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Published: January 29th 2007
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Castro´s Beach
This is Playa Brazomar, Castro Urdiales beach. It´s about 200m from my front door. It’s been a few weeks of craziness. But now as it is all slowing down a little bit I figured that I would write another blog for you all. I left Barcelona almost 2 weeks ago. After spending a lovely last night and watching the sun set on Barcelona and the lights begin to illuminate the city, I realized that I have to go and that someday I’ll live in Barcelona. Until then, I get the privilege of living in Cantabria, a province in Northern Spain.
After leaving Barcelona, I spent 2 days and nights in Madrid for a meeting for my program. I had hoped that at this meeting, we would be told exactly what we should be doing at the school and how to do it. In the spirit of Spanish disorganization, we heard nothing of what we were supposed to be doing and learned mainly of the system of schooling. I did however, get the chance to meet many interesting people who are living and teaching near me.
After the 2 days, I hopped on a bus to Santander with Seth, a guy from Austin, Texas, and Claire, an Irish girl. The drive from Madrid to Santander is through a green mountain range and past several small towns. It takes about 6 hours in bus probably much quicker in car as we made several stops for the bus driver to take his obligatory Spanish “smoke break”. After arriving in Santander, the capital of Cantabria, we took another bus to Laredo where I would stay for a few days.
Laredo is a small town situated directly on the water and located about 40km east of Santader. It has virtually nothing in common with its American counterpart on the Rio Grande, and luckily for us there wasn’t a cowboy in sight. The beach, its pride and joy known as Playa de Salve, stretches a good 5km with a beautiful view of two mountains. Most of Spain has discovered this beautiful coast and Laredo can thank most of its economic growth on the tourism it has attracted. The ills of tourism can definitely be witnessed in Laredo for a frightening dearth of Lego-like hotels have been built nearly filling the stretch of beach. At this point in the year, the majority of tourists have left Laredo to go back to work, which has left Laredo more like a ghost town than anything else. Laredo during autumn, winter, and spring is almost nothing but a mess of uninhabited hotels and souvenir shops from which no one buys anything. It is really unfortunate that such a beautiful place of the work could be changed so drastically just by the tourism that it attracts. It’s hard for me to say that this will ever change the manner in which I myself live to travel, but I can say that next time I spent a weekend in a high tourist area I will think about the way the same place might seem when it’s not tourist season.
After spending a few days in Laredo I realized that I didn’t want to look for a place in there and that I would try my luck in Castro Urdiales, the town in which I teach. Despite its proximity to Laredo, Castro Urdiales has managed to retain some of its charm. I think this might be due to the fact that Castro, although it is a popular tourist destination, can boast nearly 40,000 year round inhabitants. Nearly two-thirds of the population arrived in Castro less than ten years ago. This is because Castro Urdiales is the most eastern town on the coast of Cantabria before the province of Euskara, otherwise known as this Basque Country and many vascos or basques have relocated here.
The large population of basques has created a really interesting mix of cultures. The Basque people are one of the oldest and most preserved populations of people on the planet. They have a language of their own which has no roots in any other language group and a population of people that has regionally stayed quite intact. Here in Castro you can find a lot of different influences: many stores have Basque names, there is a lot of Basque food, a supermarket that sells products made in the Basque Country.
A week ago I found an apartment and signed the contract on Wednesday. It´s really great. It´s slightly on the outside of town so I get a nice walk everyday along the water on my way to school. There is a bus available so that when it gets cold I won´t have to walk. It overlooks the beach, other apartments, a school, a church and a lighthouse. It´s also about a hotel/restaurant/bar-cafe, which is really cool because we can have a great Spanish coffee or a beer whenever we want. I just love living there, and I love the town as well. The people are very kind and there´s something really amazing about living so close to the ocean, you just feel really connected to it.
Next time I´ll write to you guys about my school. I have a ton of stories to tell, but I want to take some pictures of it so you can see it too!
I miss you all and I hope you´re doing well!
Un beso,
Danielle
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