A weekend of adventures...

(Dazed? Confused? Never!)This weekend, a family friend came to visit me here in Santander!! Many of you may know of her, Dr. Hoch. She is my first official visitor here in Spain from the U.S.!

So in an attempt to show her a little about our small part of Spain, myself and a few others attempted to show her around. We planned a busy weekend of museum hopping, city touring, and even squeezed in some local meals!

I started the weekend off by having her come with me to school on Friday morning. I only had one class to teach, and it was my best class yet! There were about 20 twelve-year-old kids in the class, all eager to try to speak and understand some English! After some time at school, we headed back to Santander. A little while after arriving, my host mother, Teresa, called to say that she could give us a driving tour of the area if we wanted. Of course we were more than happy to accept, and headed over to meet up with her.

She started the tour off by bringing us to an AMAZING beach... (Shown below)

(Click on any photo to enlarge)

After that, we headed on to "El Sardinero", which is the main beach in Santander. Oh, and by the way, even though it's late October, it's still beach weather here!! After El Sardinero, we headed on to "el faro" (the lighthouse). The lighthouse is perched on the cliff that separates the Atlantic Ocean and the bay of Santander. All of these pictures are views from the lighthouse.

(Click on any photo to enlarge)

After the lighthouse, we continued with a driving tour of Santander, and sadly, I forgot to take pictures.. :( But I promise I will eventually document my beautiful city for all of you! :)

Overall, this awesome driving tour lasted over 3 hours! Teresa was an awesome tour guide!! During the tour, Teresa invited us over for a Spanish "Cena" or dinner on Sunday night. Of course we were both excited and eagerly accepted... I accepted mainly because I know how great of a cook Teresa is!

Saturday, Dr. Hoch, myself and 4 other English assistants went for the day to Bilbao, mainly to visit the Guggenheim.

(Look closely, and you'll see Dr. Hoch in the bottom center of that photo, climbing the stairs)

We happened to visit Bilbao on a weekend when the Guggenheim was free (something about their anniversary). So not only did we get to see an amazing museum, we didn't have to pay! (Which is very important for poor, roaming, recent college grads.. like myself!)

Here is a picture of the whole crew on the escalator leaving the metro..

(From left to right: Dr. Hoch, Lauren, Kate, Supy and Leanne)

And yet another photo of the outside of the Guggenheim.. Possibly one of the most interesting buildings I've ever seen! (Sorry about no photos inside, but they weren't allowed..)

(Yet again, click on the photo to enlarge..)

On Sunday, Dr. Hoch and I mustered up enough energy (don't forget that she was fighting an unyielding battle against jetlag!) to make a really short afternoon trip to Santillana del Mar.

It is a very beautiful town located about 45 minutes from Santander by bus. Here are pictures of Dr. Hoch and I in the center of town.

(Click on any photo to enlarge)

After walking around the town for about an hour and a half, we found a small bar and both had a well needed drink, and chocolate con churros which is a hot chocolate pudding with fried dough sticks. Only one word, amazing, can describe it.

Que sed nosotros tuvimos y Que rico!

We then took the bus back to Santander, as we had to get to Teresa's for dinner. There, we had a Spanish omelette along with bacon and some ice cream (helado) for dessert.

After dinner, we headed back to Santander as Dr Hoch needed to get a good nights rest for her long return trip back to the states on Monday.

Overall, her visit here was great in my opinion. Although short, we made the best of it. She really started to get to know Santander by the end of the weekend!!

Thanks for the visit Dr Hoch!