Day 4

Well, I am writing this on Saturday morning because yesterday I did not have time to write. Yesterday was quite a day! I went to bed relatively early the night before because I had to wake up at 7:00 in the morning to get ready for the trip we were going to take to Guernica (probably wrong spelling) and Bibao. My host father, Tito, took me to the school where we were going to meet and waited with me for the other students to arrive. Once they did and our bus arrived we were off! We drove for about three hours north to the countryside of Guernica. The bus did not really have air conditioning and the windows did not open so I began to feel anxious, faint, and sick, as well as closterphobic. I thought I might vomit, so I moved to the front seat next to the driver and brought a plastic bag with me. On the turn into our destination, the bus stalled in the middle of the street and would not start up again for a few tries. I was panicking because I desperately needed fresh air but finally it started up. We drove into the forest, where there was a parking lot, a playground, a restaurant, and some houses. Everyone was confused about what we were doing, so most turned to playing on the see-saw or swings. The teachers decided we would embark on a thirty minute walk to the famous "painted forest", where an artist had painted trees in the 1960´s. It was rough. Nobody knew about this hike, so we were mostly wearing sandals and clothes one would wear to a museum and our frustration grew as we saw cars drive up the steep hill that we were forging. But, we toughed it out, through the steep uphill and downhill, and made it to those damn painted trees, which were actually very cool. And the view was absolutely amazing.
After the painted forest, we got back in the bus and headed off to the peace museum in Guernica, which was great. It explained what had happened during the horrific bombings on a personal level and spoke for peace in the future.
After the museum, we grabbed some lunch and headed off to the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. There was tons of traffic but we made it and explored the museum for two hours. My favorite was Anish Kapoor, who had very interactive art. He had some mirrors he had made that were crazy! You could not tell if some of his work was 2 dimensional or 3 dimmensional. It was difficult getting everyone back together, but we finally did and headed home. By this time we were all exhaused from a very busy day and lots of walking. On the bus ride back I popped blisters on my feet. Us students knew that we had a long night ahead of us because it was the first night of the Fiestas de Burgos.
We got back to the school around 8:30 where our host students met us. Then, Carmen and I headed to her grandparents house, which they use when they visit Burgos. The streets were absolutely flooded with people in red and yellow because Spain was playing football (soccer). There were huge screens set up in the plazas for people to watch the game. I took a shower there because I was filthy and then watched the game with her family and ate dinner.
I went with Carmen and her friends and their Americans to see the fireworks after dinner. She held my hand as we made our way through the tight crowds of people that crowded the streets and finally made it to the river, where all the young people went, and watched the fireworks there. Everyone in the city was in the street watching the fireworks. The fireworks were louder, bigger, and closer than those in the United States, and my stomach hurt afterwards. We stood around the river for awhile, talking and observing the heavy teen drinking that was occuring. Then Carmen and I left to find her family and sat with them in front of a cafe/bar. We went for a walk and saw live music playing, Spanish music as well as rock and roll (with English lyrics). At this point it was probably one in the morning and everyone was still out, laughing and walking and dancing, both the young and the old.
At about two, Carmen, her parents, and I got in her father´s car and headed home. I checked my email and went to bed, slept heavily and then woke up at one in the afternoon today!