or friends back home. But that's studying abroad for you. You put yourself in a completely different environment out of reach of anything familiar. And yes you have fun and make lifelong memories but times like this no one talks about because they absolutely suck. I realized we had only been here for 2 weeks and I'm going to be here for 4 months! It's such a longggggggg time away from home but at the same time it's very short. The message here is simple: for anyone interested in studying abroad, please do it. It will change your life. But know that it's okay to be scared, it's okay to be uncomfortable, and it's definitely okay to miss home. Everyone here does. But don't use that as an opportunity to stay in one place. Use it as an opportunity to experience everything you can in this short amount of time. While everyone was waiting for the showers I ran downstairs and checked out what was for breakfast. Basically bread, muffins, cereal, coffee, tea, etc. It wasn't that bad. I had bread with butter and jelly but that is definitely not a great breakfast. I would have loved some tea but when I went to look at the cups they all looked dirty. I decided I didn't want any strange diseases so left to pack my things. On our way to town we stopped by the bakery again and I grabbed a better breakfast. A sandwich and a chicken empanada. The empanada was awesome! We also finished the leftovers from Joe's cake. We also discovered the direct translation for the Brazo bombón trufa cake was arm hottie truffle. Hilarious! We walked for what seemed like forever to Mount Igueldo and took the funicular up to the top. The views were absolutely breath taking. But that's not even the best part because there was an amusement park ON TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN. I'm not kidding. The prize attraction, a 103 year old roller coaster. That was the best thing I did all day. Definitely worth the almost 2 hour wait (because the operators were on their siestas) because we got to talk to a souvenir shop keeper who offered to watch our bags while we rode. She even told us great facts about Basque country and great places to visit while in Spain. We also went to the highest point on the mountain, which was on top of a tower. The view was indescribable. Pictures cannot even capture the beauty. Definitely worth the 2.50 euro to go up there. And to think I wasn't about to because I was too tired to climb up the stairs and didn't want to pay but then Joe said: "If you have to debate whether or not to do something, do it because if you don't you WILL regret it." Pure gold. Thanks Joe!
The trip home was fun and we went out for some Chinese food for dinner. Definitely a great way to end the night!
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