When Basque Dreams Come True

 

This morning I woke up from a dream where I was learning Basque over Zoom, the way I am currently learning Irish over Zoom, and then I thought, "Why not? I could learn from people in Spain! It doesn't matter where they're located with Zoom." Now that I am so fluent (not) in Irish, why not brush up my Basque that was never that good to begin with? I could understand children, and they were just like kids here. We were at a fireworks display, and a woman behind us kept saying, "Isn't that pretty?" in Basque (which I cannot remember how to say), but the little kid kept stubbornly saying, "Es!" which means no. Then a particularly spectacular firework went off, and the mother said, "Isn't that pretty?" and the kid reluctantly said, "Bai," which means yes. Another time a mother and a preschooler were walking down the street, and no matter what the mother said, the preschooler said, "Zerbat?" which means why. When I used to babysit, I remember that well - everything was, "Why? Why? Why?" Anyway, getting back to my story, I googled Basque online discussions but couldn't find anything, so I tried social media and found something right away. I emailed the guy, and he said he has a class starting this Monday, like right after I log off of work. So my dream literally came true! And it's taught in English, and it's free, although donations are gratefully accepted. So I am even crazier than you thought, because I'll be doing Irish class on Sunday afternoons and then Basque class on Monday afternoons.

Today Travalon went for a walk in our neighborhood, and he saw our neighbors.

Then, when he was done doing Door Dash, he went up to the Token Creek Conservancy and took a walk at Culver Springs.

Then he came home, and as soon as I was done with work, we went to Governor Nelson State Park again. It was such a warm evening for this time of year. He took these first couple of photos of the sunset with his cell phone.

The rest of these photos are with his old good camera, which is now my good camera, because we thought maybe it took better nighttime photos than his new good camera.

Here is the Christmas tree again, and maybe a little better than before.

Here is the Madison skyline, I'd say much better than before.

And, if you can stand it, one more sunset photo.

Here are my year-end statistics from DuoLingo. Apparently I'm in the top 2% of... something.

These are the rosaries I got at the shop on Willy Street. I prayed with the purple one on the left tonight - seemed appropriate for Advent.

And finally, shirts from my various athletic pursuits. Here is the Mount Fuji Challenge shirt.

And here I am wearing the Turkey Trot shirt and neck warmer. I thought this was a really good photo of me, but maybe that's because you can't see my neck.

If I'm not totally exhausted after eight hours of work immediately followed by two hours of Basque next Monday, I'll let you all know how my first Basque class went, and if I can actually remember anything besides "How much does this beer cost?" and how to sing Happy Birthday. One weird thing that did occur to me today is that the word for person in Basque is "duna," and in Irish it's "duine." Like, practically the same word! How weird is that??

Famous Hat