Down to the Basque Country

The next weekend, we were headed not to a wedding but just the party. Even though the couple live in Paris, a mere 2 hours 15 minutes away, the wife was born in Paris, doesn't speak Basque but she feels "attached" to the area and therefore wanted to celebrate their year old marriage down there. She's pure Basque background and her parents have retired down there.

With no non-stop flights, Daniel left a couple of days ahead of time with the luggage (yes, I was packing right after the previous wedding) to see some clients en route. I wanted absolutely to spend Halloween here in Strasbourg so bright and early, we flew down to Bordeaux. Daniel met us and we drove the last 200km together.

Taking the train meant changing stations in Paris and still, it's another 5 1/2 hours from there (plus the 2 plus from here, plus the time to change...) The flight involved changing in paris too but cost over 1000 Euros for all of us...I shook down the net and this was the best we could do. The parents of the bride came down the same way but rented a car in Bordeaux.

I've actually been to St. Jean de Luz before. My friend Todd taught English there and while I was living in London, I flew down to visit. It wasn't much easier from London. I took Sabena, connecting in Brussels to Bilbao and then a bus to St. Sebastian. The Basque country just isn't an easy place to reach!

So we had a hotel with a beach view and really nice rooms;



The was such a comfortable bed. Daniel claims I didn't snore the whole time!



Here's the view. By the way, this was the only sun we saw the whole time.





The kids checking it out;



The first evening we ate in a restaurant across the street. Here's Ronnie reading the menu;



He loves his sister!







Since I was so close to San Sebastian, I just had to go back there. What a stupid idea! We weren't alone. Even though it was a Friday, it was a holiday weekend and it seemed that everyone and their pet hamster were headed there too. It took over an hour to park (would Daniel let us off and then meet us after parking the car??)

Once there, all I managed was to get the kids to the beach and the park. No shopping for me! We went to the beach, even though it was kind of a dismal day. San Sebastian was much bigger than I remembered it.









Davina liked her monkey, although Judy's are still better!





Can you believe these are the only pictures I took of the actual event?





You can see Samantha, their cousin, and their second cousin Elan on the right.

It was very tiring. We were supposed to be there for a group photo at 5pm but didn't sit down to dinner until 11pm. It was held in a hall and although babysitting was provided down the road, this was a pain. I had to actually leave my meal because the clowns who were entertaining the kids until 11pm left and we still hadn't finished eating.

I put all three into the same foldaway bed in the gite (hostel? B&B??) with Talia whining "I can't sleep without my cow" but she did. We then had to haul them out of bed when we left at 2am.

Except for a bit of Alsatian wine and some munster cheese, it was almost exclusively a Basque event. The groom is actually anti-religious so the only thing Jewish at all was a small hora at about 1:30am, which came on request of some of the guests.

The next day was spent at the hotel, hanging out with the others staying at the same place. The kids got a little time at the beach and some ice cream.





Here's our hotel, as seen from the beach;





Getting back was kind of long. Again, we rode the 200 km with Daniel to Bordeaux. Talia threw up in the car but it wasn't too bad (her aim is getting better). The flight was easy and uneventful. I ended up paying more than I thought for the parking. Other than that, it went fine and we were glad to be back...and glad there aren't any other Basque relatives to marry off!