Hella Basque at VII World Congress of Basque Communities

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I’m back from the Basque Country!

If you missed the announcement, I took a break from blogging and making YouTube videos for a few weeks this month because I went to the Basque Country for the VII World Congress of Basque Communities. 

In this post I’ll tell you about the trip, but I’m also going to detail my itinerary since some of you asked for a play-by-play of exactly what I did and where I went.

Since I got back, the #1 question I’ve been getting is: “What was the favorite thing you saw?” And honestly, I did very little sightseeing on this trip to the Basque Country, much less than I usually do when I go on my own.

This trip was primarily for business, so I spent most of my time meeting tons of new people and learning about the Basque government.

 

Bilbao – 8 Days

5 nights at Meliá Bilbao

3 nights at Poshtel Bilbao

 

Bilbao was all about the VII World Congress of Basque Communities.

If you have no idea what that’s about, honestly neither did I. I had heard of it, but I didn’t know the details of what goes on there.

I’ll try to explain it a little here, but look out for a video all about this topic on the YouTube channel coming out this Thursday.

Before we talk about the World Congress, you need to know that there’s a Basque government.

The Basque Country is quite divided politically, but three of the seven historic provinces are part of the Basque Autonomous Community within the Spanish state, also known as Euskadi. The government of this autonomous community is what I mean by “the Basque government.”

Because as of right now, there is no one government that oversees the entire Basque Country. The Basque government is in charge of Euskadi, which is made up of the provinces of Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, and Araba.

With that said, the Basque government provides some funding to Basque centers (euskal etxeak) outside of the Basque Country for the purpose of promoting Basque culture internationally.

 

What Is the World Congress of Basque Communities?

Every four years, the Basque government organizes a World Congress to bring together representatives from countries where there are Basque centers, so that they may discuss certain topics and decide on some resolutions to guide the government in its relations with the Basque diaspora.

This year there were 3 representatives from 21 countries that gathered in Bilbao the first week of October for the VII World Congress. I was not one of them. So what was I doing there?

The Basque government also invites individuals they deem relevant to the World Congress’ agenda. This year, a big topic of conversation was how to use social media to promote Basque centers and how to attract young people to the Basque centers. 

So I think my invitation was related to those discussion points. Did some important people see me out here posting on social media every day? It seems someone noticed the value in what I’m building over here at Hella Basque.

See Aita? All those hours I’ve been “wasting” on social media were worth something to someone! 

As an invited guest, I had no voting power or official role in the proceedings. I was just there to witness and participate in round table discussions.

With the official representatives, invited guests, and observers, I would guesstimate there were easily more than 130 people involved. I don’t have an exact number, but there were a lot of us. 

Now that you know what the World Congress is, what exactly went on?

Suggested Reading – 9 Movies Filmed in the Basque Country

 

Program of the World Congress

Here’s the official itinerary:

Day 1

The first day felt like one big meet and greet. We were taken around to different places and followed a cultural program to learn about certain aspects of Basque culture.

I won’t go into too much detail here because the program is pretty self-explanatory, and you can see footage from the first day saved to the World Congress Highlights on Hella Basque’s Instagram.

Days 2 & 3

Days 2 and 3 is when we really got down to business.

It was all about round table discussions. Day 2 saw Lehendakari Urkullu, the president of the Basque government, open our session. Then we got broken up into tables of about 10 people from different countries to discuss the topics on the agenda.

The first session was primarily my area of interest/experience: social media and young people. 

The second session was mostly new to me, all about discussing the different programs the Basque government has for the Basque diaspora and whether those programs are still effective. This includes Gaztemundu, a training program for young people from the Basque diaspora, and an emergency fund for Basques abroad in financial need.

I didn’t have a lot to contribute here, but it was a huge learning opportunity for me to find out more about what the Basque government provides for the diaspora. (Curious to learn more yourself? You can read more on the North American Basque Organizations’ website.)

In the mornings we would discuss these issues with our tables, and then in the afternoons we would gather as a big group to summarize what each table concluded on each topic.

These remarks were noted and will be considered when the Basque government drafts its Document of Conclusions, which will be published in the Quadrennial Institutional Action Plan 2020-2023. This will guide the government’s priorities where the diaspora is concerned in the next four years, until the next World Congress.

Day 4

On the last day, we were bused down to Vitoria-Gasteiz, the capital of the Basque government.

We went to the Lehendakaritza, the Office of the President, to hear closing remarks from the Lehendakari and to take pictures with him, the General Secretary for External Affairs, Marian Elorza, the Director of the Basque Community Abroad, Gorka Alvarez Aranburu, and the Delegate of the Basque Government in the United States, Jorge Fernández Quintela.

We then walked down to the Eusko Legebiltzarra, the Basque government’s parliament building.

The day before saw the representatives convening to choose regional delegates to be the point of contact with the Basque government until the next World Congress. There were 3 delegates from 3 regions chosen: 1 for North America, 1 for South America, and 1 for Europe, Asia, and Australia. These new delegates each gave a speech about how their relationship with the Basque government has been beneficial. 

Our new North American delegate, Jean Flesher, crushed it.

It’s hard to summarize in a blog post how awe-inspiring and surreal that day was.

To just be some random American who runs a Basque-themed website and whose father is from Iparralde, to be sitting in Euskadi’s parliament in Vitoria-Gasteiz among Basques from around the world, reflecting on the importance of our heritage and the promotion of our culture.

It was a powerful way to end a grueling few days of Basque work.

I felt incredibly honored to be invited to witness these events and take part in the discussions. A very heartfelt thank you to the Basque government and whatever angel(s) who support Hella Basque who thought to include me in this World Congress.

I left those 4 days hugely inspired to go forth and do a better job of promoting the Basque culture and cause. So I’m grateful to everyone I met and discussed big ideas with.

Together, we can accomplish a lot, so it’s great to know that there’s a World Congress where we can gather to discuss our vision for a hella Basque future around the world.

Suggested Reading – The Hella Basque YouTube Channel is 6 Months Old

 

What I Did After the World Congress

I hung around Bilbao for a few more days. I had a Hella Basque meetup in the old town of Bilbao and had the pleasure of meeting some great people who came out for it.

I also did a YouTube collaboration with Bilbao-based YouTubers, Kontatu. Keep an eye and an ear out for that video very soon.

And I visited Euskararen Etxea, the museum of the Basque language. One of their staff, a cool young guy called Mikel who follows me on Instagram, invited me to visit and learn/talk about Euskara with him. A very interesting and memorable experience.

Another internet friend I met was Aitor Delgado, a local tour guide I’ve been following on social media for a few years.

It was good to put faces to the names I’ve been following. 

The sad part of my final days in Bilbao was that I had to move out of the beautiful hotel the Basque government had us staying in for the Congress. I lugged my bags a mile across town to check into a hostel that was more in my budget.

But my big focus was recovery. I didn’t sleep very much at all during the World Congress. Call it a combination of jetlag, working late, and a head swimming with ideas that made it hard for me to sleep. I probably averaged four hours a night.

I was putting in some extra hours every night after the World Congress to update my Instagram and Facebook Stories to keep you in the loop about what I was doing (see videos saved to Highlights here).

It was exhilarating but exhausting work, and I was glad to have some time in Bilbao to sleep in and hang out. 

 

Donostia – 5 Days

5 nights at A Room in the City Hostel

The chill out continued with a few days in Donostia-San Sebastian.

Another Hella Basque meetup brought me in contact with some fun people. Big thanks to Olatz and Denis for telling me more about Basque dating culture on our night out in the old town.

My stay in Donostia also gave me time to do some shopping: I bought some Euskara workbooks at a bookstore to complement my Euskara studies back home.

And I did get the chance to do a little sightseeing around Gipzukoa: visiting the Albaola Museum, the Sanctuary of Arantzazu, the Sanctuary of Loiola, Chillda Leku, and last but certainly not least, the Rezola Cement Museum.

So I did check a few new sights off my ever-growing list of places to visit in the Basque Country.

 

Iparralde – 4 Days

4 nights at Camping Larlapean in Arrosa

My last few days in the Basque Country saw me taking a bus up to the Biarritz airport and renting a car. It was time to go see my family! 

I have an uncle who lives way up in the mountains, in the house where he and Aita were born. So when I visit, going by car is really the only way.

I didn’t have enough time to reach out to my cousins and try to get everyone together, but I at least got to see my aunt and uncles.

I even taught them how to take selfies. Look at them all looking at the camera!

Maybe on my next trip I’ll teach them to smile at the camera too. But you’ve gotta walk before you can run, right?

If you were following my trip on social media, you already know I was very excited to get to Iparralde so that I could eat some good old fashioned farm food.

My time in Bilbao left me drowning in a ton of seafood I’m not used to eating, and all I wanted was a nice steak. 

I finally got it.

Then before I knew it, I was flying off to London for a few days in England.

I won’t bore you with the details of that, since I know you’re really here for this good Basque content. But just know I’ve got some friends in England that I really enjoyed visiting.

The trip was a great mix of meeting new people and talking Hella Basque, and then finishing it off with some more chilled visits with family and friends.

So there you have it! You can see lots more photos from my trip on Hella Basque’s Facebook and Instagram pages.

 

Thank You for Supporting Hella Basque

As an aside, I just want to say thank you to anyone and everyone who has subscribed to the Hella Basque YouTube channel. I was worried that once I stopped posting videos this month, my growth there would be stunted. But the channel still gained more than 100 subscribers while on hiatus!

So thank you for putting your faith in me over there, and I hope you’re enjoying the videos. Not in on the party yet? You can always join our community by subscibing here.

It’s good to be home and back into a workflow over here at Hella Basque. After an intensive few weeks of posting on social media, you may see me cutting back on these channels as I focus my energy on other projects.

My priorities in the next few weeks are definitely going to be posting here on the blog and the YouTube channel like normal, but also redoing the online shop and designing some new products to give you a great new offering in time for Christmas this year.

In case you’re looking for some Hella Basque merch, there’s more coming your way. I’ll be telling you more about that soon.

Any questions about my trip? Want to know anything I didn’t cover here? Ask away in the comments!

 

CONTINUE READING:

• The Hella Basque YouTube Channel is 6 Months Old!
• 5 Videos on Basque Immigrants in the United States
• Basque Hotel Recipes You Have to Try