Christmas in Spain

Every time when I travel to Spain I surprise how many different cultures and traditions this one country contains. Not only their language and traditions are different but also the people of that region believe that they should be independent from each other. This time I had a chance to get to know more of the Christmas and New Year’s Eve traditions in the Basque country and the Catalonia. 

The Basque country is much different from the other parts of Spain. Not only the Euskara language is the oldest in Europe but it’s also unique from other languages. The Basque country also has their autonomy which separates the region from the other parts of Spain. Even though Basques are strong in their nationalist habits, they are curios to get to know foreigners and are generally very welcoming people. 

Basque country has probably the best food in the whole Spain. The tiny city of San Sebastian has more Michelin stars per capita than anywhere else in the world. The Basque version of tapas is called pintxos and these little bites don’t only taste good but also look like pieces of art. Also because located on the coast, Basque country is famous from their seafood. Therefore, also the Christmas dinner mostly contained seafood treats such as squid, oysters, crab and local fish. Different but delicious! 

The funniest Christmas traditions what I’ve ever seen is the Catalonian pooping figures. Caganer, which is a pooping boy, symbolizes down to earth people while a pooping log, known as cagatio, is found in every family of Catalonia. One end of the log has a face painted on it. Near Christmas this log with a face painted on one end is draped over with a blanket and on the Christmas Eve kids beat it with sticks and exhort it to defecate. When they lift away the blanket, they find treats hidden beneath – treats, their parents tell them, that the log has pooped out. The Catalonian saying explains about this tradition: “The king poops, the Pope poops. Nobody can escape it.”

Being fooled in Milan

The more you travel to different countries and places the more confident you get about your own knowledge about travelling in general and how to act in certain situation. When you are still a novice in travelling, you get suspicious easily and might not know who to trust or recognize if someone is trying to fool you. After travelling in Asia and being fooled so many times, I thought that inter-railing in Europe is a piece of cake. This turn out to be something totally different…

When I stopped in Milan for couple of hours to change my train on a way to Zürich from Rimini, I decided to take a subway to check the famous Dome in the center of Milan. I looked that it would be only couple of stations away from the main station and I would have enough time to go there. When I was struckeling to buy a ticket from a vending machine which only worked in Italian, what seemed to be a nice man asked if I needed any help. He helped me to choose a return ticket which seemed to be the price I also thought it would be. The ticket worked fine and I was happy that there were still people who would help a lost tourist in this world. 

So I saw the magnificent Dome of Milan but I couldn’t really enjoy the sightseeing while I was stressing to catch my train on time. So I hurried back to the subway station and wondered why my ticket didn’t work anymore even that it was supposed to be a return ticket! Then I realized what had happened before! This nice man, who had offered to help me, instead of a return ticket had bought two one-way tickets! And this worked fine because when I had my ticket in hand, I turned around and ran to the subway, while this man went to the vending machine to pick up the second ticket the machine had printed out. And when I checked the back information of the ticket it said that it is valid for months and it has to be marked before using. So this man was fooling stupid tourists at the station to get free tickets for him which he could use in many months ahead. 

When I realized what just had happened I felt so stupid that I had been so blue-eyed and believed the good will of this stranger. In the end, the situation actually only made me smile because this man was so cleaver to fool me in a place where I never thought I would get fooled.     

A volunteer project with uni

After I finished my studies through the exchange program, I stayed in Bali for another 3 months to do my internship at the same university. I helped the new exchange students to settle down to the uni life and organized events together with the local students. I also took part on a volunteer project where we took clothes and other things to one poor family together with the students and our teacher. Here is the story of the family.

In the village of Bangli lives one family of four generations. I Gusti Ngurah is one of the thee brothers of the family. He is only 21 years old but is already married and has two children. When I Gusti was young, he had a motorbike accident and his right leg was damaged. Because of his family didn't have money for the operation, he lost his leg and now has an artificial leg as a donation from one association. While he cannot do too physical work, he makes baskets out of bamboo for living.

His wife, Uspita, 22 years old, has also a physical disadvantage while she cannot use her right hand since she was born. Therefore, it makes it even more difficult for both of them to take care of their  two children, both under 2 years old.

I Gusti and his family live together in the same house with his parents and two younger sister, Asea 4 years old and Dewi 10 years old. Both of the parents are farmers growing cucumbers on a rental field. However, that doesn't make enough money to support the whole family.

Also I Gusti's granparents live in the same village, in a small one room house next to them. Both of the grandparents are over 70 years old and still working as farmers to make enough money for the family. The grandparents have always lived in the same village and never been anywhere else.

The house where the family lives has two rooms, one for I Gusti, his wife and two children, one for his parents and his two sisters. They also share a small kitchen corner together. The house is build from left over materials and as the wind on the mountains gets sometimes really strong, it sometimes blows the walls of the house down.










It also gets really cold there at nights and therefore the donation of clothes from the students was really needed. It also rains quite often on the mountains and the roof of the house leaks from many places. The whole village has one Asian style toilet and a bucket shower but nobody uses them while the people of the village are used to do their needs behind their houses and have a bath on the river nearby.



Our teacher visited this village couple of weeks ago because the mother of I Gusti is originally from the same village as he is. As also in the Balinese Hindu religion has a belief to help each other, he wanted to support this family by donating money for I Gusti to make a living in the future. 2.5 million Rupiahs is enough for I Gusti to buy seeds of a special flower which can be grown on the mountains and sold for 10 000 Rp per kilo and during the special Balinese ceremonies for 25 000 Rp per kilo. As a farmer, I Gusti can work on his own and rest every time when he needs because of his disability.