But we are not Spanish; we are Basque
After breakfast—and after confirming our stay at Le Clos de Luz in Luz-Saint-Sauvuer, the place I am most looking forward to staying on this trip—I tell Ryan I’m going to call the Barcelona airport Lost and Found, as they had recommended doing after 2-3 days. They don’t pick up. I call the airline, who helpfully tell me to call the airport Lost and Found. I email them instead, and realise I should probably look up what to do if you lose your passport abroad. Even I don’t have enough entitlement to trust that I’ll be able to fly to the US without a passport. Silly United States.
Ryan asks what I want to do, in a way that makes me realise we probably need to change our plans. We decide to return to Barcelona tomorrow, instead of going through the Pyrenees. We feel badly about cancelling our stay, and email them saying as much. I have a feeling I will stay there someday, but on this trip it just wasn’t meant to be.
I’ll write about my passport saga separately, because right now we’re focused on right now.
Our last day in San Sebastián, in Basque Country, we decide to do some shopping for gifts, walk around, and climb to the castle at the top of the park overlooking the ocean. There’s rain in the forecast, and it’s drizzling on and off. We pack our rain gear, including the jacket Ryan picked up on sale yesterday. Perfect timing.
We get a glass of wine and some pintxos, then turn down the streets of the old town. Just as Ryan is wondering where a local wine and cheese shop he saw is, we come upon it.
We enter, greet with woman working there with a kaixo, how you say hi here. (I should add—a bit late—that x in Basque is pronounced differently than in English: alone it makes a sh sound, and after a t it makes a ch sound, so hi is kai-sho, pintxos are pin-chos etc. We frequently referenced some common Basque phrases, like kaixo.) We browse and I start to put some things behind the counter. The woman is friendly and says we’re welcome to try anything we like.
She continues chatting us up. She’s very friendly, and sweet. She asks again if we want to taste some cheese. The one that Ryan is eyeing is one we’ve had before, bought for ourselves and ate with bread and jam the other night. He starts to explain that he knows what it tastes like and decline, but she’s offering, and it becomes clear we won’t have the option to decline. She tells us she’s going to give us some cheese, ‘And some wine, to wash your mouth,’ she adds with a smile. She begins cutting us very generous portions of cheese and telling us about them. We have found a fellow foodie.
‘This is natural, and this one is smoked,’ she says, cutting faster than we can taste and sip wine. ‘This cheese is to drink,’ she explains, and I understand. ‘With the smoked, you have to have something sweet,’ she slathers some honey on two slices and holds them up to us, the honey dripping onto her fingers while we hurriedly swallow and sip more wine.
She tells us that in Basque Country, cheese is brought out at the end of a meal or evening, when you are done with everything else. It signifies the end, before heading to bed or to the disco for dancing. She says something about Spain or the Spanish, and adds, ‘Well we are not Spanish; we’re Basque.’ I pick up on this and hope to chat further about it.
Ryan asks about another cheese, saying it’s a gift.
‘Ah, I will give you some gift bags to take,’ she says, turning towards behind the counter, where bags are stored.
‘No no,’ Ryan demurs, and she looks offended.
‘He wants to, but he won’t ask,’ I answer, making her laugh. ‘He’s too shy, and doesn’t want to be rude.’
‘They’ll get crushed!’ Ryan protests.
‘No,’ she tells him, ‘You put it like this,’ and she holds a stack of bags between two flattened hands, ‘And they don’t get crushed.’
‘I’ll ask you then!’ she laughs and turns to me. ‘We women understand each other. Men,’ she waves her hand dismissively, ‘They are not good for answering questions. They look nice, they are strong,’ she gestures muscles, ‘They can carry the bags.’
Back to the cheese. ‘Do you want to taste it?’ she offers hopefully, but Ryan hesitates. ‘You have to taste it,’ she tells him, in less of a ‘You should try this’ way and more of a ‘You will try this’ way. She pulls out a whole new fresh wheel from the cooler for us, and brandishes a large knife behind the counter to cut it.
‘This cheese is to eat,’ she explains again. ‘The other cheese is to drink; this cheese is to eat.’ It’s some kind of aged cheese, and fantastic. Creamy and nutty, so smooth. We try that, and the same but with truffles. The truffled cheese is simply amazing, so creamy and balanced, not overpowering. I would make myself sick eating it. She says that for her, it’s perfect: neither the cheese nor the truffles overpower the other, and you taste them all together.
‘How do you say, “It’s delicious”?’ Ryan asks.
‘Oxo goxoa,’ she answers, adding ‘It’s sweet, it’s good, it’s nice.’ Oxo goxoa might be my new favourite way to express this sentiment.
I ask what vermouth she recommends and she explains the options, telling me I have to try a special one. She pours us a glass. It’s towards the end of the bottle, and she shrugs and finishes the bottle for us. Oxo goxoa.
Thus we continue, browsing and chatting. ‘I don’t sell anything I don’t like,’ she says, in explanation as to why she doesn’t sell beer. She explains that the man who had just left the shop is one of the two co-owners of the first cheese we tried. One handles the money, and the other makes the cheese. They are local; everything here is local, and good. She wouldn’t sell anything she didn’t like herself.
She shows us a few things we may want to consider for gifts or for ourselves, including pre-made pintxos for the one that everywhere will have: Skewered green olives, spicy piparra peppers, and anchovy. I know these; I am sad they always have anchovy because I want to try them. She says every pintxos bar will have these, croquettes, and tortilla, but otherwise make their own pintxos, and each is different. ‘We don’t have tapas here; we have pintxos. In Spain you have tapas but in Basque Country you have pintxos.’
She asks about our travels and we tell her about our trip, about Taska Beltz, about natural wine and pintxos. She smiles and says, ‘I am San Sebastián,’ and explains that San Sebastián and Bilbao have a sort of rivalry, being the two main cities in Basque Country. ‘We’ll, we are together against Spain, but in football, otherwise… We are against each other.’ Bilbao was more industrial, dark and dirty. The river ran dark with pollutants. Today it’s nice, it’s a city you would want to visit, but clearly San Sebastián is the favourite for our friend. After all, it has the best urban beach in Europe. In Bilbao you cannot go to the beach. Who would choose Bilbao over San Sebastián?
As we check out we chat some more. She asks us where we’re from. ‘Boston,’ we answer. ‘Ah, Boston, Massachusetts,’ she nods knowingly. ‘You are smart, all the universities there. We know it from the movies.’ She tells us about a movie I’ve never heard of, Love Story, set in Boston, that’s sweet but sad, will make you cry.
‘People from all over the United States come here,’ she says. ‘And we know your country. Boston, New York,’ she lists others she’s heard, ‘Utah we don’t know but it’s OK. North Carolina,’ she shrugs. She’s right about everything so far. ‘But people from California always tell you they’re from California. You’re from Boston. We know that’s Massachusetts. They say, “I’m from Los Angeles, CALIFORNIA. San Francisco, CALIFORNIA.” It’s a joke,’ and we do laugh about it. I tell her we think it’s a joke, too. She lived in New York and it’s a city of the world to her. I explain to her that Boston and New York are rivals like San Sebastián and Bilbao and joke that now I might have to like Bilbao more. Tampa is like Cuba, everyone speaks Spanish. New Orleans reminds her of Europe. She wants to go to Chicago for the architecture, but not the cold. She doesn’t want to go to LA—you have to drive everywhere and Europeans prefer walking. Like I said, she is right about everything so far.
She thinks it funny that we eat so early, at six o’clock in the afternoon. She asks if we think siesta is funny, that most Americans can’t get over places being closed for a couple hours in the middle of the day. ‘But we stay open until eight,’ she muses, ‘Whereas you are done at six.’ We talk about drinking (done in the street, around children—much better to allow teenagers to have alcohol than a driver’s license. She would let her kids drink at home where she knows what they’re drinking and can teach them than lend them her car to drive to Sevilla), crime (there isn’t much here, although there had been violence decades ago under Franco for Basque independence. ‘The terrorists we are OK with’), gun culture (similarly, guns are not allowed, except for occasional bird hunters, who keep their weapons in lockers at the police station and check them out when they want to use them), people in general. She says her daughter is 23 and she doesn’t worry about her walking along the beach at seven in the morning like this—here she lilts drunkenly—wearing a short skirt because there are police. They used to have more police—local, Basque, and Spanish—but now crime is low in general because people treat each other well, even tourists. You can leave your bag and it won’t get stolen, you won’t get pickpocketed like you might in Barcelona, or Seville. Not that they’re bad, it’s just different there. The people are different, and because of it you have to be more careful.
‘When is the best time to visit?’ Ryan asks.
‘Summer,’ she answers. ‘In September it is perfect. If it’s a sunny day, you go to the beach, then shower so everyone can show off how brown they are. You get an ice cream and go for a walk, then you eat pintxos and drink wine. In August it’s busy. If you want to come when the most people are here, come the week of August 15, when we have our festival and fireworks on the beach. But if you don’t like crowds, come in September. There is a cinema competition too.’
We tell her we’d like to be back sometime. We don’t introduce ourselves, but I note that her name tag says Macarena.
‘How many gift bags would you like?’ she asks, playfully not even bothering to turn towards Ryan lest he decline. ‘Four,’ I count. ‘You sure?’ she asks, and ‘Five, then,’ I correct.
By now we are paying. ‘Eskerrik asko,’ I say, thanking her and surprising her with my pronunciation and intonation that she’d taught us earlier. ‘That is very good!’ she says, ‘Oxo goxoa!’
As we say goodbye and walk out, she calls to us, ‘See you next year!’
We drop our bags off at the hotel and wander towards the park along the point here. As I’m taking a picture of the old fish market building, Ryan notices that what is purportedly the best place for pintxos in town, Bar Bixigarri, is open; it was closed yesterday and we thought we had missed them on extended holiday. Of course we stop for pintxos. When we set out again, we start up some stairs, but at the top Ryan spies the sea, and wants to check out the surf, so we descend again. The sea is lovely and the spray from the crashing waves makes my lips taste salty.
We head back up the stairs into the park, terraced switchbacks interspersed with stairs ascending the hill. It smells good again, like it did yesterday in Gaztelugatxe, piney, and the trees provide some shelter from the drizzle. We explore the fort, taking pictures. There are only a couple other parties up here with us. It’s such a nice walk through nature, with some exploration to make it a small adventure. The nature and the small adventure make me think of you. I miss you, if I am allowed to miss you. I remind myself that I am allowed to feel however I feel; that feelings are always valid. So I miss you. I wonder whether I’ll communicate this to you, or rather when I do, what the circumstances will be. Will it be soon? Much later? I start to think about what I want, how to frame it.
I stop and stare out over the Atlantic. I rest my chin on my fists, reflecting. I am thinking, I want to be able to tell you that I miss you when I miss you. Ryan notices there’s something notable about me and takes a picture. I don’t ask him what caught his eye because I don’t want to have to explain. The fact that this moment is captured gives me the courage to write about it here.
We go as high as we can go, me continuing in my habit of continuing until someone or something stops me. There’s a gate, and a door into the castle, and both are locked. I know because I try them.
On the way back down it begins to rain, and we shelter to throw on our rain gear. Across the way, an old man is sheltering under an archway. He had been walking alongside us, us leap-frogging each other as we passed him but then stopped to take pictures. He has on a traditional Basque beret. I tell Ryan I’m going to ask if I can take his portrait. ‘OK,’ he says, ‘Do you want to look up how to say it?’ he adds. I answer that I do, and we both take our phones out, Ryan forgetting that I, too, have a Spanish SIM. Neither of us, however, has service.
I walk across the courtyard and gesture and ask in broken Spanish, but the man declines. It’s a shame because I thought he was a rather beautiful old man, and the overcast lighting is nice, in this stone archway forest setting.
Ryan and I begin to descend, and it’s fair to say we get caught in a downpour. It’s so bad it makes me grateful to have never been in a storm at sea. The rain whips off the Atlantic, and we try to get to the opposite side of the hill as quickly as possible, but it becomes pointless. We’re soaked. I’m as wet as I’ve ever been, at least the parts of me not protected by my shell, and probably because of my shell. It channels water, which runs down my torso to my legs. My jeans are soaked. They’re so wet they shimmer. My underwear is wet, cold and uncomfortable against my skin. I don’t worry, though, and I laugh. There is nothing to do but keep going. It would be pointless to shelter. I tell Ryan, ‘Not to be awkward, but you might have to help me out of my jeans later.’ His shoes squelch and we try not to slip on the stone walkway. Drops of water drip from my nose and fingertips.
Back at the hotel we laugh at ourselves as I ask if we may have two glasses of the local white varietal txakoli, because we could use a glass of wine and resemble that sentiment. One of the men working quickly fetches a bottle of wine and pours it into two glasses already laid out for guests, pouring from high up to aerate the wine and bring lots of bubbles into the glass, like they do for txakoli and cider here. It volatilises the acetic acid in the beverages, opening them up to be a bit sweeter, the perfect pour. He hands us our glasses and Ryan doesn’t even wait to toast before sipping. We drink in the elevator and I take a sopping mirror selfie.
Back in our room I manage to get my pants off myself. I take a long, hot shower, with scalding water and so much steam. Ryan rests while I write. But it’s going on 8 PM. It’s almost time for pintxos, time to wake up Ryan so we can begin our evening.