Blogs from Basque Country, Spain, Europe - page 57

That is the one word that comes to mind when I want to try to describe San Sebastian. We pulled in via bus around 3 in the afternoon yesterday...San Sebastian is a smaller town, about 180,000 people, nestled against small mountains that tower over the Cantabrian Sea...our hostel is amazing, a small historic house owned by VIrginia who is one of the most welcoming and comforting women we´ve met thus far...feels like home, comfy beds, lots of little nooks and crannies to journal, balconies overlooking a school yard where spanish children are laughing and playing football and raquetbal...when we arrived it was raining. IN fact one of my favorite things about yesterday was falling asleep to the rhythm of the rain, reminded me of the Pacific Northwest. THis morning we woke up to completely blue skies...Blair, ... read more

The sudden change to dual names on the 'next station' display on the evening train from Santander to Bilbao marks the transition to the Basque country, well that and Frank Sinatra being piped through the carriage speakers for some reason. It appears that the Basque and Galician languages are both based on the premise of crow-barring as many random Zs, Ks and particularly Xs (and that's a whole 10pts...) into any otherwise perfectly pronouceable word. Before leaving Santander I gave my trusty umbrella an appropriate burial in a convenient bin - it served me well but had become a bit twisted and was trying to pull chunks of hair out if I let it get too close to my head. Almost came to regret it seeing the streets shiny with water as the train pulled ... read more

Ok So after my one night stay in Manchester where I literally just slept all day and all night, I went to the train station at 9PM to make my way to the airport outside of London. So i had to sleep in the Birmingham train station from 11-5am. But unfortunetly I didn't sleep one wink. Once I got on the train with all my crap...which by the way, I took up 4 seats with my crap....I finally dozed off a little. When I fell asleep there was no one on the train, when i woke up it was jam packed and people were crammed into the aisles...yet I had 4 seats full of crap, and I was sprawled out on two of them. Haha sorry people. I needed my American backpacker sign. So I finally ... read more

Sorry to the lot of ya for dropping off the face of the planet(althought I am not sure any of you noticed since it was halloween weekend) ...i have been in la la Basque land. I was hoping to celebrate Halloween in style in Madrid, but I ended up staying longer in Baque country (despite already having paid for my hotels in Madrid). So my last night with the girls I met in Barcelona was Saturday. Since this was a four day weekend, there were TONS of people out. BY the way, if you ever think you are overworked, move to spain. They work only 210 days out of the year. can you believe that!!! Anyways, since this is the vacation hotspot of Spain, it literally was like Mardi Gras. You COULD NOT MOVE in the ... read more

I am sorry I have not kept up with my blog as much as I had thought but it is not as easy as everyone might think to keep up with this blog. Barcelona has been really amazing and keeping me busy as you can imagine and its difficult for me to get to a computer all the time. I usually have to come to school really early so no one else will be on or go to a internet cafe to pay for a computer. Ok well about some of my adventures. So far I have only stayed in Spain, Madrid which is nice but conservative compared to Barcelona and a bit more formal but the museums there are amazing like the Prado with alot of el Greco (one of my favorites), Goya, Valezquez, and ... read more