San Sebastian

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It's so hot when we wake in the morning (well, actually early afternoon) and my mouth is dry and almost bleeding from the amount of pippas we consumed last night- now I know how a gerbil must feel. However, I cheer up the moment I look outside and see clear blue skies- definitely a beach day at last, yay!

We get ready quickly and head out in search of some brunchfast. We head down towards the beach and stop at one of the bars on the promenade as we don’t want to be too far away from that elusive sun, sea and sand. In these restaurants there is a succinct lack of menus (I get the whole pinxto thing at night where you look and point at something on the bar, but what about during the day? Surely they don’t have breakfast items on the bar where you point to some bacon and eggs??) The waitress clearly doesn’t understand the concept of a menu either and when we ask her what is available (in Spanish I may add), she shrugs and tells us we can have tapas (wow, that really narrows down the choices) so we go for the universally recognised Spanish breakfast of tostada and a café con leche. The waitress is about as cheery as a clapped out donkey on Blackpool beach, with teeth just as big. Gumsy Mcgumsy finally brings us our food and drink and then after a long 15 minutes of waiting for our change, (it’s only a euro but it’s the principle of it, and of course, we are Scottish) we are beach bound.

The waves look amazing and after watching a few surfers tearing it up in the surf, I am so tempted to hire a board and try my hand once again at surfing. Half an hour later the waves have grown to about 6 feet so I'm quite glad I didn't bother making a fool of myself (or rather showing off). I instead decide to go for a swim and maybe do a bit of body surfing, but when I realise the water is about minus 50, I give up quickly. Unfortunately for us, no sooner have I dried off than the clouds start to creep in. We milk every last tiny bit of sunshine then decide to head back to the hotel and get ready to go explore San Sebastian. As we get into the centre of San Sebastian it starts to rain (sigh) and being the sensible Scots that we are, we haven't brought jackets with us. It's an excuse anyway to go into the nearest bar for some pinxto.

I cannot believe the selection on offer, there’s double the amount there was in the bar last night and must be about 30 or so different tapas - slightly more than the usual 5 you get in most Spanish cafes. And not an albondigas or chorizo in sight. Tonight we try a selection of goats cheese and homemade chutney on toast, stuffed jalepeno peppers, garlic mushroom pastries and pork skewers. All really delicious but a bit more pricey than Zaurutz (I think the owner spotted us a mile off as he seems to pluck prices out of the air. It probably doesn't help that Greg asks him if it is all home made, which completely offends the guy who goes on a rant about how he has been making it all by hand for 30 years. Alrite big man, calm doon, we were only asking!). 40 euros lighter but 40 pounds heavier, we wander around town for a little while but the rain is getting heavier and it’s not exactly picture perfect conditions, so we head back to the car and to the hotel (but not after sorting ourselves out with a carry out first). It's the earliest we've been back to a hotel room at half 8 at night (most Spanish aren’t even ready to have dinner by this point) but to be honest I'm just glad to not be driving, especially when I know we've got about a 10 hour drive ahead tomorrow.

We drink some more beers and watch about 5 episodes of 24 which we are completely addicted to (even though they've recently killed off our fav character but never mind, I digress). As it approaches midnight we get a text from our friends in Bordeaux saying they won't be arriving back to their house until late tomorrow night which leaves us in a predicament as we don’t have anywhere to stay tomorrow now. We’ve already pre-booked accommodation for Wednesday night in Reuen (in the North of France) so we phone the hotel to see if we can swap nights and bring it a day forward, but the lady on reception doesn't speak any English. We'll need to phone again in the morning but we're now in a kerfuffle about what to do and where to stay. We contact another friend in Walsall (yes I know it’s in Britain and nowhere near our current location) to see if we can crash at his if we leave France a day early, and within 5 mins he has texted back telling us that would be no problem so we have a fool proof alternative plan (or so we hope). We'll just need to rock up to our pre-booked hotel and hope for the best tommorrow...

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