My birthday in the Basque Country (by Simon)

For my birthday I had a great day. Here is a picture from when the students were singing to me on the tour bus; I was embarrassed. The weather was nice and sunny all day--this was a special present. I'm lucky because it was raining on all of the other days.


First thing, we drove to the ocean to the church of San Juan de Gastelugatxe (if you look closely at the island you can see the church on the top and the path). It was the first time that we were at the beach with students and they were excited. We ran all the way down to the sea, a long ways. We saw 2 crabs. Also on the way back up the hill to the bus, we saw over 10 webs with these creepy spiders.


Next we went to Gernika. I really like the Peace Museum there. You go in this room that looks old fashion and sit facing a wall that is a mirror. Then you listen to a recording of a lady who talks about living in Gernika right before the bombing and then it sounds like you are being bombed. It is a little bit scary, but in the end the mirror is see through and it looks like after the bombing. I like it because it really felt like if I was there and I could know how those people felt. Some of our relatives were in or near Gernika when it was bombed. They met us there and spoke a little to the students about their experience. It was great seeing Iñaki, José Antonio and Begoña again.

Next we all went to a restaurant in the mountains. Here is a picture of the big table. There were 35 people all eating together! I had a soup of beans that I really liked. Some students ordered baby squid in their own ink. The sauce is dark black and it didn't look good to me. After I ate, I went outside to a playground and my foot suddenly slipped on steps up to the slide and I fell 3 feet. I almost broke my arm, instead I got a big scrape on my elbow.

Then we went to Donostia and I was eager to open my presents, but Dad asked if I wanted to go swimming at the beach first. So we went to the beach first because the sun would set soon. I had a fun time, but the water was colder than in the summer.Then I opened my presents and I really liked them. I got 3 art canvases, some real oil paints, a book about Velaquez, and a professional sketch set which I have been using and I love it.fter that we went to Telepizza with Malcolm [Malcolm was visiting the program from the International Study Programs Office at BYU--ed.]. I chose Telepizza because they have pepperoni pizza and that is sometimes hard to find. Malcolm then took us to ice cream, but I was so full of pizza and so tired that I didn't want any.

I had a great birthday.