Basque roadtrip continued....

All right... I'm back in the US and able to finish our roadtrip stories (which should go a little faster now that I am on an american keyboard too!)

Soo, when we last left off we were in Biddary at the church when Justin's Spanish cell phone rang...




he picked it up and it was Jean Iroz! Although it was a bit difficult to communicate and we never could get Jean to understand that we were in Biddary right then, Justin and Jean were able to set up a meeting for the next day. Then we drove home, going through Biarritz, Irun, Hendaye, etc down the coast. (Incidently, its kind of weird to cross the France-Spain border there... there are all these little booths which I assume are Custom booths from pre EU days that they haven't taken down, so everyone just kind of drives hapazardously around them!)

We left Donosita right when Justin's class got out at 1pm. Its about an hours' drive to Biarritz (we had checked on our way home the night before) a French Basque town on the coast (Anglet, the one Jean lives in is just next door). We had arranged to meet him at the Casino by the ocean at 2:30 pm. So, we found the Casino (there are two... but only one is still a casino... the other historic casino is just shops and rooms) and parked about 2 pm. We had just enough time to admire the smaller, but just as beautiful beach of Biarritz as we ate a baquette sandwich (I'm sure it has an official name, but I can't remember... its just a french sandwich). Its much more rocky than in Donostia, but still quite pretty.

Biarritz Beach.
This is one of the biggest surfing areas in Europe as can be seen by the big waves.



At 2:30, we still didn't see him, but Justin thought maybe they hadn't communicated all that well and perhaps we should check the main entrance up the hill even though it wasn't next to the sea. Sure enough, there he was in a tan suit, all smiles to see us. He gave me a big hug and lots of kisses and kept saying "Nicole, nicole" or "dos (2) Iroz". We went inside the casino and sat down together in a quiet area (yes that seems like impossible, but there is a very nice entryway with no slots).

At first it was really a struggle to communicate... Jean's first language is Basque and was the language of his childhood in Valcarlos. I'm not sure at what point Jean moved to the French side, but he worked for 50 years as a Republican Gaurd in Paris (from what I could gather, I cross between security and dressed up old fashioned icon gaurd for many diplomatic events). So needless to say, his French is perfect. His Spanish, the 3rd language, is much better than Justin's, but not his first choice and he is always searching for words ("como se desay?"). I may know more spanish than he knows English (which isn't saying a whole lot), so we choose Spanish to communicate.



"Dos Iroz" in Biarritz




After about 2 hours at the casino, Jean asked if we would like to come to his home. We accepted and followed his car (I wish I would have taken a picture of the back of his car... it had snoopy waving a Basque flag!). Jean lives in Anglet which kind of just runs into Biarritz... he has a cute 2nd story flat with 2 bedrooms, bath, living room, great European kitchen and lots of patio space where he keeps his table to eat because the weather is so nice. Everything was very neat and tidy... a very European mix between modern (the building) and traditional (the living room chairs and drapes).

He showed us pictures... I'm wishing now that I would have taken pictures of the pictures, but I didn't want to slow down the conversation more than it already was. We saw pictures of him when he was young, pictures of Uncle Gracian (a twin... brother of Juan Iroz), pictures of his only child who now lives in Paris. We even saw pictures of his "sweetheart", although we aren't exactly clear on who and where she is (Marijeanne, do you remember?). We learned his age (78) and about his job before he retired to Biarritz 4 years ago.

Then he asked if he could get us a snack... raisens, crackers, etc. We talked some more. He told us about Basque history and language. Multiple times he corrected us when we said something to the effect of "Spanish Basque" that it was all "Pays Basque"... one big Basque country, no Spanish, no French. We heard about his distain for the Spanish... the historical conquestidors were definently not to be admired in his book and quite frankly, I don't blame him because it was pretty awful to be 20 and under Franco's rule and enduring WWII and beyond.

Then, he wanted to make us dinner. He asked what time we usually eat, we said whenever, so he started cooking something simple according to him. From what we could gather, he didn't often cook for himself when he was younger, but you couldn't tell by the food. For about an hour he toodled around the kitchen getting things ready, not allowing us to lift a finger to help.




First we had squid in their ink (a very Basque food). Then we had grean beans and steak. Then a salad. Then cheese and bread. Finally fruit! Oh, and he barely ate... he says he usually only eats salad and fruit for dinner to watch his figure!

Justin at the table




Finally, as we wrapped things up (at about 10 pm, 8 hours after we met him), we started to ask about visiting next year (Justin wants to go back and really nail down his spanish). I asked if he could take us to Atutxi´s house, but he says its gone, distroyed. Apparently it was in such disrepair that they finally tore it down. So, Marijeanne, don't lose that picture... its all we have now of that house! Jean was very receptive to us returning and probably kissed me 20 times before I left... very kind and very sweet.

All in all, even if we had had a terrible time in Spain (which we didn't... it was wonderful), these 8 hours would have made the trip worth it!