Mundaka, the World of Water

June 26, 2008 - Mundaka, Spain

At least that´s what the Romans called this little town on the coast, 20 minutes north of Gernika.  Derived (or evolved, rather?) from the Latin "mundusaqua" or "mundus aquae"¨mundus¨= world, and "aqua" = water.  Thank you, Nikki Romani at Boise High School.

Daniela and I took turns jumping off the stone walls on the entrance to the harbor.  It wasn´t very high up, maybe 20, 30 feet, but still enough time for your body to realize it´s in free fall, curse the brain for making such a decision, and fueling the fire for more jumping with a spike of adrenaline.  Oh, to be young and in Spain...

Coming to towns like this reminds me of how young and naive the US is, especially the West where I grew up.  For example, we were walking along the stone that walls the harbor, and came across a huge cannon.  I thought it was a memorial for something, but nope.  Turns out it was an actual cannon that the town used to defend itself from attacks from the sea.... and IT WAS STILL THERE.  After what, 600, 800 years? 1000?  Bueno, anything beyond 100 years old is pretty old for us, though we have sufficient aridity in our air to preserve such things.  Iker informed me that where we were standing, next to the cannon, was where Sir Francis Drake (described to me as "el corsario legendario, Seer Frahnthis Drah-kay")   disembarked from his ship on a visit to Mundaka.  And I was standing on it. 

Oh, and the surfing.  Mundaka hosts the World Championships for surfing (and you´d know it by the tiny surf shop that sells Billabong t-shirts for at least 30 euro), but seeing the tiny beach you wouldn´t think it.  You have to get out past the sandbars and harbor, where the waves really hit.  Remind me to learn to surf, but that´s for New Zealand. One step at a time, gumshoe.

Midsummer´s Eve, y la Fiesta de San Juan

June 25, 2008 - Galdakao, Spain

San Juan (the celebration of St. John the Baptist), was apparently another one of those Christianization phenoms where instead of stamping out the pagan holiday, they just attached a Christian name or significance to it (like Christmas, Easter, etc.)  San Juan, celebrated June 23rd, is the celebration of midsummer.  I don´t know if it´s celebrated the same everywhere, but in the Basque country it´s really popular, and in the Catalonia region of Spain, it´s a national holiday.

In Galdakao (close to Bilbao in the province of Bizkaia), a huge bonfire is built at the center of the plaza.  Andra Mari, the dance group of Galdakao that we´re friends with, did a big fancy performance in full costumes.  There were guys dances around the bonfire, and the girls made circles and sang traditional songs around it.

There´s something very tribal and ominous about fires, something sorta pagan, and that combined with the reenactment of ancient rituals makes for a really cool experience for me.  Fires were arguably the first huge discovery of mankind (except maybe the opposite sex, Lay-Z-boys, and mac n´cheese) and anything that reminiscent our anthropological roots, I think, is very powerful.

After the traditional dances are finished, the entire village gets involved.  A huge crowd forms around the fire, and everyone jumps over it.  Kids, adults, parents holding babies, etc.  I asked about it, and apparently when you jump over the fire, you burn all the bad spirits inside you.  Our friend Iker also added that it was linked to witch-burning, but since the pagans were often considered witches, I´m to assume that it was a later Christian addendum, and I´ll just stick with it being for good luck.  People also threw slips of paper into the fire and burned them; be they confessions or wishes for the following year, I don´t know.  Either way, it´s pretty cool.

the belated arrival and $9 sandwiches

Wow, today has been a fiasco.  After missing our Paris to Bilbao flight b/c the booking hadn´t allowed us enough time to transfer planes, we were switched to the next plane to Bilbao (which would come in 4 more hours) and were supposed to be awarded with food vouchers to make up for the mistake of the airlines, so that we might be spared the ungodly cost of noshing at the airport du Paris, where the bad US dollar exchange rate combined with outrageous airport prices made for a meal most dear (dear as in caro, not dear as in querido).  We when realized that we hadn´t been given the promised vouchers, we went back to the Air France ticket desk, and from there were sent to the Delta ticket desk because supposedly since it was Delta´s fault, only they could award them.  Delta sent us back to Air France, etc. etc. long story short, I ended up spending the equivalent of 9 US dollars on a very small sandwich.

That would not have been a big deal, except for that we were carrying fairly heavy daypacks, it was about 80 degrees (F) with 80% humidity in the airport (which later enabled my body´s production of ¨eau du dirty European,¨ that olfactory experience we all know and love), we felt like walking zombies, and had the sneaking suspicion that non of these people knew what they were talking about and just wanted to get rid of us.

Anyway, we´re in the hostel Don Claudio in what might be considered the Garden City quarter of Bilbao.  Even Mireya, who picked us up at the airport, didn´t know where it was and had to look it up on GPS to take us there.  I have internet, though, that tenuous lifeline through which I have always been able to ward off all homesickness.

the belated arrival and $9 sandwiches

Bilbao, Spain --

Wow, today has been a fiasco.  After missing our Paris to Bilbao flight b/c the booking hadn´t allowed us enough time to transfer planes, we were switched to the next plane to Bilbao (which would come in 4 more hours) and were supposed to be awarded with food vouchers to make up for the mistake of the airlines, so that we might be spared the ungodly cost of noshing at the airport du Paris, where the bad US dollar exchange rate combined with outrageous airport prices made for a meal most dear (dear as in caro, not dear as in querido).  We when realized that we hadn´t been given the promised vouchers, we went back to the Air France ticket desk, and from there were sent to the Delta ticket desk because supposedly since it was Delta´s fault, only they could award them.  Delta sent us back to Air France, etc. etc. long story short, I ended up spending the equivalent of 9 US dollars on a very small sandwich.

That would not have been a big deal, except for that we were carrying fairly heavy daypacks, it was about 80 degrees (F) with 80% humidity in the airport (which later enabled my body´s production of ¨eau du dirty European,¨ that olfactory experience we all know and love), we felt like walking zombies, and had the sneaking suspicion that non of these people knew what they were talking about and just wanted to get rid of us.

Anyway, we´re in the hostel Don Claudio in what might be considered the Garden City quarter of Bilbao.  Even Mireya, who picked us up at the airport, didn´t know where it was and had to look it up on GPS to take us there.  I have internet, though, that tenuous lifeline through which I have always been able to ward off all homesickness.

Leavin' soon

I'm procastinating packing, messing about on the internet, my room is a pile of clothes and toiletry bags, my mom is yelling at me to hurry up... the trip is getting close.

Just now, it's getting to the point where I'm excited.  It takes me awhile before all the upcoming excitement becomes tangible for me.  It will probably not fully manifest itself until we get to the airport.

Leavin' Soon

About to leave for Gaztemundu 2008.  I'm procastinating packing, messing about on the internet, my room is a pile of clothes and toiletry bags, my mom is yelling at me to hurry up... the trip is getting close.

Just now, it's getting to the point where I'm excited.  It takes me awhile before all the upcoming excitement becomes tangible for me.  It will probably not fully manifest itself until we get to the airport.

page 11-1234

I really feel like this dream was pretty meaningful.  I was eating lunch somewhere with Becky Anderson and perhaps two Tiffany Elsberry’s.  Kat Ely was there too.  Genny Gerke was, so I sat with her.  I was wearing some kind of weird clothes with shoes that wouldn’t really fit, so I took them off.

As we were leaving lunch, Genny and Tammi O’Rourke (I think) went into this room.  I’m assuming it was in Boone because I didn’t recognize it before.  Or it could have been any college, maybe not C of I..  Anyway, I sat down and the professor was talking about western civilizations.  Our textbook had ancient Greece in it or something. And we were on page 11-1234 (which turned out to be the introductory section.) 

We were talking about global energy consumption and I made the comment like “isn’t it true that if everyone consumed energy the way the U.S. does, we’d need like 3 or 4 Earths to keep up?”  He somehow didn’t completely agree, which was weird.  Then there was a 5 minute break.

During the break, I inquired about the class (Genny said it was a 1-credit class every Wednesday from 7-11 or something) and the professor took me by the arm and said “well, I’m not really a traditional, orthodox professor here…” and dragged me down all these stairs, jumping through auditoriums, etc.  Then I was in this wormhole, and I can’t explain it.  But he basically showed me the mental journey the class was geared toward.  Like the pinnacle of it.  I somehow completed the entire meditational experience right then, when everyone else had to study for the entirety of the class in order to reach it.

When I was back in the seats in class, we were watching clips from people’s mental journeys, kinda as a promo video for the class.  Apparently, during mine, I was an egg bobbing in the water (like a chicken egg), then I was a pretty fish that turned out to be a beta hatching from the egg.  The professor was a huge gorilla, like the size of two cars, except he had a huge huge head and face.  Disproportionately huge.  And he was next to a beach and there was a convertible there parked with two people in it, and he as the gorilla grabbed the people and threw them into the rocky shore/surf. 

Crazy…..