Aukeran, nahiago ez

wheylona lagun ipar-amerikarrak Teledonosti katean atzerritarren eztabaida saio baten berri eman du. Donostian bizitzearen inguruko iritziak jaso ditu bertan.
Badago koadrilen inguruko hausnarketa interesgarri eta benetakoa nire uste apalean:

"The more interesting bit, perhaps, was when they talked about life in SanSe, but maybe that's because I agree with everything they said. As I recall, the good things were: lively street life, good food (if you're not a vegetarian*), kissing hello and goodbye (but not the squishy touchy pushing though packed masses of people in bars and on buses), football (soccer), bidegorris (bike paths) and the ease of getting around a small city, and the quality of life. Some of the less good things were: smoky bars, lack of variety of food (especially if you're a vegetarian*), people taking up the whole sidewalk, and the perpetual bane of a guiri's** existence in SanSe: the cuadrilla. [Cuadrillas are the social cliques which are formed during one's school years and strongly determine the rest of one's (social) life; they are notorious for sticking together (even when they're sick of each other or have outgrown each other) and for never or rarely breaking themselves off from the group or letting others, such as us guiris, infuse a little fresh blood into the cuadrilla.] At one point something was mentioned about Vaya Semanita*** and Ñoñostiarras****...

*The ever-ubiquitous ham is considered a vegetable here; order a bocadillo vegetal and you get a lettuce, tomato and ham sandwich, with rivers of mayonaise. And when you ask for a vegetable sandwich without any stinking ham because it's not a vegetable, you often get funny looks.
**Even guiris married to Basques suffer socially due to not being essentially born into a cuadrilla. Frankly, Americans (and other Anglo-Saxon types) find such closed social circles to be weird, limiting, and somewhat unhealthy. And terribly, horribly frustrating.
***A local sketch comedy progam, one that has taught me most (ok, not most, but a great portion nonetheless) of what I know about Basque culture.
****A play on Donostiarra (what a person from SanSe/Donostia is called), it refers to the snooty, prissy locals."