Quick Update Post - not sure if you heard of the attack in Spain - we are fine

Not sure if this was news across the pond, but a car bomb planted by the Basque Separatist group ETA (for "Basque Homeland and Freedom") detonated on the main campus of the University of Navarra (in Pamplona) this morning at around 11am local time. Tecnun, where Dan is teaching and working in San Sebastian, is the University of Navarra's engineering campus.

Details on the attack can be found here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/10/30/spain.bombs.university/index.html. The prevalent thinking is that this was in response to the Spanish authorities breaking up an ETA cell headquartered in Pamplona earlier this week (story on that can be found in the sidebar of our blog). Dan's friends indicated that this is typical for ETA - when something happens in a Spanish city that is detrimental to their cause they will typically carry out an attack in that city to flex their muscles and say "your attack did nothing."

Pamplona (running of the bulls locale) is located less than an hour away from San Sebastian and there is extensive interaction between the students and faculty on both campuses. After the attack faculty and students that Dan interacted and worked with were trying to contact friends and loved ones in Pamplona - fortunately the Northern Spain winter was in full effect (rain) today and fewer people were outside when the bomb, in a parking lot directly adjacent to the main administration building, detonated. While approximately 20 people were injured, the injuries were generally minor and thankfully no one was killed. The entire University of Navarra system will be having a moment of silence at noon tomorrow to pray for the injured and for the attackers.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with ETA, Wiki (yessss Wiki) has a fairly detailed explanation of the group here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA. As the link indicates, ETA has been violently advocating for Basque independence for a number of decades. We have experienced and observed some of the separatist fervor - from being told we are not in Spain to seeing protest signs and posters prominently displayed in San Sebastian. While this activity certainly keeps us "on our toes" we have been reassured that ETA does not typically target foreigners and have also realized that San Sebastian has, for whatever reason, not been selected as a target with any significant frequency. We hope this will continue but will certainly remain vigilant.

Anyway - thought you might want to know. The other big news is that Cindy's parents arrived safely from the U.S. Tuesday for a planned 2 week stay. We are all headed to Paris tomorrow for a long weekend and will post something about that trip and the other goings-on this weekend or early next week.

We hope you are all doing well.