Planet Ubuntu  -
12 hours and 15 minutes ago
img class=face src=http://planet.ubuntu.com/heads/jordi.png alt= pThis weekend I had the pleasure
of visiting my friend Kike in Iruña, a city I really like but had not been able to visit in
five years. I spent three days with him, after a really awful emBilman/em trip during Friday
night./p pThe first thing that happened on Friday morning was quite unexpected. I went out, crossed
a pair of streets to get to Carlos III, and going past the corner I found myself surrounded by all
kinds of policemen: red, blue, green and yellow. There were press reporters all over the place,
with TV and photo cameras ready to record something big. What the hell? I looked around, and there
it was: a huge blue sign read emPopulares de Navarra/em, and Mariano Rajoy was seconds away from
getting out of the new PP headquarters in Nafarroa. With a few dozen policemen looking at me in
suspicion, and realising my current hair dress wasn't the most appropriate for that scenario, I
decided to disappear as quickly as possible./p pemPopulares/em aside, the weekend was really
productive. I had a great time trying to find the places I visited 9 and 5 years ago. It was sad to
see the fantastic emIruñako Gaztetxea/em turned into an iron building surrounded by old,
traditional houses in the centre of the city. With Kike, I had enough time to learn more about the
origins of Iruña and the three cities from which it originated, and visit the
emCiudadela/em./p pOn Saturday, Kike, Ana and I went to have some fun on a snowy day around Orreaga
and had dinner in a small town around the area, maybe Lintzoain? I'm afraid I forgot due to the mix
of basque names in my head. We had dinner in emlo viejo/em, where I spotted a poster of a
href=http://www.sositoiz.info/Solid@rias con Itoiz/a for the “Itoitz hustu arte”
campaign, a copy of which I unsuccessfully tried to get in several places in the city./p pOn
Sunday, Kike and I took a bus to Donosti, and I travelled across the most beautiful highway I've
seen. But of course, that was from my perspective seated in a bus. I can imagine the Leitzaran
highway project must have been greatly contested by the people of the tiny towns nearby. The
spoiled valleys and views must have been really impressive in the past and seem now irreversibly
ruined by a scar and holes through the mountains./p pThis was my first visit to Donosti, which held
its annual Marathon, and were lucky to meet our friend Rubén when he was around kilometre 25
of his race. He managed to finish under 2:50, which was a bit better than what he aimed for in his
first Marathon. Well done! The weather was horrible, and our visit to emLa Concha/em, the old
harbour and the emCasco Viejo/em was short, we were freezing and getting our feet wet./p pWhile I
visited Donosti for the first time, Mikel Laboa, one of the most respected singers in the basque
culture, was dimming. Laboa's songs always give me goosebumps, even if I need to read a translation
for the basque lirics. Many will remember his music from Julio Medem's documentary, a
href=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382898/La pelota vasca/a, featuring Txoria txori, which has
become a symbol of basque culture over the years. Youtube has quite a few videos, and I'd recommend
watching a href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O3HTqa7l3ATxoria txori/a, a
href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBrebmUVQ6IGure bazterrak/a, a
href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFKSKCIj9GMLili bat/a or a
href=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOkv1rRfdhABaga biga higa/a performed by the Orfeon Donostiarra
to name a few./p pMikel Laboa, goian bego./p
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