Back to School

Rachel and I have been in Bilbao for two weeks now, and it has been an eventful two weeks! If you haven’t already, check out Rachel’s posts on tailgating before an Athletic Club match, and our first time inside San Mamés. We’ve also been deep into an apartment search, and have signed a lease for a place near the Abando train station in central Bilbao. I can barely express how relieved we are to have settled that matter, and how excited we are by the location. Our gym, the train station, a Corte Ingles, several bars and cafes, and the Casco Viejo are all within a two or three block radius. I will also be about 5 minutes away from the Instituto Hemingway, where I began taking Spanish language classes last week (though I will miss the slightly longer walk I’ve had until this point from our Airbnb, passing the Mercado de la Ribera and other sites like those in the images below).

Starting Spanish Classes

It is necessary that I take the Spanish class because, like many Americans, I took the minimum two years of language learning in high school; not enough to speak with confidence in any meaningful conversation. Sure, I can order in Spanish at a cafe or bar, no problem: “Quiero un zurito y un pintxo de txipirone estufada con mariscos” … wait, wait, zurito? pintxo? txipirone? Ok, ok, that was not entirely a Castillian Spanish sentence, as those are words in Euskera; a small beer, a small snack on top of a slice of bread, the one that is made from squid stuffed with seafood. The latter is really a Basquified form of the Castillian word chipiróne, replacing the ch with the similar sounding tx, a pattern you’ll also see with txampinone (for champiñones, Spanish for mushroom, but mostly when you’re near the French border, elsewhere you’re more likely to see setas or hongos). Less obvious is zurito, which is what you ask for in Bilbao when you are ordering what would be called a caña elsewhere in Spain. Order a caña in Bilbao, however? You’ll get a large beer. Same word, different meaning, go figure.

Getting away from the above tangent, I’d say I’ve got food and beer covered, but when it comes to the rest of daily life in Spain I find myself at a loss. I desire to feel integrated in normal conversations, not just picking out a few words at a time and trying to guess the broader context. Rachel is an excellent translator, but I’m sure she’d appreciate not having to carry that load every time we sit in any kind of important meeting, like the ones we had with the agent and owner of the apartment we are about to rent. Also, I’m hoping to take some courses in computer science at the University of Deusto or other schools here in Spain. The latter may be a lofty goal, however, for now I simply need to understand what I’m hearing and respond without pulling out my phone.

So far I have liked having the Spanish class to provide the motivation to get back into a routine, setting my alarm to get up at a reasonable hour, and taking the quick walk that I referenced earlier to the school. This time of year, taking that walk at about 9:15 is just about right for seeing the sun rise above the Mercado Ribera on the Ría Nervión. The immersive technique of the class itself has been a challenge, and understandably so: Instituto Hemingway caters to an international audience, not to English speakers specifically, and therefore the text, the instruction, and all email or verbal communications are in Spanish. Put another way, the program doesn’t hold your hand; its incumbent on you to listen and concentrate even as what you are hearing is not in your native language, and work hard to improve your comprehension over time. There are times where I feel lost, not knowing what exactly the task is that we have been asked to do. This is all a process though, I think right now my confidence is breaking down a little bit to be built back up later, and that with focus and time I’ll be able to effectively communicate as a proper member of society.

Mount Artxanda

Rachel and I also participated in one of the cultural activities that the institute offers a couple of times a week, in this case a visit to Mount Artxanda, possibly the best known viewpoint above the city of Bilbao. Mount Artxanda is most easily accessed via a funicular, basically an inclined elevator up the slope, saving you something like an hour of uphill walking. At the top is a miradoro with a fence reading “Bilbao Bilbo Bilbao Bilbo Bilbao Bilbo … ” for the Castillian and Euskara forms of the city’s names, with a view of downtown. Our group visited at night for the light show known as Itsasaldi, a winter-only event. The images below show some of the art installations, as well as a night time view high above downtown.

Stanford CS193p

Alongside studying Spanish and working on my own projects to get the DCDC LLC business up and funning, I’ve also made my way about halfway through the Stanford CS193p course lectures and homework assignments. For a while, I had seen this as sort of a step back, since I’ve already written and released multiple iOS apps. However, since I’ve seen many recommendations online, I thought I’d give it a try. I have found that it is a valuable step towards cleaning up my own implementations of Model View View-Model (MVVM) design patterns, which I’ve read about in the past, but on further review could be implemented more efficiently than I have to date. I can also take better advantage of the powerful features of the Swift language. I’ve posted my own solutions to the homework assignments on GitHub. Soon I will revisit Mobile Multibody Dynamics, implementing these principles to produce a more reliable and maintainable end product.

I plan to take a few other courses during my time in Spain, sometimes formally, sometimes less so. My intent is that I can fill in the gaps between myself, a mechanical engineer who codes a lot, and a fully credentialed computer scientist. If you have any recommendations for essential classes that make the difference between a CS major and a self taught dev, I’d be very interested to hear about them. 

Wrapping Up

The gallery above includes a few more photos from our walks around town that we haven’t written about, but deserve mention. In brief:

• The Guggenheim Museum
• A muddy hike in the hills above the beach at Sopelana
• Watching the sunset from the Parque Etxebarria

Thank you for reading, and expect an update soon on some of my recent projects, Basque food, and other cool things in our recently expatriated life.