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Published: February 11th 2006
Hello Reader.
The trip up to San Sebastian, a city near the French Boarder on the Northern coast of Spain, was to take eight hours by bus. Mike slept most of the way, I was up for a while. We arrived at seven in the morning and realized that we had no idea where to go. We had made reservations at a hostel called 'Olga's Place' but had not printed out any directions or anything. Luckily we found a blonde girl named Jess from Australia looking for the same hostel so we meandered our way alongside the river and found it.
Raphael, partial owner (along with Olga who was out of town) showed the three of us into the hostel. Even though it was so early, he let us sleep right away and we woke up around one pm to him cooking up some paella. We feasted and he refused when we offered to pay him for the meal. He was a really great host and I felt like I was just couchsurfing at his house.
Jess, Mike, and I met Graham, another guest at the hostel from Australia. The four of us walked through the old town
Jess, Graham, and Mike
Underneath a large edifice.and around the shore. Visiting San Sebastian was like seeing a movie without seeing a trailer beforehand. I knew basically nothing about it before I went (except everything that Caitlin told me... =)). San Sebastian is known for surfing and is home to an annual film festival. There are two beaches separated by a river, an old town, and a large hill (mountain) with Jesus on the top. Even though it was overcast for four of the five days we were there, at least it wasn't snowing or raining.
We made hot chocolate... the Spanish way, which means that it has the consistency of chocolate pudding. We ended up staying in for the night and Jess' friend Elizabeth came to the hostel. We stayed up late telling lame ghost stories and laughing at stupid jokes.
The next day, Saturday, the girls went to Bilbao to see the Gugenhiem Museum. Graham left early in the morning. The girls returned just in time for lunch, which was a chicken and vegetable stew that Raphael made (but this time he let us buy the food and help cook). Raphael left and we were left alone in the hostel to run around
Creepy Door
Leading into a mountain in San Sebastian. and throw a wine cork at eachother. I felt like I was ten years old again. The two girls and Mike and I then headed out to the old town again. I bought some running shoes for ten euro (about eighty cents US). We then stopped by the store to buy some food for dinner, and came back to the hostel to find Tess, another Australian and a another friend of Jess and Elizabeth. She was tall and had a great smile... she reminded me so much of my friend Elaine Simon. After a pasta dinner, all five of us started to drink cheap wine.
Well it only took me a couple of glasses until I was feeling pretty good. After those, we went to a bar nearby and I drank my first ever Guiness. It was heavy, creamy... almost a meal in itself. Mike took an embarassing picture of me mid-blink that made me look drunker than I really was, and insists on showing it to everyone. I made it home, somehow, and made it to sleep.
I woke up on Sunday morning to someone touching my face... I immidiately punched the person's shoulder in front of
Hot Chocolate
Mike, Jess, and Graham in Olga's Place. me... only to find out it wasn't Mike messing with me in my slumber, but Raphael waking me up to let me know that Sue had arrived. I said I was sorry and proceeded to stay up for an hour or so with Sue, whispering in the kitchen over toast and tea. I was excited to see her, (she had only decided last minute to come up to be with us) so I just kept on talking. We made it to bed and I listened to 'Let Her Cry' by Hootie and the Blowfish about sixty times trying to memorize the words. My mind would start wondering after the first verse and I would remember only as the song ending that I forgot to listen to it, so I started it over... and over... et cetera. In the morning, Mike and Tess told me that they could hear my music. I felt bad for keeping them up, but secretly hoped that they too finally memorized the words so that we could all sing it together.
We woke up (for the second time that morning), ate, and went to play in the city. We found a playground near our hostel
Reflection
Mike, Jess, Elizabeth, and Me and also a jetty made of rocks that we jumped around on. We spent most of the day aimlessly ambling through the city. We went to a music store for a couple of hours and then to eat some guacamole at a Mexican place next door. (Much better experience this time.) That night there was a parade of some sort that passed through the city right in front of our hostel. Jess and Elizabeth cought the night train to Paris and Tess, Sue, Mike, and I walked along the water singing, (but unfortunately not Hootie). I was elated when I figured out how to take a night pictures with my camera, and I took many. We went back to the Mexican Place for dinner and I ate an enchilada. Mmmm... enchilada.
On Monday, the four of us all took showers (the showers in this hostel are the best in the world) and went to hang out by the ocean. While listening to music on a wall that overlooks the ocean, one of the lenses of my sunglasses popped out and was lost forever. I was heartbroken. I think I've had these sunglasses longer than any other pair (about four
Rock Jumping
Mike the daredevil. months... my second longest was a couple of weeks). We then found a hiking trail that went up to over look the city. It was an amazing view. Later we split from Tess and Sue, Mike, and I climbed the second of three 'mountains' in the city. It has a large statue of Jesus on top and a pretty good view of the sunset. We made it home just in time to say goodbye to Tess as she was leaving for Paris to meet Jess and Elizabeth. There was only us three, a sweet Brazilian girl and four loud and rude Australians staying in the hostel now.
That night, with only the three of us in our room, taking full advantage of my gullibility, Mike and Sue convinced me that the word 'engine' in England is pronounced to rhyme with 'incline.' I almost smothered them both in their sleep after they confessed their little to their little joke. That was worse than the time that they made me believe that the spelling of 'flower' doesn't exist in England and that 'flour' was used for both the ingridient and for the plant. Am I too trusting? I predict a 'Boy
At the Kitchen Table
Mike, Elizabeth, Jess, Tess, and Sue. Who Cried Wolf' situation sometime in the future.
On our last day, Tuesday, we finally had a sunny day. We accended the hiking trail mountain once again to get some better photos. After a pint of Ben and Jerry's 'Peace of Cake' by the beach, we went for tea and then to take a ride to the top of the third and final mountain. This one had an old amusement park (everything was shut down except for the bar) and a hotel on top. We rode up in a cable car and walked down after catching the sunset. An impolite cab driver dropped us off at a photo place in time for Sue to pick up her pictures that she had dropped off earlier, and I had time to put my seventeen hundred photos on two cds.
Side Story: I found out that, probably due to all of my teasing, Heidi got a new computer; she got a laptop that is small and fast... too hard for me to make fun of. All my energy has now switched over to making fun of Sue's camera that was made in the early nineteen twenties. The camera uses actual film
The Race
A stiff competition. The jury is still out on who won. like they used to use when my grandparents were kids, and if dropped, there would be an earthquake in Chile. I figure that if I keep this up, she might have the same luck that Heidi had... or one day just crack and kill me.
We bought a bottle of wine for Raphael and hightailed it back to the hostel to grab our stuff and rush to the bus station. Mike lost his ticket sometime during our trip and we kind of scrambled to look for it for the last half hour before the bus arrived. (It's probably in the land of lost tickets along with my ticket to Barcelona from a couple of months ago.) We then got on with no problems and the two of them slept most of the way home. I probably slept a total of thirty minutes out of an eight hour trip. An hour and a half of which was spent watching 'Big Trouble in Little China' dubbed in Spanish and the rest of which was spent staring out of the window listening to music.
Back in Valencia, I ate an orange the first chance I got.
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Viva San Sebastian
I realy love San Sebastian, it's near the french border and it's a great place for french people who wants to pass a spanish night.