I was lucky enough to have my parents come to visit me for a
few days last week, directly followed by a spontaneous visit from a friend who’s
spending the year in Asturias, so it’s been very busy here. My parents brought
with them lots of English goodies and even more clothes. So many clothes in
fact that my drawers now won’t shut properly - It looks like I will struggle with packing to go home in May even more than I did to come out here. And with
Rosie I became a tourist again and went up the funicular in Bilbao where
you have an amazing view of the city.
It was good to see familiar faces and catch up, but this
weekend it was nice to once again embrace the culture of the Basque country
with a trip to Ermua on Saturday for the annual Feria de San Martin - a traditional festival in the town. I get on
really well with the students I teach (possibly a bit too well as I don’t think
it’s usual protocol to ask a teacher if they want to smoke weed with you after lesson, but
I'll take this as a sign that I'm a cool teacher), and they were selling at
the market to fund their school trip so I promised I’d come along and buy lots
of things. However, I didn’t really anticipate being peer pressured into spending 5 euros on a lottery
ticket. Never before has winning the lottery felt so important. Despite spending too much it was so lovely to see all of the traditional clothing, hear the traditional music and eat tola, a Basque pancake with chorizo.
But one tradition in particular seemed pretty strange to me and my friend Laura; keeping a very overweight pig in a pen in the centre of the plaza that people had the opportunity to win (and consequently take to the slaughter house
themselves) in a raffle. Poor piggy.
The Basque love of all things meaty was once again confirmed
later on in the day when some friends and I went to a pintxo fair at the Exhibition Centre. Pintxos are the Basque version of tapas but instead of coming free with a drink you have to pay for them. People here argue that the quality of the Basque tapas are worth paying for, but when you're a student who lives off of supermarket own brand food that argument seems pretty invalid. Different bars and restaurants had set up their own stalls with a selection of 3 of
their best pintxos for people to try. I opted for what
I believed to be a small passion fruit cake with a
creamy topping. It wasn’t until I took a bite that I realised the creamy
topping actually contained ham and bacon. I would argue that meaty passion fruit cake is definitely not worth paying for. Luckily I learnt from
my mistake and when my friend offered me another small cake I was careful to
dissect it properly and saw that underneath all the meringue it contained crab.
Who invents these things?!
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