Semana Santa with my favorite person in the world.

Last Friday, after 7 months and 10 days I was finally reunited with my mom. Our moth/daughter Spanish adventure began in Bilbao, were my mom flew into and I took a train to meet her with a lot of "ganas" (if you remember that Spanish word from my previous blog post). I can't explain how surreal it was to see her walk out of the elevator and greet me in the lobby. We didn't stay very long in Bilbao, just overnight, but we were able to fit in a visit to the Guggenheim, a modern art museum. It was, well lets just say...interesting. I think it's safe to say neither of us really understand modern art.

Saturday we headed back to my town where I introduced my mom to all my friends in my town. The next day we went to a Palm Sunday proccesion at the church I got to(pictured above), and after had lunch with my host family. They also took us to visit some pueblos (which are small village type towns) close to where I live. We ended the day exhausted, but eager to for the next leg of our trip.

Our next stop-Barcelona. Monday morning we caught the train there, where we stayed until Thursday. Barcelona is a beautiful town, but not as spectacular as I had expected. It wasn't like how they always show it in movies, but nonetheless a great city. We had a really good time, walking around, eating tapas, relaxing on the roof top deck at our hotel. I even got to meet up with one of the other exchange students who I had been missing since the rotary trip in March. One thing, because in Barcelona they speak both Spanish and Catalan are spoken. I actually heard more Catalan and English than Spanish.

Madrid was our final (and I like to think best) stop. One of the most breathtaking cities I have been to, and by far my favorite in Spain(closely rivaled by Sevilla and Salamanca). We saw all the monuments and important things(as we did in Barcelona), but in our typical fashion we didn't enter one of them. We however experienced the Cafe life of Spain! We would joke around about the fact that instead of entering the musuems, we would instead sit in a cafe across the street and admire them. The reason was because the lines were so long everywhere it was impossible to go in.

Unfortunately, it had to come to an end, but fortunately we got to experience it. I was super sad to have to say goodbye all over again, but this time instead of having almost a year ahead of me, I don't even have two months. Let me wrap this up by saying thank you to my wonderful mother who I am so thankful to have! Thank you for the trip and for this whole year...and might as well throw in there for my whole life. xoxoxoxoxo

besos

Cristina