First Week in Donostia

View Of The Bay From A Park

Alex and I

Igor and Alex



View From My Room, Aldapeta Kalean

This Girl Sold Me My New Phone

Aitor Aranguren and I

The Boardwalk At Night

My Basque Teacher and I


On Monday I arranged to meet up with my friend Alex. He had just figured out the day before that I was in the Basque Country, so we went to a park with another friend, Igor, and drank some beers and shot the shit. Then we went to a different part of town. As we were walking along we passed some stores, and then a room that had cardboard covering the inside of the windows. At the door there was a circle where the cardboard had been cut out and replaced by the head of some swimsuit model. We knocked on the door and went inside. It is basically just this space they rented for the soul-purpose of hanging out(see picture).

My Homestay is located right near the Catedral de Buen Pastor. (A two minute walk from the heart of downtown San Sebastian and from the famous beach La Concha) I live with an older couple (about 60 years old) They've been taking USAC students for the past fifteen years, and when I tried to switch families because of the lack of children, the housing director, Tito, assured me that this is the best family, and that, in fifteen years, I was the first person to request a change. We do intercambios with the local students, so I basically can have as many language partners as I want, meaning the lack of children in my host family is not an issue.

I met up with my friend Aitor and we went out to the Parte Vieja (Alde Zaharrera) to have some drinks and eat dinner. I hadn't seen him since last spring in Santa Barbara, so it was nice to talk. I was happy to practice my Basque with him and he was happy to get to practice his English. I bought his dvd Go!Azen, the first Basque musical. He told me that he's going to be directing one or two soap operas this season, and that I could be paid to be an extra in them.

The last picture is a picture of my teacher. I'm going to be learning basque from her Monday-Friday from 9-12. It's great because I'm the only student in the class, so the entire curriculum is catered towards me. We started on Wednesday, and I haven't had to do any homework yet. The teacher was really surprised by my level of Basque; studying it for the past year in my spare time has really proven to be beneficial. Due to that, she has had to change the entire curriculum, so that we skip the beginning stages, and next week I'll jump right into interviewing people in
Basque and reading and writing. She's super excited that I'm here to learn her language, and has a very fun personality.