
Waiting at the airport, I was unusually patient at the start, but then as time passed I started twiddling my thumbs, and after a bit of antsyness they emerged from the luggage area - two little white-haired ladies gazing around looking for us. I recognized them in an instant and grabbed Joseba's hand and shuffled over as fast as I could without making a scene and hugged them both! Shocking for me, there were barely any tears!
In the car ride home, they were chatty about how thier flights had went, the food, thier landing into Bilbao and the trip so far! As we whizzed down the freeway they also were able to admire the rolling green hills along the way, puncuated by traditional farm houses and sometimes even sheep grazing. While half a world away, they both remarked that it looked like it could be out of WA or OR! And it's true! Even after 4 years, I still the Basque countryside is gorgeous and I was happy to have other people see it through my American eyes for once.
As Cathy saw the Jesus statue atop Mount Urgull from the freeway, she knew we were getting close to Donostia and in a jiffy we were pulling up to thier apartment they had rented for the week. Two bedrooms, two baths, a cute kitchen and a living room with a lovely bay-style window that overlooked the park across the street and the river that runs through town, it was a superb place to spend a vacay!
We let them spruce themselves up and met back up for the first of many pintxo stops on the trip. The first thing Grammy remarked on after coming out of the parking garage were the tulips - in full bloom and gorgeous as ever. The whole city is landscaped beautifully - a heaven for my green thumb cousin and Grammy! I heard more names of flowers in 5 minutes than I probably had in 3 years! It's silly though, but little details like that made it seem more real that they were HERE, which is really something I had always dreamed about but wasn't sure would ever come to fruition. Here was my Grammy listing off all the flowers in the little garden in English next to my Basque husband and me in San Sebastian! It was unreal.

Our last stop of the night was a very Basquey bar that Joseba and I frequent. Normally packed, it was empty enough we could set our bags down and really enjoy the 3 types of spanish omellete we picked out. One with just potatoes, the traditional style; one with a middle layer of melted cheese and ham; and the last one - a crazy combo of chorizo (a type of sausage), spinach, homemade milk mayonaisse (never even heard of that) and cheese! You can obviously imagine each pintxo we had that evening was accompanied by a delicious wine - red from the Rioja region and white from a small fishing village called Getaria.

After over 20 hours of travel time and a mouth-stuffing good time in the Old Part, the trip was off to a good start!
This morning I sent them off on the plane, this time a few tears, but looking back on the action-packed last week, I remember so many smiles, hugs, laughs, glasses of wine, dance moves, new foods and fast friends. It was so amazing that I definitley cannot write about it all in just this one blog, so will continue on about the other days soon, but just wanted to let everyone know that our guests are on their way home - safe and sound and maybe with a few extra pounds ;)
And as they left, I thought of a quote that seemed to fit the situation perfectly - 'Like branches on a tree, our lives may grow in different directions yet our roots remain as one.' - author unknown. Me here and them there, it doesn't matter - we are still family.
Muxu!
Amanda
1 comment:
Awww I'm soooo happy you all had a great time! And your Grammy is still smiling I'm sure :) MUXU
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