Txulotxo, San Juan 71, Pasai Donibane, San Sebastain, Spain
The air is cool here at the waterfront of Pasai Donibane, a secluded fishing village some sea gull-skimming miles to the east of San Sebastain. On a lonely autumn night, a solitary traveler was strolling down the harbor in his quest of some authentic Basque seafood. A breeze rolls down from the dark hills, rattling leaves and bringing scents of the still, early evening. The traveler gazed across the sheltered harbor dotted with fishing boats as far as the eye could see. Not far away ahead of his forsaken journey, he could make out his destination at last, Txulotxo, flickering in the glow of streetlight...
The traveler was damn thirsty by the time he reached the dining room. Truth was, he wasn't in any mood of being romantic or sentimental. Truth was, he hasn't had a drop of water since the breakfast. Truth was, he knew he should have picked up a bottle of Evian. But, kidding none, he's just a bloke. He asked for water straight away as he stormed in the dining room and started to gulp down the water like a fish as soon as it came.
Two glasses down and our friendless traveler was back to his senses. He was glad that the risk of dehydration was gone. So he started to flip over the menu. Much to his amazement, he saw Txulotxo has sagardoa, a unique Basque bubbly cider, in the list selling dirt cheap at only 4 euros! "I must try it." So he ordered a bottle and started poured himself a glass. Golly, we can see our traveler's whole body was screwing up. "Screw it, this drink is dead acidic! It wasn't for human," he sniveled. Still, he didn't want to waste it so he kept downing himself one glass after another. Soon, the one liter of aqua con gas was half done, so was the bottle of esoteric cider. "Water is good to the body, and wine good to the soul" our traveler said.
Minutes passed. The sopa de psecado (fish soup) our traveler ordered came. "Fish soup in a seafood restaurant in a fishing village, what a spot-on," pondered our traveler when he was ordering. The problem was, he missed to ask the waitress something of subtle significance for a lonely diner: the servings of the soup. When the soup came, we see our traveler's face turned into distortion; the soup thing came in a pot, intending to fill up five to six at least.
"Don't worry, fluid is good to our body and the soup smells damn good," our traveler tried to pull himself together.
Two bowlful down and our traveler look at the immense soup pot. It looked barely touched. The traveler's back was all wet by now. Panic has got the better of our traveler finally because now it occurred to him that he had once read in somewhere there were people died of hyponatremia, the opposite of dehydration. He knew there were, though not so many, people died of this every year. A bottle of water on his left, a cider on his right and a bowl of soup right on his centre... Our traveler started to feel dizzy and lightheaded. He looked for the bathroom. It was right behind him. But for no reason at all, it looked very very faraway...
The gurgling of water! Our traveler swore he could hear that noise in his stomach. It was perfectly obvious: he was ensnared in a abyss springed from his own decision!
Our traveler looked at the abyss, and the abyss look back at him...
At last something solid, some txangurroa (baked spider stuffed) came. Our traveler was slurring but the waitress put it down on his table anyway. Hell, no. Not even the shell could save our traveler from the slough. All he could do was raised his arm slowly and poured himself another round of sagaroda, another round of his self-made despair...
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