February 28

I have just returned from a crazy scramble up a cliff face into an old cave that overlooks Logroño, I am dusty and sweaty. Now I am back in Anna and Cere´s apartment; some friends I met when Anna was a student teacher at my high school a few years ago. I am here visiting them for a couple days before I fly out of Bilbao to Amsterdam to visit a good friend who is studying abroad there. It´s been absolutely amazing to be with a couple real friends. Even though I really don´t know them that well they have been so kind and Anna and I have been having lots of fun biking around in ridiculous windy weather and talking about MLC. Also I have gotten the chance to use their washing machine and take a shower which is freaking wonderful! I think I might take another shower today! Before here I was in Lakabe, a super small cooperative village in the Basque mountainous region. The Basque country is unbelievably beautiful, with lots of mountains (not big ones like back home in the Cascades, but beautiful nonetheless) and rolling hills all dappled with little red rooved villages. Lakabe is nestled just out of sight above a minor highway in sort of a valley with lakes in the basin and chaotic montains all around. I say chaotic because compared to the neat rows of huge peaks that I am used to at home, the seemingly random juts upward of earth and rock feel that way to me. There are forty people who live in the village, sharing use of the gardens and animals (sheep, cows, horses, chickens, and a pig) and working on various building projects together. In the mornings we would begin work around 9:30, after having toast and coffee. There were usually a couple different projects going on that I could work on. Often I went up the mountain to work in the timber camp, basically getting really muddy and pushing around big logs. For two days I helped to plaster the walls of a house they were constructing. And sometimes I would just stay in the warm kitchen and help to cook lunch for everyone, each day we had lunch all together but breakfast and dinner were eaten separately with the people in your house.
When I first arrived, the bus from Pamplona pulled over along the side of the highway in seemingly the middle of nowhere and I was told that this was Lakabe. Apprehensively I stepped out of the bus and looked around at what was breathtakingly beautiful scenery, but definitely not a village, praying to myself that this was the right place. As the bus pulled away I saw that on the other side of the road was another small road winding up a hill, with a sign reading Lacabe, the C crossed out and replaced with a red spraypainted K (later I discovered that the C is the Spanish spelling, and the K the Basque.) Next to the sign was an old gray horse, nonchalantly munching on the dry grass. Like I said before, the village is completely hidden from the highway, so I had no idea where this road would lead me, but I clumsily slung on my gigantic back pack and trudged upwards. Soon I came upon the oh-so-quaint-and-european red tile rooves and stone walls of Lakabe. No people were anywhere in sight but hawks circled high above and a few cows grazed near by. I slowly wandered down what seemed to me like the main path through the cluster of houses, feeling sort of like I was trespassing on something much to foreign and picaresque for my American eyes, and not quite sure what to expect or where to go. As I passed one house a man with wild sandy hair peered out the window and motioned me to the door. His name was Staci and he welcomed me in and gave me some food before showing me to a room where I would sleep. There are about six houses in the village, each one containing around six people. I stayed in the common house, called Xuxcal, where all the visitors plus a few residents slept, and where communal meals were eaten. The people living there are all learning, if not already speaking, the Basque language, so everything in the house had little labels in Euskarra. I really wished that everything was labeled in Spanish. There were a couple people who spoke English there but they all spoke to eachother in Spanish and by the time I left I could understand about twice as much as I could when I arrived. I still feel like an idiot when I try to speak, but atleast I can usually keep up on the general topic of conversation when I am with others who are speaking with each other.
Being in Lakabe made me wish that I were going to be spending more time on farms while I was here, in order to take the job as an Au Pair in Murcia, I had to give up my plans to WWOOF. But I suppose that I can WWOOF anywhere, maybe in Oregon this summer.
I think I will have plenty of computer access in the next few weeks with Max so I will make sure to write a blog while I am in Amsterdam. Sending my love to everyone in the States, or where ever, I miss you all a lot. Abrazos.

february eleventh

Only two full days left in Barcelona. My how the time does fly. I am taking a train to Pamplona on Sunday morning, staying for one night, and then catching a bus to Lakabe the next day. Apparently it is snowing over there in Basque country and I am a little apprehensive about heading out with my sneakers and rain coat, but I guess I´ll just figure it out as I go. Already I am digging through my backpack and tossing out things that I´m not sure why I brought in the first place. Before I left, Travis tried to tell me that I should pack really, really light. I only sort of listened to him and this is my most recently learned lesson: always listen to Travis. (Babe, I hope you´re reading this because I am never going to say it out loud.)
Anyways, so Lakabe is a town that a Spanish friend recommended to me, but all I really know is that it is some sort of commune type deal, one of those "live off the land and eat vegetarian meals together in a big community kitchen" places. A while back I emailed a woman named Mabel (in broken Spanish) about visiting, and she told me to come February 15 through the 25 and bring my sleeping bag, so that´s what I´m doing. At the very least it will be an adventure.
Currently I am sleeping on a couch in a flat belonging to some friends of friends. There´s no hot water and they all speak only a little English, but they are very kind and I am happy to be here. Everynight we eat dinner together and I get a long Spanish lesson. Two of the guys are in a punk band and tomorrow I am going to their show in a near by ocupada, and then on Saturday we are going to Sitges (small town a quick train ride away) for Carnival. Apparently Carnival in Spain is sort of a mix of Mardi Gras and Halloween; basically every one dresses up in costumes and gets very drunk and there´s some sort of parade. Should be a rich cultural experience.
Tomorrow is also my last day of Spanish classes. I have been studying a lot on my own, trying to teach myself past perfect and imperfect. What is hardest for me is listening to others speak. Reading and writing is fairly easy and even speaking I can manage but I can never understand what others are saying to me. And from what I hear, in the south the accents are unbelievably thick so I had better figure it out now while I can.
Okay my fingers are way too cold to type anymore, today was absolutely frigid. I´m going to go boil some water for a bath. Hasta el proximo blog.

February 5th

I feel like I have now settled into a comfortable rhythm. For the past week I have been attending Spanish classes every morning, and I have been at the same hostel for a while now. My days are repeating patterns of going out to explore with my little green backpack and coming back to the nest to read or nibble on bread and avocado. It´s been very nice, although tomorrow I am leaving this hostel for a free couch belonging to a friend of a friend, and in nine days I am leaving Barcelona.
As I am already half way through my Spanish courses, I am beginning to panic over still not being able to hold anything close to a real conversation. It´s remarkable the way that a foreign language can take over your brain. It´s like a little Spanish speaking parrot is lurking in the back of my mind. I think to myself, "Hm, I need to go to the post office today," and the parrot chimes in, "Hm, necesito ir al correos hoy." Every thought is repeated in Spanish, or a mental note is taken that I need to learn how to say whatever it is that I was thinking. It is exhausting. And even though in class I feel like I can communicate most of what I want to say, and understand my teacher´s response, once I am out in the real world of Barcelona people tend to speak a lot faster than my teacher.
Anyways, on a totally different subject, last night I was planning to write a blog entry but the power at my hostel kept going out. I had a headlamp in my pack so I got it out and went to assist the manger and his wife in attempting to fix the problem. The manager is this tiny old Indian man who putters around the place all hunched over, anytime I walk past he looks at me and says, (more to himself than to me) "La señorita de Oregon," then follows that by naming off all the states of the U.S. that begin with an O, "Oklahoma, Ohio..." and then complains to me, "¡Hace frio!" So after the power finally seemed to decide to remain permanently on, I was too tired to write, and went to sleep. "¡Vale! Me acuesto ahora,"
Today I walked all the way down the beach to a neighborhood called Poble Nou which I hadn´t been to before, but it is definitely my new favorite area of Barcelona. It´s lovely and old, but much more open than the Barrio Gotico, where I am staying, and have spent most of my time. The narrow winding streets of the Barrio Gotico are intriquing and also beautiful, but they are dark and cold and dirty, which gets old. When I come back to Barcelona before I leave in the summer, it is my first goal that I find a place to stay in Poble Nou.
I have been offered a position as an Au Pair in Murcia for the months of April and May, and though nothing is yet final, I plan to take it. I´ll save a lot of money this way and I am hoping to stay a few weeks longer than orginally planned. Plus the family sounds rad.
Alas, I am all out of words, but I will be sure to write again before I leave Barcelona.
Saludos y abrazos.