Pais Basco Pictures

Bilbao




















San Sebastian

Unos Cuantos Pintxos

Right we're now about two months behind. not good. This entry takes me to the end of september, October will probably happen around christmas ;-)

So where did we leave off? That's right, I was waiting for the phone to ring a good seven weeks ago hoping my offer to live with Matilde and Georgy would be accepted. I shouldn't have feared, matilde was simply snowed under with work and couldn't hook up with me to sort out deposits. There was never any question I wasn't moving in, in her mind it was a done deal.

Now I'm the first to admit that financially speaking, it's not the best deal in the world. I'm paying more than I hoped, and probably more than this space is worth. Without realising it I've moved to one of the most expensive areas in Barcelona - Borne. It's kind of over-gentrified, very much like Notting Hill. Originally it was a run down and shoddy area above the fishing village and dangling off the end of the old city like one of the clams you might buy further south. Then some investment post Franco turned the park next door into something quite special, and the heaving station at it's base closed down and went from a kings cross to a crystal palace. It thrived with an active gay community in the mid eighties, bloated with cafes, and now is as posh as the old city but with more boutiques and less supermarkets. It's also really really pretty. and there's no irish bars.

My building is on a grand promenade opposite the now closed down market building, which is apparently an architectural marvel but strikes me as more archaeological. I'm on the third floor (the floor numbering system here is random and slightly sadistic, with up to three non floors before you get to the first) so I live up four flights of admittedly very grand but back breaking stairs. The room is cool, and has a little balcony onto one of the internal courtyards that all the old buildings here have. Which of course means I get loads of light, compared to before, and waking up and being able to tell what time of day it is is having a huge affect on my sense of well-being.

I live with Matilde, who's about my age and does something involving telly that I'm sure I wouldn't understand even if she'd described it in English, which she could have done perfectly having lived in Stoke Newington for two years. Luckily she is happy to be accessary to my murdering her language and actually finds it quite charming. Her boyfriend is an extremely nice mexican with a name that is impossible to remember.

The other house mate, georgy, is staying for a month while he finds his feet in Barcelona. He's Spanish but not from these parts and has come here to make it in film. He really really want's to speak english with me, and it sometimes feels strange hearing my old voice again but he's also very cool and I very badly need to take him out for a drink sometime.

The weekend that followed was jorge's birthday. Jorge is a graphic designer and excellent dj and one of the founder members of the "gypsy wheel klan" of which I am now a badge wearer. Its basically a group of friends who aren't gypsies in any sense, and certainly don't partake in protection rackets being vigilantes for building works, but who liked the associated symbolism and so took on the name. I didn't have to undergo any initiation so I'm perfectly happy and quite flattered to be a member.

For his 30th, Jorge (pronounce horhay with guttural h's) took us all out to the forest to stay in Tipis around a disused camper-van that served as our dj booth, and we spent a debauched night drinking ourselves silly and dancing under the full moon. The evening included a turn by my new guitar duo, Alex and me blasting out appalling indie covers on a couple of acoustics to a ravenous crowd of lots of blokes and not very many girls. Hopefully we can learn a few more and try them out on an audience with a lower average sperm count. Busti captured the whole thing on video and wants me to sign a release so he can make a documentary. It was that kind of party.

Now that my new living arrangements were sorted, I decided that having spent the whole of August touring the insides of Barcelona dwellings, I needed a break. I really want to use the time I have here to get to know bits of spain I'd never venture to otherwise, so I headed north for the Basque country, about which I knew very little apart from what maggie thatcher tried to tell me when I was younger about terrorists.

It's funny, how the more I dig into world history - of which I freely admit I'm woefully ignorant - the more I find out the crucial influence that messed everything up was in some way British. I'd never have guessed that we helped create basque separatism, but apparently we did. The Basques are arguably the oldest people in Europe, they certainly like to argue it. There's cave paintings and dinosaur footprints, and a language that is like Finish and Hungarian in that it is completely unlike any other language in Europe or Asia. It is completely mad, and I didn't even try and speak it, it was scary enough looking at it.

So throughout the history of Spain the Basques have always been fiercely proud and extremely left wing. During the civil war they fought hard against the fascists, both in france against the Nazis and at home against Franco. They were famous within the french resistance, and saw themselves at great personal sacrifice as allies of the allies. So when after world war two Britain and America suddenly decided that communism was the new enemy and supported Franco, it came as a huge shock, and it was around this time that ETA formed. Oops we did it again.

Euskedi (basque for basque) doesn't feel very much like spain, but then I'm not sure any of Spain really does. There was a hell of a lot more spanish spoken there than in Cataluña and the people were noticeably friendlier. I started of in Bilbao, which is basically a grubby industrial mining city that has suddenly reborn because of the Gugenhiem and a lot of shrewd city planning. Most cities in spain follow the same pattern. There's the old bit, which is usually dark and gothic with lots of cathedrals and windy cobbled streets, and then a large modern extension (ensanche or in Barna eixample) which is normally rectangular streets and avenues.

In Bilbao's case the ensanche is a huge wagon wheel, which is quite encouraging as not only do you never know which direction your facing, but you can walk for ever and end up back where you started. The old city in Bilbao is tiny and impossible to find your way around. There are the seven streets (the first in the city) down by the river which run parallel and are basically full of tapas bars. The tapas (pintxo) culture in pais basco is famously different to the rest of spain. Here they are a lot smaller, and more decorative, usually a slice of baguette piled high in as many colours as possible with something that always contains anchovies and held together with a toothpick. you take whatever you want (they're about two euros each) and then count the toothpicks later to pay.

This means that the eating habits in pais Basco are even more of a culture shock than Barna. Rather than a light snack around six and dinner at 10, the basques stand around in pintxo bars from about 7 until midnight constantly snacking and drinking. You're meant to go for about one pintxo an hour, but not being used to it I'd start with too many and then end up rolling home. Of course being a veggie didn't help, I never want to see a spanish omelette again! I've no idea if this is a healthy way of doing things or not (all the carbs must be a nightmare) but it certainly feels very civilised. It did however make being alone there a little more intimidating, I kept wishing I knew someone there so I could do the proper, natter eat and drink while standing all night. I mostly just ate and drank.

The gugenheim was a kind of inverted tardis. Much larger and more magnificent on the outside than I expected, and a huge dissappointment on the inside. I'd timed it all wrong, and they were between exhibits, so there was only the permanent exhibition on which is ok but nothing on the tate or the Reina Sofia. The outside is fantastic though. It's completely loopy. It's like some huge alien silver offspring of a cuttlefish and a rhinocerous has accidently landed upside-down on the riverbank. And yet it looks beautiful and fits in really well (admittedly it's hard to be an eyesore when everything around you already is). It's titanium, so it kind of does this weird shimmer in the sun. It's really really beautiful, and I'm sure my photos haven't done it justice.

From Bilbao I headed straight for San Sebastian. The cold was getting to me a bit and I felt I should skip the coastal trip (that I will one day do) and head straight for the cannes of Spain. San sebastian is often compared to Rio (in the same way that parts of maida vale call themselves venice, it's a one way analogy). There's a big overhanging rock with a Jesus on it, and a beautiful if slightly Disney town surrounding an incredible curving beach that they call the concha (or shell). It's extremely pretty, a great sea side promenade that sweeps round with benches for the sea air, a little harbour at one end where fishermen mend their nets (where they animatronic tourist atractions or genuine fisherman?).

I arrived by bus and was dumped unceremoniously in the north of the city with no particular idea which direction was which. I got on a local bus that I was told would take me to the center, and watched as a typical spanish city rolled by - grids of white stone high streets with the strange circular crossings that give cars more parking space and the corner buildings confusing numbers. I got off at the main drag with it's roadside cafes and headed for where my room was. The nice man at my hotel in Bilbao had made that tut tut noise plumbers make before they destroy your credit rating. Apparently finding a place to sleep at such short notice for my budget was like asking for the moon on a plate with special sauce. I proved him wrong - although when I arrived at the lovely hostel by the main square I was forgmarched to their new building which it turned out was in the middle of being built. It was shoddy, and dirty and I'm sure I could have done better if I was one of those people that actually plans things, but no-matter, the weather was nice and the sea air was good and I had time to kill.

And then I finally saw the sea, and I was dumb struck. I don't know why but San Sebastian really is one of those dream sea side towns you imagine from the movies, a place for lost russian princesses to meet dazzling american cads, or for James bond to beat a SMERSH agent at bacarat. I spent ages just watching people strolling and sunbathing, and although it wasn't really seaside heat, and it was already five, I couldn't resist it and got my beach stuff from the hotel. I even went for a dip, it felt almost naughty swimming freezing atlantic mid september.

As it turned out the reason for the rooms being so hard to find was the fact it was the last three days of the San Sebastian Film Festival. A not very star studded affair, but international nonetheless. Apparently woody Allen was around somewhere (I have to meet that man one day) but I had no luck bumping into him. There was a real red carpet though, and I saw one film - not in competition and a bit american - and the atmosphere was very addictive. I must go back and do it properly.

The building the festival was in was another marvel. It's San Sebastians new exhibition center and it's two cubes of what looks like irridescent corregated cardboard that jut out to sea like two lost rocks. At night they glow orange and fit in perfectly for no obvious reason. There on the other side of the river, where the other less famous beach is and where therefore all the food is much more expensive!

The pintxos where slightly better here, more options for me and better laid out, and I also managed to have a proper night out. I went to a bar, got chatting to some excited graduates about their marks they just got in, danced to some absolutely apalling house, and then got drunk driven to the only club in San Sebastian, one right by the beach which apparently serves as the after party for the festival. The only evidence I could see of this was the price of the drinks, but the trombonist adlibbing to the dj made my night.

I flopped back to Barna on the Saturday, swearing to come back to the Basque country and to never go on holiday alone again. Pintxos are great, but they were definately meant for sharing.

some more barna shots