One of my more memorable experiences during my first trip to Euskal Herria was a visit to the Aitor knife factory. My dad’s brother-in-law worked there and took me to see the multitude of machines they used to make these storied blades. I got to meet the designers and the people on the floor actually […]
Eneko Ennekõike, who is passionate about his home town of Eibar, told me about Julen Zabaleta, a long-time resident of Eibar who died at the age of 101 a few months past. Julen lived through the Spanish Civil War and World War II. He saw the world change dramatically over the last 100 years, with […]
When I lived in the Basque Country, feebly trying to learn Euskara, I spent a lot of time in Ermua, Bizkaia, where my aunt and her family lives. Just across the border, in Gipuzkoa, lies Eibar. As a relatively young kid, I never gave Eibar much thought — it was just a town that the […]
A couple of weeks ago, on the 84th anniversary of the bombing of Gernika, I posted about Picasso’s Guernica, and how it was inspired by those horrific events. Eneko Sagarbide and Jabier Aldekozea pointed out that Gernika was not the only, nor even the first, Basque city bombed during the Spanish Civil War. In fact, […]
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 […]
Basques seem to always be looking outside of the box. The same spirit that led so many young men and women to leave their homes to search for a better life in the remote American West leads others to experiment with molecular gastronomy, to embrace punk rock, and to build a Guggenheim. It also drives […]
One of the biggest features at any Basque festival, at least in the United States, is the sporting demonstration, the herri kirolak or rural sports. Events often include weight carries, tug-of-wars, and wood chopping. These are all inspired by the activities one might encounter on the family baserri, the work that kept the family farm […]
Our daughter is growing up fast and it was time to upgrade her bike. We stopped at the local bike shop (Sirius Cycles, owned by this great guy from Panama who is one of the few people I have met that has known a Blas…) They are a small shop, but with a lot of […]
