Etxera

MMC :: in November 14, 2022 :: in Spain :: 1 comment

It starts raining as we pull into the parking lot for Gaztelugatxe. ‘I don’t know how much we’re going to be able to see if it keeps raining like this,’ Ryan remarks. 

I want to say something snarky about how it would have been better if we slept in more and left at the time I’d wanted, but that will not be constructive, and I know it will clear up by the time we’re there, so all I say is, ‘It will clear up by the time we’re there.’

We get out into a light rain, me pulling my shell hood over my head and Ryan hunkering down. We start our way up a road, staying on the rocky clay shoulder. It’s misty. We can hear the sea to our left. I catch the surf on the shore. ‘If it’s foggy like this I don’t know if I want to go,’ Ryan says. 

‘O, we’re going,’ I assert. 

‘I would appreciate it if you would be less stubborn than you usually are,’ Ryan starts. ‘It could be a long walk and I don’t know if I want to do it in the rain.’

He’s so cute when he’s wasting his time. 

At a break in the bushes we catch a glimpse of the hermitage out on the islet, and a large rock in the ocean next to it. 

‘O,’ Ryan exclaims, ‘It looks like the fog is lifting. It also looks like we’re going the wrong way,’ He checks the map. ‘Yep, we should turn back.’

We turn back and head down the road. The rain stops, and we do too, to take pictures through the trees. 

‘The rain stopped,’ Ryan states. I say nothing, knowingly. 

‘I forget that you have Nana on your side,’ Ryan adds. 

‘This wasn’t Nana,’ I state. ‘Nana brings us wine. This was just me being a weather witch.’

‘I like to think of her up there, cutting deals with the Fates,’ he muses. Me too. 

We enter the walkway down to Gaztelugatxe. 

It smells really good here. It reminds me of Big Sur, but with less eucalyptus and more cedar and pine and coniferousness. The Atlantic mists the trees, rising from the ocean up through the foothills. Because it’s wet, it smells like New Orleans to me, too, all clay and terracotta and vegetal. 

I go slowly down the slippery stone steps because of my wobbly knees. Ryan doesn’t mind; he takes pictures as I catch him up. 

We cross the stone walkway over the sea. At the foot of the steps up to the hermitage, there’s a cross, then a little ways up, another. ‘I like these crosses,’ Ryan says. ‘I think there’s going to be twelve of them,’ I realise, trying to remember what the second station of the cross is that Ryan liked so much. ‘Why is that?’ he asks. ‘It’s a Catholic thing,’ I answer, not explaining—too impatient yet to explain.

We get to the top, to the twelfth station. I explain to Ryan and whichever English-speaking people are around what the stations of the cross are. Ryan is perplexed. We walk around and there are two more. ‘O, and there are sometimes fourteen,’ I add. Don’t ask me to defend Catholicism.

We continue on our way, a winding ride. It’s fun; it’s fun to be here together; and it’s fun to imagine coming back. ‘No offence,’ Ryan starts—always a fun start—when we arrive at our hotel in Donostia-San Sebastián, ‘But I can’t wait to come back with someone I can have all the fancy tasting menus with.’ ‘Yeah I can’t wait to come back with someone I can have sex in the Guggenheim with!’ I add. ‘And go to jail!?’ he asks. ‘What are they going to do, arrest me?’ I say snarkily. ‘Yes!’ he says, ‘That’s what I—‘

‘Ryan,’ I interrupt, ‘I need you understand that at least 70% of what I say is snarky.’

When we had arrived, one of the concierges popped out and asked, ‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ ‘Always,’ I answered, and he poured us two glasses of txakoli. The other concierge had set us up in our room, the same number as our last hotel—601—so that seemed a good sign too. We drink it on our balcony, which overlooks a basilica. Of course I take a selfie for Catherine. I pop a little prayer to Saint Anthony into the basilica right behind our hotel for 1€, and as it happens to Saint Nicholas the patron Saint there as well, and of course to Nana. Would be super hella chill if my passport came back to me.

We wander around the old town of San Sebastián where we’re staying for the evening, popping into and out of pintxos bars, playing cards. We’re probably even at 45s at this point, but who’s counting.