Today started out bright and early in Madrid. Our bus picked us up at 6:45 am and brought us to the Chamartin train station to catch our 8 am train to Bilbao. Thus began four and a half hours of basically chilling on the train. A little napping, a little reading, it was all good. So, we pulled into Bilbao around 12:40 pm, and most of the kids families were already there waiting to whisk them off to their homes around the Bilbao area. A little more than half are in town, and a few are scattered around the surrounding area. Including a couple that are living right by the ocean! Our host, Maite, is a language teacher at two different institutes, and still has to work through next week. But she was at the station to meet us and bring us to our home for the next week. Granted, we did not arrive home before being screeched at by a woman on the bus for having our luggage with us. We just pretended to not understand and made our way off the bus as quickly as we could. Then, after a quick intro to the (tiny) apartment, Maite cooked us up some "vegetable" paella for lunch. I use quotes because apparently Maite considers crab meat a vegetable. Or she thought I was stupid and wouldn't realize it was meat. Whatever, I ate around it. :) she then headed off to work, and Jeanne and I headed back to the downtown area and met up with a former student of mine, Kalin, and her friend Julius. She's been studying in Valencia since January, and we were hoping that we could meet up while we were here. She actually heads home on Thursday, and this was their last "weekend trip", so it worked out perfectly. So, we didn't get down there until nearly 5, and wound up just sitting at a couple of sidewalk cafes and chatting, eventually finding a (somewhat expensive) Italian place to have a good solid dinner at. I have a feeling the vegetarian thing isnt going to go over so well with Maite. Oh well, fortunately I don't tire of manchego cheese sandwiches! And I found a branch of my favorite Spanish sandwich chain in town, so I have my back up plan all set. But anyway, overall it was a fantastic afternoon and evening with Kalin - she's double majoring in engineering and Spanish - it makes a teacher happy to see a student doing so well and striking out to study abroad in only her sophomore year of college. We may or may not see them again tomorrow if we decide to head over to San Sebastian. Our plans are totally upo in the air except for "sleep until you can't anymore". And so I give you the only picture I took today, me and Kalin. :)