22 june

I´m here in Irun, País Vasco (the region to the west of Navarra, where Pamplona is) in the hotel with my family right now. Colin is running his 8 mile run for the day while Mom and I are hanging out and getting hungry for breakfast. I met them in the airport in Madrid this past Friday and we saw a lot of Madrid that day, leaving on Sunday afternoon. We went to two art museums and Colin didn´t complain too much. I saw everything that I had heard about in all of my Spanish classes: paintings by Goya and Picasso and El Greco, el Retiro (huge park), el Rastro (flea market), la Plaza Mayor, the palace, and the communications building which looks like a huge palace also (I think it might have been at one time). We had fun riding the metro too. Sunday evening we arrived in Pamplona and Jodi met us at the airport so that we wouldn´t get lost driving to her house (we had rented a car). Monday we went to the castle in Olite, a small town about 30 minutes from Pamplona and brought along Nate, the oldest son of the family from my church. In the afternoon we had our last get-together with all of us from Pamplona and my family got to meet my friends. We went over to the apartment that evening so that my family could meet my flatmates. I got to play translator through supper, so didn´t ¨talk¨ much myself, just relaying comments between my mom and the girls. Tuesday morning I showed my family around the city of Pamplona in the old quarter and we drove by my university (not much to see there).