San Jean Pied de Port!

Another weekend full of food and fun has passed. We are currently in the middle of restaurant week in San Sebastián. This involves certain restaurants offering a price fix menu for 25 euro. Some friends and I decided to take advantage since it is the only chance we had to eat at an expensive restaurant without breaking the bank! We had a 5-course meal, which also included wine and coffee. The first course was ham croquettes followed by a salad of cod and spider crab and, later, seafood paella. The main course was squid with an apple compote and balsamic reduction. Dessert was the Basque version of French toast with Bulgarian yogurt ice cream. Three hours and 5 courses later, I would definitely say it was worth the 25 euro! 

                                                                          Squid!

On Sunday I learned a very important lesson, people from central Indiana aren’t meant to be on winding European roads (although it was worth every second)! Lurdes and Kepa took me on a Basque adventure through the interior of the Basque Country (the Pyrenees). We drove and drove and drove some more and were surrounded by beautiful countryside and little villages. We stopped occasionally for coffee, a pintxo or for me to get some air (yes, I was that person). For lunch we strolled over to France and into the beautiful town of San Jean Pied de Port. It was deserted being it was a Sunday afternoon, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying a French lunch and exploring the city. On our way back home, we stopped to visit a friend of Lurdes. Her friend and husband built a new house in a tiny village. The house was amazing and definitely not your typical Basque home. Looking at it from the outside it looked old, but inside was quite modern. From the living room you could hear the bells from the necks of the donkeys outside the windows. It was surreal and so peaceful!

                                             A view of the countryside when we stopped for a pintxo!

                Horses on the side of the road in the province of Navarra. Kepa told me I was on a safari!

                                                         San Jean Pied de Port, France

                                   A view of San Jean Pied de Port from an abandoned fort. 

I also got to visit the Caserío (farm house) that Lurdes grew up in. It has been in the family for generations. Her dad was born on the property. I got to see all of the cows and sheep, which made dinner interesting tonight. We had meet from the caserío, aka the cute little cows I met the other day. It is never a dull moment in the culinary world here. Lurdes’s brother also showed me some of the traditional Basque farm instruments. It was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.  

                                   A well known bridge in Lurdes's hometown.

This will be my last blog for a few weeks. We have Spring Break starting at the end of this week. I am headed to Madrid and an undecided location with my aunt! Then I am headed to London to visit friends! I am sure I will have lots to report when I get back. Hope everyone is doing well!

Besos,

Erin  

San Jean de Luz

What a week! Where to start? Let me just start by saying that having good weather makes everything better! It is easy to say that I spent a large majority of my weekend outside. On Saturday, some friends and I ventured to San Jean de Luz, France. It is a small beach town in the French Basque Country about an hour from San Sebastián.  The ocean was blue with the sun shining and people were out in droves. We spent a lot of time walking along the beach while taking in the view. There isn’t much to do in the city but eat and shop, so we made sure to take advantage of that!

 Lunch: Smoked salmon, roasted peppers with a salad of mini shrimp and avocado with a cocktail sauce.

            Earlier in the week, in my cooking class we ate two very unique dishes. One was pork loin with milk. It sounds (and looks) gross, but it was delicious! The pork loin gets cooked with sautéed onions and milk and then the milk and onions are pureed to make a sauce. The milk tenderized the pork, so it was very moist. For dessert, we had pears in wine. Obviously, there is nothing about this that sounds unique, but the presentation was the key to this dessert being so different.

            I ventured out for another race this weekend, this one being 4 miles. It was completely different from last week. There were no chicken wings and the people seemed generally friendlier. I am debating whether it was the lack of space in the street that prompted the chicken wings last week or the extreme number of females in one place. I am thinking a mix of both! Either way, the race today was different in that it prided itself on being sustainable. The water cups were plastic and were thrown into bins to be reused again. I was a bit skeptical on the cleanliness of the cups, but I do applaud their efforts. There were also bins for recycling race bibs, safety pins and compost of fruit peels. At the end of the race, they even skipped the packaged snacks and had fresh cut fruit out for the runners. The races in the U.S. always give away bananas, but I learned today that nothing tastes better after a run than a juicy pear!

            I also visited a science museum on the outskirts of San Sebastián. It was similar to the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis in that it was interactive. It was a series of stations and each station had a written description of the science idea/principle and then there was an example. I was probably the only person there above 10, but I loved every minute of it. There is just nothing cooler than interactive science lessons. I am a true nerd at heart!

                             The sunset from the beach in San Sebastián!

That seems to be all for now!

Besos,

Erin 

A Basque 5k!

Sunday morning I found myself running through the streets with 3,000 of my closest Basque female friends. Every year there is a 5k female only race that raises awareness for female athletes in San Sebastián. I signed up for the race earlier in the week but didn’t tell Lurdes and Kepa until the night before. I was worried that they would want to come and watch and that I would be an embarrassment as a host child. As expected, Kepa was more than thrilled to attend the event.  He took my camera just to make sure that he could capture everything. After a good ten minutes of telling them that 40 and sunny was a warm day and that sweatshirts, long sleeve shirts and running tights weren’t necessary I was finally out the door! Kepa deemed himself my personal coach and was overly concerned about my pre race preparations.

I learned a very important lesson (quickly) about races in Spain It is perfectly acceptable to chicken wing people. After a few hits, I was perfectly happy to chicken wing them back, but it was strange to me. At a friendly race in the U.S., fellow runners wouldn’t tolerate this. When I told Kepa that people here are more aggressive, his reply was this is a friendly race people aren’t aggressive. He has clearly never run an American race!

The course was very pretty winding through the center of the city. It was (luckily) sunny, so the entire city was lit up and the streets were bustling with people out to see the race. After I finished the race, I had yet to see Kepa, so I decided to brave the crowds to find him. I was lucky enough to find him pretty quickly and when I caught up to him, he asked me if I ran. He was standing at the start/finish line and missed me both at the start and the finish so he wasn’t sure if I had even run. He has no idea how he missed me, but Lurdes is never going to let him hear the end of it. I was a bit relieved that he didn’t see me so I didn’t have to worry about embarrassing myself! 

          After the race in front of the Ayuntamiento (Government building).

Earlier in the weekend, I also attended a series of short films that are part of a French film festival. My friend, Tara, and I decided to check it out. It was in the theater which was very old, but nice! There were seven short films. Four were in English and the others had Spanish subtitles. They were varied in topic, but I enjoyed most of them. It was a very unique experience! 

Since all of my blogs seem to revolve around food and this one hasn't touched on it, I will leave you with this 

a nutella crepe!

Besos,

Erin