mi bilbao 2012

I am sitting here at a cafe in Plaza Nuevo in Bilbao, sipping my 4th café con leche of the day (I should've asked for green tea. Oops). The rain of the day has started, and I left my umbrella at the pensión. It's less than 5 minutes away, and soon I will board a bus to Donostia-San Sebastían, my favourite place in Spain if not the world. Friday afternoon, after actually getting permission to leave early from the jefe de estudios (SHOCK OF THE CENTURY), I went to pick up my NIE, which is finally ready. I no now longer expire the 1st of November, 2010. I went home, chilled for an hour so and caught the bus to BILBAO (Bilbo in euskera, or Basque). The bus stopped in Lerma in Burgos, which is now on my must list. I watched two movies and the excellent live 30 Rock on the way here. The bus arrived only one minute late, at 22.46, I caught the metro and checked into the pension, which didn't have wifi. I took a quick walk in the rain, then got a good night's sleep. Yesterday, I woke up at 8.45 and did some excercises, then showered and grabbed breakfast. I went to the bus station to find out it was not where the bus to Gernika (in Spanish and a famous painting by Picasso: Guernica. So I arrived at the train station to see the bus leave. Since there is one every half hour, no pasa nada. I caught the next one after being accidentally manhandled by a stranger thinking I was part of his tour group. The bus arrived, and met up with my friend from Bermeo. He showed me the famous arbol de Gernika, tree from Guernica, and then took me to several places in Vizcaya (province Bilbao is in). We ate at Leikeito and walked around in the rain, then drove past Ea, in the Guiness Book of World Records for having the shortest name in the world, Elantxobe, which is a vertical village, going up hill, in the rain, a two hour hike in the rain through Bosque de Oma, a painted forest I would love to go on the full hike when it's not during a monsoon, Mundaka and his pueblo, Bermeo. We had to run to catch the bus back to Bilbao, but we made it right when it was about to pull away. I have realised this trip that a lot of my problems comes from not knowing what I want, as I do know what I want in life, BUT from not knowing how to achieve my goals. I really want to meet a guy to accompany me on my travels...mi principe azul ya. I missed the call from my friend who didn't return the call, so I ended up just going to bed early. Today I got up, had breakfast and saw that there wasn't a bus to Donostia until 17.30 (I'm catching the 18.30 bus), so I went to Getxo to the "puente colgante", the bridge that ferries cars and people over the river. I walked through Getxo and then took the bridge across the river to Portugalete, had a ton of pintxos, then came back to take a walk along the river and Guggenheim museum. A lot of it is under construction. Now i am off to San Sebastian.