cider houses - a Basque experience

Sagardotegi (Basque), Sidrerías (Spanish), Cider House (English) are part of traditional Basque culture and basically they are places where cider is made and where they serve up traditional Basque food. From what I can gather the menu is supposed to be the same at every cider house - cod omelette, cod and peppers, rare steak and then quince jelly in chunks with cheese and walnuts which are in the shell and come with a nut cracker, although  I have been to two and there was a slight variation in the food between them both.

The first one I went to is called Zelaia and is in a town called Hernani which is close to  San Sebastian and is listed as the best Cider House in, The Basque Country, by the Guardian.

I was lucky enough to be invited by one of the teachers to go with her, her husband, and her brother and sister in law.  I'd heard about these places and felt very lucky to have to opportunity to go and then to find out that it's the best was the icing on the cake. What a neat experience it was and the food was just oh so deeeeelicious!! 

  

My dinner companions, the teacher, Jaione, is on the left.

Traditionally - there is no seating in a cider house, everyone stands up at high    

                                 tables.

                           - there are no individual plates to eat off of, bread and serviettes 

                                    suffice.

                             - txotx (pronounced chotch) is the call when a new barrel has 

                                     been opened and then everyone goes into the cider room

                              - the menu is cod omelette, cod with peppers, rare steak,

                                    chunks of quince jelly with walnuts and the local

                                    Idiazabel cheese along with almond biscuits called

                                    tejas and cigarillas.

                                  

and the rules for cider are that you serve yourself, as often as you want but only a small amount at a time and the trick is to hold your glass so that the cider hits the side of the glass and is therefore aerated and becomes a little fizzy and then it's 'down the hatch' like drinking a 'shot'. Everyone who wants cider kind of stands behind one another and the cider spouts out of the barrel and you have to get your glass into place to catch it in your glass when the person in front has what they want and moves away. My  first time I really had no idea and got the cider into my glass ok and  was waiting for the guy to turn the cider off completely unaware that there was someone behind me waiting. The guy at the barrel in charge of things was yelling something at me which I coudn't understand and I was calling out STOP STOP, which he couldn't understand, and then I finally realised to just get out of the way. I was laughing but I'm not sure if the guy was. I got the hang of it soon enough.

The alcohol content is apparently only 5 - 6% so to get drunk takes quite a few trips to the barrels. However, Jose Antonio did tell me that he managed to get very drunk by going to the cider barrel with both his glass and Yolanda's glass. He put cider in his, drank it then put cider in hers and then more in his, drank it and then another for himself to take back to the table. So if you want to get drunk on cider that's the way to do it! Actually you don't have to move out of the cider room if you've eaten all your food and you can drink as much as you want, it is simply included in the price of your dinner, not charged by the glass. 

 Oh, that's right, the food just arrives at your table - you don't order anything except if you want more of something. 

Most cider houses have an opening season and Zelaia opened in January and closes in April for the rest of the year. 

At this cider house we stood up, ate the food using bread and serviettes, had the traditional menu plus had another traditional dish to begin with which was pieces of chorizo, about 2 centimeters long served hot in a dish of gravy stuff, and served with little individual loaves of delicious bread which we pulled open and put a piece of chorizo inside, kind of like a bbq sausage in bread. Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo of this dish because I was still getting my head around the fact that not only did I have to stand all night but also, that I didn't have a plate to eat off of. Actually, I was surprised to find, standing didn't bother me, I leaned on the table from time to time but everyone in the room was standing so I didn't actually think about the fact that I was standing. As for not having a plate, no problem  - I just followed what the others did and got the hang of using bread and a fork. Yes, we did get a knife and fork each. 

   tucking into the cod omelette

    

cod with peppers with onion rings in the centre and pieces of chilli on top,of the peppers. O got to eat every piece of chilli yummy yummy

   

the steak -  we had 2 pieces like this. I just have to tell you that the steak was AMAZING - juicy, tender, sealed on the outside and rare inside. yummmmmm yummmmmm, yummmmm

  quince jelly chunks, walnuts, cheese and the almond biscuits 

     The steak cooker

The place was full of people and the atmosphere was great - lots of people eating damned good food, drinking a very fine drink and simply having a food time. There were a lot of big groups of people and apparently bus loads of people come from over the French border.

The main eating room. There are 3 other rooms with the barrels which also have a few tables in them

   

catching cider

 there is guttering running along the floor and before getting more cider you have to empty the dregs in your glass into the guttering.

  some of the barrels - just over 15,000 litres in a barrel

The second cider house experience was in the weekend just gone with Jose Antonio and Yolanda. It wasn't quite like Zelaia, not so traditional - we sat down which was ok but still no plates, we had a meat omelette, which was very nice instead of a cod omelette,  the steak was good, a little tough, not quite the same quality as in Zelaia. However, I'm not complaining - I had fun with good company, and the cider was good so overall another great experience with a bus ride to boot.

   Jose Antonio concentrating on doing it right

   In Añota, the cider house near Azpeitia

 and that's it for now. I've been doing this in a bar and now it's time to o home and pack my bag because I'm going to London, will be back on Tuesday

visitors for the weekend

visitors from Zaragoza 

The weekend just gone was just great - more visitors - this time I had the absolute pleasure of the company of Yolanda and Jose Antonio, my mates from Zaragoza. One of the best things to come out of my time in Zaragoza was getting to know these two fabulous people. My other two Zaragoza friends couldn't come, unfortunately they were just too busy. I was a bit sad about that however that is life and the 3 of us had a great time.

They arrived in Azpetia, their 1st time here, early afternoon on Saturday, still morning by Spanish time, and headed back to Zaragoza early Sunday evening. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm all weekend.

First we had a walk through Azpeitia, stopping off for a pintxo and a drink,  before driving to Zarautz, on the coast, for a walk along the beach , more pintxos and my first taste of the local wine called Txakoli, pronounced -chockolee. 

Txakoli is to be drunk while it is young and, possibly there is more to it but this is what I know and also that it should be poured from a height, the more skilled the pourer, the higher up it is poured from. I really liked it and while I'm no wine connoisseur and therefore can't be descriptive re bouquets, flavours etc I can tell you that it is a very easy wine to drink and I liked it a lot.

   in Zarautz

 

outside a very famous restaurant run byma very famous chef from here - Karlos Arguiñano

On Saturday night we went to a local Cider House, called Añota,  my 2nd cider house experience and of which I shall write more about next time.  I had thought that these are exclusive to the Basque Country but have now been told that they can be found in other parts of Spain as well.

We decided to make use of the cider house bus which is run by the cider house for its patrons and  picks up people in Azpeitia and the nearby town of Azkoitia and takes them up the hill to the cider house and brings everyone back down at about 12.15 am. The bus that we got on was full. 

The downside to getting the bus is that we then have to wait until it's time for it to leave, not leave when we are ready. The food came rather speedily so dinner was done well before the bus leaving time. 

 the cider house

 

  time for a glass od cider except that it's not correct to get a galls full, 1/3 at the most

We thought that it would be a long wait but we got ourselves more cider and chatted away. There were 3 guys sitting next to us and one of them told us that he'd been born  either there or in one of the houses in the picture hanging on the wall, I'm not sure which. Not very long before  bus catching time, after going outside to find that it was freezing cold out there, far too cold to wait outside, we were told that we could wait next door which turned out to be a full on bar. The time passed well enough and then it was time to board the bus and head on down the hill. It was a rather more interesting ride down then up. First of all, we were close to the front and could see how narrow the road is and how it just winds around the hill, at times seemingly  too narrow and the corner too sharp for the bus to get around but of course it did, no problem. Secondly, there were a lot of very merry people on the bus singing full volume and laughing raucously, all good fun. Yolanda wasn't impressed and probably the fun of it it would have worn thin eventually but it wasn't a long bus ride so it was ok.

On Sunday we went to San Sebastian, the first time for Yolanda who was looking forward to seeing La Concha Beach and visiting a few of the famous/infamous 'Old Town Pintxo Bars'.Of course Jose Antonio and I were also looking forward to this as well. It was a really warm day and there were a lot of people also wandering along the promenade in front of La Concha Beach, almost too many for me. Not much surf but a few hopeful board riders sitting on their boards, waiting to catch a wave.  

I much prefer the beach in Zarautz to La Concha because the beach at Zarautz is a long sandy beach with big rolling surf roaring in much like the Gisborne-East Coast beaches whereas La Concha is smaller and generally has calmer sea like Auckland - city that is, not talking about the west coast beaches here. 

And so - to the pintxo bars we eventually went. Expensive but so nice and washed down with more Txakoli poured from higher than in Zarautz, by a rather skillful bartender,  not that I could discern any difference in the taste. 6 Pintxos and 3 glasses of txakoli cost me €22/$36NZ. As you can see by the photos the glasses of wine are not exactly full, just the opposite in fact.

 

pouring Txakoli in San Sebastian

  

good people, good food, good wine

We had a bit of a wander around the old town and all to soon it was time be in the car and back to Azpeitia. Mind you, if it had been up to me to find the car we'd still be looking for it, I so easily become completely disoriented and thought that the beach was in the opposite direction to what it actually was. Fortunately for me, Yolanda and Jose Antonio don't have the same problem so back to Azpeitia we went, to drop me off, and they were on their way back to Zaragoza all too soon.

 Yes, well, I was really sad to see them go. Such good people, fun and easy to get along with. We'd decided that we'd speak English on Saturday because Yolanda is learning English and this would help her ( Jose Antonio speaks English fluently) and on Sunday we'd speak Spanish because this would help me. Well, Yolanda speaks much better English than I do Spanish, no doubt about about that and conversation flowed much more easily on Saturday than on Sunday. They do have a lot of patience, that's for sure.Yolanda and Jose Antonio -  I know I've said this before but here it is again- thanks so much for visiting me 

 with La Concha Beach behind us

February - a visitor and a visit to Salinas de Añana

February is shaping up to be a very interesting month - my niece, Alysha, came for a visit for the first weekend of the month.  It was quite a trip - train from Leeds to Manchester, plane from Manchester to Bilbao, bus from Bilbao to San Sebastian and finally bus from San Sebastian to Azpeitia on Friday and then she did it all again in reverse on Sunday although she had a good chunk of Sunday in Azpeitia before she had to set off on her journey home. It was great to see her and spend time with her. Time with a kiwi is always special for me here plus Alysha is a Gisborne girl as well. 

Not that we did anything out of the ordinary, just hanging out together was pretty good - walking about, going through the Loyola Cathedral, eating, chatting and on Sunday we walked up a hill for a bit to get a view of the town. Didn't go very far up because the road was blocked by a locked gate but we were high enough to look down on the town. It was really nice leaning over the fence, chatting and  watching the sheep, in the warm sun. The weather was warm and it felt like spring but on Monday it was freezing so I haven't retired my thick coat yet. However,  blossoms and magnolias are out and I've seen some daffodils so there are signs that spring is creeping into Azpeitia. 

Late on Saturday afternoon we stopped off for a coffee in a bar where Barry and I had dinner most Sunday nights, and the time passed as we catted away so we decided to stay and eat there. We were, however, a bit puzzled by the fact that the restaurant seemed closed, Alysha suggested that perhaps it was a bit early although it was after 7.30pm. We waited a while longer and then a waitress appeared followed by a group of people - yes - happily for us it was opening  so we stayed and had dinner and what's more, in no time at all it was full of people. -  Alysha was right, we were too early according to Spanish dinner time!

All too soon it was time to catch the bus to San Sebastian, say goodbye and off she went on her long journey and off I went on my short trip back to Axpetia.

On the Friday just gone, I went on my fortnightly jaunt with Miren and Nerea and we first went to Salinas de Añana and then tiki-toured all over the place. Miren loves to drive and, as she had Friday night off, was in no hurry to get home.

Salinas de Añana is in the valley of Añana in the Álava region of The Basque Country. Basically, it is an area of the valley where salt has been continuously 'produced'  for just over 6000 years. The salt comes from solid salt deposits, set down when the area was under the sea over 2,000,000 years ago,  through which water passes and comes to the surface in 2 natural springs. The very first spring is still in action and at some point the 2nd one was discovered.  

The method of collecting salt has remained much the same since the beginning and all the materials used are natural, mostly wood from what I saw although the collection baskets are cane, I think.

From what I could glean from the English information booklet I was given, everyone in the village of Añana, population 166, has a 'salt pan' which is theirs to look after, harvest the salt and benefit from the sale of the salt. I'm not sure if this is still in place because it is now a World Heritage Site which will ensure that the valley will continue the production of salt as it has always done but whether this has changed the ownership as well I have no idea.

 We were on a guided tour with another 4 people and everything was in Spanish and, while I could understand a lot of the words, it was too fast for me to make a lot of sense from those words. Because it's winter the production of the salt is really not a happening thing because hot sun is necessary therefore the best time to visit is, of course, in the summer, June - August although they are producing some salt in May and  September so we are hoping to get back there in May before Barry and I leave Azpeitia. Neither Miren nor Nerea had been before and they're keen to see the place in action.

I guess we walked around the place for a couple of hours and I took a lot of photos, none of which really show the place as we saw it but I hope you enjoy them. 

 

  looking from the village up the valley

  

looking across the valley and salt pans to the village

  

   These buckets are used to pick up water from the pools underneath and tip it into the salt pans

 wooden guttering like structures  carry the saline to the salt pans from the springs.

      

 the fungus looking stuff on the outside is like a salty sponge and it covers a lot of the wooden structures and beams.

 a pile of  salt under salt pans

  The stream along the left of this photo is just a normal stream, not saline.

 This tool is used to move the salt in the pans

 

 a pile of salt under some salt pans. The white stuff on the poles and rock walls is the salty spongy stuff.

  in here is the original saline spring. I'm sorry about the blue splodge - I don't know what it is - an apparition, perhaps, after all, it's a very, very, very old place - 6000 years old.

  

and here I am, not so old after all

  

another view

taken from the valley floor looking down the valley and the end of the village

   

the village of Añana

 here we are at the end of the tour. Miren on the left and Merea on the right of the photo. Behind us is some of where we had been wandering.

It's surely an amazing place and I felt very lucky to be there. Also, amazing to me, is that there isn't any 'over the top' tourist place there. The village seems just like any other little village and there is a small information place where we paid and met the guide, and a where we bought some salt and were given t-shirts, because "they're now 'out of style'" - ha! who cares, we're happy with our shirts.

We had lunch in the village at the only place open and where, we were told, the food is a bit fancy. We were happy to have some fancy food and very nice it was. 

I'm going to leave it here and will write about lunch, well, not so much write but I have photos, and our tiki-tour that Miren took us on after lunch.

Identity card rigmarole

Just need to get this off my chest because it is getting me down, it's just dragging on and on and on - the latest in the saga of being issued  with my identity card (NIE), which is the official proof that I'm legally living and working here and therefore can go out and come back into the country without a problem. Last year my card came in two weeks, expiry date 31/10/13. This meant that I could come back into Spain without applying for a visa for this teaching stint and apply for my card to be renewed once I got here and had an address. Simple enough!

 I put the application in on 11th October and I'm still waiting!!!! To go to London at Xmas time I had to apply for, and got, permission to come back. Not long after I returned from London I got  another letter from the government and it turned out that what had been going on was an investigation to decide whether or not to extend my NIE and they decided that they would. I had to then apply for my card to be issued. This I did and was told that it would take .... 40 freakin days!!!! There was a chance that it could be quicker so at the end of last week a teacher at school phoned the police and was told "yes, it's there waiting to be picked up" Woo hooo - into San Sebastian I went, once again. BUT NO -  they'd made a mistake. 

Back to Azpeitia I came and the next day the teacher phoned to see what's going on to be told that the person on the phone the day before had indeed made a mistake and that it wasn't ready. 

The thing is that I have a ticket to go to London on 27th Feb for 5 days, it's a carnival holiday here, and the 40 days is up on the 5th March and no guarantee that it will be done before then. So, today I went back into San Sebastian to again apply for permission to come back. Each time I have to pay, not a lot so no biggy really but the thing is that it can't be paid there, I have to go to a bank, pay the money, they stamp the triplicate copies of the document, I return to the police department and give them the appropriate copy. No problem .... except for one little detail .... THE BANKS CLOSE - at 2.30pm FOR THE DAY - it was 2.35pm.  For f***s sake, I've adjusted to everything else here but I'll never get used to the place closing down for the afternoon and places like banks not opening again until the next day. 

But - there was a glimmer of hope -  we (Miren came with me) found one that would open again at 4.15pm so I hung about, Miren went back to Azpeitia, until it opened and I could get the money payed, get the document back to the police and then be done with it - BUT NO SUCH LUCK - turned out that that particular bank, not the  branch but the bank, only did such things for people who have a bank account with them. 

AND SO IT GOES ON!!!! 

Back to Azpeitia I came and will go back to San Sebastian tomorrow morning. 

All going well, I shall pay the money, deliver the stamped document to the police, come back here and on Monday go back to San Sebastian to the police station and get the permission document. When I come back from London I should then get my renewed NIE, THE NEXT DAY - POSSIBLY!

Emma's comment, when she first heard about the '40 days', " they'll be posting it to NZ at this rate". I'm beginning to think that this is indeed what'll happen.

One bright spot in all the trailing back and forth is that there is a good bus service between Azpeitia and San Sebastian and it is a short walk from the bus station to the police station. 

Tomorrow is another day!

On the other hand, I've had a very good February so far - last weekend my niece, Alysha, came for a weekend visit all the way from Leeds, UK.; last Friday I visited a salt mine and tiki toured around the countryside for a few hours, thanks to Miren and Nerea; on Saturday I had a lot of fun in a cider house with some really nice people, one is a teacher at school; and on Sunday I went on another tiki tour to the coast and then back here to the home of the owners of my apartment for lunch.

I'll tell you all about these happenings next time. It's time to cook my dinner.

Some more in January

When we went to visit Miren's sister at the convent all I knew was that she is a Carmelite nun and therefore in a closed order so I wondered just how visitors are received. Obviously they have a system because Miren has visited her sister ever since she first went into the convent. What I discovered was that while the nuns don't venture out into the world, except en route to another convent for whatever, the world, to some degree, comes in to them. 

Some time ago some of the nuns in the order decided that they should be a little open to the world instead of being completely closed off from it. This caused a split in the ranks and those that wanted some openness went one way while the others went another. The convent we visited is now one of the 'little bit open' ones.  They have the internet and TV for 'certain things' but unfortunately I didn't find out what these 'certain things' are. Nerea gave Miren's sister her phone to see photos of her nephews and she knew how to use it, no question, therefore I guess they have mobile phones, too.Well, at least one, there are only 16 nuns in this convent so it's possible that they have one phone for all of them. 

Where we were sitting used to have a double mesh grill between outsiders and the nuns and when Miren's sister first went there her visitors could only fit 2 fingers through the mesh to touch her. Now, as seen in the photos, that mesh is no longer there and there was kissing and hugging from all of them however there was definitely 'their space' and 'visitors space', and no crossing over between the two. Before we left the convent Miren's sister opened the door into the convent, we'd been in the visitors part, and  we went in as far as just around the corner into the main corridor where there were statues, icons and candles and also one of the mesh barriers was hanging on the wall. It was a pretty substantial piece of construction of black metal. I certainly felt very privileged to be inside and able to see it and get an idea of how visitors were received before. 

The nuns spend between 5 - 7 hours a day praying, they grow vegetables and fruit and are book-menders. Miren, Narea and myself left the convent with a bag each of  kiwi fruit and apples grown there and jam made from their fruit.

And that's it about that day, I just thought I'd share this bit of information. They told me that I could ask them questions about anything but I didn't get much of a chance because a lot of the time they were talking with Miren and Narea. 

On the 19th/20th January it was San Sebastion Day which is celebrated in San Sebastian, of course and in one other town - Azpeitia. It is celebrated with a Tamborrada which was a very interesting event which started at 10pm on the 19th and finished at mid-day on the 20th and basically consisted of a lot of people drumming as they walked around the streets and gathered outside the church close to my apartment and then in the town square where the Civic Band joined them. Miren's friend, Narea, plays the clarinet in the Civic Band so she was there, too, and also her sister, Maite, is a drummer, and she was in the last group. We saw each other, her drumming and me standing on the side of the street watching, which was really nice for me and a surprise for her.  It was really cold and at around 12.30am I finally left the town square because I was freezing, my feet were so cold they'd gone numb. 

There were about 25 groups of between 50 - 70 people in each group and each group has it's own costume which everyone in the group wears. As well as the drummers, each group is led by a young woman carrying the group's banner and behind her are 2 more young women kind of marching/prancing on either side and a little behind, and the group of drummers come behind them. First, at night, the adults were drumming and then at 10am the next day children up to 9 years old took over. I didn't see the children because it was a very wet and miserable day and I figured that my time of obligatory watching children perform has long gone so I stayed in out of the weather.

What impressed me was that all the drummers in all the groups kept time with each other, and all the groups, wherever they were, and everyone looked happy and enjoying themselves. Lots of people were out watching even though it was damned cold.

 For the local people there's lots of feasting and drinking Here's some photos of that night so there's more to this celebration than walking around the streets drumming. I was told that they practice for months and months before so feasting and drinking is a just reward for some hard work.

Here's some photos of some of what I saw.

Oh, I almost forgot - the bull running! Azpeitia is very staunchly into 'bulls' which means that there is very little opposition to both bull running and bull fighting, and lots of opportunities for people, both children and adults to take part. I'm not sure about how much bull fighting is done here but bull running has happened about 4 or 5 times since I've been here. The first indication to me that there is going to be bull running is that the barriers go up, along the bull running route, during the week.

As well as the barriers going along the streets they also board up shop windows. Sorry, I don't have a photo of boarded up shop windows but these guys are putting up the posts that the wooden barriers slot into.

I was standing on the side of the street, remember these streets are very narrow, wondering why all the people were gathering when, suddenly, people began moving in all directions and then THERE WAS THE FRIGGING BULL, right in front of me, maybe a close as from our front door, in Aroha Avenue, to the road, maybe 4 - 5 meters. I dived for an open doorway and a guy grabbed me and shoved me inside. Where I was standing there were no barriers and there were a lot of people standing there so I had no reason to suspect that a freaking big bull would suddenly appear. And, No, I didn't understand what people were saying because I don't understand Basque! This was a fully grown bull, not a calf like we saw when we first got here, so its horns were enormous -  so no photos of the bull!

After that I went and had a beer and then went home until it was time to go out to see the Tamborrada.

Not much else happened over the next couple of weeks. I'm still waiting for my NIE which is the card showing that I have official approval to be here until whatever they decide to put as the end date, sometime after May 31st when my job finishes. I got yet another letter from the government saying that I had to go to the police station in San Sebastian with yet more papers, or rather, more copies of what they already have plus a couple more. It was written in Spanish and I could understand the words but I couldn't make sense of it. One the one hand it seemed to be saying that I would be issued with my NIE but on the other hand I had to go back with more papers. One of the teachers phoned and it turned out that that my application for the renewal of my last year's NIE has been approved  and that I then had to go in and apply for the actual card to be issued - same building, different door. I was also told that it would be 40 days before I could go in and pick it up. I couldn't believe it and neither could anyone else but there was nothing to be done although Maitere suggested phoning after a while to see if it had been done quicker. 

 

My kiwi friend, Bri, came to stay the first weekend in February, she came on Saturday and went back to her town, Eibar where she is now living, on Sunday afternoon. We didn't do a lot - walk about and then chill out at home on Saturday and Saturday night. On Sunday we got on a bus which took us to a town called Zumarraga. We went there because neither of us had been there and that's where the bus went. Not a lot to say about our visit to Zumarraga really - we went there, had something to eat and then got the next bus back to Azpeitia. The bus trip, which is about 35 minutes, wound through a narrow gorge for most of the way and it was quite interesting to see more of the local countryside however at some point we realised that neither of us had any idea of how big a town Zumarraga is nor where to get off the bus. After going past the first stop in a town that we figured was probably it we got off at the next stop and then had quite a walk to try to find the town center. We didn't actually find this but came to a bar so decided that we'd have some food and then find the bus stop to get us back to Azpeitia rather than walk around a very, very quiet town not knowing where we were going. Fortunately, we found the bus stop ok and a bus came along soon after so back to Azpeitia we went.

 

January in the Basque Country

well, how quickly January has come and gone.

Azpeitia seemed very small and very quiet after London and I confess that I did feel down and lonely for a while but that passed as I settled back into my life here.

I've made friends with a lady who works in the bar very close to my apartment building and she's decided that every second Friday, or so, we'll go on an excursion - for two reasons, she said. First, I won't be on my own quite so much and second,  I'll get to see more of the Basque Country. Her name is Miren and she's pretty wonderful, has a good heart and is very good company;  has a good command of the English language and encourages me to speak Spanish with infinite patience. Her friend, Narea, has joined us for the 2 excursions that we've had so far.

So, on the 17th January we went to Zarautz to visit her sister, Maite, at her place of work which is to do with teacher professional development and teacher resources. I've met Maite a few times before this in Azpetia, mostly in the bar, so meeting her wasn't new and it was lovely to see her again. However, what I hadn't expected was to be shown into every office to meet everyone working there. Everyone seemed very interested to meet and speak to 'the curiosity from the other end of the world'.  There were 5 offices and 20 - 25 people altogether.  It was a little overwhelming but also very interesting to hear more about life in this part of the world from different people. It seems that most people live in different towns and villages to where they work and commute everyday which I find rather interesting because I like hearing about the different towns and villages and people's daily lives.

Most of the people I met spoke English, from a little to very good, and most were keen to practice - everywhere I go I speak more English than Spanish so that while my Spanish is growing, it is growing ever so slowly. A lot slower than I would have thought given that I'm in my second stint of living in Spain BUT this is Basque Country so the language that I mostly hear and see is Basque and day to day I listen to and speak English both at school and outside school because people want to practice English.

As well as going to Maite's workplace and meeting a lot of her colleagues, Miren drove us along the back roads so I got to see more of the countryside, can't imagine ever being tired of this. I saw a lot of vineyards, lots huge country houses, a few sheep, little villages and lots of fast flowing water bubbling along in many streams and little rivers.

As we drove through the tiny coastal village of Getaria we saw a lot of people gathering outside a huge marquee because that day was the opening of this year's Txakoli vintage and everyone was turning up to try it and possibly, to drink lots of it, so Miren and Narea said. 

Txakoli is 'young wine' made in the coastal towns of Zarautz and Getaria and in Aia, a village which is a little way inland from those two, from grapes grown in the surrounding area.  I have yet to try some so don't have an opinion but I will before I leave here.

For some unknown reason I didn't take any photos however I did on our next excursion a couple of weeks later when we went to a little village called Donamaria, in  the province of Navarre, to the Carmelite convent there, where another of Miren's sisters lives - she's a nun and has lived in the convent for 46 years, from when she was 19. 

We set out from Azpeitia and drove through the backblocks with snow on the  hills

through Tolosa 

past more farm houses, 

   and into the province of Navarre

and onto a little village, I think it was Leitza,  where we stopped for a bit of a walk about, lunch and a look in the church.

Here we are - Miren and me - it was cold

and it was almost the finish of market day - the last of the cheese

We had a look in the church because - well, Miren asked a man walking by where was a good place to have lunch and he not only told us but he took us to the place - around the back away from the main part of the town because this place wouldn't be so busy. Along the way he asked if we'd like to see inside the church, which of course was dominating the town, so we politely said, "of course we'd like to see inside the church," so we stopped off at a house, maybe his, he didn't say, where he went in and came back with ...... the key to the church. He told us to have lunch and then go to the church and then take the key back to where we had lunch and leave it there. So nice to be trusted. He left us at the lunch place and went off. 

We had a wonderful lunch, normal 3 plate lunch - 1st vegetables, 2nd meat or fish and then dessert and coffee. Lots of food for 11€. I've come to like artichokes which I'd never eaten in NZ but have not come to like bacalao which is cod and the 1st time I tried it, it was hellishly salty and at this lunch I tried some of Miren's and again it was very salty, not as bad as the 1st time but still too salty for me. I find this a little odd because Spanish food is usually short on salt for my taste, in fact short  of tastiness altogether. I had a beef casserole thing called Guiso, which I liked. 

    Miren and Narea outside where we had lunch. I don't know if it's a restaurant or a bar. 

The english words - bar, cafe, restaurant do not mean the same here as in NZ. Here places are a mixture of the 3. Each place will tend to lean more towards being one of the 3, but are still not the same as what a bar, cafe or restaurant are in NZ. So I'm reluctant to use these words because they son't convey the right picture but I don't know any other words to use. I find this difficult to explain, pretty much impossible to be honest. So onwards ... the church

and then we delivered the key to where it had to go  and on we went. We went much further than I thought we were going - on and on and on and on some more through snow covered hill country. It was very beautiful, quite steep and rugged in some places.

  The snow was kind of icy by this time

    The car was getting a bit fogged up

 

Almost in Donamaria 

    nearly at the convent

  

This is the convent - I didn't get a decent photo so I've taken this from google

 and here are the people we spent about 3 hours talking with. Well, some of the time they were all there and the rest of the time just with Miren's sister who is 2nd from the right, front row.

   Not what I expected to happen at all. They were all interested in NZ and what I was doing although there was a confusing few minutes when they insisted I either belonged to a place called 'Oceania' or "did I identify myself as European?"  and I insisted that NZ belonged to NZ  and that I wasn't European. Not a lot of English is spoken here so I got to stumble along in Spanish. They now know that they grow and eat 'kiwi fruit' not 'kiwis'.

By the time we left the convent it was dark so Miren decided that we'd go home via the motorway which meant that we went further up country before turning onto the motorway. At one point we were up by the French border and then went along the outskirts of San Sebastian.  We got back to Azpeitia around 10.30pm. I had a beer with Miren and Narea at the bar and then called it a day and went home. 

All in all, quite a trip.

January 19/20 is San Sebastian Festival time which is celebrated with a 'Tamborrada', a very interesting happening (I think) which I will write about next time.