Our adventure in pictures

I finally uploaded our pictures to Picasa!

To view the album directly, check out the album online here.

Tolosa!

We just spent two days with the Amonarriz family celebrating Grandma´s birthday, visiting pre-historic caves, walking through Donostia/San Sebastian with ginormous ice cream cones, eating too much good food, driving through Basque villages, and taking evening bike rides through Tolosa- today, a visit to San Fermin in Pamplona/iruña (and giving mz flatmate Mikel back his contact lenses) and then to Barcelona for two days. Ana and I had so much fun in Paris and the Netherlands. She is a great travel buddy!

Much love from the Basque country, -becks (and ana)

Back to "normal"

   Well, classes have started again. Two new ones on my schedule: my project management course is in a four hour block on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, and technical writing is through WSU Online. They should be balanced by the two courses that I am wrapping up at TU Graz in the next week or so. If I pass, I will have fulfilled my design and lab requirements at WSU. Woohoo! The next step is to petition to have my Austrian Lanugage and Culture course count for my multi-cultural studies credit at WSU. How can studying abroad not get you cross-cultural credit? Especially when your classmates are from literally all over the world- Japan, Macedonia, Russia...
All this work is making me wish that I was back here:

Even so, it feels good be back in Graz and into some form of my normal routine!

Leave me a comment, they make my day!

Donostia/San Sebastian

   Kike invited us to visit him at 'work' in San Sebastian Friday morning. I had never been in a studio before and was amazed by the brightness and business of the MKLZ set! There was so much going on at the same time, both obvious  and behind the scenes. People running around controlling cameras and cueing the audience, sound and video mixing in the upstairs booths (sooo many buttons!), and Kike and his co-host Ilaski talking while a producer was whispering into their ear buds. A guy named Julian gave us a tour of the entire studio building, including the sets of a news program, tv show, and even a green screen stage. Afterwords we watched them film an episode of MKLZ and got to walk around the set. Basically we were given the vip treatment- and it was so much fun! A huge thanks to the MKLZ/EiTB/Amonarriz crews for their hospitality and the experience!
    After lunch at home we drove back to Donostia to explore the city. It is really different from what I have seen anywhere else. The buildings are "new" compared to others in Europe, having been re-built after the Napoleanic wars. They are a warm sandy colour and arranged along straight, orderly streets. The windows above the street level are lined with flower pots and have flags hanging from them. After months of the twisted passages and painted facades in Austria, Donostia was a little bit of a shock. I think that to really appreciate the city I would need to go back and spend a few weeks, maybe a month, living it. (click read more)

First day with the parents- Bizkaia

   Mom and Dad got in to Tolosa around 10 pm Wednesday evening, just in time for another dinner. Kike opened a bottle of local cider, which was shared over shrimp and a seafood and rice dish prepared by Gurutze (really, she is a fantastic chef!). After our meal, she and Jone took us over to Kike's sister's new house, which they had prepared for us to sleep at. We all crashed within a few minutes and slept like logs.
   Thursday morning launched another whirlwind tour of the basque country, this time in the province of Biskaia. We started with a visit to Gernika (Guernica), the historic seat of the Basque government which was bombed in 1937 by the Luftwaffe as a sort of pre-war target practice. Next, we walked through Bermeo and introduced Mom and Dad to pintxos and pelota. The sun was out and it seemed like most of the town with it- the waterfront park was packed. Kike hosts a show called MKLZ on the Basque television, so wherever we walked people would recognize him and stop to chat. I realized why the Amonarriz family goes to France for vacation!
   We drove a little ways along the coast from Bermeo for lunch, finally stopping at a place overlooking the mouth of the river that flows through Gernika. Rather than a muddy delta there was a wide, sandy beach with evenly breaking waves and aquamarine water. Kike and Gurutze insisted on treating us to lunch. I ordered a local dish made of little stuffed squid in a black ink/tomato sauce- I know that it sounds a little strange, but it was actually very very good! We decided that it was a little bit like Dad's steamed muscles in the northwest- the locals love it, but everyone else thinks they're crazy until they actually try it! We walked down to a nearby beach after lunch and explored a little harbor full of txalupas. Dad counted three boat launches and wanted to know why Anacortes couldn't have even one in town.

Kaixo, Euskal Herria!

What a whirlwind of a week! Let me see if I can put together what happened, more or less...

   My second day in the Basque Country, Gurutze, Kike, and Jone took me on a driving tour of their part of the Basque Country. The car ride alone was worth flying across Europe- the roads wound around, over, and through mountains as green as I have ever seen and along a shoreline that made Chukanut look tame. Our first stops were Zarautz and Zumaia, two picture-perfect coastal towns in Gipuzkoa. We walked along the harbors and climbed the steep stone streets to enjoy stunning views over the Bay of Biscay and the coast. Each town has a stone harbor filled with Txalupak (small work boats) and a dockside that reminded me a bit of home. The cool, breezy weather meant that the sandy beaches were nearly deserted- they will be packed as the weather warms up! 

   Our drive back to Tolosa took us through Asteasu, which Kike explained to me was the home town of author Bernardo Atxaga. Part of his book Obabakoak (which Kike was surprised to hear that I had read- thanks, Em!) takes place driving to the fictional town of Obaba on the non-fictional mountain road to Asteasu. The journey and stone town were even better in reality than imagined from the story. Absolutely lovely!

When we arrived back in Tolosa Jone and I were dropped off at a favorite kafétegia (café)/hang out spot for young people in Tolosa, where I learned a new version of BC from Jone and her friends before we walked over to their garage to hang out until dinner. (Click "read more"...)

Tolosa!

Hi from Tolosa! After 12 hours travelling (train, bus, plane, car) I arrived at the Amonarriz Zubeldia house last night. woot! This morning I took a walking tour of Tolosa with Kike and Jone, had Kroketas with the family on the side of a mountain, went to the Donostia/San Sebastian aquarium after walking the sea wall and enjoying the salt air, and met Liere (sister 3) when she got off the bus from her basketball tournament, and finished a dinner of Tortilla Patata by tasting some wine and cheese with Kike and Maddi (sister 1). We discovered that I am the oldest of the girls here, while Jone is the youngest of the girls in Anacortes.