Oñati

I visited Oñati which is a little town in the mountains about half an hour away from Eibar. One of the English instructors, Jose Ignacio, invited me to come visit his family and see the town’s festivities. It was a day full of celebrating. People in the street were dressed in traditional Basque wear and all the gastronomical societies were open to the public to come in and try a pintxo. Jose and I went to a cider tasting and then for pintxos after seeing the best of Basque produce with cheeses and large beets and darling with children dressed in Basque clothes helping their parents sell. There was an arts and crafts fair with Basque knitting and woodworking, jewelry, candles, brooms… I joined Jose and his wife and their friends for the comida at a restaurant and we had pintxos for the first place of jamon, pate, breads, an egg scramble, ensaladilla, and other munchies. For a second plate, I enjoyed chipirones, rellenos in their own ink. I had an interesting icecream and bites of flan for dessert. In Spain they tend to slice icecream if it isn’t a scooped gelato… The men and women segregated on parts of the table and the children sat at the end. Many of their friends in the cuadrillo were teachers as well, so I was in good company. They were all very kind and interesting people. Many people were familiar with Idaho in Oñati and I even met a woman from Boise, she was one of the teachers at the high school where Jose’s son attends.

So many people were in the street all day. More of the life here is lived in the streets because houses are often much smaller, but that day brought many people outside all day. I met Jose’s daughter, Virginia and spent a bit of time with her and her friends or their cuadrillo. I tasted Calimocho, or red wine and coca cola, which is really sweet. Boys and girls and men and women segregate into gender-groups on holidays like this and if they bump into each other they talk for a bit and then move on. I think that is most common on any day as well, which seems to me to be a weird habit, but that is part of their culture here. A basque friend of Jose’s drove us up after dinner to check out where to rock-climb and also to see Arrantxazu. I am completely unsure of the spelling on that. The Basque language, or Euskara, does not have several of the letters Spanish and English and other latin-based languages use. The “ch” sound is written “tx” and the “c” sound is written with “z” or “k”. The “Z” is lisped” and there are some other peculiarities for me that I continue to learn. Basque still sounds like Russian to me, sadly. But I have heard of some different courses offered.

I stayed quite late out with Virginia and then Jose’s wife offered that I stay the night and they could drive me home in the AM. They were very friendly and treated me like a daughter or niece. They have invited me back and I am looking forward to visiting again. I quite like the people in the Basque Country, despite the stereotype for being reserved and somewhat closed. Jose and his wife are both from Salamanca, but their children have grown up here in the Basque Country.