Me gustan ninos

my american thinking cap 

hanging out with the locals 

party fowl....

heaven 

My stay in Spain just keeps getting better and better. I am absolutely obsessed with the country and I think I just realized it yesterday when I was sitting on a beach side restaurant in Sopelanna and eating a delicious pinxcho. Sopelanna was by far the most beautiful beach I have ever been to. I realized that people in Europe have a totally different "tude" than people in America. Everyone loves to meet new people, we met two cyclists while jumping in the waves for 45 minutes. People here are much more inclined to want to have face to face interaction than people in the US. At home everyone communicates through internet and phones, here its face to face interactions all the time. You can't go anywhere without having a conversation with a stranger. I love it. I haven't had a phone (my iPhone broke day 1...good timing I know) and I thought I would hyperventilate, but on the opposite it forces me to go talk to people. I love human interaction and meeting new people, kind of a hobby. Now when I go home I have no urge to get a phone and use it. I wish I could walk everywhere and not care about what time of the day it is, or how much work I have to do. Spain seems like a country that never sleeps, people always have free time for you and meals last for 3 hours. At Sopelanna we did not know how to get to the playa from the metro stop, so we attempted to explain to someone that we wanted to follow them to the beach and they were more than happy to let us. 15 minutes later and a couple of very shady shady back roads I looked out at the most gorgeous beach ever. People here live life day to day, not month to month or year to year. They seem to take every day by itself. Time is irrelevant to me here (so is sleep).

Bilbao has opened my eyes to a different culture, as I had never traveled to Europe before. Now I can confidently say that even though the economic situation here is on the downturn people seem less worried about it here than in America. America sometimes seems a little too preoccupied with the future and what is going to happen next. My favorite is the little kiddies that play in the parks (which are everywhere and probably why kids here are so healthy). Shannon and I even went on a see saw type of contraption that was quite possibly the most fun thing I have done all trip. The memories will be with me forever and I am very very very very very sad to be leaving next week (wow).

On a less poetic and sentimental note, I have discovered the art of jogging while talking because I now have separation anixety and FOMO (fear of missing out) when I am not with people 24/7. I turned into a completely non independent person. YAY. deuces