Today was our first official day in Bilbao after a long day of travelling, and it is already amazing! I am in awe of the city already and excited to learn so much throughout the duration of our stay. To start off our day, our group enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the hotel before meeting with a professor who will be guiding us throughout the majority of the trip, Saioa. After meeting her, we walked to the Bilbao School of Engineering where we were given a presentation on the itinerary for our trip as well as an introduction to Bilbao itself. It was very interesting to learn about the Basque culture, landmarks, and launguage, and our group was sure to pepper Saioa with lots of questions about the city. Then, we enjoyed a delicious three course meal at the cafeteria before going back to the classroom to learn about a project that Saioa and her colleagues at the engineering school had been working on, the Oreka-Balance. The Oreka-Balance machine was created to be able to quantitatively measure balance through a platform that moves different ways to test patient’s balance. Through force sensors in the platform, the machine detects how much weight is being distributed by the patient and helps to gauge the patient’s recovery and help with rehabilitation, especially for patients who suffered strokes and struggled with walking and balance as a result.
After our presentations at the School of Engineering, we enjoyed an amazing walking tour throughout the whole city of Bilbao, where we got to see a lot of the classic architecture and learn about the history of the whole city, including seeing the infamous Guggenheim Museum, and the Cathedral, which is the football stadium! After the walking tour, we enjoyed several pintxos, which were delicious. After we got back to the hotel, a group of us met up to get dinner, but got our timing a bit mixed up on peak dinner times in Bilbao, so we ended up with a couple of us getting pintxos, and stumbling upon both a cheesecake and gelato place, which none of us could complain about. Overall, it was an amazing first day in Bilbao and I can’t wait for the rest of the trip!
