Deba

And now for our day in Deba

Deba is a village, population roughly 5,500, on the coast north of Azpeitia. We had to take a bus from here to Zumaia on the coast and then a train from there to Deba which is two stops further up the line which runs between Bilbao - SanbSebastian.  And why did we go there - because we can - and also because we had arranged to meet up with the kiwi girl we had met in Vitoria and spent time with in Barakaldo  and here after the induction days. She is living in the next village up the coast from Deba, called Mutriku, so we decided to spend some time together in Deba.

We met up at the railway station and decided to begin the day with a coffee so into the nearest bar we went. It just so happened that in this bar was a teacher that Bri, (short for Brianna) our kiwi friend, works with so we were invited to sit down with the teacher and her friends. We had a really great time chatting in a mixture of Spanish and English. So many people here are trilingual, at the least -  Basque/Spanish/ English or French. Suddenly they jumped up and said they had to get to the shops before they closed. Yes, siesta time was looming! Bri's teacher gave her some hurried instructions and rushed off. 

We wandered off to explore the town. First up was the church (there's always one) and this one is called the church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción and it is a Basque Gothic temple from the 16th century. We wandered in for a look . It was 'churchy' with an unusual feature hanging high in the dark near the ceiling. Here's a photo albeit a rather dark one

 

Can you see it? It's an old sailing ship which I guess it's a tribute to the  huge ship building industry that used to be all along this coast in the days of sailing ships and also the huge fishing industry that existed around here. Apparently Basque fishermen were 'the best'. 

Here's Barry and Bri discussing who knows what outside the church.

This church is on one side of the town square and there are cafes and shops on the other 3 sides. We got a real sense that  the square is actually still the centre of the town and that the town has grown around it. Azpeitia has grown along the flat land along the river in one direction because the old town end has big hills beside it. This means that the town square is no longer the centre and it does seem a little left behind as the town has grown away from it.

We headed for the beach to feel the sand beneath our toes.  It is a long time since I've had sand beneath my toes. A few winters in a row has meant no beach time for me. So here we are on the Atlantic coast with the town behind us - 3 kiwis together in Deba!

  with our feet in the Atlantic Ocean

We spent a bit of time hanging about here. This is the walk/ bike path along the coast

   ?????? maybe the signs not big enough!

  A house

   

  Pedestrian tunnel. I love this kind of thing

another house at the beach end of a street

We wandered around the town, took all of 10 minutes and then it was beer and pintxos time and a discussion about what the teacher we met in the cafe had told us to do. From what Bri understood she had asked us to go to her house after we'd looked around. The trick was to find her house from what little was understood of her instructions - " from the town square go down the road and over the main road and behind the houses there is a house." Off we went to find the 'house behind the houses' We felt like we were on a treasure hunt following cryptic clues. Eventually we were on a street behind some houses and the only problem was that it was a row of houses/ apartments not one house stood out. We walked past a place which had an open gate and I thought maybe she's left the gate open for us so Bri and I worked put what we'd say to whoever opened the door and then knocked. A lady opened the door, we said what what we hoped was asking if the teacher lived there. No, she didn't but the lady said "follow me" so we did, down the road a little bit to a locked gate so clearly this wasn't the house. By then both Bri and I had got our Spanish language tongue working and were able to tell her more about this teacher so it was "follow me" again. This time we went to the other end of the street across the road, across the park, across another road and up a path. Bri and I thought it was a really funny but Barry was hanging back scratching his head. The lady pushed a button to speak to someone in an apartment in the building and then followed a shortish conversation which, from what we could understand, we began to think that this was the place. The conversation stopped amd around the corner came the teacher. We were so surprised - it seemed like a miracle - from the open gate to the teacher coming around the corner - well, there is magic in the universe!

So up to her apartment we went. Unfortunately, what wasn't understood was that she wanted us to come earlier so we could wander around together and then all have lunch together. We then felt really awful and awkward about the situation. However, she and her lovely husband insisted on making us lunch - 1st plate of salad, cheese, salami, bread, tomatoes, tuna; 2nd plate of artichokes and a potato thingy, more bread and then dessert of fruit and cheese - along with a bottle of red wine and some good conversation in a mixture of Spanish so we could practice, English so she could practice and Spanglish when the going got tough. All in all a very good lunch and a very nice, interesting afternoon. It was a shame that we mucked it up because to walk around a place with a local is a completely different experience to doing it as a tourist, just looking. Also, getting to know another local is always a treat.  On the other hand, we were totally amazed by how we got to the right house. 

She walked us to the bus stop for Bri and then the station for us and we were on our way back to Azpeitia.

We want to do more exploring along the coast and have been told that a famous chef from the Basque Country has his restaurant in another coastal town not far from here so that is now on our 'to do' list.

Here's a couple of photos taken while we had a short wait for the train in Zumaia. 

  I just can't resist chimneys. The coast is just at the end of the row of houses with chimneys.

 It was twilight and I liked the loght.

  Jet streams

That's it for now, there'll be more soon

some happenings

I thought it was time to write about some of the things we've done - first, our visitors - 

About 10 days ago we spent the day with a couple of young kiwis, Ruth and Karl, who visited us here in Azpeitia. They have been driving a very small homemade campervan, bought in London, around Europe for the past few months and they found their way to our little town. 

Here they are with their campervan. We were impressed by the skillful job of the hand painted flag

Ruth is the daughter of good Auckland friends of ours and we were very excited when we heard that she and her lovely partner, Karl, were coming to see us. There is nothing like having visitors from home - there is certainly a 'kiwi perspective' and it was just great to chat with people who share this. For example, so many people tell us that we, as in New Zealand, have to belong to somewhere else, but NO WE DON'T. Oceania is a common suggestion but the only time, I think, we hear this in NZ is to do with sports competitions and Oceania is an area of competing teams. 

 So we chatted and laughed the day away fitting in pintxos and beer, and a good 20 - 30 minute stroll up to Loiola to the Basilica de Loiola, icecreams on the steps of the big hotel beside the Basilica.

     Pintxos and beer ...

    .... and icecreams

We went into the Bascillica and had a look around.  Ruth and I had a great time looking at everything and reading everything and wondering how it would have been 'back in the day' a few hundred years ago. We looked out of a window at the top and there were Barry and Karl outside way down below. Ruth and I thought it was quite interesting but don't think that Barry and Karl were that fussed about it.

I must say that this is the very first time I have ever spent a day with another Ruth and never have I written 'Ruth and I' before! 

All too soon it was time to head back to Azpeitia and for Ruth and Karl to be on their way. But not so fast, as it turned out because there was the 'little' problem of locating the campervan. "where oh WHERE COULD IT BE" came the cry -  "was it this street or that one or maybe the other one". Up and down a few steps to the next street, round a couple of corners and then backtracking a little bit and then"there it is" and there it was, just where they'd parked it. 

We had a look inside and marveled at how compact it is and what a tiny space it is to live in. They did say that they were getting a little weary of putting the bed up and down every morning and night and having to pack everything away before they could move on. I really hope that their leisurely day in Azpeitia with us went a little way to rejuvenate their wanderlust. 

You may be wondering why their campervan wasn't parked up by our place. Well, sometimes GPS's are not exactly trustworthy and negotiating little narrow streets with dubious instructions sometimes means that it's better to ditch the technology and go for a walk. Added into the mix is the fact that the campervan is a right-hand driving vehicle which is fine for the UK (where it comes from) so Karl, the driver, is on the outside of the road instead of the inside. Sounded rather freaky to me but he said it wasn't a problem. Ruth said they had got a lot of strange looks when people realised that she wasn't actually driving but is sitting where the driver should be!

Then it was time to say goodbye and off they went, straight ahead ... then turned around and came back and onto the road that would actually take them out of the city and to the coast. 

   There they go ....and then they came back ...

    

    .... onto the right road and this time they really were gone.

It certainly was a very lovely day and both Barry and I felt a little sad to wave them goodbye. 

The next day, Saturday, was the day we went to Deba and that will be my next post.

school

27/10/13 and some catching up to do so first a bit about my school. 

It's all good so far. I walk to and from school every day except Fridays because I don't go to school on Fridays. Sometimes I have a few hours between classes so I will leave school and go back later on in the day so I'm getting plenty of exercise and slowly regaining my fitness from my time on Zaragoza and then lost while I was back home lying on the couch after my knee operation.  

My schedule is kind of easy with 2 or 3 classes a day of either 50 minutes or 1 hour. The smallest class has about 14 students and the biggest is 26 - 30 and that's a lot of faces looking at me. The youngest are, I think, 11 - 12 year olds and the eldest at the school in Azpeitia are 15 - 16 years old. I do 2 classes at the school in the next town, which is called Azkoitia. 1 is students 16 - 17 years old and then 1 class of adults. The school in Azkoitia is part of the school in Azpeitia and I have to confess that I'm really not sure how that works. I just go where I'm told and try to keep a low profile. Fortunately, the teacher I work with in Azkoitia lives in Apeitia and she picks me up and drops me back and the 2 towns are only about 10 minutes drive apart. This is just as well because our 1st class starts at 8am! 

Like everywhere, some classes are better then others in terms of behaviour and interest levels - 'group dynamic' is certainly an interesting phenomenon. Sometimes I would like to tell some of the kids to just go away and see what happens. Most of the time it's ok and I guess in time we'll get used to each other. I don't know what the school population is, it's not a big school so probably a few hundred from the equivalent of our year 8 - year 11.

This is the front of the school, from the car park. The entrance is along the path at the far end.

This is the back of the school and the only piece of grass there is.

and here is the front entrance

There are some interesting differences between schools here and in NZ. In the high schools here the teachers move classes and the students stay put. This means that there is no subject material in the classes and the walls are mostly bare, there are no 'school fields' and they have a 11/2 hour or 2 hour lunch break and most kids go home and then come back to school finishing for the day at around 5 o'clock. Apparently, there is talk of changing this set-up but it fits with the 'siesta' arrangement of just about everyones day - most shops, banks, offices etc shut for 2 - 3 hours in the afternoon - although I have been told that 'sleeping' doesn't happen, people do other 'work', so it would involve a huge shift.

The main language here is Basque so that's what everyone at school speaks and all classes, except of course, the language classes, are in Basque. The Spanish government has recently passed a law which makes it compulsory for all schools to use Spanish for teaching. This hasn't been accepted very well by teachers, staff and students alike. 

I have learnt a few basic words in Basque and use them when I can, however, most people are bilingual Basque/Spanish or Castilian as they call it and seem happy enough to talk in Spanish with me. Not, I must add, that this involves long and meaningful conversations, discussions and debates, not by a long shot. My Spanish is still rather rudimentary and I use it when I have the chance but the people who speak English want to speak English with me and that's ok and, as was my experience in Zaragoza, a lot of people know some English and seem to relish the opportunity to use it. They always seem to be able to tell that English is my natural language as soon as I begin to talk and I always wonder "how come?", my Spanish doesn't sound that bad, at least not to my ears. 

Our 'home away from home' apartment

Our apartment is really nice, well, in comparison to the hotel room, it's luxury. It has 2 bedrooms so we've got  space for visitors (hint hint). The views out the windows aren't up to much but given that mostly it's dark when we're here that's no big deal. Daylight savings finishes in a couple of weeks so we'll have the shutters closed earlier and won't be looking out the windows. We're on the edge of Azpeitia in the 'old town' 10 - 15 minutes walk to school and it's probably another 5 or so minutes walk from there to the other side of town. here's the photos so you can see our place for yourself.

Looking down the hall from the doorway

the kitchen/ Barry's space. We found a kettle!

the sitting-room from the hall

the sitting-room from our bedroom door

The bedroom

View from the window of the room at the end of the hall

the spare room, the sofa turns into 2 single beds

the view from the kitchen, sitting room and bedroom

Our building, the 3 open windows on the first floor is our place

this is our street. Our building is the 2nd to last one on the right

Our address is - Soreasu, 2 - 1° Dchr, Azpeitia 20730, Gipuzkoa, Spain. Just in case you find that you're passing through here you'll know where to find us.

Our landlady is totally wonderful and looks after us very well. Anything we need she brings and, no, we're not taking advantage. Pretty much everything was here apart from sheets and blankets for the beds in the spare room, mugs, plates, cutlery, and such like and she's brought it all to us. She's even orgainsed for us to get intercity bus cards which will make bus/train travel a whole lot cheaper. For example the cost for 2 of us to San Sebastian is almost €9, with the card it will be between €3 - €4. 

Talking of cards, last Friday we went to San Sabastian to put in my application to renew my NIE which is my identity card and proof that I'm legally allowed to be here. Last year the process was so, so stressful and only with the help of 2 teachers it got sorted. So with that in mind we set out on the first bus, 7.35am, thinking it would take most of the day and not really looking forward to it at all. We found our way to the Oficina de Extranjería, through security, got our number and sat down to wait. Not for long, it turned out so off we went to the designated desk and to our surprise, on the other side of the desk was a really lovely, friendly lady who took the opportunity to have a little English language lesson, and helped me with Spanish, while she helped us through filling out the form, made sure everything that needed to be attached was there etc, etc and then sent us on our way to find a bank so we could put money into a bank account to pay  for the NIE. That done and the form duly stamped we went back to the oficina, handed in the form and that was that, all done and it wasn't even lunch time, english lunchtime that is, not spanish lunch time which tends to be between 2 and 3 o'clock. 

We spent the rest of the day wandering around the city. We walked along beside Zurriola Beach and La Concha Beach after eating some very tasty empanada atún and patata tortilla along with a couple of beers outside a bar looking out across the Bay of Biscay. Oh yes it was lovely.  

there were a lot of hopeful surfers sitting on their boards out in the bay on a rather flat sea, probably be hundreds more in June and July. Then around the old part of the city which was really lovely and very interesting. Full of people, though. I can only imagine that it is jammed with people in the summer time. The bars had lots of very delicious looking pintxos, small portions of finger food, out along the counters, sometimes 2 or 3 tiers of them. We thought that when we came back to San Sebastian we'd wander the bars having pintxos galore and maybe the odd beer or red wine to help us along the way. I've read that most of the people in this part of the city are tourists so I imagine that the prices will hiked up a bit. We wandered our way  to the bus stop and back to Azpeitia and home. no photos because I didn't take my camera, didn't even think about it given the time of the day we set put, it was still dark, along with feeling somewhat anxious about what was ahead of us in getting the NIE.  Next time we get to San Sebastian there'll be heaps of Photos.

It is a really nice feeling knowing that we can hop on a bus and be back in San Sebastian within an hour when ever we want. Nice to go and nice to come back to our little town.

 

First week 'on the job' 1st - 6th October 2013

Well, hello/hola/kaixo, (am learning some Basque) - once again it's been a while . After my last entry about moving out of the hotel I kind of got caught up with just getting on with being here.  I'd forgotten how hard and tiring it is at the beginning of  being in a completely new place. Not quite as tough as when I first went to Zaragoza because this time some things are familiar - siesta time when everything is shut; the food, more or less; the Spanish language, more on that later because added to the mix is the Basque language; and cars coming at me from the 'other side' of the road at crossings.  Of course, the fact that Barry is staying and not disappearing back to NZ makes a huge difference.  How brave I am now to go into bars/cafes etc with him with me. Whew - it's just a piece of cake!

And so, on with the story. Going back to the first week of October because on October 1st I started 'work'. Well, I was at school only on Tuesday 1st because on Wednesday Barry and I went with my teacher 'buddy', Maitene, to Vitoria for the official welcome to the conversation assistants in the Basque Country. It was a very low key affair, mostly in Spanish - some I understood and a lot I didn't. The best part was when an Australian guy, been here for a couple of years,  spoke about living in the Basque Country and some aspects of the culture from a foreigners view point. It wasn't so much what he said but that his Spanish was as slow as the Ozzie drawl so a lot of us, with low levels of Spanish language ability understood him.  We met a Kiwi from Hawera who is at a school in a nearby town, the name of which I don't remember.

On The 2nd  and 3rd we were at the induction in Barakaldo,  very near Bilbao. We stayed the night in Bilbao because getting from Azpeitia to Barakaldo was a bit of a mission mostly because we managed to get off the bus at the wrong stop in the town, Eibar, where we had to change buses. We were supposed to catch one bus to Eibar, change to another one to go to Bilbao, onto the underground to Barakaldo. All seemed very simple when we set out but NO it wasn't, not because the directions given to us were faulty but because we mucked it up. It was only that a couple of people picked up from what we were saying to each other that we were waiting for a bus to go to Bilbao and managed to tell us, using Spanish that I understood,(oh the relief) that we had to go somewhere else about 20 minutes walk away.  We didn't have 20 minutes but fortunately there was a bar/ cafe right there so I girded my loins, took a deep breath, went in and asked, in Spanish, if we could get a taxi.  Lo and behold I was understood and a taxi was ordered. It took a few minutes to arrive and the bus had left by the time we got there. So then it was a round and round Spanish chat with one of the bus drivers about when the next bus left, that it went all around the place and took hours to get to Bilbao but there was the option of the train and where we had to go to get it.  By this time we'd been joined by an elderly lady who had also missed the bus. We, the 3 of us, decided to head for the train which was quite close but had to ask a policeman, the only other person in the street, how to get into the train station because all we could see was a wall with the station on the other side and the option of going left or right. I couldn't be bothered with deciding which would be the right way to go when none of us had any idea hence talking to the police. Another successful mission with Spanish completed and we had the directions and got into the station without wasting time,  got our tickets and very soon along came the train and about 1/12 hours or so later we were in Bilbao. We then had to find our way to the Metro and once again it was a Spanish language practice session getting directions but we got there and onto the metro and to the venue in Barakaldo in time for the start. 

 The induction was ok apart from having to sit, for what seemed like ages, listening to a guy from the American Embassy arrogantly assume that he was talking to a room full of Americans who all needed to be told, not just once, that the American Embassy is there to protect its citizens and then to tell us all how to behave in a foreign country to be safe!! Sounded like he was everyones parent before the kids left home, home of course being America. And he referred to this foreign country as Spain when everyone knows that we have to call it The Basque Country. Respect is everything. grrrrrrrr

I did meet a couple more kiwis, one from Invercargill and one from Auckland. The workshops were ok though I mostly found myself wondering how the suggested classroom activities would possibly work in classrooms with 25 - 30 students. I got to hear a lot of Spanish though, some of which I understood. Actually, a lot more than this time last year YAY.

After it ended for the day we made our way to Bilbao and went through another exercise in asking for, and understanding, directions in Spanish to find our way to our hotel. Our budget room - well, we had to laugh. It had all we needed for a night however it looked out at the motorway, a close-up view, not a distant on the horizon view. In reality it passed by our window so we had to make a decision on whether we slept in a hot but quiet room or a noisy but cool room. From memory, it was some of both and all too soon we had to be up and away back to Barakaldo for the final induction morning which was ok. While I was there Barry explored the area, mostly the bar/cafe places, I think. 

After it all finished the organisers put on a bit of a talk and pictures about The Basque Country along with red wine with coca cola and an ice cube added. This drink has a name but I don't remember it. Barry was able to come to this and when he said no to the drink because of the coca cola,  type 1 diabetes and coca cola are not a good mix, and not being allowed to miss out he got given his straight. He was happy. 

 After it finished we had a great time chatting with a couple of the Kiwis in a nearby bar until it was time to make the trek back to Azpeitia. Going back was rather simpler than the other way. Just 2 buses and a couple of hours and we were back in Azpeitia. The kiwi we met in Vitoria came back with us because she is staying with a teacher who is from Azpeitia and has family here. This teacher met the 3 of us here and then took us around showing us helpful things like where to go to put money on my phone, surprise surprise - not so simple as in NZ; where to get passport photos taken - need these for my NIE and our intercity bus cards; plus another couple of bars/eating places. All useful stuff and we were really grateful to her. They dropped us at our hotel on their way back to their town that was that. It was an interesting couple of days and my Spanish language speaking has certainly improved. 

We will return to Bilbao for a longer  visit and do the tourist stuff. We did wander around and really liked the feel of the city, we saw the Guggenheim Museum but didn't go inside. I thought that the building is quite harsh, looks like corrugated iron with nothing to soften it, Barry really liked it and we're both keen to go in for a look. Here's some photos of Bilbao

- 

the time of the day and the next photo is the temperature at this time!!

yes, it was hot!!

some easy to understand Basque language - what does it say?

Neat place for a bedroom

artwork on buildings was pretty amazing

Some kind of enormous spider by the river outside the Guggenheim

 The Guggenheim. The light was fading rather fast when I took this photo but I like it

The flower dog, possibly the most photographed dog in the world

Pretty cool really, I think.

after some has passed .....

.... today we move out of the hotel and into an apartment in Azpeitia. It's been rather a tough week and I've felt a bit despondent, to say the least, about the situation hence no blogging for a while. It seemed that we were going to have to live in San Sebastian and I would be commuting for around 50 minutes each way to get to school in Azpeitia from San Sebastian. I've never commuted that far ever and wasn't looking forward to doing it now. The difficulty in finding somewhere to rent here isn't because there aren't empty apartments, because apparently there are plenty. It's more because people not wanting to have strangers in their apartments because of potential problems ie parties, rent not paid, the place being wrecked and that there will be far more people living in the apartment then are supposed to.  Sounds like us!!!!!! Apart from the commute, San Sebastian is far more expensive than Azpeitia, the difference between what we'll be paying and what we looked at in San Sebastian is £250 - 300 which is  a fair bit of traveling money. It is  more expensive than Zaragoza, though. We were told that the Basque Country is expensive and it turns out that this is so.  

Now it's time to move out of the hotel, literally and in all good conscience I can't lay about writing this while Barry lugs all our stuff, 1 bag at a time because the lift is so small, so must leave this here. I'll pick it up later in the day and fill you in on the past week or so.

School and San Sebastian

Friday 27/9 - our 1st day in our new home town. The hotel's rather nice, at least we have a decent sized room but alas, no tea & coffee making facilities so we decided that we'd buy a kettle when we got the chance. The head of the school languages department met us at the hotel and took us to school where we met the English teachers who I'll be working with and, like the teachers in Zaragoza, their english is really good. Everyone seemed really nice and friendly and one of them, who lives in San Sebastian, offered to come with us to take the car to the drop-off place at the San Sebastian railway station. We were very happy for him to come with us although we thought it was a bit strange that he insisted on sitting in the backseat. It was really funny, in hindsight anyway because it turned out that he doesn't drive so from time to time he forgot that he was supposed to be giving Barry directions. I should mention that Barry had decided to drive the coast road which wasn't as straight forward as the motor way, of course. Not only did Barry have to deal with the demands of the 'other side of the road' driving, he had to keep asking "which way now!". When we got into the city and to the railway station we went around the block twice before seeing the entrance to the rental car company's car park. It was another stressful trip and we were both happy to say goodbye to the car and walk. Both of us were more focussed on the driving aspect of the trip to San Sebastian than taking in the view, unfortunately, so no photos either. I remember that the road was narrow and winding through towns and villages which sit along the coast, hills on one side and the sea on the other and I can't say more than that except that we will take a bus trip along the same road one day so we can take it all in. 

We'll be back in San Sebastian for a much longer visit as well.  Didn't take much in this time although we did seem to walk for miles. I think the driving took all our energy. Finding the bus station and then finding the right bus to get us back to Azpeitia was a bit of a walk, too. We did it and zoomed off along the motorway after crawling through the city around police putting up barricades to divert traffic because of some famous actors being there for a film festival. It was really nice to relax and let someone else drive, namely the bus driver who knew exactly what do and where to go. 

Back in Azpeitia, back to the hotel, Oh yes, almost forgot - no kettle! Apparently the people here don't use electric kettles. Now we're on a quest to find one - somewhere there has to be a kettle! The receptionist has put a coffee-making machine and the necessary requirements into our room, which was fairly decent of her but I have no idea if there's a charge for it.

This hotel staff never change, the same people work in the dining room morning and night and the same people work at reception all day and evening. Just an interesting observation.

The weather has been very hot and sometimes very humid, much like Auckland weather but so far there's been no rain. We have to leave the doors onto the little balcony open all night to try and get some cool air in, that's right - no air conditioning. 

Our first weekend here was really nice, uneventful, just mostly walked about getting our bearings which Barry got much quicker than me. Next time I'll tell you about the town but for now here's some photos