Hola, 

Quick update on the rest of our April and beginning of May. We both finished teaching and I finished tutoring as well. They were both great experiences for us. 

We also went on another excursion! We took a bus to Atepuerca and visited a geological site. We saw and touched real life fossils and learned some cool stuff about how this site was where they found the oldest Europeans ever. Then we went to Burgos. A city in Spain. We visited a cathedral and the evolution museum. We stayed in a nice hotel and had interesting meals but an a,axing breakfast. We walked part of the Camino de Santiago. It was beautiful. We saw many people doing the actual walk complete with giant backpacks and we said "Buen Camino" as they walked passed us.  

We finished class. It was very sad saying goodbye to our teachers. Especially our teacher Mari Mar who was utterly amazing in every way. 

We had our last pinxto pote with our USAC friends. It was an unforgettable night filled with good food and drinks, laughter and many photos. 

We were visited by Paul and Cindy, Tara's parents and we spent a few days showing them our San Sebastián life. We took them to all the best pinxto bars as well as all the beaches and the scenic hike to Jesus. They also joined us and the rest of USAC at a last cider house trip! We went to a very authentic cider house where the food was impeccable and the cider and txocoli (San Sebastián sparkling white wine) were free flowing. We had such a good time and even got a special surprise from the owner. He is a champion wood chopper and showed us his skills. Don't worry, I brought a piece home. He would have beat anyone in New Meadows. Our last night with our new friends was irreplaceable filled with many photos, jokes, speeches and lots of love. 

After a tearful roommate goodbye Tara and I left San Juan 8 for the last time and caught our taxi to the train station. Tara, her parents and I spent the next five hours sleeping on the train to Madrid. We spent the next day and a half showing them everywhere we knew in Madrid. We saw an amazing flamenco dance and ate some delicious paella as we sipped on calimotxo and sangria. We also Spent a good amount of time walking through the beautiful park, saw the outside of the palace and walked through the market. We showed them all the places we went to while we were here the first time in January and it was cool to see now much we still remembered. 

Staying in the same hotel as we did when we arrived in Spain and spending our last day in Spain in Madrid was really cool. We ended where we started and all of the memories in between are priceless. 

We will forever remember the wonderful five months spent in Spain. We made so many amazing new friends that will stay in our hearts forever. 

Its not goodbye its see you later. 

Semana Santa

Hello, yes we are still alive and kicking. Our blogging game has definitely been off, but here we are back in action. It is April 23rd, we have been home from Spring Break or as the Spaniards call it, "Semana Santa" since April 7th and we now have 25 days left until our return to Boise.

Before we talk about anything else we would like to tell you about our AMAZING 17 day spring break of traveling Europe. Armed only with our backpacks we set off on a remarkable journey starting Friday, March 22nd. We won't bore you will all the details but instead paint a picture of the incredible time we had together for those 17 days.


Friday, March 22nd-Overnight bus to Paris

Saturday, March 23rd-Paris for the day, sightseeing, walking tour, Eiffel Tower, crepes for dinner.



Sunday, March 24th-Visited the Palace of Versailles, the "best ice cream in Paris," tried seeing the Arc De Triomphe, "French" French fries for dinner, outside of the Louvre.

 Monday, March 25th-DISNEY PARIS! and Walt Disney Studios. We came, we saw, we conquered. We have now been to two out of three of the happiest places on Earth. See you soon Florida!

Tuesday, March 26th-Flew into Milan, Italy. Met our friends Michael and Spencer for dinner and gelato. The coolest and best part of Milan was Milano Central Station.

 

Wednesday, March 27th- Train to La Spezia, in different compartments. Took another train to Levanto and met Michael and Spencer again for some sightseeing, dinner and of course, gelato.

Thursday, March 28th-Spent all day touring the five coastal towns of "Cinque Terre." Our other friend Lauren joined us midday. After seeing some of the most beautiful towns, more pizza and gelato we repacked our bags ready to leave the following morning.

Friday, March 29th- Took the train to Florence, saw the Duomo, the old bridge, statue of David, dinner, gelato and drinks at some really cool Italian bars.

Saturday, March 30th- Lauren rejoined us in Florence, had amazing sandwiches for lunch, I bought a real Italian leather purse, went on a wine tasting tour in Tuscany. More amazing dinner and gelato.

Sunday, March 31st-EASTER! Seperated for the morning. I went to a church for Easter. Tara and I had Easter Brunch complete with me trying berries and to Tara's great surprise I liked them! We walked around Florence, found a cool market, climbed a hill to see the famous view of the city and had another dinner and gelato.

Monday, April 1st- Happy April Fools Day! Too bad we were to busy going to Rome! Stayed in the worst hostel ever! Saw the Colosseum, walked around the area around it filled with other Roman Ruins, dinner and gelato. Michael had to head back to school in Madrid so we said bye to him as well!

Tuesday, April 2nd- Saw the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, the Spanish Steps, delicious coffee shake, met another friend from USAC Sam and her new friend from here hostel. Dinner and gelato.

Wednesday, April 3rd- Went to the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, another great sandwich place, St. Peter's Cathedral, random castle, hung out with Sam and hung out by a street market and watched a free concert. Gelato Shakes! An amazing dinner and a night on the town.

Thursday, April 4th- Said bye to Sam and headed off to the airport. Caught our flight to the Netherlands. Landed in Amsterdam. Had mexican food for dinner. BED.

Friday, April 5th- Visited the Secret Annex where Anne Frank and 7 other people hid for over two years during WWII. Heineken Experience, rode ferris wheel, ate Wok to Walk.

Saturday, April 6th- Canal tour, Subway for lunch, shop that only sold fries, best bar in Amsterdam, has over 250 different beers, Ben and Jerry's and general city seeing which included a very beautiful park.

Sunday, April 8th- Home, Home At Last! We arrived in San Sebastian around 8:00 pm. Met with our roommates and went to bed hoping to prepare ourselves for the next day of class.





So, as you can see, our spring break was definitely a trip of a lifetime. Let's make something clear, whenever we said "ate dinner" in Italy it was ALWAYS pizza and/or pasta. Everyday that we were in Amsterdam we went to Starbucks. EVERYwhere we went EXCEPT Amsterdam, it rained.

Getting back into the swing of things was difficult. We both had eternal stomach aches for the first week, our theories ranged from drastic diet changes to our body missing the constant influence of gelato. Our lack of Spanish speaking through the trip did not go unnoticed by our professors. Tara started her surf class and is almost pro by now. We finished yet another class and are now in our final class of the semester.

Our new plans for the end of the semester are very exciting. Paul and Cindy are heading to beautiful San Sebastian on the 12th, just in time to wish us luck on our final exams. After a few days touring the city we will all head to Madrid for some more Spanish debauchery. On the 17th we take seperate flights back home, ours stopping in Seattle for the night. Tara gets to hang out with her dearly missed brother, Russell for the evening and I get to see my long lost aunt, uncle and cousins. We will join back up at the airport and be back in Boise by the evening of the 18th!

That's all for now.
It won't be this long before our next post, promise!

Until next time,

Tara and Taryn

Bilbao

We only hoped the sunshine would last forever. This week was dreadfully cold and rainy but we still had a great week of cafe studying, teaching, pintxo pote and walking through the rain. Our roommates all were out of town this weekend so the apartment was ours. Friday after class we attended a lunch put on by USAC and one of the Basque Gastronomical societies in town. We had salad, tortilla de patata, pan and some random cookies. We learned a little about the societies as well. They started in San Sebastian during one of the wars and they were the only place that people could speak Basque freely and cook meals together. The catch is, only men were allowed to be in these "clubs" women and families were occasionally invited but they weren't allowed in the kitchen. Seems backwards from what we are used to huh? We don't think our food was actually cooked by the guys there but we were just able to use the space as an example of what the Gastronomical society looks like. After lunch we went home, cleaned our kitchen and worked out in our small bedrooms. Doing jumping jacks, burpees and planks is more difficult when you have to watch out for pointy desks while doing them. We also tried a new recipe for some teriyaki crock pot chicken. Since we don't have a crock pot we figured that putting a normal pan on low for a couple hours would do the trick. We learned that it definitely isn't the same thing. Our chicken was so dry we couldn't finish it which was rather sad because the taste was amazing! We will surely be trying this recipe again without letting it simmer as long. We also made banana icecream! It was amazing! Who knew that if you froze bananas then put them in a blender with peanutbutter you could make such a delicious (not to mention healthy) treat!

On Saturday we slept in, made breakfast and then headed off to the bus station. We bought our tickets to Bilbao and took a nice nap on the hour and 15 minute bus ride. Once we got there we didn't really know what to do so we just started walking trying to find stores that were open to browse. Of course we got there during siesta so nothing was open. Then, the best thing happened, we turned our heads and saw a real life MEXICAN RESTAURANT!! We of course immediately decided it was lunch time and this is where we would eat no matter what. The staff was friendly, the atmosphere was fun and the enchiladas we got were superb!! Since Mexican food is both our favorites, this was one of the best meals we have had while being abroad. After our meal we walked around found some more stores and then went to see the Guggenheim Museum. It is famous for its modern architecture. There was a giant dog made out of flowers in the front that was our favorite part of the museum.

We had "natural" gelato that was quite scrumptious and then walked around for a few more hours before returning to San Sebastian. After making dinner, watching a movie and making a powerpoint about Easter (for teaching) we headed to bed. This morning we went to a Spanish church with our friends Brian and Dannae. It was really cool to be able to worship because we knew what the songs were saying and could sing along. The sermon was a little harder because there were a lot of words we didn't know but all in all it was a great experience. We met a really nice lady, Mary, who is originally from Indiana but resides in San Sebastian now. She invited us to come have lunch or supper with here in the next few weeks! After church we made brunch! We had fruit salad, banana pancakes, a smoothie and I (Taryn) made my first homemade batch of tortilla de patata! It wasn't perfect but it was really yummy for my first try!

Our roommates came home from their trips and we all enjoyed some more banana icecream before bed.

This week is really busy! Getting ready for our midterm on Friday, another composition, teaching like normal, presenting a dialogue in conversation class, packing for Spring break and of course...pinxto pote on Thursday.

We will try to blog one more time before heading off on our adventures for spring break, but if not we will try to keep everyone updated about the next few weeks!

Until next time,

Tara and Taryn

Just another week in Paradise

The week passed by as normal but with the exception that the weather was beautiful every single day. Friday after our final exam we headed to the beach to spend the day with literally almost all of USACers. Our friend Max played live music for us and there were people surfing, volleyballing and passing the football around. Food and drinks were shared with lots of fun conversation and the sun brought out everybody's good side. That night we watched The Dark Knight Rises with our roommates while drinking amazing hot chocolate.
Saturday we joined some friends and hiked to a nearby town. With lots of detours and pauses to enjoy the landscape the hike in its entirety took about 4 and a half hours. We then grabbed some food and rode the 20 minute bus ride home. The scenery was breathtaking and it prompted lots of conversing about just how lucky we are to have a hike like this right in our back yard. Another topic that came up a lot is American Food. Taco Bell, Sonic, Chipotle, McDonalds, Red Robin etc were the main points of interest. We really are Americans. And proud of it!
There were a lot of stairs and steep hills that gave our muscles a work out. It was perfect weather, sunny but not too hot.
After showering and changing we went to our first cider house. If you remember from our first excursion to a Basque Farm House, cider was/is an important "staple" of Basque Culture. There are many cider houses throughout the Basque country and the one we went to was small but really interesting. There were hollowed out barrels to sit in and normal tables as well. The whole idea of a cider house is you pay a certain amount and then get unlimited cider and a four course meal. The meal includes two fish dishes, steak cooked "vuelta y vuelta," which literally means seared on one side then seared on the other. The whole middle is rare. Tara and I being the "tiquismiquis" of the group (picky eaters,) made ourselves try everything. We both liked the first fish dish because you couldn't taste the fish, neither of us enjoyed the second fish dish and Tara was not about to eat more than a few bites of raw steak. I on the other hand was pleasantly surprised at how much I loved the steak even though it was rare. The cider was actually pretty good and Tara loved the walnut dessert.

Today was spent on the beach again hanging out with our roommate Dylan and her family who is visiting. After another concert from Max we all had lunch together and then went our seperate ways. We had another group meeting tonight and watched a sermon from our friend Dannae's church. It was a good meeting although we were missing a few people.

This week is supposed to go back to sad gloomy weather but only 12 days until Spring Break!!

Until next time,

Tara and Taryn

A weekend away

So after class on Friday we went home, showered and packed for our weekend adventure to Barcelona. Knowing we didn't want to miss the bus this time, Tara let me make us leave as early as I wanted. Thinking our bus left at 3:00, I decided 2:00 would give us plenty of time to go to our favorite bakery for a bocadillo and walk to the bus station. When we arrived at the bus station at 2:35 I looked at my ticket and read that our bus was actually not scheduled to leave until 3:40...and Tara knew the whole time but didn't want to be in charge of time. So we waited in the beautiful sunshine for an hour. Once we got on the bus and sat down the bus ride was very enjoyable. We even had two really loud men sitting behind us that were playing games, taking phone calls amd smoking in the bathroom. The ride took about 7 hours including a half hour stop. When the bus stopped we grabbed our backpacks and walked into the station, later finding out we got off at the wrong stop.. Once we figured out which way our hostel was we hit the metro and were off! 

Our first stop in all new places it seems is a pizza place. Pizza must be a comfort to us bevause it is always the first food place that seems logical to stop into. The pizza we had was far from extraordinary but the service was great and the waiter even told us which way to walk to our hostel. Once we found it and went inside we were pleasantly surprised. The guy showed us around and then told us we could use the wifi, computers and printers for free as well as all of the kitchen supplies. There was a ton of juice for us to drink and yogurt, muffins, croissants and toast for breakfast. We both brought towels with us, which was unnecessary because we had a towel, a pillow and a comforter on our bed waiting for us. The whole place was really clean and it was way less sketchy then our last hostel experience. 

As you know from our London experience we are expert metro travelers. The metro in Barcelona was no different and we maneuvered through the huge city easily. Saturday we got up had breakfast and then Ericky (hostel guy) showed us where we should go while staying in Barcelona. First, we took the metro across town and then walked up levels and levels of stairs, sidewalks, and okay escalators too..until we reached the top of Park Guell. Here you could see the whole city below and it was truly beautiful. There were a lot of people around and it had a large population of trees surrounding the hill. After hitting some shops we took the metro back to another part of town. Here we spent the day walking around this huge area. First stop was lunch and then walking around a big mall. We saw the Museo Nacional d'art de Catalunya, Torre de Calatrava, Palau Sant Jordi, Estadi Olimpic, took a sky trolley to Castell de Montjuic, and finished that area with a fantastic light and water show at Font Magica de Montjuic. Basically we saw some cool buildings, walked into the stadium where the 1992 Olympics were held and jammed out to Disney music in Spanish while watching water do tricks. It was a great day. After this we went down by the beach for an ocean front dinner. We shared paella and a bottle of white wine, it was superb. 

Sunday we first went to the Sagrada Familia, a huge church in the city. It was so amazing. The outside and the inside were incredible and it was well worth the time in line as well as the ticket. There was mass going on downstairs and areas where you could go and pray as well. After this we walked around some more and found lunch. The next few hours were spent at Las Ramblas. A really long street full of vendors. We both bought Barcelona jerseys and had delicious gelato. We spent an hour on the docks basking in the sunlight and watching and old man feed the seagulls. After walking up and down the roads and seeing all the museums and buildings Ericky said we should see we walked back to our hostel and got our stuff together. We had a really interesting dinner, Tara had carbonara, "ain't like mama fixed it," I had a tortilla de patata sandwich and until this night I didn't know you could make a bad batch of tortilla de patata. We all learn the hard truths sometimes. Barcelona was a really great city, it is a definite place to visit and spend a week but we are still 100% happy we chose San Sebastián as our city to study in for the semester. 

We have a really busy week ahead of us. We both teach this week, we have a presentation on Tuesday and our final for our second class this Friday. Our roommate Dylan's family is coming to visit as well so we will probably hang out with them. We will also be finalizing spring break plans because the countdown is on...18 days! Did we mention we bought our tickets for Disneyland Paris!? 

Until next time, 

Tara and Taryn 

 

Carnaval

So we basically suck at blogging this past week, but if you knew how nice the weather was this week you would totally understand! Anyways, last weekend we went to Hendaye, France with a few other USACers and participated in “Carnaval.” It was a blast. We took the train there and walked until we found the meeting place. Once we figured out they spoke Spanish we figured out what we were supposed to do. They dressed all of us up in different outfits and then we walked to a big meeting square and basically watched all of the floats that were in front of us go by then we started walking. All in all the actual parade was two hours long with stops along the way to watch other floats sing and dance. Tara, Michael (a fellow USAC student) and I all wore big heads. And when we say big, we mean big. They were huge and we had to have a chest guard to keep them secured to our bodies as well as really strong shoulders. After the first 45 minutes it was really hard to keep them on but obviously we made it through the whole parade. We could partly see through the mouth of the head but it was really difficult to get the perfect angle that wasn’t painful to your shoulders but where you could still see where you were going. Once it was over we went back and took off our costumes. It felt so nice to have the giant heads off! Since we were starving we went to one of the few places that was open with a few other USACers and ordered some personal pizzas.  We didn't know they were going to take them out of a freezer box sitting right next to us and microwave them one by one. They tasted awful and were smaller than a normal personal pizza. And yet they still cost 8 euros along with a water. But despite the food it was a really awesome experience and here are a couple pictures to show the greatness of it all….

Sunday had great weather and Tara, Michael and I went on a four hour walk. Up and around the small mountain thing we have near our house, then to the other side of the city and beach, then back down to the middle of the city and soccer stadium up hills and through side streets before finally retreating back to our apartment for bible study. Dannae brought us McDonalds French fries and we are embarrassed to say they were gone rather quickly… The whole week was beautiful weather and we walked to and from school almost every day. Our roommate Dylan bought rollerblades so I went on a blade/run with her one morning and it was super fun. Tara has been sick the past few weeks so she finally went to the doctor and got some medicine that makes her lungs itch, as well as make her feel a lot better! It was one of our friends birthday this week so we got to celebrate with him by making a cake and taking an extra-long break in class. Pinxto Pote this week was also just too much fun. Friday was spent window shopping before taking an extra-long nap then going to an AMAZING Italian restaurant with some friends. After retreating home with gelato we spent the night giving ourselves facials and watching tv. The boys are in Paris for the weekend, so it is an all-girls all weekend movie extravaganza. This week includes a presentation, a midterm and next Friday, a trip to Barcelona for the weekend. Now that you’re all caught up we will try to be better about keeping up with our exciting lives here in beautiful San Sebastian!

London

We came up with a lot of titles for this blog post throughout the weekend in London. We couldn't decide on one so we used the generic, go to "London." Here were the other possibilities:
London: Comfort Costs
London: Doesn't seem so big when you're speeding through it underground
London: Where dreams of being a princess go to die
London: The place you should vacation with your parents

Anyways, our trip was awesome!! We had a test on Friday morning then spent the rest of the day enjoying our clean and empty house. Our roommates had left the night before so it was just us. Our bible study group came over and we talked for hours and hours before we finally called it quits so we could pack.

Saturday morning we left the house to catch the bus to Biarritz, the French town we flew out of. We were about thirty seconds too late and the bus driver drove away while we chased him down the parking lot. They refunded our tickets and we walked to the train station to try and find a train instead. We walked to the wrong one. Finally, we made it to the train station and bought a ticket to a town in France where we had to get on another train to Biarritz. We had to wait at the train station for two hours and once we got to the airport we waited another two to leave. We wouldn't have been able to make it if it wasn't for a really nice old French lady and a boy who caught the bus from the train station to the airport for us. After all of that plus a two hour flight, we finally made it to the Stansted airport. After exchanging our euros for pounds and buying a bus ticket we rode a coach bus for an hour ish to a bus stop in London. After another half hour walk we found our hostel. It was super sketchy. It was around 7:00 and everyone in our room was asleep so we decided to walk around town. We didn't want to leave our stuff in the room so we walked with our backpacks and it sucked.

The next day we got up early had a really delicious breakfast of white bread and corn flakes and headed on our Britain adventure. We walked through Kensington Gardens and went inside Kensington palace and spent an hour in the gift shop looking at all the wonderful things.
After that we walked to the National History Museum and spent literally the entire day open to close looking around. We only saw 3/4 of the museum but we also had a really delicious lunch there and learned a lot of cool things. After the museum we walked around that part of town and found an old English Pub. We obviously had to get a beer in a british pub so we both got guiness and we also had a delicious dinner there. Next to our table there was a baby shower going on, weird place for that kind of celebration.

Monday was a busy day. We bought a tube ticket for the day and headed off to our first stop. We bought tickets to Wicked and then saw the changing of the guard at Buckinham Palace. It was really interesting to watch and the band was playing even though it was snowing. It was a lot longer than we expected so we warmed up inside the giftshop before going back to the tube. For those of you who don't know the "tube" is the underground railroad system. It is really efficient and cheap. We were pro status halfway through the day. The days travels included: St. Paul's Cathedral, Big Ben, The London Eye, The London Tower, and Harrods, the biggest store ever. If we did the trip again we would have definitely spent more time and money going through the cathedral, riding the London Eye and touring the London tower. Harrods took us an hour to walk through and that was barely scanning through each of its 7 floors. After all of this it was finally time to go to Wicked! The musical was magical and we had such a great time watching it. The performance was great and the atmosphere was really fun. After that we took the tube to Kings Cross Station and saw Platform 9 3/4, the most magical and perfect moment of our lives. We also walked around Piccadilly circus and then had dinner at a weird cafe next to our hostel.

The final day of our trip we walked through part of Hyde park and enjoyed the massive amounts of oxygen given off by the thousands of trees. Caught the bus and got back on the plane back to our home here in San Sebastian.

Speaking of the plane....There was a whole rugby team on the same flight as us and three boys behind us kept grabbing our hair and touching our arms through the seats and playing music loudly and asking us if we knew French. At one point they tried to give us suckers which we politely declined until finally they wouldn't take no for an answer so Taryn chucked it back through the seat and grabbed their cell phone from between the seat. That shut them up for like a whole thirty seconds. After that it was love, and they asked for our phone numbers...