The pace of life in the Basque Country, by Tieme Hermans

Whenever people like myself live in or visit the Basque country, they could be heavily confronted with their own Northern European mentality.

Logically, differences are what makes us from beingmore than a bunch of pathetic clones.Here however, even though you don’t feel that far from home, in a way you’veentered a completely different world. One were people naturally seem to taketheir time for everything in life.

Take.. well, what not! Supermarkets! In Holland,people go berserk when the queue is longer than five people. There’s even achain that gives you free shopping if you’re the fifth person in line. Not inthe Basque Country.. When I look around, all stressed out and teeth grinding,people seem calm, eager to chat and quite able to wait a bit more.

Now you’d expect the shopping Basques to rush homeafter wasting all that precious time waiting in line. Not really, when youcompare the pace they walk here to that in Northern Europe you’d be surprised.While I cannonball along, Basques stop for talks that can take as long as theylast, walk like they’re absolutely heading nowhere and take their time tocheek-squeeze every baby they encounter. At the time they’re home, an averageNorthern European probably cooked his food and stuffed it in already.

This brings us to the Basque eating habits, here yousee a mayor difference between the Basques and us ‘guiri’.Guiri is the Spanishnickname for an embarrassingly stereotypical tourist from Northern Europe. Thegreat difference is that in our potato countries, we would eat lunch betweentwelve and two and dinner between five and seven. Basques couldn’t, here lunchis taken around three o’clock and is can be enjoyed with a nice glass of wine.Dinner can be eaten until eleven at night, since they consider it to beafternoon until eight here. And again, the speed is slow, the food might turncold but the conversations are longer and people seem relaxed.

Even more relaxed, Basques appear to be when you’rereally heading somewhere. The other day I was with a couple of Basque friendsand we were in front of an overcrowded bar, deciding where to go now. Right inthe entrance, they decided to hold still to discus the whereabouts for thatnight. Such a calm blockade we were, and besides me, none appeared to bebothered by it!

But hey, things aren’t always that bad for a poor guiri like myself. As a proper Dutchman I tried obtaining me a bicycle to get aroundsome time ago. The man in the bike shop showed me what he had in stock, but thefor what he asked for a ramshackle bike I thought I could get much better. So Ichallenged my patience and just stood around a bit, for it happened to be afriendly bloke working there. Twenty minutes later, after practicing my best Euskera(Basque) and Spanish on him, he told me to wait while he headed for agarage. Thereupon, he returned with this old racing bike, which he told me Icould borrow from him until I returned home. We inflated the tires, tightenedsome screws and it was like new! Where in profit seeking Western Europe wouldyou find a bike to borrow from a shop without them noting down your name oranything?

I guess good things really come to those who wait