School has now oficially started. We celebrated it with a festivity called "Maritxu Kajoi" (read Marietchoe Kachoj/Mareetchoo Kagoj). The tradition goes that many people used to walk by this statue of Virgin Mary in a box whenever they went out for drinks. They considered her the one that kept them safe and decided to dedicate a whole day to her. So now on the first of October everyone gets dressed up, girls in Prom dresses and guys in tuxes, and goes from bar to bar celebrating "Mary in a box". We decided to join in the fun, put on our dresses and take the bus to Arrasate. We looked for Mary, got a picture with her and went from bar to bar. Stephanie and I had a supposedly Basque drink called "Kalimotxo" or something like that which basically is coke with wine. We got a stomach ache after drinking one and decided not to drink anything else the rest of the night. Our highlight was the fries stand (frietkraam)! We were very excited to have something Belgian that night, even though the fries came in a cup! They were pretty good too!! We left fairly early and took the bus home.
On Sunday we went on a hike. We climbed "Aitzorrotz". It was very steep and took us about 3 hours to get on top of the mountain and back. The view was beautiful and we felt quite accomplished afterwards. Be sure to check Facebook for the pictures!
