Relaxing day in Santander, Day 11

Today, I woke up at about 2PM. I was so tired from last night! I just relaxed until about 3PM, when I met up with Elodie to go to Decathalon to buy some new shoes. I found a great pair for 20 euros! Then, we passed by the jackets on the way to checkout, and I found a great jacket to replace the one I forgot at home! And just in time too! It started to get chilly in Santander that night!
On the way back from Decathalon, we decided to have dinner at Elodie's apartment, so I stopped at the Carrefour Express grocery store to buy some salmon, some veggies and pasta. See Mom, I really can cook here!
Then I returned to Katy's apartment to watch my Mom's performance. It was great! They were about a half hour behind, but that was okay. While we were waiting for the performance, Sarah, Katie, JP and I all were in a chatroom talking about the show so far and how things were going. It was nice to be able to talk with all them at once.
After the show, I headed over to Elodie's and we made dinner. I definitely made too many vegetables, but the salmon turned out great as did the pasta! It was delicious, and we ate it while watching Men in Black 2, in Spanish!
After dinner, I headed back to Katy's apartment, and called it an early night... finally!

Santander, Day 10

So after the crazy first night in Santander, I slept in half the day on Friday. I finally got myself out of bed around 12 because I knew that I had to say goodbye to Esther at the train station at 12:45! So I got down there, said my goodbyes to her, and was off to Elodie's apartment. We had made arrangements the night before that she was going to bring me to the seafood neighborhood in Santander and I was going to have "real" paella for the first time (a year after my original arrival, more or less! so sad!!)! We made our way over to the restaurant and had AMAZING paella. Now I'm just kicking myself for not going sooner! For 10 euros, we got a paella appetizer, I had a really good, typical pork dish for my main plate and then a desert! Oh so good..
Later, I found out that Mom had made it into the finals in her competition in Calgary, Canada! That must've been exciting for her. I also met up with one of my students from Bezana, Lia. She loves traveling to Ireland to practice her English. She wants to eventually go to the U.S., but when you can hop over to Ireland for under 100 euro, and a ticket to the states would cost about 500 euro, do you blame her?
That night, I went out with Katy and met up with Elodie for another awesome night out in Santander. When we were in Plaza canadio, Katy met up and introduced me to all the new English teachers for this year (our replacements! :( ). When she first introduced me, they thought I was Spanish!! :)
We met up with Katy's Spanish friend Chechu, who later, I taught to dance like an American, which he enjoyed a lot! We stayed out again until about 4AM, even after Elodie said it was going to be an early night for her! :) Obviously a great night!

Traveling to Santander, Day 9

Thursday was an early day. We had to get up at 5am to get ready, packed and off by 5:30 in order to get to the airport on time. I had a flight that left around 10:30am from Cologne to Bilbao, Spain, Leanne had a train that left from Cologne to Nurnburg, and Supy had a flight that left from Dusseldorf to JFK.
So we packed everything up, said our goodbyes to Eva, and headed to Cologne. But as we passed that same McDonalds we stopped at 2 days earlier, we decided to pull back in, because Supy had noticed a huge puddle of muddy water in the parking lot. I don't think I mentioned it yet, but the first day we had the car, someone bumped us while parking or something and left a nice scratch on our rear right quarter panel. We were afraid we were going to have to pay for it, so Supy decided we should use the mud to cover it up. It took about 10 minutes of supy splashing it on the car, and me trying to peel out in it, before it looked like we had just gotten back from a safari trip! But in the end, it worked! The car rental agency was more concerned about asking where we had gone, to notice the scratches that seemed to blend into the mud!! :) Awesome job supy!
We got to the Koln/Bonn airport with plenty of time to spare. We all had breakfast together one last time, before supy left for Dusseldorf, and I went into the security area of the airport. We had had an awesome 8 days together. What a great road trip!
My flight was pretty good to Bilbao. They had given me an exit row, but my seat didn't have a seat in front of it! I had SO much leg room! And on top of that, there wasn't anyone sitting in the seat next to me! It was a great flight!
When I got to Bilbao, I took the next bus to Santander, and after being up and traveling for the last 9 and a half hours, I finally arrived! I called up Kat and Katy who I was staying with, and headed over to their apartment.
After I had settled in, I met up with Elodie and Esther and ate Manolos! Manolos was this food place right across the street from my piso last year. The food is great and it was just so convenient! So we grabbed some of that and headed to the Ayuntomiento plaza to eat it and watch the gente (people). I immediately saw three of my students from last year!
After about an hour of hanging out with them, I left to go watch my Mom perform live via webcast from Calgary, Alberta, Canada! It was great to see her all the way from Spain, and to think that while I sat there watching her on the screen, she was on the other end at the exact same second, staring out into an audience full of people and a camera!
After that, I went back to Kat and Katy's. I mixed up some Calimocho (drink of the North of Spain consisting of half red wine, half coca cola) and met up with Elodie and Esther to play some darts at El Dorado! After that, we headed to Mala Espina and danced the night away until 4am!