¿Cómo?: Pamplona and Santander with Jane

Jane, a friend of mine from UGA, made the monstrous journey north from Cadiz this weekend. She's teaching English in the same program as I. On Friday, we traveled to Pamplona for about 4 hours. It was several degrees colder there, and everything was closed because it was Spain's Labor Day. We visited the cathedral and the archives. On the way back to the bus station, we saw several groups of police, many wearing masks and carrying those plastic riot shields. They and some firemen were searching the large green dumpsters on the streets. We asked the guy who sold us postcards what was going on and he said sarcastically that it was just the police's daily parade around town. After turning a few corners, however, we learned that someone lit a dumpster on fire in honor of Labor Day. For some reason, we saw several Basque independence flags even though Pamplona is in Navarre, not the Basque Country. I guess that's the explanaition for the police insanity.

pretty handwriting in the archives

the police: note the giant gun and potential silencer on the far right

I really liked this K bar sign.

springish

On Saturday evening, I met Jane in Santander after she spent the day in Bilbao. Parts of Santander are run down and composed of these square buildings that you find all over the new parts of Spanish cities and wonder who ever thought they looked good (sadly, they're still building this way). But the part that was cute was actually really cute. We walked along the beach on Saturday and then met a professional basketball team Saturday night, including a man named Charles from Milwalkee who played for the team. On Sunday, we enjoyed the good weather for a portion of the day and visited the Magdalena, a palace on a peninsula. The water was absolutely gorgeous. We ate lunch in the cute area of town at a restaurant with great interior decoration, a rarity in Spain. The food was good, but slow and when we left two hours later, the weather had soured. We spent the rest of the time reading outside, walking around the cathedral, and waiting for our respective buses.