Everything is so, European

First of all some of you may not know who Joel and Kelly are, so let me introduce them. One of my son, Rusty's best friends was John Perry. They were such good friends that they married sisters so they could be brothers-in-law. Well Joel is John's younger brother. He also went to school and was friends with my daughter Andrea. So we have a double connection. His wife Kelly is a sweet heart and has become good friends with Andrea. Last fall they were home visiting while we were planning our trip to Liberia and she invited us to come and visit. We had planned on taking in a few other sites, seeing we would be so far from home anyway. So we decided that that would work out good. Joel is working doing research into robotics here in Spain. They have two sons, Caden 5 and Owen 2. Owen wasn't feeling good yesterday but he is recovered and doing fine now. I have had some great conversations with the boys they are both very articulate.

D'Linda and I spent most of the day wandering around San Sebastian, it was a beautiful day and everything is so interesting. We went to the top of a hill where there is an old fortress that has a commanding view of the harbor and the city. At the top there is a large statue of Jesus. It was all quite fascinating. I like all the old buildings and narrow streets. Back home a building is old if it is 100 years old. Here that might be the newest on the block. There are lots of old cathedrals with bells chiming every 15 minutes. The sad thing is hardly anyone goes to church here. The pace of life here is slower, people walk more, but nobody seems in a hurry. Most of the shops close from 2:00 to 5:00 for a long lunch then they open back up until 9 or 10. They eat dinner late, lunch is the big meal.

One of the reasons we decided to come here is we have traveled in Mexico quite a bit and I know a little Spanish, not enough to really talk, but enough so I can survive and find or buy what we're looking for. The problem here is they speak Basque, Most speak Spanish also, but a lot of the signs are in Basque, and it is nothing like Spanish.

I took Joel's bike for a ride this morning to get a look around. They have bike lanes almost everywhere, and lots of people ride bikes. With the narrow streets and the traffic, bikes would probably get you places faster. Bike etiquette is a little different here and while I was trying to learn it I almost got hit by a bus. After a couple of near misses with cars I'm getting the hang of it. They honk a lot here also.

Guess where we had lunch... Okay, MacDonald's, I'm not a big fan, but I have to admit the fries tasted great. It's been at least a month since we have had fast food, or a fountain diet Coke. If you know me you know I'm a diet Pepsi guy, but the diet Coke was almost as good as the fries. Everything seems expensive, Kelly told us that most people live with their parents until they save up enough money and then usually move in with a roommate. It's not unusual for people in their thirties to be living with parents. Apartments are pretty small. Joel and Kelly's is large for here, but would be considered barely adequate back home. My impression is people seem to be more concerned with living good day to day rather than sometime in the future.

There is a lot of graffiti around. Kelly told us that they consider it art and don't discourage it. It is just teenage boys expressing themselves and trying to be like Americans. Isn't it great to know we're looked up to for something?

On the train ride up I was thinking about my experiences in Africa. I was just writing down words that represented some of my thoughts. One word was "bars", I meant the kind that are on all the windows. There are fences or walls around most homes and bars on the windows and steel plate doors on the houses. I noticed that most of the houses and ground floor windows here in Spain are the same. We associate bars with jail or prison, so why do we make cages and lock ourselves in? are we really free? The only place I saw without bars were the huts in the villages. They didn't even have doors. They didn't have much, but they had food and shelter and seemed happy. So who is really free?