¡Felíz día de Independencia!

Hello again, and happy July the Fourth!  I have been busy with classes and just exploring the city, which has all been very exciting.  Since I have so many pictures of Bilbao, I decided to put up a couple of posts.  Even though there are skyscrapers and whatnot in Bilbao, as you can see from my last post, the original part of the city is medieval.  Here are some pictures of the Old Quarter:

My street

Random other street

Lucky me, I get to live here!  There are so many plazas and cathedrals around where I live – I literally walk down the street one block and I’m standing in front of a beautiful old cathedral (not to mention a delicious pastelería with friendly staff!).  This is not the cathedral I live by, but it’s pretty awesome anyway:

One thing that is so different about here is how many stairs there are.  I suppose there are so many here because we live in a valley (el bocho), and some of the staircases here never seem to end.  All I know is that I am going to have some calves of iron by the time I’m home.

Taken from halfway up the stairs

The school that I am attending here is about a 25-30 minute walk down the river from the Old Quarter.  Here is a picture of the University of Deusto library.  It is sort of hard to see – I had to surreptitiously take pictures because I wasn’t sure if that was allowed or not, but the library has bookshelves that stretch to the ceiling (three stories), and at each level, there is a small walkway with a railing so no ladders are needed.

Although the University isn’t so impressive from the outside, the inside is gorgeous – it was built in the 1800’s and includes a beautiful gothic-style chapel and painted ceilings in the auditorium.  I finally decided to take an Advanced Grammar and Translation course in addition to the Introduction to Hispanic Literature course.  I was so excited that the professor for the other course that I considered was from the United States!  However, I just couldn’t make myself do an 8:30 AM class with a half hour commute when it is normal here to eat dinner at 11 PM.  That, and some other issues with transferring credit, but I’m happy with my decision.  For the literature course, we are reading three actual books – the one we are working on right now is called Como Agua, Para Chocolate, which translates to Like Water, For Chocolate.  Apparently it is about forbidden love, and when all the professor informed us of the book’s content, a loud, unanimous sigh arose from all the men in the classroom :)

Backtracking a little bit, we visited the Guggenheim Museum this past weekend.  It was probably one of the coolest art museums I have ever been in – it focuses on modern art, but it wasn’t just paint splatters that looked like one of my “paintings” from kindergarten!  The first exhibit we saw included a bunch of LED columns running from floor to ceiling in front of a large opening that you could enter.  Down the columns ran several phrases which were sort of creepy – things like, “I smell you on my clothes, I hear you, I follow you,” you get the idea.  They were in English, Spanish, and Basque.  According to the audio guide, the exhibit is meant to contain several universal themes – love, death, etc, but it focuses on AIDS somehow. 

There were also several rooms filled with artwork by Georges Braque, who apparently was extremely prolific!  There must have been hundreds of paintings by him, and I thought it was so cool how much variety he had in his work.  He had some paintings that were extremely dark and abstract, while others were totally the opposite.  He apparently drew much of his inspiration from various African art pieces, and his art was greatly affected by the social climate (i.e, war time).

There was an interpretive dance exhibit, which one of my friends participated in, kudos to her!  There was also a tree exhibit that I participated in – people walking by could hang messages from the branches.

My contribution: How beautiful is life

 Here is Puppy, a well-known flower sculpture in the city of Bilbao.  It is constructed entirely of fresh flowers and city maintenance keeps it up.  It used to be an exhibit in the museum, and the people of the city fell in love with it, so it was moved outside.  The only downside: Spanish pronunciation is "Poopy."  ¡Qué pena!

A strange spider sculpture that is front of the museum - I see it on the way to school every day.  While we were visiting the museum, some people were having their wedding photos taken.

Anyway, I’m getting a little behind on this blog, but I guess that means I’m just having fun, right?  Tonight, the people from my study abroad program plan to celebrate Independence Day – as much as we like it here, I think everyone misses the USA just a little bit.