so much to say, so much to write

i have to admit...blogging has become a little bit of a task...i think i've caught yas's disease on the ship.

but, blog i will.

so, when last you caught up with the adventures of phil and briana (phil jordan, not phil maturi, for those of you who are just tuning in) we had arrived to bilbao. i'm not sure what it is about this country or this corner of the world, but for some reason, i sleep A LOT more than usual here, and the days seem to fly by. phil says he's sleeping just as much as usual, but either way, we are sleeping tons and can't seem to drag ourselves out of bed in the morning, despite being in bed at fairly reasonable times in the night. but we have fought our own laziness and managed to squeeze in some sights. here are the highlights:

*i believe i already told about our adventure to sestao, apparently the ugliest town in basque country. still a highlight cause it makes me laugh to think that we ended up there.

*on a particularly rainy day, we headed out of the house and crossed the river to go to the guggenheim museum. unfortunately, about half of the museum was closed because they are bringing in a new exhibition, but the plus side is that admission was discounted as a result (a good thing for two unemployed wanderers). the guggenheim is filled with modern art, and i really enjoyed what we saw. i'm not a huge fan of very old art...most of it seems very dark and dreary to me. and a lot of the pieces at the guggenheim were very creative and atypical of what most people would define as art (most traditionalists, i think). there was an exhibition there of large pieces of iron, some of which were wavy long lines and some of which were big coils. you could walk through the iron walls, and i was walking through the first coil, as i was anticipating what was going to be in the center of this piece, i could help but sing to myself "the long and winding road." at the end, there was nothing. i'm hoping that wasn't the artists way of summing up his view of life...maybe he just liked coils. anyway, i really enjoyed our time there.

*we jumped back on the bilbao subway and headed out to the suburb of plentzia, which is a little village that sits on the coast. again, we had a rough time getting out of bed, so by the time we got there, it was siesta time, and the village was extremely quiet. nothing was opened! so we walked around for a while and then headed back to bilbao to get some food. before leaving, though, i discovered that phil seems to have a phobia of small row boats. there were tons of them in the water around plentzia, and he kept commenting on how small and weird they were. they seemed like pretty typical small row boats to me, but who am i to question his phobia?!

*despite the fact that neither phil or i are big fans of very old art, we visited the museum of fine arts in bilbao because it is the local favorite over the guggenheim (and it is free admission on wednesdays!). it was a small museum, which i like because then you aren't overwhelmed with seeing so much in a short period of time. there were some nice pieces in there, and even some more modern pieces. i kinda laughed at myself because most of the art that i found most visually appealing was so abstract and unconventional.

*our best venture out of the house thus far has definitely been to san sebastian, which is a coastal town about an hour away from bilbao. san sebastian sits right on the cantabrian sea (i don't know if that is the correct spelling/name, but i have nothing in front of me right now to confirm this, so go with it!) it was beautiful! we got off the bus and just started walking and ended up right on the beach. it was so sunny, and the water was a beautiful blue shade. there are two small mountains that sit on the edge of the city, so we walked the path to the top of one of the mountains and were able to get some great views of the town below. at the top of the mountain is a statue of jesus christ, and as we got closer, we noticed that there is an antenna coming out of his back. we decided that someone probably made the statue into a cell phone tower, and i wondered how many other high-standing landmarks were being used for the same thing.

*on saturday, we jumped into the family van and headed to france. when i say we, i mean that we definitely had a full car. mercedes, ales, natalia, phil, oihana, jon anden and i piled into ales and mercedes's mini-van and followed the signs to "frantzia." we visited three small towns, all of which were nice, but my favorite was bayonne. winding cobblestone streets led to views of distant snow-capped mountains. the streets were lined with small shops selling homemade chocolate and marmelade and soap and cheese. also, this weekend marks the beginning of carnaval, and although brazil is best known for their celebration, many places in europe hold their own parties. we saw a parade down the streets of bayonne, and oihana was so happy to see all of the costumes and hear all of the music.

hmmm...i think those are all of the highlights i can think of right now. although, i'm sure there are more, cause i can remember laughing to myself a ton of times over the last week and thinking that i needed to put this in the blog. this is what happens when i slack on my writing...i forget what i wanted to say.

hope all is well in the states! enjoy the following pictures!


phil crossing the bridge in plentzia...if you can, zoom in and check out the look on his face!


me and jon ander...soo cute!


oihana, looking very cute as well


the small boats...phil has just informed me that it isn't a fear as much as an aversion...likely story!


fun on top of a mountain


a shot of a beach in san sebastian


san sebastian


phil learning a new phrase: "eramos pocos y pario la abuela." apparently it's of similar meaning to "when it rains, it pours." you find the translation and tell us if you get it.


san sebastian...we couldn't get a good shot of both of us...we weren't having a very cute day.


phil looking stately.


jesus and his antenna.


phil took a "shortcut" and got caught on top of a bridge...heh!


a shot in the town in france with snowy mountains in the distance


the family and phil


the babies in their carriage