Oh friends.

Maintenant, je suis a Bilbao avec mon meilleur amie, Sarah!

It's so hard to believe that Sarah lives here. In Europe. In Spain. For good.
When I leave here she is not coming home with me, because she is home.
This is so weird.

But Sarah's life here is so lovely, and Bilbao is a really cute city. It's pretty artsy and industrial at the same time, which is very interesting.
The train ride in was so beautiful, riding through the Spanish countryside. The hills were fire red and covered in vineyards for miles and miles.

Sarah met me at the train station when my train got in - it was such a romantic scene lol! I got off my train and was looking around for her on the platform and in the distance I see this girl in a (cute!) dress running through the crowds towards me. It was Sarah and then we ran towards each other and collided in a big hug!
Isn't that so funny? We laughed about what a scene it was later.
So after Sarah picked me up from the train we got on the metro, which is really beautiful and new and well lit and awesome, and got off at Indauxten, where she lives!
We went to her cute little apartment, which honestly is not that little, and then made a carrot cake for her auxilliare friend Deidre, who's birthday was yesterday. It was such a scene baking in Spain, lol, because they don't bake here! It's so sad really. Sarah had to buy baking soda in the cleaning aisle (whaaat?!).
Anyways, we made carrot cake from scratch that was AWESOME and figured out how to use the oven and everything (because it only has numbers 1-6, as opposed to degrees or even celsius). Thank you google, you were very helpful.

Then we met Deidre and her roommate and her roommate's boyfriend and went to the beach, which was so gorgeous! There were a lot of surfers out and the water was freezing, but it was SO BEAUTIFUL. I'm so happy that this will be Sarah's beach. We put our feet in the water and played and took pictures. It's hard to believe that ocean is the same one as home. After sunset we went to this bar on top of a cliff that overlooked the beach and I drank some great red wine.

Then we went home and changed and met Deidre for dinner and cake. We walked around Downtown Bilbao and the old city area, which was suprisingly really extensive, until we finally found a cute little bar that had pinxtos. I got one covered in honeyglazed ham and another one with some other meat on it-it was really good. We also had this white wine that apparently is the pride and joy of the Basque Country. It was pretty delish.

Then Sarah and I walked home and crashed.
Now I'm here getting ready to do some MUCH NEEDED laundry and maybe try to sleep more. There is construction going on downstairs that's making it kind of hard to so though. Sarah is working all day today but I think I will get a free bike rental and check out Bilbao, maybe make it to the Guggenheim, etc etc. Then tonight I'm not sure what we will do!
Life is grand.

AND BARCELONA!
Oh that city. It's so funny because James told me on our second or third day there that on the train ride in he thought this was going to be a city that contested with Paris for MY favorite city. ON THE TRAIN RIDE. But he was right.
Barcelona is unlike anything I've ever experienced before. It's the most creative and passionate city I've ever been in, that's for sure. It's my favorite city along WITH Paris because I love them in two different ways. Yes, that's right, I can have two favorites.

Today I am going to try to upload some pictures to the site. Perhaps then I will write a little recap about Barcelona.

The jackhammering seems to have ceased for a few minutes. Off to chase some sleep!