{"id":106,"date":"2016-07-29T16:16:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-29T21:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/?p=106"},"modified":"2016-07-29T16:16:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-29T21:16:00","slug":"euskal-kultura-basque-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/2016\/07\/29\/euskal-kultura-basque-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Euskal Kultura (Basque Culture)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The day of July 28 began with the usual weekday morning routine with class from 9:00-11. \u00a0This day was slightly different than the resr, however, because it was my first day back after missing the previous day because of sickness, and it was very difficult. \u00a0Sitting in a hot classroom for two hours straight was not the most enjoyable thing to do. \u00a0At my thirty minute break in between, I went outside and took in some of the fresh air from Donostia and drank some water. \u00a0I said to myself, “It’s only an hour and thirty more minutes.” \u00a0Feeling somewhat rejuvenated, I did my best to maintain a positive attitude and power through the remaining class time. \u00a0I do not know how, but somehow this positivity seemed to magically work as a cure, as the congestion and fatigue I had been experiencing suddenly vanished. \u00a0Even after class, I felt great. \u00a0I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of my experience in the Basque Country.<\/span><\/p>\n

After class, me and a group of friends decided to climb to the top of Urgull, or as we had been calling it, “Jesus Mountain” because of the large statue of Christ at the top. \u00a0I was somewhat reluctant to hike all the way up, as I did not want to make my illness worse, but we set out anyways. \u00a0After climbing up about halfway, the group and I came to a stop that had one of the most amazing views I had ever seen. \u00a0From where I was sitting, I could see La Concha and Ondarreta Beach, and a beautiful view of the vast Atlantic Ocean. \u00a0I’m not really a nature person, but this view was truly something to admire. \u00a0This view was so beautiful that I wanted to see more. \u00a0I turned around and there was this natural rock slope that I decided I could climb to get an even better look at the city. \u00a0And I was definitely right when I say that this view was even more amazing than the last. \u00a0After getting a picture from up there, we had one more stop, the summit. \u00a0After a long trek up, we finally made it. \u00a0I sat down and took in the amazing view of the city and said to myself that I would come back at least one more time before we left. \u00a0Unfortunately, after basking in the beauty for thirty minutes, it was time to descend. \u00a0We hiked back down and met up with Julian, Sean and our Basque Language teacher, Stewart, and made our way over to the bar where we would sit down and begin our first Basque class.<\/p>\n

The class was only more or less an hour long, but Stewart had my attention every minute of it. \u00a0He was a hilarious guy, but at the same time a very knowledgeable person about the language he was teaching us and most importantly, a great teacher. \u00a0He taught us basic phrases we could use here as well as some historic culture about the Basques. \u00a0He even showed us a song in the isolate language that as soon as I heard it, I felt obligated to learn how to play it on the guitar. \u00a0As soon as I got home, I looked up the chords to the song even though I don’t even have a guitar to play them on yet. \u00a0That’s how much I enjoyed the song and the class.<\/p>\n

What I initially thought was going to be a bad day actually turned out to be one of the best days I had in San Sebastian. \u00a0Looking back, the view from the top of Urgull really emphasized the true beauty of the city. \u00a0It reminded me of all the beautiful places and sights that I had seen in the city as well as in other cities I had visited in the past. \u00a0It was precisely these views from the summit that really made me change the way I look at the world. \u00a0They instilled in me a much greater appreciation for nature’s beauty that I am going to more carefully observe for the rest of this trip. \u00a0Similarly, the Basque language class also made me develop a deeper appreciation. \u00a0The class showed me that language can be tough to learn, but I cannot stop wanting to learn more and more languages. \u00a0I\u00a0consider myself truly lucky to have been able to partake in the experiences I had this day.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"IMG_20160728_141858187_TOP\"<\/p>\n

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The day of July 28 began with the usual weekday morning routine with class from 9:00-11. \u00a0This day was slightly different than the resr, however, because it was my first day back after missing the previous day because of sickness, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106\/revisions\/119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uml.edu\/san-sebastian-spain-2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}