Basque Country

Hey all,

I just got back from my two day journey to the Basque country. We went to both San Sebastián and Bilbao. I feel like the only thing people in the United States know about the Basque people, if anything is their head terrorist group the ETA and their movement for separation from the rest of Spain. Yes that is true and the reason for their wanting separation is the Basque people have been unified for much longer than Spain, they have a set of laws and rules called fueros and believe nothing should be above those. Unfortunately Spanish law rules over their fueros which upsets most true blood Basque people. Although many locals wish they had some autonomy from Madrid and the national government really very, very few agree with much the ETA stands for.

The Basque people have 7 territories, 4 of them are in Spain, the others are located in France. Their language is called Euskara, it is actually one of 3 languages in the world that no one can find a root from which it came from, it has been spoken since Neolithic times. It is virtually impossible to learn and is considered a sense of local identity if you can speak Euskara. The pure blood Basque men are so proud of their heritage, many of them wear a beret to signify their full blood basque men. They have a union jack style flag that is green, red and white. Two famous Jesuit Saints are actually from Basque, St. Francis Xavier (yes which is where the University name comes from) and St. Ignatius of Loyola (which is also a University).

A fact I thought was interesting was most history books teach that Magellan was the first person to circumnavigate the world, in reality he was killed half way through the journey, but a Basque man by the name of Juan Sabastán took over the boat and finished the journey.

We started yesterday in San Sabastián (Donostia in Euskara) we had the day to ourselves walking through the old part of the town. The city is really a beautiful beach town on the Atlantic Ocean. We climbed a mountain that outcrops into the ocean with a castle and of course, Jesus at the top. It was an incredible view from the top of the coast line and the city itself. Dinner was in a cider making place out in the country off of the city. We got a chance to try all the different ciders they make, although better than Asturias, I still don't like it. The food was amazing, steak, tortillas (egg, cod, and, potato), blood sausage and more!

Today we headed to Bilbao, walked around the Guggenheim which the building is incredible. It was built in 1997 so it is all crazy modern architecture and many people say more interesting that what is inside most of the time. For you Bond fans it is the building where the whole first sequence takes place in the last movie. We then walked around the old part of town, which is not very big and had some lunch at a local place and headed back to Oviedo.

Learning about the Basque people was definitely interesting and most at dinner last night honestly just wanted us to understand the real them and not the over glorified, what we see on television, ETA. It was nice to see there is more to the people and the place than their separation movement.




Adios!
Erika