Weekend Away

This past weekend, I headed over to Pais Vasco - Bilboa y San Sebastian. Both were absolutely gorgeous. The trip itself was quite spontaneous. Gabe found a race he wanted to do on Tuesday and  we bought the tickets Wednesday and left Friday morning. For those of you who know me well, you know that spontaneity is normally not my strong point. However, I was rather pleased with myself for just going along with the flow and having a GREAT time this weekend! It's nice that we're in the early parts of 309 so we don't have a lot to do. 

We left Friday morning and got to Bilboa around 2. We walked over to our hostel [right across the river from the Guggenheim!] and ate lunch there. Then, with our fabulous student discount, we got into the Guggenheim for just 6.5 euros! We wandered around there for a few hours, just checking out the art and the architecture of the building itself. Both very cool. Then we walked through the city and Lauren, Audrey, Brianne, and I grabbed some pan, jamon [ham], y queso [cheese] and made some yummy [and cheap!!] sandwiches for dinner. It was the perfect and relaxing night. Our hostel had 21 beds in one room so we basically hung out in the lobby until it was absolutely necessary to go to bed. We left the next morning at 11 for San Sebastian.

WE arrived to San Sebastian around 12, 12:30 on Saturday and headed over to our hostel. We had no idea what to expect with this hostel - there weren't any photos or reviews online! Definitely lucked out. It was this little old lady's apartment where she kept only around 5 bedrooms ...  A little musty but located right at the center of the city. Ya win some, ya lose some. Audrey, Lauren, and I strolled into a little bar for lunch and had a delicious tortilla francesa sandwich. [basically just like tortilla espanola without potatoes] Then we headed over to the beach! So pretty. And from the beach, there's a little route you can take that takes you up to the highest point in the city where you can see practically everything. One of the prettiest views I've ever seen. After our hike, we rested a bit and then went out for dinner. We went to a nice little restaurant and Lauren and I each got salads [ YAY for vegetables] and split a paella. OH my goodness, that paella was legendary. So yummy. It was raining after dinner so we ended up just chilling in our room all night. Sunday morning, Lauren, Audrey, Brianne, Allison, and I went to Gabo's race. Gabe wasn't sure if he was registered but he was planning on running it no matter what. We positioned ourselves at the 2k and 8k markers so that we could see if he was registered, and if not, we were at the spot [the 8k] where he would drop out if he wasn't. We were so excited that he was! and that was he was running really well! He was behind the 3 leaders and a pack of men... so [pretty far up. After the 2k mark we hurried over the end of the race and were SO EXCITED to see Gabe finish in fourth place! He ran a very very very fast 10k. It was awesome to see. After he showered off, we checked out of the city, found some lunch, and then chilled in a cafe until our bus left at 4. We got back to Oviedo around 10:30. Overall, a great weekend in Pais Vasco :)

Other than that, not much is new! We leave for Italy next Saturday - EEK. I cannot wait. I hope that this next week flies so that we can just get there :) Your prayers would be appreciated for the traveling process! We're all newbies at this so it's going to be an adventure to say the least.

Have a great weekend

-Devon