I’m gathering that “Karmengo Jaiak” means Saint Carmen in Euskera. I think my Basque name might be Xatriciago. So, I’m not doing much on purpose here during the week. Even though I start work later in the day, I do still have to get back at a certain time. Last week I was on a pintxo high, I’m over that now, this week I’m kind of just biking into town and wandering around, accosting random people with my bad Spanish.
It was overcast yesterday morning so I thought I might pop into the museum, go down to the pier and find a Toonces sign for my friend John, go to the market and then maybe go for a swim. After I parked my bike, I walked down one of the side streets on the way and saw this:
Museum shmooseum. Que pasa en San Sebastian? I wandered around a little more and things were a little quiet in the streets so I walked down to the dock just in case there was another regatta and saw with all these crab signs and a bar and a stage and red berets. Finally asked a few people what the hell was going on because none of the signs were in Spanish and I thought it was some kind of crab festival. July 16th is the festival of Saint Carmen, La Virgen del Mar, virgin of the sea and the patron saint of fishermen. And it’s a big celebration along the Northern coast of Spain. Oh boy, that means a big ol’ Catholic procession that I am going to miss!! I don’t even want to know how they do it here…dammit, wish I looked up festivals beforehand, I would have tried to take today off. Oh well, there’s always next year. At least I got a little glimpse.
So I got on my bike and sadly pedaled home with my new free cider cup.
