A Day in Bilbao, by Ben Garman

Monday April 15: A Day in Bilbao
Greetings from Bilbao everyone! No, I mean literally greetings from Bilbao because the Spanish exchange group visited there today. Altogether, the trip to Bilbao was very culturally enhancing, which was the main goal of the excursion I would imagine. So our daily experience goes as follows: after gathering at the school Julio Caro Baroja we caught the Metro at Algorta station (the station closest to the school) and headed out of Getxo. We got off the Metro Moyua station in Bilbao and saw the brand new library there with many different languages.

 Later we made our way to the Diputación; meaning the regional government building and had a tour of that fabulous building. We learned many fun facts about the building itself and the way government was run in Pais Vasco. For example the money from the Basque Country goes to Madrid each year but only a small amount because the Basque people would like to be as independent as possible from Madrid.We also learned that the representation for Vizcaya/Bizkaia which is part of the Basque country will always be shown as a lady. After this tour we had a short break in which most of us went to eat our lunches.

 After lunch we reconvened for the second of the tours this one being a two hour long tour of 
Old Bilbao on the other side of the river. This tour was in English so that we could understand more of what was being said and therefore get more out of the tour itself. We learned a lot about Old Bilbao such as the town's two main occupants were either fishermen or miners. The fisherman lived on one side of the river and the miners on the other.

 We also learned that Saint Nicholas is the saint of the Sailors which we all found interesting considering that we are the Scituate Sailors so it was something that we could relate to. 

After the tour and two hours of free time which most used to shop for gifts in Bilbao we headed back to Getxo via the Metro some of the group having to disembark at different stops depending on where their host families lived, but we all made it home safely which is the most important part.