My smuggler trip to Spain

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It is not really smuggling, because it is legal as long as it is for personal use, but each time I go to Spain to do some shopping, I feel like a smuggler. I landed yesterday at Biarritz International airport. Half an hour before I had left a warm and sunny city, and I was now under a cloudy sky with a few drops of rain falling on me. Bad luck. I had decided to do some shopping in Spain during this short holiday and there is a big bus station at the airport, it was a good day for shopping. I chose to take a ride on the «Euzkadi Express», from Biarritz to Béhobie, at the Spanish border. Euzkadi means «Basque country» in Basque, and I was in the Basque country, but «Express» does not mean exactly in Basque what it means everywhere else, and it was 1/2 hour late when we reached Béhobie. And completely crowded. There were a lot of people staying up. It is completely forbidden by French regulations in these kind of «fast» buses, where you need to sit and wear a security belt, but nobody had put the security belt and the driver was letting more people enter at each stop. I told it to my neighbor, a woman in her 50’s, who responded with a Basque accent «It would be unfair to wait for a bus and not be allowed in it». That’s common sense, isn’t it ? France is a centralized state, but Basques are following the French regulations only if they find them good enough for Basques. An angry Basque can become a very nasty person, and France has always been very cool for them. Already before the French Revolution, Basque sailors and traders had got a lot of privileges. Later, when their independentists were putting bombs and killing people on the Spanish side of the Basque country (The Basque country is divided between Spain, that has 4 provinces, and France, owning 3 others), they were hiding on the French side where the French authorities were letting them rest between 2 attacks at the condition that they would not put a bomb in France. France cooperated with Spain to arrest them only when Spain joined the EU. Since the border disappeared the Basques have stopped the fight, but it is like Ireland, it may start again at any moment. So, when Basques do not want to follow a French regulation, France does not make anything to have it enforced in the Basque country... Hmmm. If you are a Basque and do not like what I write, I apologize, and be sure that I love you. Think also that it would be a waste of time to put a bomb in my hotel room, as I am leaving your wonderful country tomorrow. At Béhobie I went out of the bus with a few people equipped with carrier bags and rugsacks, and followed them. At 200m of the bus stop there is a bridge crossing the Bidasoa river, the border between France and Spain. On the middle of the bridge, you have a nce view on Pheasant’s island, the smallest condominium in the world (I wrote a discussion long ago about it, read it if you are interested). And on the middle of the bridge there is also a sign telling you that you are entering in «Gipuzkoa». It is «Guipuscoa» in Spanish, but it is written in Basque. The Basque language, which is the only pre-indo-european language in the world, makes use of a lot of «k», «x» and «z» letters, not used a lot, or not at all, in French and Spanish, mainly to annoy us. Basque is a fascinating language : it was already used during prehistoric times, and does not have genders, except for verbs. When I studied Arabic, I learned that a «you» could be male or female, it is the same in Basque, but in Basque everything else has no gender. A few meters after the sign telling me that I was entering in a Basque province of Spain there was a car of the Spanish Guardia Civil parked there, supposed to control people crossing the border. They were not controlling anybody, but I guess that the presence of the police is enough to dissuade illegal migrants to cross the border. On the other side of Béhobie, it is Behobia. There are about 100 shops at the border to sell whatever we want to us, French citizens. It starts near a park area, but when you explore it, it soon looks like a souk in Algeria or Morocco, with narrow streets full of small shops. For a French everything is cheaper in Spain : detergents and meat (50% less), tobacco (40%), alcohol (30%), perfume and chocolate (20%), clothes (10%). It is why I feel like a smuggler each time I do some shopping in Spain. I bought a removable hard drive, a bottle of vodka and another bottle of a Basque liquor, some «pata negra», a variety of Spanish ham made from black pigs fed only with grass and acorns, and a stock of turron, a kind of Spanish nougat that I cannot find in France, and I crossed the border again to take the «Euzkadi Express» to Biarritz.