Eskerrik asko! Agur!
Hoards of people weave through the streets of this city, nestled in the Basque Country of Spain, right beneath the French border. Some men smoking at a table beneath a restaurant sign shout and wave over to someone else across the street, and the bells from Basílica de Santa María toll unapologetically. Everything is thriving, moving, alive.
And even still the waves from the Atlantique crash, and the statue Cristo de la Mota stands tall on top of Monte Urgull and overlooks that magnificent view of the Santa Clara Island, an emerald gem in the middle of the Donostia Bay. From the top of the mountain I could see all of the buildings with their tiled roofs and the Playa de la Concha curving in a graceful arc.
When night falls everyone leaves their houses in search of Pintxos, going from bar to bar with no intention of returning until well into the morning. People speaking Spanish and Basque, everything colorful. Churros are served in the mornings, with coffee that tastes like a drop of heaven.
I've been learning that the more I travel, the more I appreciate the variances between cultures, even down to the smallest difference. This, in turn, makes me appreciate my own culture even more. Talking to people, even from other areas of the United States, about my home state and realizing that there are so, so many things that I love about it has given me a new appreciation for it.
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