carnaval in tolosa

It's no Mardi Gras.

But I'm not complaining. After all, that's not exactly the view you are likely to have as a bystander in New Orleans (see: enormous mountain and lack of beads and breasts).  The calendar coincid-ence and the act of parading were really the only things I saw in common between the Crescent City's Carnaval celebrations and those of Tolosa, where my family was lucky enough to pass the festivities.

Thanks to an incredibly generous friend, we were able to get behind the scenes, on a float (or carroza, as they're called in Spanish), dressed as....PITUFOS (aka SMURFS). My friend Iñigo and his wonderful cuadrilla were several weeks and several hundreds of Euros into their float, a little mushroom casita with a BUILT-IN kalimotxo dispenser, when they invited the guiri family along for the ride.

So we practiced several Sunday nights in the polideportivo in Tolosa (this is SERIOUS, people) to perfect our routine, which we performed several times each hour along the parade route. Think lots of high kicks, bouncing around, and impressive group formations:

 The carnavales in Tolosa are widely recognized as the best in the Basque Country. I did an informal survey on my test group of 150 seventeen year olds, and approximately 90% of them were headed to Tolosa for the fiestas. And almost all of them were dressing up. That's the secret...in San Sebastián, the costumed partygoer is the one that sticks out (god bless you pijos)-whereas in Tolosa, the most ridiculous one is he who goes dressed in civilian attire. Or worse, dressed to impress in civilian attire. There's something about a couple in full G-Star standing next to a group in fly costumes that are dragging around a pile of poo that doesn't really do justice to designer haute couture.

Our day on Sunday started at 8am, catching the train to Tolosa to begin the parading. We arrived, but the float had already pulled out of the warehouse where all the floats are born and go to hibernate and be reincarnated year after year.  So we caught up with our fellow smurfs and painted our faces blue and stapled our smurf boots to our shoes. At this point, 10am, the kalimotxo was already flowing. Soon, we started off at a snail's pace along the parade route, followed by a float that I thought was populated by sumo wrestlers but upon closer inspection appeared to be a nursery full of fat grown-up babies.  Music was blaring, and the crowds on the street began to thicken. Old people, families, teenagers-everyone showed up. And everyone dressed up. My favorite costumes were a beautiful Egyptian pharoah family of four, a group of five friends dragging an outdoor bar table and dressed as the warming lamps that populate the terraces here until summer, a group of Barbies in their boxes, and the aforementioned flies. So, walking, drinking, and dancing.

And between these principal activities, we would play las 40 principales (Top 40) and dance/lay on the float/jump rope/take pictures/eat/andact like silly smurfs (staying in character was the most important part).  Buckley had a blast, hiding out inside the mushroom house (with our fully stocked bar and snack table) when she got overwhelmed by it all. Then it was off to a sidrería at lunchtime, around 3 pm. This is where the story gets all Cinderella-esque...what I didn't tell you all is the majority of the family was seriously ill, and at this point Buckley had to go home immediately. I accompanied, planning to return, but realized that I too felt horrible and remained in bed for the next three days, recovering from the mere half day of Spanish carnaval. You'll be happy to know that my friends continued for 14 more hours Sunday and then 36 straight hours starting Monday night.

There's always next year.

*dedicated to Iñigo and all his wonderful friends....thank you guys!

otegi ardoak: tolosa, gipuzkoa

There's a magical place where bottles of all shapes and sizes are filled with deeply colored liquids and line dusty shelves. It's dark and cramped in Otegi Ardoak, a tiny shop in Tolosa, a medium-sized town in Basque Country. An air of mystery pervades the atmosphere. Plastic gallon-sized jugs line the cabinet on which the cash register rests, filled with anise extract, sherry for cooking, port, all homemade by the owners of the shop.

A sign outside reads "Wine: The older I get, the more I like it."  And the shop does sell some excellent wines, as well as a smattering of fruits. But the real jewels are their homemade liqueurs. There are ruby red bottles of patxaran, a digestif made with sloe berries, which float at the bottom of their containers. There are tiny pints of orejónes, dried peaches, soaking in orujo (a typically Galician liqueur). There's also this little jewel:

It's a digestif made with chamomile flowers, which the jovial shopkeepers invited us to smell. The aroma was deeply herbal and completely irresistible. In the end we walked away with several bottles. They were good-natured, urging us to speak to them in our limited basque, offering us mouthfuls of nísperos (a slightly prune-flavored fruit, in english called a medlar) and lecturing us on the proper uses of their goods.

I asked them how they began making liqueurs, and the younger, fifty something owner said, "I don't know, I mean, we were just sitting around with nothing to do so we thought, why not?" Yes.

la feria de la alubia: tolosa, basque country

This weekend found us celebrating beans in Tolosa, a town about 30 minutes outside of San Sebastián. It was the Fair of the Bean, and Tolosa is reNOWNED for their beans. They have white and black beans, but the traditional plate of Bean Day is the black bean, or baba beltza in Euskera. There's music, drinking, huge markets, and general revelry, until everyone sits down for the a meal of beans.

We spread some tables with paper table cloths, then sidra and vino appeared along with a pot of Tolosa's special bean. They are cooked simply, with salt, water and a bit of olive oil. Like magic, however, they not only taste delicious, they also turn RED. I don't get it.

They are served in the traditional manner or "con sus sacramentos": pickled guindillas, morcilla, mondeju (a white sausage made primarily from sheep intestine in the town of Goierri), and cabbage.  And they are delicious.  Followed by membrillo, cheese and nuts, a "gypsy's arm" (a cake and cream roll), and a good game of throw-the-rock-at-the-metal-bar in the plaza with about fifty people who all put a euro in the pot.

Obviously a perfect day.