June 28- Living Life By A Spanish Proverb

“How beautiful is it to relax and then do nothing afterwards.” –Spanish Proverb

This morning started off a little slow. I got up fairly early and had breakfast, but the girls I was going to spend the day with wanted to sleep in a bit. So I got some good, quality homework time in and caught up on a bunch of reading. At 11:30, I met Arshia and her friend Ilwi at the dining hall for lunch. Then we caught the next shuttle into Bilbao.

We wanted to take the day easy. We stopped at the main shopping mall in town, and I bought a very cute dress (“made in Spain” by the way, I was super stoked about that). Then we meandered through town. We walked by the Guggenheim and stopped at a few souvenir shops. We also got some gelato at a place that would make you an actual rose out of your ice cream (see photo below).

Yummy Gelato Rose

Eventually we ended up in a little café/bar. We sat down for a while and enjoyed some pintxos and sangria. Apparently, pintxos are the thing to eat while you’re in Basque Country.

Ilwi and Arshia

 You’re probably wondering, “What is a pintxo?” About.com does a good job explaining.

'Pintxo' is a 'Basque-ified' take on the Spanish word 'pincho', which itself comes from the verb 'pinchar', which is 'to pierce'. Pinchos are traditionally pierced with a cocktail stick, to attach it to the piece of bread that they invariably came attached to. However, as Basque cuisine has evolved, the food is now less likely to be pierced to a piece of bread than before. In the Basque Country, you are served 'pintxos'. It is never written 'pinchos' and they are never called 'tapas'. This is the case regardless of whether it is served 'pinchado' to a piece of bread with a cocktail stick or not. Even if you're served a plate of risotto, it's still a pintxo. (http://gospain.about.com/od/tapasinspain/qt/pintxos_pinchos_tapas.htm)

Pintxo Bar

As soon as we left the café, it started to rain. We all huddled together under Arshia's umbrella and hurried to the bus stop. Thankfully we didn't have to wait long for the next shuttle to the ship. Once we got back to the MV Explorer, we had dinner and chatted for a while with another group of SASers. We decided the weather was too icky to go out again, so I went to Arshia and Yiting’s room to watch Sherlock.

For you Sherlock fans (I know you’re few and far in between), you HAVE to see Season 3 if you haven’t yet. It’s is absolutely AMAZING!!! I was able to watch the first episode before I left, but I didn’t have time to watch the other two. Thank God Arshia has it downloaded on her laptop! For those of you who don’t watch Sherlock, I highly, highly recommend it. It’s hands down one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.

The geek rant is over. I decided not to finish the last episode, so I have about 30 minutes left to watch. I’m saving it for another rainy day. So yes, today was a lovely, lazy day in Spain.