San Adrian IES is the school that I was lucky enough to get placed. The teachers are nice and the students are interested. When I first walked in the school, I wasn't sure what to expect. I met with Bernardo, my tutor (the teacher that is in charge of my primary caretaking), and he gave me my schedule. We chatted about what I was doing and covered our emails that we had sent back and forth to each other before my arrival. Let me say first off that Basque people are extremely nice, contrary to my previous assumptions. My first schedule had me working from Tuesday to Friday. When I came in the next day he had given my an entirely new schedule working from Monday to Thursday. He told me I could choose which schedule I wanted. By this time I had already told Liz to try to get Mondays off for obvious reasons. I was very hesitant to accept either of the two schedules, so I asked if I could tell him later via email. When I got home, I found out that Liz's schedule was Wednesday to Friday. I sent my teacher an email explaining Liz's schedule and how it would be better if I had Monday's off. When I came in on the following Tuesday to work, I was hit with yet another curve ball. My newest schedule had me working from Wednesday to Friday. I work 6 hours on Wednesday, 2 on Thursday, and 4 on Friday. All my excitement of having two days off was soon extinguished by Liz receiving a new class on Tuesday and on my second job needing me to work Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. So long 4-day weekends, hello extra money. Oh well, it could be worse. And as of late, I have been contacted on about 6 tutor jobs. Once again, goodbye 12 hour work week, hello 24 hour work week. Once again, it could be worse.
The bank account and identification cards were interesting experiences to say the least. I was a lot of head nodding and signing things on our part, hopefully no one was trying to take advantage of our foreignness. I am going to pick up my new debit card (which is useless until we get paid) on Wednesday, and my identification card shortly thereafter.
Our three day trips were to Plentzia, Santander, and Haro. Plentzia is a beach about a 45-minute metro ride north of Bilbao. Beautiful beaches, quaint little town, and picturesque river lined with numerous vessels. The strange thing was that I forgot to bring my swimsuit to the beach. It's strange that it never registered in my mind to do so. We (Liz, Amy, and myself) had planned to meet one of Amy's friends, Iñaki and his friend Marta. When they arrived, in true Spanish fashion, about 2 hours later, Iñaki mentioned that due to the strike in Bilbao, the metro might be shut down. At first we panicked, but then we realized that they were striking in Bilbao and that we might be stranded on a beautiful beach on a gorgeous day. It's strange how our worries seemed to just melt away at that point. After a quick photo shoot on my part, we departed with out fingers crossed. We caught the metro and were back into Bilbao for dinner. 
A 4-day weekend approached us in the beginning of October due to National Day in Spain. We quickly gathered and decided that we (Liz, Amy, Andrew, and myself) needed to take some form of action. On Monday we decided to head to Haro, a small town in the wine producing region of La Rioja. I, being the naive tourist that I am, thought that we could just show up in a country that loves their wine (on a day off, have you), and expect to have no problem getting on a wine tour. Needless to say, that was one thing that we didn't do when we were in Haro. So without any opening, we decide to walk around the bodegas and see if they had any cancellation spots available. When we crossed over from the town to the bodegas (they were separated by a river) we were almost instantly met by the sweet smell of vineyards. It's a smell that I can only compare to goodness and more goodness. My spirit was instantly raised. I could have sat there all day just smelling this sweet smell. Anyway, the mission was a failure. We then decided to do the next best thing...head to a bar and get a bottle of wine and some raciones (small plates of food) to split amongst ourselves. All in all, it was a successful day in Haro. Stay tuned for my next two posts on our night out and the opera.
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