Christmas Basque-style

Christmas this year was spent in the good ol´ Basque Country. I had comtemplated going somewhere or doing some traveling but by the time Christmas vacation rolled around, I was so tired from working and everything else that I only wanted to relax and not do anything. So that was exactly what I did. Nothing. Well, almost nothing.

Christmas vacation started with the Santo Tomas festival. I am not sure about the history of this holiday or why it is celebrated but, my God, it is so much fun! Basically everyone gets together and eats txistorra (kind of like chorizo) and drinks cider. I went to Donosti with Endika and some of his friends and we just had a great time being outside and enjoying all the festivities. Here are some pics from the night:





For Christmas Eve I went to this small town called Eibar. One of the other teachers that I worked with is from Eibar and she adopted me as a Christmas orphan and invited me to spend Christmas with her family. Her family owns a caserio (a country house) in the mountains so we actually went there. I had originally planned to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with her but it didn´t work out so well with the buses and trains so I returned on Christmas Eve. But it was so nice to get out of Irun for 2 days and spend some time with a good friend in the mountains.

This is the view from the caserio at sunset

And during the day. It is gorgeous there. All you see for miles and miles are green mountains. To me, this is the real Basque Country.

This is the house!! Isn´t it so cute? Just down the road are some neighbors and Jone´s (my friend) parents go to buy fruits, vegetables, eggs, etc. from them. It´s so great because everything is so fresh and it´s convienent also.

Another view of the caserio. Jone´s dad renovated the entire house himself. When they bought it, the house was basically just the 4 walls and he did almost all the work himself. It has a really rustic feeling to it but it has all the modern ammenities.

On Christmas Eve day the sun was shining and the weather was so nice so Jone and I went for a walk in the mountains. It was perfect.

I returned from Jone´s house late Christmas Eve and on Christmas day I went to have lunch with the family I always have lunch with on Sundays. It was just a normal day but it was really nice to be with the family and we ate so much!

The rest of the vacation was spent between Irun and Donosti and one day I went to Bilbao. I honestly didn´t do anything too exciting but it was great. I spent a lot of time with Endika and that was fantastic. The weather was so beautiful that I was able to get outside a little and finally take some photos of Irun.

This is one of the canals in Irun.

A picture of one of the small rivers.

A view of the mountains.


The cemetary on a sunny day.


Olentzero (the Basque Santa Claus) in Donosti.

Finally it was New Year´s Eve and I spent it in Irun with Endika. We went out to the main street and just partied the night away. I saw soooooo many of my students and everyone was so nice and happy. This is Dani, one of my students. He was wearing this hat but I stole it from him for a while. I think it looks better on me anywyas. :)

On January 6 it was The 3 King´s Day. It Spain they celebrate Christmas but with less importance than in the States. Instead they have the 3 Kings (think from the Bible) and that is when most people celebrate "Christmas." So here Christmas lasts forever.

On January 7 I finally returned to school and have been working away since then. The weather here has been horrible lately. It has been raining every day! And this past weekend there was a cyclone!!!! Endika and I went to Bilbao to visit some of his friends and sometime during Friday night, the power went out so most of the city was without electricity. It was horrible. We couldn´t cook anything to eat and in the neighbor there was nothing open. And to make matters worse, we were in the apartment of Endika´s friend and she lives on the 10th floor of an apartment building and because we had no power, we were without the elevator! So we had to climb or go down 10 floors to be able to leave or come. Let´s just say I got my exercise that day!

The only other thing to tell about is that Endika and I bought basketball tickets for a team here in Spain. The team is called TAU Ceramica and they are from Vitoria, which is the capital of the Basque Country. We bought a bono (I´m not sure of the word in english) and get to go to 6 games for 87 euros. Basically if you buy the bono, it makes it cheaper than buying the 6 tickets seperatley. Endika has been a fan of TAU forever and I thought it would be something fun to do also. So we went to the first game on Saturday night and they won!! And there are 2 Americans that play on the team!! The players are from all over the world (very few are actually Spanish) and it´s like the European version of the NBA. So we are going to another game tomorrow night and then 4 more before I leave. I´ll take some pictures and get them up when I can.

OK, that´s all for now. This entry has taken me forever! Hope everyone is well.

Lots of love from Spain!