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.