Sidra: Nothing like cider

Saturday night we had a basketball game. In Gernika. And no, it does not look anything like this.

I played better, so I feel better about contributing, but we lost. My first loss with this team. One of my secret goals was not to lose a game with this team and have us go undi from the time I could play. Oh well. It was a battle the whole way and really physical. The horn wasn´t working for most of the game and not going off when time ran out. It was 53 to 53 with 3 seconds left and the other team had the ball. A girl shot from the middle of the key and made one, but we have no idea if time had run out or not because the buzzer didn´t go. Lame-osa. Everyone was pretty disappointed. Here´s a blurb about it in Noticias de Navarra. We are Valsay-Ardoi under 1a Femenina on the right hand side. The article´s pretty general, so maybe not worth getting your Spanish speaking friends to translate for you.

The more important part of my night actually came after the game. I went to my first sidreria. It was up on a hilltop, away from most things, near San Sebastian. We had to walk a quarter of a mile to get there because our bus couldn´t make it up the hill. We seemed to be in a neighborhood until the street opened onto a big parking lot with a huge, stucco building in the center. All was quiet until we opened the door and light flooded out on us and the loud clanging of plates on forks and the scraping of chairs on floors greeted us. The inside of the building looked like what I imagine the mead hall in Grendel might: midevil, thick, long, wooden tables and low hung chandeliers; people laughing and hugging everywhere; costumes... the costumes were actually because it´s carnival in many pueblos around here. Anyhow, it was quite the beer hall.

The deal at sidrerias is that you pay a lump sum and get a huge meal and as much sidra as you can drink. I´ve linked to sidra before, but here´s another one to refresh you with some info. It´s basically super fermented apple juice that has a hint of olive juice, to me. But, it´s all apple. Anyhow, our table was right near the door to the sidra room, which is kept there in 20 foot high barrels and given out through a tap that shoots it across the room. Pic time...

These are the huge kegs. It was near the end of the night, so there weren´t many people back there at this point. When we first came in, we had to push and shove our way to the tap. There´s a little man who stands in there working the tap and shoots it out for you when you hold your glass up. Of course, sidra gets in your cup, on your hand and on the floor. If I was more experienced, maybe not my hand.Here´s is one of the sidra flying from the tap into the glass. As you read, it needs this air to be in fine form. I know, it looks like pee. And, I´m not sure what pee tastes like, but this might be close to that flavor. Sadly, it grows on you ; )

The meal was great too! We started off with a bacalao tortilla (basically a fish omlette) and then they brought actual fried bacalao with onions and peppers. The big part of the meal was the chuletón which is just a huge ass steak. We ate two of them between the me and the three other girls sitting near me. So delicious and the soppy was to die for. Here´s a picture of Maria getting the last few pieces of meat off for Leyre (notice: no soppy on the plate because I had already gotten it all!!!)...This next one is my favorite picture of our whole team. At the table clockwise from the left/front: Ruben (ass. coach), Edurne, Leyre, Leyre (there are actually 3, but just 2 here), Anna, Garazi, Iñaki (head coach and king of awesomeness), some girl I don´t know, Patri, Maria, me, Pui (she wasn´t ready for this one...).We had such fun! In the middle of chuletón, some of the costumed folks busted out drums and played drumline music for like a half an hour. We all went up and watched and danced around. Garazi got right in the middle and shook her thang. It was hilarious. By the end of the night Iñaki had her trying to break walnuts on the table with her forehead. I got a shot of that on my phone, but not one for the blog, sorry. But, here´s one of the drumline...

I really want to tell you all more about the night, but I´m afraid I´m going to have to stop here. I´ve been getting too many comments about being the new family drunk. Just know that I think I have a true bond with my team now and it was so much fun to hang out with them all night and get to know them better. I understood a lot of spanish and spoke a lot too. I´m not gonna curse myself by saying it´s so much better but it was a great night. Besos.