We make a new friend

On Sunday we went for a walk by the river, and as we walked by the riverbank we spotted a water rat scuttling across the path and into one of the rock heaps that line the water. We stopped to have a look, which attracted the attention of a genial looking middle aged chap on a bike who had just ridden up the hill. He stopped and peered into the rocks with us. 

‘A rat’, Jo supplied when it became clear that bike man needed an explanation, and we pointed, ‘here’. We all looked together. ‘There he is!’ we cried as one, having spotted murine features protruding from a crevice. The three of us gazed with satisfaction at the rat for a moment.

After the excitement of catching a glimpse of a rat in a pile of rocks had abated somewhat, bike man clearly felt that small talk must be made. ‘The water’s very green’, he commented. 

It was indeed green, in a lurid, industrial sort of way. 

‘Yes, very green’ we agreed. ‘Do you know why?’ asked Jo. 

Bike man shrugged and said that he didn’t know, but that he thought it might be something to do with the farms upriver. As Jo later pointed out, it was probably just as well that he didn’t know, as there is no way in hell we would have been able to understand a more detailed explanation. 

There was a pause in the conversation. 

‘The ducks don’t seem to mind, though’, observed bike man. 

‘No, there are many ducks here today’, I agreed eagerly, pleased to have been able to form a sentence (for the record; muchos patos aqui hoy, which I accompanied with vigorous nodding and an inane grin). 

At this, bike man’s eyes lit up. Clearly he had recognised me as a fellow nature lover – interest in the rat alone could have been mere Sunday amateurism, but I was obviously also passionate about ducks, and you can’t fake that sort of thing - and he launched into a long, animated story about something he had seen recently on the river, but in his enthusiasm he spoke a bit too fast for us and all I caught was that whatever it was he’d seen had been very big, and white. 

I assumed he was talking about a fish he’d caught, and was working out how to ask ‘and did you eat it?’ (the river, even when not the sort of green I more usually associate with pine scent bathroom disinfectant, is not the cleanest, and I was wondering what a fish pulled from its murky depths would look like, let alone taste like), when he pulled out his phone and showed us some pictures he’d taken. Oh, a big white swan. I get it. Probably just as well I didn’t ask if he’d eaten it. 

We looked at the pictures appreciatively, and I commented that it was very beautiful. He was clearly expecting something more, so I essayed; ‘how do you call it in Spanish?’ Good question. ‘Cisne’ he replied. ‘Oh. In English we say swan’ was my less than inspiring response. He nodded, clearly unimpressed. ‘It’s a very nice cisne’ I added, by way of reassuring him that I recognised that linguistics was a far less interesting topic than that of ornithology, and he nodded again, placated. 

We turned back to the rat, who had taken advantage of the fact that we’d stopped paying attention to it to leap into the river, was now swimming briskly downstream. For a brief moment we shared in a sense quiet satisfaction that only true nature lovers can appreciate. Then we said our goodbyes, and he cycled off, presumably to share his story of the time he saw the swan with a new audience. I hope it brings them as much pleasure as it brought us. 

We're in the right country II

Lettuce pin-ups

I'm not really sure what's going on here. It wasn't even that hot that day. All I can assume is that these guys really, really like lettuce? Or maybe that they were being photographed for one of those nude charity calendars, possibly called "The Men of Lettuce Farming"? Suggestions are welcome.

Attempted Guggenheim I

We went to England for my cousin’s wedding, which was great, though exhausting. I worked out that transit time alone, as in the actual time spent on buses, cars and planes, was around fifteen hours, and that doesn’t include time spent waiting for said transport (two hours on the tarmac, Easyjet? Really? It’s no wonder everyone hates you. Not as much as Ryanair, but still, that’s like saying that swine flu is less bad than mad cow disease. True, but not comforting). 

Anyway, the less said about that debacle the better. 

We got back to Bilbao (two hours late, Easyjet. Don’t think I’ve forgotten), and I felt that I needed a little culture to make up for the shocking morning we’d had, so we went to the Guggenheim before we headed home. 

We were suitably impressed by the building. It was a bright, sunny morning, and the light reflecting off the tiles was blinding. We sat in the cafe underneath the museum, had a restorative coffee, and appreciated Frank Ghery’s brilliance. 

Then, all enthusiasm, we set off to see the art. Hooray! The Guggenheim! World famous art! Culture! What a nice building! It’s huge! It’s so clever!

Where’s the entrance? We’ll just have a walk around and look for it, it must me somewhere here... where on earth it is? Hahaha, maybe it’s a post modern museum and there isn’t actually an entrance, reflecting society’s inability to truly understand the inner meaning of anything. Hahaha. 

Oh, look, rubbish bins and a dank alley. Hahaha, is this one of the exhibits? Haha. 

Okay, where is the fucking entrance? Hate Guggenheim. Hate stupid sun, why is it so bright? Hate freaky spider statue, that’s not art, that’s a nightmare.

Hate people. Hate Easyjet. Hate Bilb... Oh, here’s the entrance. Aren’t we silly, we walked right past it and all the way around again, hahaha. We’ll just go in and...

Museum closed. Of course it is, it’s Monday afternoon, why on earth would it be open? Hate Spain. Hate everyt...

Oh, look. Here’s some art. 

Oh, and a nice doggy (who is sceptical about the artistic merit of Jeff Koons’ installation. Philistine).

Pacified by giant dog garden. Go home. Sleep. Dream of kicking a personification of Easyjet in the face. Ahhhh.

Please find me a job

A couple of weekends ago we went to my cousin’s wedding in England, which was lovely. My family scrub up surprisingly well, the bride looked beautiful, and various people gave some of the best wedding speeches I’ve ever heard, and I say that as an expert in wedding speeches; I’ve been to three weddings now, not including my own. Yes, I’m quite the socialite. 

But I don’t really want to talk about the wedding here – the couple kept it all very small and intimate, and I feel weird about discussing something so personal that isn’t really mine to discuss, in a way, even though most of the people who read this blog are people who were probably there anyway (hi, mum!). Instead, here is a picture of me and my dad at the wedding that I am going to get enlarged and framed and placed somewhere prominent, because I love it;

We don’t photograph well in our family, but we are masters at mugging for the camera. 

And the reason that I bring up the wedding at all is that being away from Pamplona for a few days made me realise how much I’ve adapted to the idea that it is home now. I don’t think I’ve ever felt comfortable somewhere so quickly. Over a couple of wines the other night we had a long discussion about the practicalities of making the move here permanent. I don’t think it’s just the fact that I’m basically on an extended holiday at the moment, I think I could actually live here quite happily. 

But it turns out that, while possible, making the move would be pretty complicated and would mean Jo giving up on finishing his degree, which isn’t worth it. And there’s the question of earning a living. I could teach English, but I’ve sworn only to do that as an absolute last resort. So, if anyone knows of any highly paid jobs in Pamplona that don’t require fluent Spanish, please let me know. I suppose the answer is to work hard on our Spanish now and when we get home, and for Jo to finish uni, see if the Spanish economy pulls out of its nose dive, then to see if we still want to come back. 

But I don’t want to leave with the feeling that maybe one day we’ll come back for a holiday, or worse, that we’ll spend the rest of our lives reminiscing about the time we lived in Spain for a couple of months but never went back. I want to leave knowing that we’ll be back.

This is why I love this city

Saturday was an unusually warm day, and in the evening we decided to potter out and have a glass of wine in the Plaza de Castillo before dinner. It’s getting pretty cold around here now, and we wanted to take advantage of what might have been the last chance we had to sit outside comfortably, something which had occurred to everyone else who lives here as well, and the plaza was packed with flaneurs, drinkers, and people watchers. People watching is one of Pamplona’s most popular past times, and it takes a while to get used to the fact that people will stare at you quite openly. To begin with it made me a bit self-conscious, but I don’t really notice anymore, mostly because I spend so much time staring at people myself. 

Dusk is the best time to start people watching around here, because as it starts to get dark, the buskers start to come out. This is great because it means I can combine three of my favourite things; listening to music, judging people based on what they wear, and drinking wine. 

And we were sitting happily at Bar Windsor having a drink when a fire twirler set up nearby (we’d already had a short, one act play performed for us at the next table, where an American girl had complained to the waiter about some aspect of her drink and was subjected to a pretty severe talking to by him about her manners before he’d go and get her another one, so it was a red letter day for entertainment). We watched the fire twirler for a bit. He was a bit inept, but not dangerously so, and everyone walked away unharmed. The adults in the vicinity were not especially interested in him, but he did quickly amass an audience of small children, and in the eye of every one of those tiny potential arsonists I could see a glimmer of the primeval recognition of “fire... good”. 

The best bit of his act was when he battled the invisible Jedi;

After a bit of lacklustre twirling he did a spot of fire breathing, with an air of ‘I really hope I watched that instructional youtube video enough times to get this right.’ 

 

Our next stop was The Boozer Triangle (a convergence of streets that doesn’t quite qualify as a square, this is a little strip that has the Casco Antiguo’s best and cheapest bars – including el Mejillon, more on which later - and consequently, more hippies and students lounging on the footpaths and in doorways than can soberly be countenanced without feeling that you need a  wash) for a bit of dinner, and along the way we saw three of the area’s resident buskers. Two are phenomenally good guitarists, one plays electric keyboard and is, how can I put it delicately...not good. Though he does also play the tambourine with his foot, so he gets points for trying. To these varied musical accompaniments we wandered around trying to decide where to go. 

Then we saw this;

A mariachi band, you say?

And so that’s how we spent Saturday night. In a bar watching the best (and only) mariachi band I’ve ever seen, while all around us drunken students danced and sang (and in the case of the particularly drunk girl whose hand you can see in the photo grasping a huge cup of some luridly orange drink, trying to do both and succeeding at neither). Then we had an ice cream, and wobbled tipsily home. I don’t think I could have planned a more perfect evening.

I'll take them!

Plaza de Castillo at night

I know this isn't the best photo, but it just captures the feel of that night. I took it earlier in the year, when it was still warm enough to walk around the plaza at night, eating an ice-cream, and doing a spot of people watching. That is going to be one of the things that I remember about being here with most fondness; all the people cruising about, the children playing, the bands in the rotunda. Bliss.

We're in the right country

Dogs of Spain

As promised, here are some pictures of fluffy dogs, and a total lack of tortured soul-searching;

Once you know it, you can't unknow it

So, they eat horses here. I actually am not as freaked up by this as I thought I might be. I love horses with the same passion that I have loved them with since I was child. When my parents told me they were buying me a horse, it was the happiest day of my life. Of course, they never did buy me that horse, but for a few blissful weeks I knew what it was to think that I was going to have a horse, and it was wonderful. I can only imagine how insane with joy I would have been if my lousy, neglectful parents had kept their promise. 

But I digress. 

What I'm trying to say is that the idea of people eating horses doesn't upset me unduly, though I don't think I'll be trying it. Having said all that, I was fine with the idea of eating horse in theory, right up until I went for a walk the other day and saw a paddock full of horses;

So noble. So majestic. I swooned with pleasure, and in my head I'd already picked out which horse I was going to keep, and what I was going to call him.

Then I walked a bit further, and saw a paddock full of happy little Thelwell-esque ponies;

Awww. Look at the baby...

Then I remembered the shop at the end of our street;

The carneceria de caballo. The horse butcher. It put a little bit of a dampener on my day. I'm not saying for a minute that I think that eating horse meat is wrong as such, and I'm not even sure that all or indeed any of those particular horses were destined for the carneceria. And anyway, I eat too much beef and lamb to be in any position to criticise the eating of horse meat. In fact, I'm not really sure what I am trying to say. In short it comes down to the fact that as a former vegan/vegetarian who is now an enthusiastic carnivore again, I am still somewhat conflicted about eating meat (I say that, but even as I type this I am waiting for the meat pie I just made to finish cooking,). I suppose I'm just commenting on the fact that we take eating cow, sheep, pig and chicken so much for granted, and yet when we're presented with a culture that eats an animal that we have some taboo against eating (horse, dog, monkey, guinea pig) we're so quick to judge. I don't know. I promise that the next thing I post won't involve such tedious soul-searching. It might even be a picture of a fluffy dog. They don't eat dog here.

Jesus is watching you...

...no really, he's just up there. I think maybe it's time for Jesus to get a job.

Camino I

We did a bit of the Camino de Santiago the other weekend, which was a lot of fun. One of the great things about living in Pamplona is that it doesn't take long for you to get out of the city - start in the centre of town, pick a direction and walk. Within forty-five minutes you'll be more or less in the country, or at least in one of Pamplona's small satelite towns, most of which are very pretty.

As we were walking through the town of Villava, they were having a fiesta. Again, we're not really sure what it was all about as the only signs we could see were in Basque, but it centred mainly on traditional dancing, and music and what I assume was the preparation for ritual sacrifice of the Prancing Twit, who you can see below in his final glorious moments. It's like pagan cultures in which one man was chosen every year to be king, then sacrificed at midwinter in order to guarantee the arrival of spring.

I like that people here are so proud of their heritage. We see things like this practically every weekend, and the striking thing about the various parades and dances is how many young people are involved, both as performers, and as spectators. They're not hanging about looking bored or making fun of proceedings, but neither are they standing about, hands on hearts, tears welling in their eyes from the sheer passion of nationalism. Rather, they seem confident in their culture, and quietly proud. It makes a nice change from  those loveable larrikin bogans with their southern cross tattoos and folksy racsim that we have so often at home, though people do tend to wear flags here as well;

It seems like I should mention ETA here. We were talking to a couple of Spanish girls about out age the other day, and they said that most young people here think that ETA are sort of an embarrassment, and that though lots of people identify strongly as Basque first and Spanish second, ETA are kind of off the radar for the majority of people. Which means that this is the image of Basque nationalism I'll take away with me, rather than as something scary;

I understand what you're trying to do...

...but it just seems like you've missed the point