Basque beginnings

My flight to Spain was long, but a simple mix of Dramamine and alcohol ensured that I slept for nearly the entire time. (I highly recommend this practice) so I arrived with less jet lag than on previous overseas flights.

After some confusion in the Madrid airport (the place is huge!) I found the ramp to my connecting plane to San Sebastian. The ramp... may have been too complicated for me. I first attempted to enter a plane that was being cleaned and re-fueled; the flight attendants were none too happy about that. It turns out that I had to drag my suitcases down two flights of stairs and take a bus to the flight, luckily a nice Spaniard helped me with my bags.

Tracy (my new roommate and partner in crime for the next 6 months) found me on the bus, we had the same flight to San Sebastian.

The airport in San Sebastian is adorable. It's seriously a runway and a one-room building, no crazy security lines or trying to find some distant terminal, a fact I appreciated greatly. We met up with the marketing guys from DeliFunArt, who are running the Basque Stage program for Sammic.

We picked up our apartment keys and had a quick, 3-course lunch (remember: Europe!) and a stroll along the beach to see San Sebastian's famous "wind comb" sculptures.

We quickly unpacked and showered at our new apartment, which is in Lasarte, 5 minutes from the restaurant and 10-15 from central San Sebastian. We have two very large balconies, and an adorable kitchen, it's a pretty nice place. Then we went back to the city to enjoy a pintxo and some txakoli, after which we were to meet up with Marti, our "nanny" in the Basque region. She's originally from Alabama, but teaches English here in town.

She prepared an excellent feast of Mexican-style food for us, replete with guacamole, tortillas, spicy pork, and black beans with chorizo. Yum!

We were joined by several of her fellow American-born teachers, and one guitar-wielding Spaniard. We laughed, we drank...

Then drank some more, After all, this was preparation!

Drums and blue kerchiefs were required. Why? To commence 24 straight hours of drumming, dancing, and drinking.

It's almost too easy to have fun when there's booze and drums in abundance!

Obviously.

The festival celebrates the Basque's victory over Napoleonic troops. Apparently, (I may not be exact here) as the French were trying to march into town with their drum corps, the bakers of San Sebastian mocked them by banging old loaves of bread in an imitation of the bands. The ceremony begins at midnight, and for the next 24 hours, townspeople dress up as chefs, housemaids, or in old military regalia, play drums, dance, jump around, and march through the streets drinking, smoking fat cigars, and drinking excessively.

By the time we got close enough to the square for me to take this picture, it was so crowded that I couldn't have gotten my arm down to reach my pocket if I wanted to!

There were so many different groups of people in different parts of the city drumming that the streets shook from the reverberation of the percussionists. It was jovial, and really exciting.

Tracy and I stayed out as late as we could, considering the jet lag. Sleep was assuredly a welcome thing last night, and when we ventured into town earlier today, the bands and the drummers were still going full-force, though most possessed bloodshot eyes and only a little less vigor from their exhaustive and constant drumming. The endurance is impressive, I've never seen anything like this, such an awesome start to my Basque adventure.

Today, there were pintxos, many, many pintxos. I shall elaborate more tomorrow, but until then...

Buenas noches y adios!