The story of the Medieval Market in Vitoria and the story of how I became flexitarian.

Wandering closer and closer into the centre of the Basque Country’s capital city Vitoria, the aromas of food, and the sound of music and chatter began to guide us to where we wanted to be.

Vitoria was coming towards the end of its annual Medieval Market, but this in no way meant that anything was calming down. There were people singing and dancing, stories being told, and men running around semi-naked screaming in the faces of unsuspecting bystanders.

I suppose you could call it your average day in the Basque Country.

It was surprisingly cold in Vitoria, as soon as I stepped off the bus I instantly regretted not bringing a jacket with me, the sky was grey and the wind was fresh, for the first time in weeks I felt the weather might be matching England’s. Although luckily my fellow English friend came prepared with an extra hoodie which I claimed as my own, from there on out I was nice and cosy, more or less.

This reminds me, I would like to take the opportunity to say that said English friend has an excellent sense of direction and in fact did know exactly where we were going in San Juan de gaztelugatxe, like on all our day trips…sorry for any distress any previous posts may have caused.

Having cleared that up, I’ll return to tonight’s topic.

Vitoria turned out to be a very enjoyable day, we strolled through the market taking in the city in all its glory with medieval flags all over, and stands with so much beautiful jewellery. We watched the street jesters entertain the crowds, and we watched men fight over who would win the Princess. It was a good day and the sun even came out a little later to brighten everything up.

It was a day which I just didn’t stop eating, except to maybe decide what I would eat next. The Medieval Market you see consisted of multiple Basque cake stalls, cheeses, meats, bread, sweets and an enormous barbecue.

The cakes were delicious, as was the cheese, and for the first time in almost two months I had some bread that didn’t taste sweet!

The smell from the barbecue was intense and I’m sure that any dedicated meat lovers would have loved to gnaw on some of those ribs, I know I normally would have. But for me, the sight of the piglet sitting on the top just brought back to light my ever growing discomfort every time that I consume meat. My vegetarian friend on the sight of this proposed a question, something along the lines of:

“Don’t you think it brings shame to humanity?”

There it was, five letters, S H A M E, and at that moment I was in complete agreement. All of the thoughts that I had suppressed about eating meat had resurfaced and it seemed so clear that perhaps this was something that I didn’t want to buy into anymore. I was left with a lot to think about.

It seems strange to me how words can cause the quickest of changes, a yes to a no, a hello to a goodbye, but that’s what happened to me, and that’s what caused me to bypass the meat section in the supermarket today. It’s not an action I take lightly, nor something that I’m swearing to do for ever more, but it’s the direction that I’m headed, a direction that my brother won’t approve, but a direction all the same. I can’t lie and say that I haven’t eaten meat since Saturday because I have, but it’s definitely something that I’m beginning to feel a little shameful about, something that may lead me to flexitarianism, perhaps for the better.

Or then again you may see me stuffing my face with all kinds of meat, I guess only time can tell.

Happy October everyone!

P.S I went on a boat party last week, it was awesome!