July 10, 2006

Sheepage

All the things I bought in Spain involve sheep. I was selfish this trip and didn't get anything for my parents or even any sweets to bring back to work. But I couldn't resist the lure of the sheep.

It started when we passed a shop in Madrid that had all these cute and silly shirts featuring bulls and sheep. It was late and they were closed, but I knew we had to go back the next day. We did make it back to the shop, and I planned to buy one of their shirts, but in the end I couldn't find one I really liked that was in my size, so I just bought a hankerchief with sheep on it.

A couple of days later, we were sitting around my cousin's house and a neighbour boy comes in with a little backpack with the same sheep pattern on it. I was like "Hey! Those sheep again!" Little did I know that this company is very popular, and in fact is Basque, though they have shops in most major cities in Spain. They have the tongue-tripping name of Kukuxumusu, which apparently means "the kiss of the flea" in Basque.

According to the history on their web page, the whole shirt thing started in 1989 between 3 friends who wanted to design something a bit fun to sell during the running of the bulls festival in Pamplona. Now they design everything from mugs to underwear to key-rings. They're sort of like the Spanish Paul Frank. (As a side note, one, I didn't know that Pamplona was part of the Basque country; two, Pamplona was only about an hour drive from where we were staying; and three, the running of the bulls was going on while we were visiting my cousin (it takes place every morning for a week). So we could have gone to see it, if we really wanted to and if we could even get into the city. We did see some guys though dressed in the white clothes with red hankerchiefs that is the typical dress for the running of the bulls.)

So, back to what I bought... I got the sheep hankerchief in Madrid. Then, a couple of days later, we passed one of the Kukuxumusu shops in San Sebastian and I went in to see what shirts they had. The shirts there were more Basque focused. One I quite liked showed the various "sports" of the Basque country, things like sawing logs or walking on stilts. I went for one though with a bunch of sheep on bikes and underneath it says "Euskal Herria" which means Basque Country.

The same day, as we were driving around San Sebastian, we saw a lot of cars with these sheep stickers on the back. My cousin had no idea what they were about, but he assumed it was something Basque, since he only saw them around that area, not elsewhere in Spain. I wanted a sheep sticker of my own. And I found some, though not in Spain actually, but in one of the small French towns we went to. Since I don't have a car, I bought a sheet of four smaller sheep stickers, with the plan to put one on my bike. I finally looked at the website mentioned on the stickers, and yes, the sheep represent an organization that promotes Basque culture. I just think they're really cute.

So I may have overdone the sheep thing. I could have got a shirt featuring bulls or something else instead, but the sheep are just too sweet. I'll just avoid wearing it all at the same time.