Max came to visit for the weekend :)

Thursday February 11-Monday February 15
My junior year of high school we had two exchange students Dirceu and Max. Dirceu was from Brazil and Max from Germany. One of my best friends Brittany and I hung out with them all the time that year. Over the last 4 and 1/2 years Max and I have remained in contact via email. He knew that I was eventually hoping to come to Spain to study abroad and to let him know when I was. Well the day finally came where I got to see him again after all this time, and it was great to spend time with an old friend.
Unfortunately for him-the weekend he chose to visit me in Bilbao, the weather was terrible-cold and rainy. So we spent a lot of time hanging out in restaurants, the metro, or the Guggenheim Museum, and then seeing all the sights in Bilbao when it stopped raining, etc. Fortunately for him, it was the weekend of Carnaval-therefore we got to experience the activities for this holiday.
We spent majority of Friday in Casco Viejo touring around the small streets. We decided to see an Opera in the theater there. Something neither of us would normally do, but we wanted the experience. I am glad we went--we were able to see the inside of the theater and even though we paid for the cheapest tickets-we got upgraded to the front floor section (because not a lot of people were there to fill the whole place).
On Saturday we went to Plentzia-it is the last metro stop, and went and saw the bay and took pictures. It was my first time there as well so it was a lot of fun. We ate at a buffet recommended by my host 'parents' back in downtown Bilbao, that was extremely reasonable and pretty good. We then were able to see the parade for Carnaval and then when we walked to the end of the street, we saw another caraval going down a different street. There were people in all sorts of costumes: the Incredibles, a lot of pirates, chickens, clowns, etc. The first parade had floats after musicals--so that was pretty interesting. In Casco Viejo they had amusement park rides set up just like a fair back home.
Sunday we spent majority of the day in the Guggenheim (because it was warmer then walking around the city :)) And then Monday afternoon he headed back to France where he is currently studying an hour away from Paris with his girlfriend.
Like I said--it was pretty awesome to catch up with someone after all these years and still have a great friend.