SOUTHERN
& NORTHWESTERN SPAIN
JULY 2-16, 2005
In
July OF 2005 I spent two weeks in Spain.
I gave a presentation at the European Congress of Psychology in Granada,
spent a day in Cordoba and two days in Seville, then gave another presentation
at the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology in San Sebastian. The first three cities are in southern
Spain, where I have been wanting to go in order to see the Islamic influences
there. The fourth city is in the
northwest corner of Spain in the Basque country which was settled by speakers
of a non-European language before the speakers of European languages came. I will describe my adventures and some
of the things that I learned about the many cultural influences in Spain each
day of my trip.
SATURDAY
JULY 2
On July 2 I
flew from Los Angeles to London. It is a good thing that I got to the
airport in Los Angeles three hours early. I always try to arrive
early so I can request a bulkhead or exit aisle seat that has more legroom,
since my legs are cramped in a regular seat due to my height. This time it
took forever at the check-in desk, because British Airways hadn't charged
my credit card for the tickets when I made the reservations way back
in February and so the electronic tickets weren't paid for. It took
a long time for them to figure it out and reticket
the flights. Fortunately they had my
reservations, and they gave me a seat with extra leg room. I then
had to wait for my backpack to be x-rayed, eat lunch,
wait to go through security, and walk to the gate Ð arriving just a few
minutes before the flight boarded. But in the process of waiting I met
some interesting people, including a group on their way to counsel at a summer
camp in Slovenia.
SUNDAY
JULY 3
It was a
pleasant overnight flight to London, but I had to wait in a long line to get my
boarding pass for my flight to Barcelona. Iberia had only one check-in
lane, so finally an agent took half of the line to a desk in an adjacent
terminal in order to check us all in before the plane left. Fortunately it was an easy transition in Barcelona for the
flight to Granada. It turned out that the Granada airport was so small
that it didn't have any of the arms that telescope out to the door of the
plane. So we walked down the steps into the heat
(38 C = 103 F). I had planned to share a taxi with another psychologist
who happened to be sitting next to me on the plane, but only two taxis came for
the entire flight. So we headed for the bus, and
found it full, but they added a minibus which took us right downtown.
After dropping
off my backpack at my hotel I took a taxi to the convention center. I
arrived after the opening ceremonies had started, but only missed the welcoming
speeches from the mayor and other dignitaries, and was able to hear the concert
by the Granada Symphony. After that there was a reception with fancy hors
d—euvres, which served as dinner. I didn't dare
drink any alcohol after being awake about 30 hours so I had some local
alcohol-free beer which was surprisingly good. I saw one person whom
I knew from previous conferences, and met several new people.
I walked back to my hotel, which took about 20 minutes. I felt that I was
in my element here, meeting people in an interesting place. Granada has
beautiful buildings with many sidewalk cafes. Fortunately
my hotel room is air-conditioned, so I was able to sleep. I woke up a
couple of times but went back to sleep and so got enough sleep that first
night.
MONDAY
JULY 4
Breakfast
was free in my hotel, and was a nice spread with eggs, ham, cheese, and various
bread products. Fortunately the sky was overcast so it
was a pleasant walk to the conference center.
I
arrived in time for the first session at 9:00. I spent the whole day
listening to presentations on various topics in psychology, which were very
interesting. They included sessions on autism, adolescents, physiology of
emotion, and metacognition (being aware of how one is thinking and problem
solving). Fortunately
there was a snack bar in the conference center where I was able to grab a sandwich
between sessions. After the last session ended at 7:15 I walked back to
my hotel and took a shower to cool off.
My
hotel was on Plaza Nueva, which has a couple of outdoor cafes. Around the
corner is Calle Elvira, which has the most
popular pubs and discos in Granada Ð which of course is the reason why I
selected that hotel! After exploring the area and adjacent streets, I
selected a restaurant that was recommended by my favorite guidebook, Lets Go, which is written by college
students at Harvard. For dinner I splurged and
had beef filet in Roquefort sauce, not very Spanish but very good! I then
had some Italian ice cream at an ice cream parlor a few blocks
away.
At
12:30 AM I discovered the Aljibe pub across the
street and up the hill from Plaza Nueva, which had a small dance floor. So I danced there for two hours, and met some Americans who
were studying Spanish in a 6 week program at the University of
Granada. We toasted each other since it was Independence Day in the
US. However, while dancing I pulled a tendon behind my right knee, as a
result of twisting my body left. I hobbled back to the hotel and tried
to sleep, but my leg hurt and my brain said that it was still daytime in Los
Angeles. So I lay there awake until 6:30 AM in
Granada which was nighttime in LA, and was finally able to sleep. I
slept until 1:30 PM, and then felt rested.
TUESDAY
JULY 5
I grabbed a chicken Schwarma sandwich at an Arab
snack bar around the corner, then bought a Granada baseball cap at a tourist
shop next to the Cathedral a few blocks away. I rode a minibus up the hill
to Alhambra, the complex of fortresses and palaces for which Granada is
famous. It was the last stronghold of Muslim Moors who had
conquered Spain in 741 AD. It was
converted to Christian palaces and churches when the Muslims were expelled by
the Catholic king Ferdinand and queen Isabella in 1492. The latter were the ones who sent
Columbus looking for a route to India when he rediscovered America.
I spent the rest of the day exploring the Alhambra complex, not leaving until
they closed at 8 PM. The oldest
part of the complex, the Alcazaba, is a fortress with
huge towers. There are great views
of the city from the walls around the towers. The most beautiful buildings are the
Nasrid Palaces, with magnificent Islamic art -- intricate geometric patterns on
walls, archways, and ceilings. Out
of place is the renaissance palace of the Catholic King Charles V, with Greek
columns on the exterior walls. I
also walked through the gardens of the Generalife, an
agricultural estate nearby.
Since
my right leg still hurt, I had to climb the steps by lifting my left foot
first, then bringing my right foot to the same step. It hurt to lift my right foot higher
than my left! While exploring
the complex I met people from France, Poland, Israel, and Seattle!
That
night the conference had reserved the Granada 10 disco from midnight until 2
AM. It's the largest and most popular disco in Granada. It is
generally open to the public from 2 AM until 6 AM. When we arrived, there were many gold
fake-leather couches there, since it is a movie theatre earlier in the
evening. So members of our group sat down on the
couches, and then the staff asked half of them to get up so they could remove
the coaches that were not along the perimeter to make room for dancing.
While the others were sitting or standing around, I
started dancing and then others began to dance too. The music was the
same as the Spanish rock that they play at my favorite disco in LA, which has a
large Latino clientele. My leg was still sore, but better. So I had to be careful which way I moved when I
danced!
WEDNESDAY
JULY 6
I went to bed at 2 AM since I had to get up at 8 AM to put up my
poster at the conference by 9 AM. I lay there wide awake for half an
hour, and then took a melatonin pill so I could get some sleep. Melatonin
is the substance that one's brain releases to put one to sleep, so it is the
safest medication to take, as long as it isn't taken very often.
I took a bus to the conference center instead of walking to get there on
time. I had brought a dozen copies of my poster and they were gone within
the first hour. Another 10 signed up their email address for a copy
during the rest of the time the poster was up until 2 PM. The poster was
titled, "Semi-virgins: What
counts as having sex?" based on my Multiple Identities Questionnaire. Students had rated the identity of being
"a virgin" on a scale from 0=NOT AT ALL to 8=COMPLETELY, and those
who had other sexual activities but not sexual intercourse sometimes used
ratings 1-7.
I
met colleagues from Russia and Iran at my poster, and then explored the other
posters being exhibited. I attended sessions on trust and on perceptions
of music, then explored the afternoon posters. I left the conference an hour early at 6
PM so I could visit the Cathedral downtown before it closed. The cathedral has huge Greek columns
which were impressive, but the main altar and the many side altars were very
gaudy with gold. I read that the king spent half the royal treasury on the
cathedral. What I liked best were
the two pipe organs.
I took a local
bus out to the inter-city bus station to buy a ticket to Cordoba on Friday to
make sure that I had a seat and would know how to get there efficiently with my
luggage. I returned to Calle Elvia and had dinner at an Arab restaurant. I ordered a lamb tajine, which was a
stew with lamb, zucchini, acorn squash, carrots, and peas, which was very
good. I also had lemonade with
mint.
It was still
daylight, so I decided to explore some of the Albaicin,
a labyrinth of steep streets and narrow alleys which originally was a Moorish
neighborhood. I walked north of
Plaza Nueva along the bottom of the cliff which had Alhambra on top. When the road turned left and went up a
steep hill, I decided to catch a minibus.
I rode to the top of the hill, and got off by a church courtyard which
had a beautiful view looking across at Alhambra. After watching the sunset cast shades of
color on Alhambra, I took a minibus down the back side of the hill to the Plaza
Nueva.
On
the corner I saw a promoter from the Aljibe pub whom I had met the night before, and he gave me
a ticket for a free drink. At the pub I met another group who were studying Spanish at the U
of Granada. Only one was from the
US; the others were from Germany, England, and the Netherlands. I went with tem to another pub at the
other end of Calle Elvira called Tantra, which had a
statue of an elephant behind the bar. We met two more people from the
Netherlands there. We talked and danced until after 2 AM, then headed for
Granada 10. Unfortunately
the doorman told most of them that their tennis shoes didn't meet the dress
code, but I had dress shoes and was admitted. At first it there weren't many people
there, but I started dancing and by 3 AM the place was packed. I ended up dancing until 5 AM, and had
the most fun I've ever had at a disco anywhere in the world!
THURSDAY
JULY 7
I slept
until 1:30 PM. Going to bed on that
schedule is more in keeping with nighttime in Los Angeles! While eating lunch I ran into a psychologist
I had met from Slovenia who is teaching in Germany. I stopped to see the chapel behind
the Cathedral, which held the graves of Ferdinand and Isabella, along with
their mad daughter who had kept her husband's body with her long after he had
died.
I then went to the conference for the
rest of the afternoon and evening. I attended a session on cross-cultural
differences in display rules of emotion, and looked at the afternoon posters on
various topics.
I wanted to see more of Albaicin, so I took a minibus from Plaza Nueva to the top
of the hill, and explored the main streets there. I had dinner at a sidewalk cafe near the
church with the view of Alhambra, and then while looking at the view again ran
into some friends I had met before!
I returned to Aljibe
pub and met a group of Americans who were studying in another city nearby. We walked around the Calle Elvira awhile, then they had to return to their hotel
to get up early. I went to the
Tantra pub and joined a group of Spaniards who were dancing lively. It turns out that they were
psychologists from Madrid who were at the conference too! At 2:30 I went to Granada 10, thinking
that I wouldn't stay too late so I could get up and do laundry in the
morning. But I was having so much
fun that I stayed until they closed at 6 AM. Afterward people were milling around
outside reluctant to leave, so I chatted with some local friendly Spaniards
that I had met inside. I finally
got to bed about 6:30.
FRIDAY
JULY 8
I
had intended to sleep until after noon, but woke up at 10:30, my body very
confused about time zones and time of day.
After lying in bed awake for another hour I lugged my backpack a few
blocks to the local bus stop and went to the inter-city bus station. I arrived an hour before the bus was to
leave, and kept watching for the bus to arrive at bay number 2 because my bus
ticket said plaza 2. There still
was no bus there 10 minutes before the scheduled departure time, so I asked a
bus driver at bay 9 about it, and he said that his bus was going to
Cordoba. Plaza 2 meant that I had
been assigned seat 2, which was up in front where I had more leg room.
It
was a pleasant two and a half hour ride through fields
of grain and olive trees. When we
arrived, the temperature was 44 C = 112 F.
I took a city bus to the old town, but missed the stop and went too
far. So I
had to cross the street and wait in the heat for a bus going the other
direction. So
I was overheated when I arrived at my hotel. After checking in I walked a block to a
restaurant where I ordered some tapas for dinner. Tapas are snacks like open-faced
sandwiches that are served in bars and restaurants all over Spain. An example would be chopped chicken with
mayonnaise on a slice of French bread with two pieces of asparagus on top.
My
hotel was next to the Mezquita, which was originally
a huge mosque built in 784 AD. I
walked around it, and bought tickets for a flamenco performance that evening at
the Cultural Center. I was feeling
a little sick from the heat, so went back to my hotel. After cooling off, I explored more of
the old town around the Mezquita, with its narrow
meandering streets. I walked by the
old Jewish synagogue and around the old city walls, past the Roman bridge and
the old water wheel mill along the river.
I then went to the flamenco performance which lasted two and a half
hours. I was so tired that I could
hardly stay awake, but I enjoyed the performance nonetheless. It was a very energetic and aggressive
style of dancing, different from flamenco performances I had seen in the
past. It reminded me of tap dancing
and Irish clog dancing.
I
went to the internet cafe which was located in the youth hostel, but their
server was down. So instead of
using email to write my journal, I dictated my adventures into a tiny voice
recorder back at the hotel. I went
to bed early so I would be rested the next day.
SATURDAY
JULY 9
In
the morning I explored the Mezquita. It is HUGE with 850 granite and marble
columns supporting hundreds of striped arches. The Mihrab,
which faces Mecca was beautiful, with an exquisite ceiling of Byzantine
mosaics. But when the Crusaders
expelled the Moors from Cordoba in 1236, the Mezquita
was converted to a Catholic church.
A renaissance cathedral was built in the middle of the mosque, with
Islamic arches adjoining renaissance arches of various architectural
styles. The juxtaposition of the
two styles looked bizarre. Around the
perimeter of the Mezquita, Catholic side altars were
added, which were very gaudy with gold, like the ones in Granada. One of the reasons why the Spanish
conquistadors had gone to the Americas was to look for gold.
Nearby was Cordoba's Alcazar, constructed for the Catholic monarchs in
1328. Ferdinand and Isabella said
goodbye to Columbus there, and later it served as the Inquisition Headquarters,
when non-believers were expelled or executed. It had beautiful gardens. But the temperature was 105. I realized why the Spanish adopted the
afternoon siesta -- before air conditioning it was too hot to do anything but
stay in the shade and sleep in the afternoon.
I walked back to the old synagogue, which
was now open. I overheard a tour
guide say that there had to be 10 Jewish males to form a Jewish community. But all the Jews had been expelled from
Cordoba during the Inquisition, so now the synagogue was a museum.
I
went back to the hotel to get my belongings, and took a local bus to the train
station. I rode a fast train to
Seville, which only took 45 minutes.
In the train station, I found a telephone store which had a charger for
the European cellphone that my daughter had used in Finland, as well as a SIMM
card with a local phone number and 25 Euros of phone time. I normally call ATT from payphones for
long distance service to the US, but the ATT access number did not work from
any of the payphones that I tried in Spain. In Granada
there was a telephone office with inexpensive service to the US next to my
hotel, but I couldn't find a similar office elsewhere in Spain, so it was good
to get the cellphone working for calling home.
I
took a taxi to my hotel so I wouldn't have to wait for buses in the heat. I took a shower to cool off, then lugged
my laundry half a mile to the laundromat only to find that it was closed. I returned my laundry to my hotel, then
walked along the river past the Plaza de Armas, which
means armory, but which was now a modern mall in an old building which looked
like a train station. A couple of
blocks inland was the Provincial Museum of Fine Arts. It had some works by painters I was
familiar with such as Murillo, Breughel, and El Greco, as well as some artists
new to me such as Pacheco. It also
had some sculptures that I liked. I
was able to get postcards of a couple of the paintings, but there were no
postcards of the sculptures, and no photos were allowed.
I
walked a few blocks further to El Centro, where the big department stores were.
In a small park there was a peaceful demonstration by
families with children carrying paper Sahara flags. I learned later that Sahara
is a country below Morocco which is at war with Morocco. I took some
pictures, and one of the guys gave me a Sahara flag.
The
demonstrators marched down the street towards the Cathedral, but I stopped at a
bookstore to look for geology books about Spain for my wife. They only had general Geology
textbooks. But I did find two books
in English about Spain that I wanted, but since they were imported from the US
I figured that it would be cheaper to order them at www.amazon.com which I did
at an internet cafe by the Cathedral.
The
Cathedral was closed to the public, but the parish church next door was
open. I stepped in to find a
wedding. What was interesting was
that the bride and groom were sitting down on cushions, which I had never seen before. It suggested that the ceremony might be
long, but I didn't stay long enough to find out! I walked around the cathedral to see all
of it, and found that a wedding inside the cathedral was exiting from the other
side.
I
decided to take the long way back to my hotel by walking down along the
river. I found a cafe by river
where I had dinner, then saw the picturesque old Roman tower which was
illuminated. Farther along the
river I heard music, and discovered a free outdoor concert by the Sahara group
that had been demonstrating downtown. I recognized the guy who had
given me the flag and his friends. They were dancing on the sidelines, and
so I joined them and danced for the next two hours! It reminded me of
dancing on the sidelines at a music concert in Istanbul! Sometimes
the best experiences are ones that are not anticipated, but occur by
chance!
In
spite of all the dancing in Granada and in Seville, or perhaps because of it,
my leg had stopped hurting. But I
had developed a sore throat. Normally
I carry a regular antibiotic when I travel, but I had forgotten to bring it
since I have usually not needed it abroad.
I did have some powerful Cipro with me, which I occasionally use for
traveler's diarrhea, but I didn't want to take it then since it increases
sensitivity to the sun.
SUNDAY
JULY 10
In
the morning I walked back along the river and found
three of my friends from the previous night who were dismantling the
refreshment stand! I was on
my way to the bullring for a tour of the ring and its museum. While there I saw a woman from Finland
whom I had met while discussing her poster at the conference in Granada! The museum had some paintings of
famous bullfighters, including one who had started at age 14 and was killed by
a bull at age 25.
When
I passed the Roman tower I noticed that it was open,
so I climbed the stairs to see a small maritime museum. It had a model of the ship that Columbus
used to sail to the Americas.
I
walked to Seville's Alcazar, a palace built by the Moors in the 8th century and
embellished by Catholic kings in the 15th century. The entryway was not very
impressive, but inside was an exquisite building with beautiful Islamic art,
with wonderful gardens on the other side.
I was so impressed that I took about a hundred photos. Fortunately, with my digital camera, an
extra battery, and a dozen memory cards, I can take as many photos as I
want. I had developed a deep
appreciation of Islamic art on previous trips to Egypt and to Turkey.
To
cool off, I had some ice cream at a cafe across from the cathedral. There were wonderful flavors of
delicious ice cream in many places around Seville.
I
then explored the Cathedral, which was now open. According to Let's Go, it is the third largest
cathedral in the world, after St. Peter's in Rome and St. Paul's in
London. In 1401
a mosque was destroyed to clear space for it. It has a golden wall depicting saints
and disciples. Nearby is the tomb
of Columbus, whose bones were supposedly brought back to Seville after Cuba's
independence in 1902. While
there I ran into three students, from the US, England, and
the Netherlands, who were studying Spanish at the U of Granada, whom
I had met in a disco in Granada!
I
walked up the street behind the cathedral to buy a ticket for a flamenco
performance. While waiting for it
to begin, I went to a pub and ate tapas for dinner. The flamenco performance was
outstanding. There was a single
dancer and a group of musicians who performed three different styles, each with
tremendous feeling. The first was a
sad song from the Jewish tradition, the second a happy song from the Arab
tradition, and the third a bolero which is a Spanish rhythmic dance. The dancer wore a different costume for
each style, with black for the sad and bright colors for the happy. Flamenco was developed in Spain, but had
musical roots from the Moors and influences from the Gypsies and others in a
blending of cultures.
I
had seen postcards of the Plaza de Espana and so
decided to go there. It was very
beautiful at night with lights illuminating the buildings and towers. The buildings are arranged in a long
semi-circle. At the base of the
buildings are mosaics and maps representing the major cities of Spain.
I
walked back to my hotel along the river and briefly saw my friend who had given
me the flag! I went to bed early because I had to catch a flight in the morning
and didn't want to oversleep and miss it.
MONDAY
JULY 11
Unfortunately I lay awake unable to sleep until I got up at
7:30 in the morning. I don't know
if I had drunk some caffeine or was just anxious about missing my flight. I took a taxi to the airport and had an
hour flight to Madrid, then another hour flight to San Sebastian. At the bus stop
there were two psychologists who were also going to the conference in San
Sebastian, one of whom I had met at a previous conference. We rode the bus into the old quarter and
I walked a few blocks to my hotel.
After checking in I walked to the beach and took a bus to the
university.
San
Sebastian has a semi-circular bay, with the old quarter on the right, two long
beaches along the curve, and a mountain on the left. The university is below the mountain,
about 20 minutes walk from
the old quarter.
I
entered the auditorium just as the welcoming speeches were ending. But I spotted a friend whom I had met at
a previous conference. I went with
him and other friends to a nearby hotel where there was a reception, where I
saw other people I knew from from Canada, England,
Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary, Poland, Lebanon, Israel, Nigeria,
Hong Kong, and other places. This
is the fourth conference I have attended of the International Association for
Cross-Cultural Psychology. The
previous ones I went to were in China, England, and the US.
At
the reception servers brought out many kinds of fancy hors d'oeuvres. I was near the kitchen so I had quite of
few, but others were not so lucky, and wanted to go to dinner afterward. So 15 of us
walked along the beach to a cafe overlooking the water where they had dinner
and I had dessert!
Afterward
I walked to the old quarter with two friends who had a pension there, then I
strolled through the old quarter to my hotel a few blocks away. Let's Go said that the old quarter
claims to have the most bars per square meter in the world.
TUESDAY
JULY 12
I
slept until 9 AM, then carried my laundry across the river to a laundromat
since I didn't have any clean clothes left. While my clothes were washing, I noticed
a telecast on TV of the running of the bulls. This takes place for several days each
year in the town of Pamplona, which was about 30 miles away. Because it was this week, my first
choice of where to stay in San Sebastian was booked way back in February! In
Pamplona, young men and bulls run down a street into the bullring. It only
lasts about 5 minutes. I saw a bull
fall down, and a man fall down who was then stepped upon by a bull. Every year people are injured or
killed. I was told that most of the
runners are drunk Americans and Australians. Muy loco
(very crazy)!
After
dropping of my clean clothes at the hotel, I took a bus to the university. I attended symposiums on self-esteem and
on emotions by presented by people that I knew. In the afternoon I displayed my poster,
and looked at posters by others. My
poster for this conference was on "Gender Role Attitudes and Prejudice
Toward Minority Groups." For
several years I have asked my Intro Psych students to
complete 40-page anonymous questionnaires about their identities for
extra-credit. I found that men with
less traditional sex-role attitudes were less prejudiced toward various ethnic
groups, the disabled, and the elderly.
However, for women there was no relationship between their sex-role
attitudes and their prejudice toward other groups. Since the sex-role attitude scale
primarily concerns the roles of women, the women's attitudes reflect views
about themselves, while the men's attitudes reflect views about a group other
than themselves, namely women. The
men who are more enlightened about women are generally the same ones who are
more enlightened about other groups as well. While previous research had shown that
men tend to have more traditional sex-role attitudes then women, I hadn't seen
any findings that this was related to men's attitudes about other groups as
well.
After the conference sessions, a group of
us took a bus to the old quarter, where we had a great dinner at Restaurant Gandarias. Afterward we walked by the beach and saw other
friends. Four of them had rented an apartment for the week, which had a rooftop
overlooking the bay. So a group of us had a relaxed visit on their rooftop! I went to bed about 1:30 AM so I
could get up to hear a lecture at 9 AM by a friend.
WEDNESDAY
JULY 13
I
heard a lecture on group violence, then attended two symposiums on language and
culture, and another symposium on acculturation. Afterward a group of us had a variety of
delicious tapas at a restaurant on the beach near the university, then walked along
the beach on the left to the base of the mountain. We wanted to take the cable car to the
top of the mountain, but it was already closed. We walked along the beach all the way to
the old quarter, and went to a pub called Tas Tas, where there was a small dance floor. There I met four people from the
Netherlands. After my friends left
I stayed an extra hour to dance before going back to my hotel.
THURSDAY
JULY 14
I
attended a lecture at the conference, and symposiums on social beliefs, autobiographical
memory, and bicultural identities.
Afterward I went to ride the cable car up to the top of the
mountain. There were fantastic
views of the bay, the beaches, and the city. I then took a bus over to the old
quarter, where the conference was having a gala dinner at a fancy hotel. It was a good opportunity to see friends
before many left the following day.
After
dinner a dozen of us wanted to go to a disco, so went
to the most famous one by the beach, but it wasn't open yet and the sign said
that the cover charge was 12 euros (about $14) which some didn't want to
pay. So we
walked back to the old quarter intending to go to Tas
Tas, but it was packed with people spilling out onto
the street with their drinks. So we walked back to the first disco and found that they
weren't charging a cover charge since the crowd was so light. We started dancing and soon another
dozen of our friends arrived there too.
I danced until 2 AM.
FRIDAY
JULY 15
When
I had made my hotel reservation back in February I had made it for July 11-15
since the conference ended on the 15th.
But when I made my airline reservations, the best connection was the
morning of the 16th and I forgot to change my hotel reservations. The hotel was booked for the night of
the 15th. But one of my friends was
leaving on the 15th while the 3 friends with whom he shared a room were staying
until the 16th, so I was able to take his place. So I moved my
belongings there this morning before taking the bus to the university.
The
last conference symposium was on attachment, the bonds that children form with
their parents which affect their feelings of security to explore their
environment and to form relationships with others. Afterward one of my new
roommates and I went to a tapas bar in the old quarter for lunch, then explored
the aquarium on the beach by the old quarter. It had a museum of shells from around
the world, with much greater variety than I had seen before. It also had a large fish tank with a
walk-through tunnel.
My
friend went back to the hotel to rest, while I walked around the peninsula to
the other side and crossed the river.
Over there was another beach which was better for surfing. This was where the young people hung out
in groups.
After
strolling on the beach, I rested on a bench and was looking at a picture book
about San Sebastian. It mentioned a
museum on the Basque country, so I hurried back to the old quarter to see it
before it closed. The museum had a
16th century farmhouse with implements for cooking, spinning wool, cheesemaking, etc.
It also had some classic European paintings including some nice ones by
El Greco. Another room had Basque
artists, which I liked very much.
Downstairs
there was an old cathedral which had been added onto to create the museum, and
on its walls were painted huge murals. Next door was a special exhibit on a
painter named Eduardo Chillida Belzunce, who had
begun painting at age 14 and had died at age 35. I really liked his paintings, which were
very three-dimensional with the use of light and shadows. They mostly depicted still life in his
studio with windows looking down on the city and the bay. So I bought a
catalog containing pictures of his paintings.
I
wanted to find books about Basque history and language, and asked the museum
staff about them. They didn't have
any in stock, but knew the titles of a couple of books. I later looked them up at www.amazon.com
and found two books that I liked.
One of them was by Larry Trask, who was the leading authority on the
Basque language. I also found his
personal webpage, which his university had kept after his recent death, and it
summarized some of his conclusions.
The
Basque language, which is called Euskara, is not an Indo-European
language. Many linguists have tried
to link it to other European and non-European languages, but those links have
been discredited according to Trask.
The Basque speakers were in the region before speakers of European
languages (such as those that became Celtic, Spanish, and French) arrived. Hence they have
always considered their culture as being different than Spanish and French
culture. There were other
groups in Spain who spoke other non-European languages as well, but several of
those languages became extinct.
There
has been a militant separatist organization, the ETA, but it seems to be less
violent now that the Basque country and several other areas are Autonomous
Regions in Spain. They are able to
use their own languages and make budgetary decisions. All of the street signs in San Sebastian
are in two languages, Euskara and Spanish.
The Basque name of the city is Donostia, which
appears in publications alongside San Sebastian.
At
9 PM, I met my roommates and other friends at Restaurant Gandarias
which we had liked on Tuesday.
We had to wait until 10:30 to get a table for 12, so we had tapas as
appetizers. We had a great
time. I left at 1 AM to get some
sleep, but only slept 3 hours and then couldn't go back to sleep again. Maybe I
was anxious about oversleeping and missing my 9:05 flight. I have never had so many problems with
jetlag and inability to sleep on a trip before.
I
lay in bed and relaxed, then lugged my belongings to the taxi stand at
7:30. I expected a taxi to
arrive in 5 minutes as is the case in the evening, but had to wait more than 30
minutes that morning. I was getting
concerned, but not yet panicked when one finally came. However, when I arrived at the airport
at 8:30 expecting the flight to board, people were still waiting in a long line
to check in. The flight was delayed
half an hour, waiting for the plane to come from Madrid. I changed planes in Madrid to fly
to London, then changed planes again to fly to Los Angeles.
I
was exhausted when I got home. But
I only had one day before I hopped a plane to Seattle and then Yakima to take
my son camping and boating with my brother on the Columbia River. I was still tired when I got home again
two weeks later!