Tres físicos no hispanohablantes

Last night we met up with Chema, our primary collaborator, and Stephon, our advisor, for dinner at a nice little restaurant overlooking the beach and ocean. Each hour makes me feel a little more settled, but it is amazing to me just how many little things feel different: boxed milk in the grocery store, no tips at restaurants. I’ve traveled to Europe before, but always for vacation. Everything feels very different as a research assistant because I am a little more worried about where I have to get to than what I will see along the way.

The IFCA itself is an unassuming little building located behind the physics department.  This section of campus is just a few minutes walk away from our apartment.  Just about everything is a pretty manageable walk in Santander but this is literally just 2 blocks down the hill from us.  We worked at our apartment in the morning and met up with Chema and Stephon in the afternoon to discuss the overall direction of our research.  The meeting was productive and I think we are off to a good start.

As promised, here are a few pictures from our adventures so far.

As we walked toward the bay I was captivated by the scenery. There is something breathtaking about the landscape of northern Spain. The rocky hills are sharply defined and very colorful.

This is the hall leading to the jetway in the Bilbao airport. The entire airport looks very modern and like an airplane.	Our luggage took forever to arrive and we were a little worried, but the airfoil-like architecture was stunning.	Our bus passed right by the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao.
Not far from our apartment we found a staircase that has a wonderful view of the bay. We walked down to the pier and through a little bit of downtown. True to its reputation Santander is indeed a port-city.	As we wandered down to the bay yesterday we had a nice view of many interesting parts of the city.