markina

Thanks to a schedule of no work on Tuesdays or Fridays and having today off for All Saints' Day, I am only now approaching the end of a glorious 5-day weekend. Highlights: discovering my new favorite site for pintxos in Bilbao (Saturday). Classical concert at the Euskalduna concert hall (Sunday). Today I met up with Ismene, one of my roommates, in her hometown of Markina, where she showed me around for a while before we headed to the coastal town of Lekeitio for the rest of the afternoon.

Markina is known primarily for cesta punta - the sport also known as jai alai - and cocotes, little flat, flaky, frosted anise-flavored pastries.


cocotes

It's a tiny town - only about 5,000 residents as compared with Laudio's 20,000. I enjoyed it a lot, possibly because of how compact and small-town it felt there. Ismene kept bumping into people she knew, and it quickly became clear that this was the kind of town where that's pretty unavoidable.

And, because it was All Saints' Day, we stopped by the cemetery, which was covered in flowers in tribute to the memory of loved ones.



Totally beautiful, and obviously kind of bittersweet.