Merry Christmas from the Basque Country!

All of the Christmas lights have been switched on, Christmas trees have been erected in the main squares, and the Christmas markets are in full swing, so I can now finally say that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in Spain! Generally Christmas isn’t taken so seriously here. All of the festivities start a lot later, apparently it’s only acceptable to start talking about Christmas in December which goes against everything I've learnt growing up in Britain - the country where Harrods opened its festive shop this year in July (my students were appalled when I told them this). The Basque Christmas markets are decidedly less Christmassy selling practical items like jewellery and general food rather than Christmas decorations and mince pies. 

I’ve been shocked by how different Christmas is here compared to England because I thought it was a pretty standardised holiday. However, in Spain, Christmas Eve is a lot more important because that is when you eat Christmas dinner and watch the King’s speech (or the leader of the Basque country, who is conveniently broadcast at exactly the same time as the King). They also have another holiday over the festive period on the 6th of January where they celebrate 'los tres reyes magos' or the three wise men with more presents and another big meal.

The biggest surprise for me, however, is the fact that the Basque Country has its own version of Father Christmas called Olentzero. The Basques are so stubborn with their traditions that not even the powerful advertising force of Coca Cola has been able to reach these parts. The story goes that Olentzero is a Basque peasant who lives in the mountains and brings presents to the good Basque children on Christmas Eve. Pretty similar to Father Christmas really except that he lives in the Basque mountains and only serves Basque people. I would argue that in this sense he's not as charitable as our version and should maybe rethink his generosity.

Zorionak!

Ens vam anar a Barcelona!

If google translate hasn't let me down the title simply means 'we went to Barcelona' in Catalan. There was another holiday last Thursday (standard Spain) so Laura and I decided to begin exploring the country with a trip to Barcelona. We told some university friends of our plans; luckily they hadn’t forgotten about us and booked to come with us. 

Laura and I arrived a day before everyone, so what’s the first thing 2 English girls in Barcelona in December decide to do? Hit the beach of course! Despite being next to the sea we still managed to get very lost trying to find the beach and ended up walking for about 2 hours (if you know either of us I’m sure this won’t surprise you - in Bilbao, we once found ourselves in the middle of a motorway after walking for an hour because I was convinced I knew the way home). But we eventually found it and it was very sunny.

Our friends arrived the next day, and we got a lovely surprise when 2 more of our friends decided to take a spontaneous trip to see us. After visiting the Sagrada Familia we were very Spanish and had a lunch that lasted about 3 hours. We then went to the Christmas Market which was absolutely massive. It was amazing but, unfortunately, the clear blue skies and 15 degree heat prevented us from getting in the festive spirit. I’m actually excited to come home to minus degree temperature, ice, and being forced to use mulled wine as a heat source because that’s all part of Christmas.

At the Christmas market we quickly learnt that Catalan Christmas traditions are very different from anywhere else in the world. The first evidence of this was when we found lots of stalls selling small ornaments of famous people with their trousers round their ankles going to the toilet. They had ornaments of everyone from The Queen to Gandhi in all their glory. We found no explanation for this other than at Christmas time people like them.

If that wasn’t weird enough we also saw lots of stalls selling logs with faces on them, and we learnt about the tradition that on Christmas Day these logs ‘poo’ a present which is found underneath them. The Catalans clearly have a strange obsession with Christmas toilet habits.

Barcelona has a reputation for pickpocketing and we weren’t let down because we were ‘lucky’ enough to see it happen on two separate occasions that night when my friend Callum got his wallet stolen twice (don’t worry, he got it back both times). Granted Callum was being stupid the first time when someone said they liked his belt so he lifted up his top and started talking about it. He obviously didn’t think this slightly strange and was surprised to find his wallet had gone, but luckily he managed to steal it back. The second time someone just took it from his pocket in front of him, they weren’t discreet in the slightest. Unfortunately this time he had to get into a fight to get it back, but he won and was allowed to keep his money. Warning: The danger of pickpocketing is real in Barcelona so don’t be stupid!

The next day I did possibly the best activity I’ve done since I’ve been in Spain and went go karting around Barcelona. That’s right; someone actually let me drive on the road in a go kart in Barcelona. This will probably scare everyone that knows me as I’m not the best driver in the world (my driving instructor actually said that I was one of the worst drivers he’d ever seen pass), but that didn’t faze me. I’ll admit that I didn’t get off to the best start when I crashed into Rosie and Callum’s go kart because I couldn’t work out how to use the brakes, and at one point I forgot that I was driving on the right hand side of the road so almost crashed into a queue of waiting traffic at some traffic lights, but I eventually got the hang of it. I managed to do better than Callum who drove his go kart down a one way street when a car was driving the other way. The go karts can’t reverse so Rosie, Callum, and the man from the other car had to get out of their vehicles and physically turn the go kart around. But these incidents were all part of the fun and go karting was an amazing way to see the sights of Barcelona. The go karts are all installed with a GPS system where a woman tells you where to drive so you follow the correct route. We chose to visit the Olympic park and drive along the beach at sunset which definitely made me feel like I was part of a really cool movie.

After the most amazing time in Barcelona Laura and I came back to rainy Bilbao to find that Spain was enjoying yet another national holiday. While I enjoyed the holiday on Thursday, having 2 in 3 days is a bit much and the second one definitely wasn’t appreciated considering we had no food in the flat. I’m not exaggerating when I say on Sunday all I ate was 2 biscuits until 6pm when my flatmate kindly made me dinner. Spain, if you insist on closing all shops on Sundays it's not a great idea to close everything on Saturday as well!

Las Escaleras Mecánicas

I’ll admit that this is a slightly random post but I still find it strange after two months of being here, so I thought I’d share how I get to school every day. To begin with I take a bus or get a lift from Bilbao to Ermua, pretty normal thus far. However, both of the schools are situated on the top of a massive hill; so, to get up this big hill the town council have kindly provided not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 (!!!) escalators right in the middle of the pavement. I’ve never seen outdoor escalators like them before, and I’m not sure if the steepness of the hill justifies the walking assistance, but the escalators are very convenient for me and they’re even covered by a roof so can be used whatever the weather. Although, they have forced me to become even lazier and when one doesn’t work, which occasionally happens, it has the potential to ruin my day before it’s even begun.

Also, I have a confession to make. After my very positive previous post I have to admit that I did actually get very homesick for the first time this weekend. It’s not so much that I wanted to be at home, but the fact that I couldn’t contact the people I wanted to when I wanted to that made me emotional. I didn’t have the best Saturday for various reasons, and all I wanted to do was hear a familiar voice tell me that I was being stupid, but that obviously wasn’t possible and at that moment in time it felt very unfair and pretty much like the end of the world (I’ll admit that it was my fault no one was on skype because I chose to have a breakdown at the inconvenient time of 1am). However, after talking to my parents and some of my closest friends on Sunday I now feel so much better and a lot more rational (it probably also helps that it's not the early morning and I slept last night). Despite not being there at my most crucial breakdown moment because they were too busy partying (selfish), I have the best friends ever.

I knew this year would have its ups and downs, but it’s safe to say that I’m not making any immediate plans to emigrate to Australia.