Madrid and San Sebastian (Continued)
Now that you know my Spanish heritage, you can appreciate my experiences here a little more. You just got cultured. Me cultured.
Madrid is a enormous city that lends to no one. If you don’t know someone here, you are probably going to be lost a bit. It isn’t really designed for tourists like Paris. I made my way to San Sebastian a few days later. San Sebastian is a beautiful city on the northern beach of Spain, just about at the French boarder. But don’t let that fool you, you are in Basque country.
To makes things delightfully political, there are a large number of people in San Sebastian who want to succeed from Spain and France. They claim to be located in the Basque Country, “the oldest country in Europe”, which I find ironic because it still isn’t exactly recognized by the international community.
But before we laugh at these freedom fighters, let look a little more closely into the meat and potatoes. One thing I learned a long time ago, but only recently was able to truly accept, is that there is the way that the world is “represented” and the way that it on a practical level “behaves”. What I meant by all that punctuation is that China could claim to be communist, but it really behaves to be Hyper Capitalist. A priest can claim to be a man of the cloth, but could be a Hyper Capitalist. This is NOT to say that EVERYTHING is not as it seems, or that the world is a great big conspiracy. It is to say that SOMETIMES things are not as they are defined.
The Basque country, for this matter, is showing some true international promise. For instance, when you walk around San Sebastian, you will see two languages, Spanish and Basque (No English). More impressively, the Basque people have their own train lines and train company. This would be the same as taking a separate freeway in California. They are pretty serious. And most interestingly, they have their own police force. In San Sebastian, that makes three: The Spanish Police, The Basque Police, and the Spanish Counter Terrorism Units (who are to remain completely masked and covered at all times in order to not become a target to the radicals withing the Basque Separatists movement). The counter terrorists look just like G.I. Joe, complete with enormous automatic weapon, rocket launcher attachment, heavy body armor, and Rambo Knife 
But don’t let my description get you concerned about safety, San Sebastian can ironically be summed up in this statement “the city that just knows how to have fun.” This is where the beautiful old charm or Europe spills into the sea. A combination that has made San Sebastian a top vacation destination for even the Spanish for the past 100 or so years.
San Sebastian has the relaxed environment of tapas on tap. Instead of making the tapas upon request (in Barcelona) they will tend to make everything they have on the menu and just have them sitting on the bar, waiting for you to take. The system is that of honor when you ask for the bill at the end. The entire place is ultra relaxed. And I can understand why there are people fighting over the land, because it is that of the most lush, fertile, and beautiful in all of Spain. Believe it or not, a large portion of the interior of Spain looks like you are essentially on Mars.
I am off to Barcelona once again and then off to Valencia then Granada and finally Morrocco!!
(then South America Begins)