...but fuck their French keyboards. They are unusable, and the reason I haven't posted anything for a few days. Sorry.
I've become a regular at Bar Jamon! Now not only do I get to bask (get it, bask?) in the old man with his beret and glass of wine, I get my cafe con leche without even having to ask for it. I don't think I've ever been a regular anywhere before. The bad news is that this morning I was running late and so didn't have time for what would have probably been my last Bar Jamon breakfast, because today I finished my Spanish class and left for the French Basque country. Oh well.
The bus from Bilbao to Bayonne should only take about two hours I think, but once over the French border it turns into a local bus and stays on city streets and makes lots of stops and it ended up taking almost four hours. Usually that sort of behavior annoys the crap out of me, but the drive was really pretty and you see a lot more when you're not on a highway. So far, the French Basque country, compared with the Spanish side, is cleaner, and more flowery, and more calm and less noisy, and the younger people look, well, less Spanish: fewer tattoos and piercings and mullets and dredlocks. And fewer Basque flags (although I haven't seen all that many French flags, either).
When United Statesians use the word lovely they're usually being sarcastic, but I really mean it when I say Bayonne is lovely. It has a beautiful cathedral and some cute little streets with shops and outdoor cafes and a river (two, really) and bridges. Looking over one of the bridges, the river is lined with little whitewashed buildings with red and green shutters and it all looks as quintessentially idealized-European (in a good way) as anywhere I've been. And just on the other side of that particular bridge, the neighborhood gets slightly grittier and has some interesting graffiti. If you're into that sort of thing. And I heard some people speaking Basque. And they have good ham here. And good cheese. So far, not bad.
I've become a regular at Bar Jamon! Now not only do I get to bask (get it, bask?) in the old man with his beret and glass of wine, I get my cafe con leche without even having to ask for it. I don't think I've ever been a regular anywhere before. The bad news is that this morning I was running late and so didn't have time for what would have probably been my last Bar Jamon breakfast, because today I finished my Spanish class and left for the French Basque country. Oh well.
The bus from Bilbao to Bayonne should only take about two hours I think, but once over the French border it turns into a local bus and stays on city streets and makes lots of stops and it ended up taking almost four hours. Usually that sort of behavior annoys the crap out of me, but the drive was really pretty and you see a lot more when you're not on a highway. So far, the French Basque country, compared with the Spanish side, is cleaner, and more flowery, and more calm and less noisy, and the younger people look, well, less Spanish: fewer tattoos and piercings and mullets and dredlocks. And fewer Basque flags (although I haven't seen all that many French flags, either).
When United Statesians use the word lovely they're usually being sarcastic, but I really mean it when I say Bayonne is lovely. It has a beautiful cathedral and some cute little streets with shops and outdoor cafes and a river (two, really) and bridges. Looking over one of the bridges, the river is lined with little whitewashed buildings with red and green shutters and it all looks as quintessentially idealized-European (in a good way) as anywhere I've been. And just on the other side of that particular bridge, the neighborhood gets slightly grittier and has some interesting graffiti. If you're into that sort of thing. And I heard some people speaking Basque. And they have good ham here. And good cheese. So far, not bad.
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