A Strategic Central American Nation

All I'm saying is if you've got a sleeve of Tosta Ricas and a squeeze tube of sweetened condensed milk, you got yourself a party. If your parties involve insulin, anyway. These cookies have the trifecta: sugar, an incredibly appealing texture when stale, and a cartoon stamped on each one. NOM.

Unimaginable

A friend told me she saw an American movie and the lakes were frozen so thick people could walk on them. She wanted to know if that really happened. I said sure, my uncle used to take us ice sailing (that picture isn't mine; our sailboat was actually a sled with a tarp stretched across a wooden frame). I've also been asked if people really dress up on Halloween and get candy like in the movies, and if people have lawns that they mow, and if everyone hangs American flags up outside their houses. Europeans are often much better-traveled than we are, but it is still incredibly difficult to imagine how other people live. You would never imagine, say, that all the buttercups in the field bow after it rains, or that goats will do anything to get to the longer grass, or that hundreds of people will gather on May Day in front of a former casino to plan a strike. Even the most vivid imagination would be hard-pressed to create all these details. They'd also find it hard to believe how much it rains. Stay mold-free, my friends.

Izozkiak

With a little warmer weather, one is compelled to ignore loftier questions of politics and economics and wonder, just what is the ice cream situation over there? Well, it's different. It is nearly impossible to find the really elaborately flavored yet oddly substance-free frozen yogurt so common in California, like better living through red velvet cake chemistry. Frozen yogurt is actually frozen YOGURT, tartness and butterfat included. However, it is possible to find manufactured ice cream snacks at almost every bar for less than 2 euros, and with nearly 3 bars to every block, well, it can get dangerous. You have your typical Nestle packaged cones and chocolate-enrobed vanilla popsicles, but you also have the evidently Iberia-specific Frigo products, notably the Frigo Pie (foot). Always found in an uncanny ceclor strawberry flavor, this refreshing popsicle is enough to cool you down but not meal-replacingly large. There is a lot of devotion to the Pie, with t-shirts (also featuring the Frigo Dracula, a black popsicle with a cherry interior) and pendants and even a poster that asks the obvious question about the motivations of its inventor. Another uniquely local ice cream flavor (or anti-flavor) is Nata, or cream. Instead of vanilla being the default, nata is the go-to plain, and often comes in liter blocs alongside vanilla and chocolate. As a sucker for seasick green mint chocolate chip and NNY-specific Stewart's cotton candy, which looks like Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat were involved in a nuclear accident and then frozen into a dessert, I am surprised to find myself totally crazy for nata ice cream. A cone of this stuff is like a special present that was delivered on the back of a golden calf at the end of a double-rainbow. I have to keep it out of the house or I go all bird-in-a-bottle about it. Just thinking about it makes me long for summer.

Donostiako Auzoak: Mirakontxa/Aiete

 The Mirakontxa/Aiete area is right by the bay, so it's quite well-heeled. This ceramic depiction of Our Lady of Aranzazu is on the wall surrounding Aiete Palace, which was the summer home of royalty and later on, where Franco stayed during the warmer months. It has more recently become a center for diplomacy, and there are cameras everywhere. At one point the gate next to this tile opened to admit a Mercedes in a hurry, and there was a Guardia Civil standing right inside, holding a scary pump-action gun, so it's presumably still in active use. Our Lady is the patron of the province of Gipuzkoa, and she has a lot of cultural significance for Basques, a bit like Our Lady of Guadalupe.  

Best wall ever.

A stone mural near Aiete Palace

View from Aiete