The Sheep Theory of Restaurants Part III

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We had a big day yesterday so we sleep in and have a morning (and half an afternoon for that matter) of domestics. We eventually decide that that’s more than enough idleness for one day and set off to climb the mighty Mount Urgull which guards the east side of La Concha Bay. The trail starts off gently enough through wide avenues of tall lush green trees, but we’re still puffing hard by the time we reach the public library, well the sign says it’s the public library, although the lack of anything resembling a book suggests the sign could be slightly out of date. If it was ever a public library its readers must have all been very fit. Anyway, the views over the Bay and across to Mount Igueldo on the opposite shore are excellent. The gentle wide path starts to head downwards again. We’re keen to complete our ascent, so we turn off onto some steep steps which quickly degenerate into a narrow cobbled path. This is now a job for mountaineers. We begin to wonder how many brave souls have made it this far. We plough on against all odds. Just when all hope seems lost we emerge ……. at a bus stop, next to a road. Hmmm.

We read that there have been fortifications of some sort up here since San Sebastián was founded back in the twelfth century. These were strengthened progressively over the centuries, and were the last bastion of Napoleonic French resistance against the English, Portuguese and Spanish forces when the city was sieged in 1813. So many English soldiers were killed during that skirmish that there’s even an English cemetery up here. There sure are a lot of walls and fortifications. The crowning glory is a twelve metre high Heart of Jesus statue which was constructed in 1950, and is clearly visible from all over town.

Back on the ground again we begin our search for somewhere to eat. We’re curious to know whether the restaurant that was virtually empty a couple of nights ago when everything around it was jam packed will be again. There are a few more brave souls there tonight and we decide to join them. It soon fills up. I think my sheep theory of restaurants might be correct - people don’t want to go to empty restaurants purely because there’s no one there; no other reason. As soon as a restaurant starts to fill up, others quickly follow suit - the sheep. My advice to these guys the other night was to lower their prices early in the night, lure people in, and then put them up again as it fills up. I didn’t actually say this to them, the waiters all looked too angry and ready to kill someone when we looked at the menu and quickly walked away like everyone else. But the message clearly got through - the price of every single item on tonight’s menu has been whited out and overwritten. Maybe I should ask for a commission. Anyway I’m a bit too distracted for that. I decide to head off to a drinking fountain along the dock to wash my hands before I handle the bread, and happen to notice a young maiden strolling casually along the other way, topless. Now on the beach I can understand, but here? Not that I’m complaining, but, as I said, I did get just a fraction distracted.

I’ve decided that knowing just a bit of Spanish, but not really enough to hold a conversation involving complete sentences, can get a bit confusing. I want to order some bread. I know the word for bread, it’s “pan”, but the word for “some” is eluding me. …. so I ask for “some pan”, which the waiter quickly translates as “champán” which means champagne. This is not going well. Issy reminds me that the ordering didn’t go exactly to plan last night either. We wanted bread then too, and I remembered to ask our waitress for it too, but it seems I was concentrating so hard that I failed to notice that she’d already dropped some on the table a few seconds earlier. At least she had the good grace to only get the giggles.

We’ve noticed a stark contrast between the extreme multiculturalism of our last destination, Toronto, and here. We know this is a tourist town, and whilst we’ve heard the odd American accent, the vast majority of people here, tourists or otherwise, seem to either Spaniards or other Europeans. Whilst it might have had a bit to do with the location of our apartment, half the population of Toronto seemed to be Asian. Why then hasn’t San Sebastián yet made it onto the radar of Asian travel agencies. We’re sitting outside on the waterfront, so we decide to spend dinner time counting the number of Asians we see walking past. Of the several thousand in the hour or so it took us to guzzle some seafood and drinks, the Asian count was thirteen, and two of those might have been the same two walking past twice in opposite directions. This seems very strange.

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Comments

[RENanDREW]

Some pan / Champan
I read this conversation with your Australian and the waiter's possible Basque accent in my head :) By the way, was there a Sheep Theory of Restaurants Part I that I missed? I like closing loops, especially where numbers are involved ;)

[DaveandIssy]

Sheep
The original reference was from a post way back on 5 July 2019, in Crete, and from what you’ve also observed I think it might well be a worldwide “thing”.