Final day here before heading South. Unfortunately, we had two day 12s, a typo.

Visited the main library in San Sebastian It is a very modern library; large and the best place to go for clean bathrooms. It sits at the entry to the old town in a large impressive building. The library is downstairs.

Notice that they are not using the Dewey decimal system.

The poem on a wall next to the entrance is in Basque. It would be nice if a Spanish version had been included since there are not many Basque speakers around. Translation at end. Claude would not translate it for copyright reasons, but ChatGPT didn’t give a damn.

At the far end of the playa is a piece of art that we remembered from previous visits.

A.I. stuff: Tectonic rotation (Late Eocene–Miocene, Pyrenean orogeny): As the Iberian plate collided with the European plate (closing the Bay of Biscay’s opening phase and building the Pyrenees), the basin fill was compressed, folded, and steeply tilted — in many places to near-vertical or overturned dips. This is the same shortening event responsible for the dramatic vertical “flysch” walls at Zumaia and Deba. So the beds you’re looking at didn’t form vertical; they were rotated ~90° from horizontal by this compression.

Quality was worth a tip; yes, fire is burning inside. Might be the Sagrada Familia.

Then off to the last of the pintxos dinners in Basque area.

Another perfect meal Boog style.

Yes. The poster is in Basque (Euskara). It is a poetic invitation to enter a library and, in effect, to enter the world of books.

Title

“Liburutegiak gonbidatzen zaitu”
= “The library invites you.”

Here is a fairly literal translation, while keeping the poetic tone:

Come, give me your hand.
If you want, bring with you
your black hat,
your blue scarf,
or your red clown nose.

Turn off your mobile phone.
Look for your special abriteportas [this is an unusual/possibly invented word in the poem],
otherwise the door will not open.

Leave behind the noise of the outside world.
Put down or remove what is unnecessary.
Put away your bad mood.

Then fill yourself with the surprising dust of the shelves.
And come with us.

You must take a break from the hustle and bustle.
From inside and from outside.

You must take in what can be seen and what cannot be seen.
Look, from within yourself, into the distance.
Listen, so that you can enter into yourself.

Be brave, laugh, be touched,
be afraid, and then relax.

Lose yourself along the way so that you can find yourself,
put words to what you feel,
wander through the paper jungle,
laugh from the depths of your soul,
walk sleepily through a data-pantile…

You need to imagine and to dream.

You will speak words; you will make words speak.
You will entertain yourself; you will make others happy.
You will console yourself; you will console others.
You will be moved; you will move others.

Where are we going?
Have you figured it out?
THE LIBRARY.
Come in!

A few phrases are deliberately playful and difficult to translate literally. The central message is quite lovely: the library is presented as a place where you leave the noise of ordinary life behind and enter a world of imagination, emotion, discovery, and connection through books.

The final “Noski!” means “Of course!” or “Certainly!”.