San Sebastian

San Sebastian

Today was our play day in San Sebastian. No history lessons, just sun, sand and surf. The pictures tell the real story. This is more of a Spanish get-away destination, rather than international, although there is a film festival that has been compared to Cannes.

San Sebastian is in the middle of Basque country, which would explain the enormous amount of people basking in the sun. The two long stretches of sand were covered with sun worshipers of all sizes, shapes and ages. A curious phenomenon occurs during low tide when a vast amount of sand is available. Throngs of people walk the length of the shoreline in both directions, as if they are strolling along the avenue. Later in the day when the tide comes in, the strolling stops, and people either retreat to their blankets or enjoy the surf. Still later, when the tide rolls out again, the strolling resumes. Quite curious.

The beach town portion of SS is laid out in a small grid. The alleyways heading east and west have many small shops catering to the tourists. The alleyways heading north and south have the restaurants and tapas bars, known in Basque as pintxos. Michael, our ACIS guide, gave us all a quick introduction to pintxos, walking into several bars and describing the varied selections to eat. Most of the pintxos or tapas were topped with traditional items such as crab, salmon, artichoke hearts, cream cheese, etc. However, there were some exotic treats, such as calamari stewed in its own ink, and octopus. After our gastronomic lesson, we were free to explore on our own. You line up at one end of the bar where the tapas are all laid out on platters. You are handed a plate, and you walk the length of the bar, grabbing what you want. When you get to the end of the bar, you pay according to how many tapas are on your plate. Five or six fill you up nicely. It’s a very festive way to shore up your appetite.

After lunch, we split into groups to chill. Some went on a hike, some went to the aquarium and others hit the beach. All in all it was quite a lovely day.

Back at the hotel, dinner was waiting. The chicken was replaced by ham; however, those pesky french fries were back. I will get to the bottom of this controversy before we leave Europe.

Since this was our last evening in Spain, the evening was capped off by a lively round of “Know Your Spain.” The kids were broken up into four groups of three, and quizzed on what they had learned traveling through Espańa. The Jeopardy-like atmosphere had everyone in a competitive mood, and there was a lot of hilarity over some of the answers. Did you know the Moors were expelled from Spain in 1932? Or that Charles Heston played El Cid in the movie? Neither did we. But, “pineapple” was the correct answer for one of the questions.

Tomorrow we head to France. Vive la France! The group is excited about going to a country where they will know the language.

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