in english - donostia-san sebastián 2016

I lived in Donostia-San Sebastián from late January 1999 until July 2000. It was a magical time for me: not only I got to be in the land of my ancestors, Euskal Herria, the Basque Country, -I'd visited there before- but to live there. Due to my upbringing, the food, the music, even the language was familiar to me. When I was little, I used to think I spoke fluent Basque with my dad; later on, I wasn't so thrilled about speaking it because I was weird to begin with, and that would only make me, well, weirder. You can all remember our foolish adolescence years.

When I got to Donosti -the local term for this town- I realized that my very limited Basque vocabulary was so embarrassing that I opted to not speak it, but I also realized that learning it at 31 years old was just too difficult. Wow, the straight A's student had a hard time accepting that.

This is a small city where I walked by myself many, many times in the middle of the abundant rain, a heat wave, humidity, a bitter cold, even a bit of snow. It was indeed magical.

Now, Donosti is vying to become the European Capital of Culture in 2016, and they've launched their campaign hoping to attain this honor. As you can see, it may be a small town but it does think big and it's classy like me.

I really miss Donosti.

.