I´m not dead yet

We had this half-assed idea to go to church this morning--"We´re in Spain on Easter, let´s see what mass is like." We didn´t make it. Probably for the best; I always feel a little guilty crashing religious observances as a tourist. In Pamplona we happened to show up at the cathedral just as mass was letting out; the choir was singing that aleluia song and we didn´t bother anyone or take up space during the service so it all worked out pretty well. And I´m not starving to death here. It seems like Easter is the one Sunday of the year that Spanish people don´t stay home. The restaurants are all open, people are out; lots of tourists but a lot of locals, too, I think.

I went to the bull ring (couldn´t go in, just walked around the outside--there´s a statue of Hemingway in front) and walked the route that the bulls run; I don´t want any more to do with the running of the bulls than that. I don´t care if it´s culturally intolerant, I can´t be open-minded about bullrighting or anything associated with it. There´s a clock near the bull ring counting down the time (down to the second) until July 6 when the bulls run; I won´t be here.

And, to keep you updated on the hostel situation (more of a pension: private room, shared bathroom), the one here has a lot of character in a romantic, literary kind of way. (It´s also clean and smells nice, so when I say it has character I don´t mean it sucks.) The room is really small with no exterior windows and a little table with one chair. It kind of makes me want to drink a bottle of wine and pass out while trying to write my masterpiece. It´s the kind of room I imagine Russian literary characters like Roskolnikov from Crime and Punishment living in, only cleaner.

I used to think (I forget why) that Euskara, the Basque language, was related to Finnish and Hungarian and so derived from Mongolian. It seems kind of reasonable, if only because all three are really strange languages and Basque, like Finnish, has a lot of k´s. The one Basque person I remembered to ask told me that no, Basque isn´t related to any other languages. My guidebook says that Basques have been in Europe longer than anyone else and no one really knows where they came from. My friend and I figured it out. Basque is a weird language; Gaelic is a weird language. On signs and stuff, Basque words are often written in a font that kind of resembles that font they always use for Irish pub signs. Basques throw rocks; isn´t Stonehenge Celtic? (Or Druid, but aren´t Druidslike Celtics?) Basques are Celtic! ....Okay, clearly we have no friggin´ clue what we´re talking about, but on a very sleepy bus ride from San Sebastian to Pamplona, the idea made us laugh really hard. Maybe you had to be there.