SPAIN WEEK: First Time in Spain

Ready for your first trip out of Italy?  Living in Rome is a great excuse to visit other nearby countries, so why don't you join me?

Yes?  Really, you'll come?  Wonderful!  Then let's go!  Hurry up and find a seat, though.  It looks like all the good ones are taken.

Hey, wake up!  You slept through nearly the entire flight.  Take a look out your window.  We are landing very soon and you don't want to miss this view of Spain!

A couple things filled my mind as I landed in Santander, Spain last week.

Some of it may have been nervousness as I went through the trademark European airline landing sequence.  Tilt left.  Then right.  Then tilt left and right again in an attempt to steady the plane's body as it dances with the ground in elaborate love story.  The plane teases the landing strip as it pretends to move in for the kiss.  Then suddenly it lifts farther away knowing the extra temptation will bring them even closer in a few more seconds.

The other feeling was excitement.  I had never been to Spain before and visiting the country had always been on the VASGO List (which is very, very similar to what you have also heard called a "bucket list").  I figured my first visit would be somewhat like the vacations to Hawaii, USA - Where you often exit the plane and get greeted with a hula girl saying "Mahalo", and a lei, a necklace of flowers, is placed around your neck. Like that, I expected to exit the plane with senoritas wearing colorful dresses saying "Hola" (hello) or "Bienvenidos" (welcome) while placing necklaces of manchego cheese and iberico ham legs around my neck.

But no such expectation, or dream, happened.  I was with a group of about 50 others.  We exited, grabbed our luggage and found our coach bus, known to Italians as a pullman.

I sometimes wonder if my arrival was so basic because I didn't go to the first two major cities everyone thinks of when they hear the word, "Spain".  No Madrid or Barcelona for me.  I was in a whole other Spain.  A part of the country we know better as the "Basque" region.  The northeastern beaches and mountains of Spain have a different feel and culture altogether, including spelling, language, food culture, etc.

The two hour ride to our hotel was beautiful.  We followed the northern coast nearly the entire way. It was astoundingly green on the hills when I looked inland.  The ocean was of course mesmerizing in its own way.  And the cities and smaller towns that we passed showed a unique pictorial flavor difficult to describe.  Simply gorgeous is what I'll use in this case.

 Please ignore how blue everything is on these two photos.  The movement and the tinted glass in the bus made things a bit difficult to make my pictures look clear, let alone the right color.

It's interesting to me that the region has so many influences over the past and thus they have to cater to a wide audience.  I looked at our hotel's menu and immediately thought, "Why in the world is this menu so crowded together???"  It was like opening up a book without any pictures whatsoever.  Well, that explains it.  Here's what each item on the menu looked like:

• Name of item, then its description, all in Basque.
• Spanish description
• English description
• French description

And then they listed the next item!  I'm just not used to seeing menus that honestly need to have that many translations.  But I liked it.  It told me I am experiencing the rest of the world and I'm lucky there was even a translation I could understand.

I am proud to be able to visit my first country outside of Italy since I moved here and therefore declare this "SPAIN WEEK".

Stay tuned for more VASGO each day to learn more about northeastern Spain!