Tourism accounts for about 10% of the world’s gross domestic product. We all want to experience new things, see new sites, get to know new people. We want to see something new. And, for many of us, the Basque Country is something new. As of 2014, tourism contributed just about 6% of the Basque Country’s […]
There is a story that, millennia ago, a Basque shepherd was working under the hot southerly wind. The night before, he had finished a lamb for his dinner and, today, he used the lamb’s hide to hold milk. He then trekked home — this all took place near the modern town of Eibar — and […]
Magunagoikoetxea. Gorostiaga. Arroitajauregi. Bastarretxea. Basque last names are as distinct as they are complex, at least to an English tongue. It is only relatively recently that children took the names of their parents. Rather, Basques were often, though not universally, known by the names of their houses, which were in turn based upon the location […]
The idea of something being ’empty’ is typically a negative one. When the glass is half full, we are taking an optimistic view of the situation, but a glass that is half empty is certainly negative. The Basque language has similar connotations around the word huts. Possibly stemming from Neolithic times when an empty stomach […]
Today, if you go to the Basque Country, you will see Basque media pretty much everywhere. There is a Basque-language television station, a Basque newspaper (Berria), Basque radio stations, and Basque magazines. There are bookstores full of books written in Euskara. However, the concept of a daily newspaper written entirely in Basque is relatively new. […]
On Sunday, July 19, 2020, Jon Rahm won the Memorial Tournament, founded in 1976 by Jack Nicklaus and held every year in Dublin, Ohio. The win catapulted Rahm to the top of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time in his young career. Rahm was born in the Basque Country and is the […]
Basque festivals, at least in the United States, are characterized by the sounds of folk music: the accordion, the tambourine, and sometimes the txistu. These are core elements of Basque culture and identity. However, in the Basque Country, there co-exists a very different flavor of music, with electric guitars, throbbing bass, and aggressive lyrics. Born […]
If you go to any town in the Basque Country, you will find a plaza surrounded by a church, a bar, and a fronton. The fronton, and pelota, are a cornerstone of Basque society. Perhaps one of the most famous exports of the Basque Country is jai alai, the fastest ball game played in the […]
It was 1779 and John Adams and his sons were on their way to Paris with the goal of establishing a commercial treaty with Great Britain and ending the Revolutionary War. On the way, however, their ship was battered by storms and they limped their way into Spain. After some debate and discussion, Adams and […]
I’ve delved into my genealogy a bit, scouring the priests’ books that document births, deaths, and marriages in each little town. Going back centuries, the names are all too familiar: Pedro, Jose, Domingo, Juan for the men; Josefa, Maria, Manuela, Magdalena for the women. Once in a while, there will be a Bartolome, or an […]
