Week 3

June 18:

Today, we had two new professors. Adrianna has been with us for a few weeks. She's helped organize the course with the University. She is a professor at the Public University of Navarre. Jose was our other professor and he was from the South part of Spain. He is a specialist in the area we were covering. It was really nice that he took time away from his work to come up and teach us. After class, I wasn't feeling that well, so I laid down in my room for a bit.  Around 6, I went to the store to grab some dinner and food for the week. I'm trying not spend as much money since I have been eating out so much. I figured that is the easiest place to save. When we finished at the store, I came back and prepared my salad and bread. I didn't do anything else the rest of the night.

Roman Aqueduct

June 19:

We had class again today with Jose. He only taught one session because he had to catch his plane. Adrianna taught our second session. After class, Professor Kerry and a few of us headed to old town for lunch and then to meet the Cultural Teacher for a lesson. We walked the Camino de Santiago, which is also referred to as the Way of St. James. This path was used to spread the word of the Christian people. It now is used for religious walks and to prepare for athletic events. The trail takes about 30-35 days if you walk 23-27 kilometers a day and goes straight through Pamplona. The trail follows the Milkway. Along the way you can find signs that lead you where you need to go. The sign of the pilgrims is the sea shell, so that is the signature of the signs. There are hostels along the way and the one in Pamplona only cost 3 euros to stay at if you have the pilgrimage card. It was a really enjoyable walk. We started in a small town on the outskirts of Pamplona. On our walk, we ran into a nun and she told us about her life. It was really interesting talking to her and learning about her life. After the walk, we took the bus back to the dorms. We had to get to work on the homework for the week. We spent about 3 hours on the homework and then it was time to head to bed.

Pilgrimage Hostel

June 20:

We were up early to head to our excursions for the day. We started at a company called CENER. They are a National Renewable Energy Center. They were the 1st renewable energy producer and were the 1st to have a wind farm. CENER has about 4 wind farms. They have customers on every continent. The director gave us a tour and taught us about the different renewable energy resources. It was very interesting learning about the company and its work. The entire building of CENER is ran on renewable energy. Something really interesting they told us is they are working on using clothing fabric to produce solar power. They said it will be about 10 more years before they have this perfected. After CENER, we went to a wind farm owned by a company called Acciona.  The woman who showed us the wind turbine told us that one turbine could power 10 100 watt light bulbs for an hour. She said they own plants all over the world and all their wind farms produce 9000 mega watts which is 9 nuclear power plants. Also, she talked about how 80% of problems detected in the turbines can be fixed from their head quarters in Pamplona. The information she gave us was very interesting! After our tour of a wind turbine, we headed to lunch in a small nearby village. Wen we were finished with lunch, we took a walk to another small nearby village. The country side of the walk was beautiful. When we walked to the top, where the village was, we joked about the village because it was nearly completely empty. We talked about how it could be a scary movie we were in and zombies would come out any minute. It was pretty entertaining listening to the stories everyone was coming up with. After the bus picked us up we headed to Noain Town Hall. In 2011, their climate-change municipal plan won the International Dubai Award for best practices. They talked about renewable resources as well and they had a large garden that the community could use. They said they decided to build the garden because it was cheaper than maintaining it as a grassy area. It was a beautiful garden! At this point we were all pretty tired, but we had two more stops. First we went to CENIFER a Technical College for Renewable Energy. They told us about the programs they have. After CENIFER, we went to CRANA. CRANA is the Center for Environmental Resources in Navarre. By this time, it was 7:30, so we had been going for 11 hours. Everyone was really exhausted, so when we got back to the dorms I just stayed in my dorm. It was late and I wanted to relax after such a long day. 

View from Wind Farm

Wind Turbine

Village we walked to

Renewable Resource Garden

June 21:

We had another guest professor named Maria.  Her and Dean Graham started the program about 3 years ago. She was a student at Harvard and Dean Graham was her Advisor. So, they began to discuss starting such a program when Dean Graham started at at IU SPEA. She helped teach the course for the first 2 years and then received a political position this past year and had to move to Toledo, Spain. Since she had moved, she could no longer teach the course, but wanted to make an appearance in our class. After class, I headed back to the dorms and decided to get lunch with the girls. When we got back to the dorms after lunch, I had to work on my memo. Around 8:45, we headed across the street to watch the Eurocup. We had dinner and sat and talked till around 12. It was really fun chatting with the girls and catching up. Since it was so late when we returned, I get to bed.

June 22:

Since we don't have classes on Fridays, the girls and I decided to head to old town. We had lunch at a famous Cafe where Hemingway would go to write. It was a very good lunch and our waiter was excellent. He was very friendly and funny. He told the girls who ordered chicken that they couldn't stop to talk or the chicken would get up and run away and then he would have to shoot it. It was pretty funny! After lunch, we walked around. I decided to finish up my gift shopping. I was pretty excited to find everything I needed. Since they have siesta time, Abby and I decided to grab coffee at a nearby cafe that over looks the city. It was a beautiful day, so it was a very enjoyable coffee break. After we had coffee, we headed finished up and walked back to the dorms. We were going out to the Discoteca that evening, so we went back to rest. They don't go out till around 2am here, so I had to nap before going out. When we arrived at the club it was about 2am and I was so surprised to see elderly out dancing the night away. It was really funny to us, because we were all really tired and they were having the time of their life and it was 2am. Most of the older crowd didn't leave till about 3am. It was a really fun night. I'm glad I got to experience it before I left. This is my last weekend in Spain before moving on to London, so I wanted to make sure I experience the night life.

Ready for a night out!

I can't believe this is my last week in Spain. I have almost been here a month and it's gone by so fast. I have really enjoyed my time here and have learned so much. I have made a lot of great friends and look forward to what the rest of the trip. This week we have to give our presentations, so I'll probably spend most of my time preparing. I head to Barcelona on Friday night, so I can fly to London Saturday and meet up with some friends. After a day and a half in London, we go to Paris for four days. I will then be going to Germany to see Netti. I can't wait!

End of week 2

June 15:

We got up early to head to San Sebastian. San Sebastian is on the west coast of Spain! We caught the bus around 9:45, which put us in San Sebastian around 11. It was a really nice ride! There was and extraordinary view the entire ride. Once we arrived in San Sebastian, we found our hostel and got checked in. The owner of the hostel was really great. He didn't speak any English, but we made it through. He told us that if we weren't quit at night he would use his windchester on us. We all looked at each other really confused, then he did the motion for a shot gun and we finally understood. If we weren't quit, he would shoot us. We all had a good laugh from it. After settling in We changed into our swim suits and headed out to get lunch. It was really great because the beach was only a block from the hostel. We grabbed lunch at a hole on the wall pintxos bar. It was a delicious lunch! The woman who worked there reminded me of my mom. I could see here moving to some beach area owning a hole in the wall bar, with massive amounts of food on display. And of course, it would be super delicious! After lunch, we walked down to the beach to get our tan on. It was the perfect day for the beach, sunny with a breeze. I laid there for about an hour then decided to play in the water. The girls and I played in the water for about an hour. The water was a little cold, but you got use to it quickly. The water was also very clear and the waves were perfect for playing in. I got out and went back to lay in the sun. Around that time, the boys found us. We all just chilled on the beach for a bit. I think a one point I fell asleep and when I woke up I was over the sand. I believe 4 hours at the beach was enough. Some of the girls an I walked back to the hostel to shower. After being in the sand, it always feels so nice to take a nice shower. We finished getting ready and the other girls came back. I decided to wait for that group to get ready, so the other group headed out. In the meantime, I just hung out a the hostel with the girls because I was pretty tired. Around 8:30, we headed to dinner. We walked to the old town to find a place. After walking around for a bit, we finally found a place. I had a chicken sandwich, which was pretty good. After dinner, we walked back to the beach to take some pictures. We made it just in time for the sunset. It was very beautiful and I'm glad I got to see it. We then walked back to find a place to watch the soccer game and maybe run into the rest of the crew. Eventually we ran into all of them. We were all just sitting around chatting and enjoying the night. Around 11:30, Chloe, Abby, and I decided to head back to the hostel. We were pretty exhausted from such.a long day in the sun an we knew we had a long day ahead of us.

 View in San Sebastian

June 16:

We all got up around 9:45, so we could head to Bilbao for the day. When I woke up, I realized that I should of used more sun screen. It's always funny to see the crazy tan lines I get. My legs and back were red, but the thing that hurts the worst is my ear and that's not plural. Which is really weird because my ears never burn, but I realized it was because the sun was on the left side of my body all day and it's mainly where my earrings normally sit. So obviously they never get sun there and now I have a blister. Basically it feels like my left ear is on fire! No worries, I'll live through it! ;) We all finished getting ready and headed toward the bus. We stopped in a pastry shop to grab coffee and breakfast. After a little difficulty figuring out which bus we needed to be on, we figured it out and boarded. It was about a two hour trip, but it was pretty amazing ride. Besides it being curvy, the scenery was amazing. We got the best of all views mountains, ocean, and old towns. When we arrived in Bilbao, we purchased our tickets for home. After that, we found lockers to store our bags in. We fought with the lockers for about 20 minutes. There were only two left, which was fine between the seven of us, but we couldn't the the keys to turn. Finally, I got ours shut and worked on the other. We never could get it shut, but a smaller one opened. That was a true puzzle getting 3 bags into that one. Let's just say, 10 minutes later after we fit everything we got a round on applause from the people watching. Mission accomplished! We then grabbed taxis and headed to the Guggenheim Museum. We grabbed some food before heading in. We ate at a Turkish restaurant. The gyro i had was mouth watering. I had never had anything like it, but is was amazing! After lunch, we headed to the museum. We spent about 3.5 hours there and it was very cool. The art inside was really wonderful and some very deep. It was a lot of fun to see all the artwork. There was a bit of everything: photography, paintings, iPad drawings, large maze structures, and video work. After walking around the museum, we headed across the street to grab coffee and ice cream. We had about 3 hours to kill before our bus, so we decided to do a little walking. It was really unfortunate because it was rainy and cold, but we trudged through it. We found a H&M and decided to go in. It was the best H&M ever. Three floors of heaven. I was pretty sad because I'm already worried about getting stuff home, so I didn't buy anything. It was nice to look though. After everyone finished looking, we grabbed taxis and headed back to the bus station.

Guggenheim Museum

June 17:

Today was a typical Sunday. I caught up the blog and relaxed. We tried to do some grocery shopping, but all the stores were closed. It was very unfortunate because I wanted to get groceries to have for the week, but it will have to wait till Monday. I called my dad for Father's Day, but wasn't able to talk long because it's so expensive. It was nice to hear their voices. Back to class tomorrow. I can't believe we are half way done with our program. The days are slow, but the weeks are fast. It's going by so quickly and before I know it I'll be in Germany and heading home.