Tuesday and Wednesday... These days were the first of our Orientation. Tuesday we were scheduled for our first orientation session on Bilbao and the University of Deusto and a tour of the city to help us find our way around. This day also included a huge lunch with all of the other CIDE (Centro Internacional Deusto de Espanol) students. Wednesday was the day we took our spanish language placement tests and took a tour of the University.
(My school)
Tuesday we all met downstairs with an orientation leader. She helped us find our way to campus by the way of a city bus, called the Bilbobus. We all purchsed these cards called Creditrans that are sort of like MetroCards for the buses and metros around here. We arrived on a beautiful campus with courtyards and palm trees... Lots of Jesus and relgious emblems too (Jesuits school). We had a two hour lecture on what to expect while living in Bilbao and attending the University and then we got to walk to a hotel for almuerzo (lunch).
Lunch is their largest meal of the day usually consisting of three courses. This meal began with pasta and meatsauce, followed by chicken and french fries, and ending with some kind of tirimisu? So much for Spanish cuisine! I was stuffed after the pasta! A girl named Maite then took us around the city where we got to see the Old Quarter and Casco Viejo which are the more historic parts of the city with narrow cobblestone roads and tiny shops and cafes para pinchos (tiny sandwiches) y cervezas. We walked along the Ria (estuary) that lines our city and saw other sights like the Teatro Arriaga and the Congress and Music Halls. El Called Bidebarrieta brought us upon la Catedral de Santiago, a gorgeous cathedral in the middle of the city, and we finished in a more urban part of the city with larger chain stores like Zara and Benneton at la Plaza Circular. We also passed a giant Spanish department store called Corte Ingles. The place is more intimidating than a New York City Century 21 around Christmastime, seven floors with anything you can think of. January and February are also the months for major Rebajas (sales) in this country so I plan to do some light shopping soon!
(Casco Viejo)
Tuesday we made it on our own to campus with help of the Bilbobus again. (We saw some Bilboats on the Ria the other day, I want to try those out too!) I think once classes start most of us will start walking the 25 minutes just because we hear that's what most people do, and the excersice can't hurt either! When we arrived we all piled into a room for a language placement test that consisted of 100 multiple choice questions in 45 minutes and a compostion piece in 15. There were mixed feelings about the whole thing because none of us knew what to expect, but it went well overall. After that we split into small groups for a tour of the campus. The school was founded in the 1800's and is a private Jesuit university. We got to see a lot of secret rooms like an old library and a private church, but I was disappointed that they did not point out many of the basic landmarks of the campus that I was hoping to learn more about.
After the tour I walked around Casco Viejo with a few friends. We wanted to try these pinchos (also known as tapas in other parts of Spain) that everyone had been raving about. There was this one cafe in particular that we all wanted to find in Plaza Nueva. Well we saw it on the map and could have sworn we were right on top of it, but the place was no where to be found. Turns out we walked around it about sixteen times, and the pinchos were no where near filling enough after all that walking around! Another little adventure followed later on in the day when two other girls in my dorm and I attempted to get back to the other side of the city where our residence hall is located. We assumed a station that looked like the Metro Station would get us back like we were told, but we ended up getting on a EuraTren and after two stops realized we had no idea where Maliko was located in the city! Safe to say we made it back in one piece... But next time I'll pay attention to the type of transportation I board before taking off!
I feel like this post is getting really long, but to finish up I arrived back at the dorm to find that I still had no luggage to speak of and my "necessities" were wearing thin... But I joined a bunch of Americans from my hall (the locals don't seem to like us very much right now... Hopefully that will change as time passes) went out to find a bar. We ended up at one tiny place to avoid the rain at first and watched the sad, sad news of the Haitian Earthquake and later we moved on to a more comforting location known as the Beer House. Sarriko (the area my residence hall is in) does not have much to offer for nightlife, but this place had lots of space compared to the other holes in the wall we were seeing and they played American music! Overall good first two days, even without luggage! Definitely a good omen for the rest of my stay.
(Everyone at the Beer House)
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