Today, I’m sharing a number of interesting items that have been sent to me over the last… well, I don’t dare say, as some of these have been sitting in my inbox for far too long. I hope you enjoy these!

• The musical group Amaterra released a video for their song Izan ala ez izan – To be or not to be. A simple question, but what about the answer? Everyone will find their own.

• hartea is Joseba Lekuona‘s site for his unique art which combines stone and gastronomy. Using stones from the Basque Country and beyond, he creates what he calls “Conceptual Tableware,” with the goal of “elevating gastronomy to the realm of artistic experience… After extracting marble and stone from the bowels of our mountains, I turn them into exclusively designed gastronomic supports.” Simply outstanding.

• Mutriku is a small town on the Basque coast between Bilbo and Donostia. As I’ve written before, it is home to some of the most striking flysch in the world. Mutriku now has another claim to fame – it is using the waves that batter the coast to power the town. As described in this BBC article, 16 turbines extract energy from those waves, enough to power some 250 homes.
• partekatu is an online Euskara course. Currently in Spanish, I’ve been told they plan to have an English version in the future. In addition to references for grammar and the like, they also have articles on Basque culture. And there are a number of online lessons to get you going.
• Continuing with Euskara, the townhall of Lazkao has published a PDF that contains translations of many Basque phrases into eight different languages, including English. Phrases are organized by topics such as transportation and family.

• This one is a little dated – I got the original email back in 2016… sometimes the inbox gets clogged… 🙁 Anyways, Bakarne Atxukarro, Izaskun Zubialde, and Asun Egurza have written tales for children based on Basque mythology and in 2016 their stories were published in English (in addition to the previous versions in Basque, Spanish, and French). The book, Basque Mythology: Stories for Kids, can be found on Amazon where you can “look inside” for a sample story.

• euskaletxeak.eus is a website for the Basque diaspora. In addition to their digital magazine, they have an extensive digital collection with photographs of “the social and cultural life of the Basque communities abroad. It holds 41.988 pictures describing the dairy activities of the Basque diaspora.”