Ocean, Mountains, and Free Health Care

What do they all have in common? They're not in Oklahoma.

I can't believe I haven't blogged since the Italy trip. It's been nearly two months, but I'll try to sum up my adventures and comment on some new things that have taken place.

Mostly, Bilbao has been rainy, but on those amazing weekends that was not, I took advantage of those precious hours. One weekend, Kata, Bryan, and I took a train the coastal cities of Bermeo and Mundaka. It was a relaxing day of sunshine and photography.

Café con leche in Bermeo

The Mundakan coast

A highlight of this trip was the rabas, fried squid, that we ate. Sorry, no photo.

A weekend or two later, I went with a group of Couchsurfers to Sopelana beach, just to the north of Bilbao. From there, we walked the day away along the coast to Getxo. As usual for a Couchsurfing event, I met a lot of new people from several places.

Sopelana

The whole group near the Getxo coast

And after another week or two, I hiked with three other guys from Couchsurfing, Mikel, Ricardo, and Simone, from a town called Otxandio, up the legendary mountain Anboto, and back down again to the city of Durango. This mountain is central in Basque folklore as the home of the goddess Mari. It was a pretty scary climb. At one point there were only a few meters of land to cross on with sharp drops on either side. One mindless step could have been fatal. I found out only afterward that several people have died from falling from Anboto, and no one who has fallen has ever survived. I'm glad I didn't hear that before I did it.

Gazing at the view from the peak of Mt. Anboto

The next weekend (or so) I came down with a sudden illness. I went to sleep on Friday night because of it and awoke Saturday morning with a fever and convinced that it was Thursday. So, I called my supervisor and told him I wouldn't be coming to work. Hearing my crazy talk, he said he would accompany me to the health clinic. Now I don't know all the ins-and-outs of the health care debate in the States, but here at least I've never had better service at the doctor. I didn't have to wait nearly as long as I have in the past at a doctor's office. I told them my symptoms, and they took x-rays, and a blood test, pumped something in my blood to temporarily lower my temperature, gave me the prescription, and I was on my way! And all I had to pay for were the inexpensive prescriptions: a fever reducer and an antibiotic.

Other changes since January:

Before Christmas, I had too much free time during the week and was starting to get bored. All that has changed. First, I've started working out in a nearby gym with Bryan, which gives me a little something extra to do most days. Having someone to go with who knows what he's doing makes it infinitely less dreadful, and I've been enjoying it more than I expected.

I also lost some clients from last fall, and I started looking for more. To date, I now have a total of 6 private students, mostly adults at an intermediate level of English, which gives me 8 hours of work every week, along with 1 other client who I'll see every week or two, due to his schedule as a nurse. The others are two girls from church, the man who lives above me (a music teacher), a young female scientist, and a mature retired secretary. Needless to say, I like these students much more than the ones at my school. However, even work at the school is going better, as I learn what things keep the students engaged and adapt to the various levels of ability and interest.

I've also met a ton of new people within and outside of Couchsurfing. When I came home from Italy, there was a strange Japanese girl in my apartment. Turns out she started living there while I was gone, and one of the other girls moved out. Her name is Yuki, and she's very outgoing and knows and has introduced me to a lot of the other international students here. I also met a Romanian through Facebook, who I invited to weekly language exchange at the Irish bar here. Another weekly language exchange group through Couchsurfing has also cropped up, and I've been taking advantage of that, too.

So, I'm enjoying Spain more than ever, and I'm looking forward to Mom's visit to Spain next week while I'm off work. Cross your fingers that we get good weather.