San Sebastian

This past weekend I went to San Sebastian for Saturday day and night and most of Sunday. It was an interesting trip; I´ll have to go back as a) it rained literally the entire time save for maybe and hour and fifteen minutes over the course of 30ish hours and b) Jennis´grandmother passed away on Saturday and she caught a train to Barcelona to catch a plane to the USA on Saturday after lunch.

So anyways, we had to wait until 10 minutes before 10 am to buy our bus tickets to San Sebastian because they weren´t sure if the buses would travel due to the snow. See below.


We drove alongside snow plows sometimes and then others we went about 40 mph on roads that were yet to be plowed. It was pretty.

When we arrived, we were picked up by Kara and her Basque boyfriend, Imanol, from the train station and dropped off at the hostal to deposit our bags. Then we headed to a tapas bar for lunch. The tapas (and food in general) in San Sebastian are rumored to be the best in Spain. The tapas were different from those in Logrono because in each bar there are maybe 15-30 different choices (as opposed to about 4) and most of them were some sort of bread topped with cream topped with seafood. In Logroño, they´re all about the meat on skewers.


After lunch, we fought the wind and rain and visited the Playa de La Concha. This is what the beach looks like on an ideal day in San Sebastian:



Even though it was freezing and horribly windy, people were still surfing. We walked the Hotel Londres, one of the luxury hotels on the beach, to drink a coffee, which was nice and elegant. Afterwards, we rushed to get Jennis on a train to Barcelona, which we did in a matter of about 60 minutes.




Then Kara, Imanol, and I took shelter from the weather in our hostal, where we rested until dinnertime. After dinner, we happened upon a large celebration to mark the beginning of Carnival that involved singing and drag. There were hundreds of men and women dressed as ¨gypsies¨and banging pots and pans and singing traditional Spanish and/or Basque songs. They were all gathered in a plaza, and on our side was a horse and carriage. The horse grew tired of the singing and the people, etc., and all of the sudden started bucking into the crowd, knocking over some speakers and generally scaring the beejesus out of everybody for a total of 20 seconds. Later, people continued to walk directly behind the horse, which seems like a bad idea anyways, regardless of previous behavior.


The singers then moved to the streets and formed multiple parades. Then, Kara, Imanol, and I sat in an Irish pub for a little while before going to bed around midnight. Trekking in rain and turning umbrellas right-side-out can really wear you down.



The next morning, Kara and I got breakfast a lovely pastry shop frequented by the owners of our hostal. Who, by the way, were the most adorable mother and daughter. If you are ever in San Sebastian, please stay at Bellas Artes. The daughter, who owns the hostal, was insistent that we see the nicest rooms and request them next time we stay there. AND she gave us a triple room for the price of a double. Below, see Kara and me in the owner´s favorite room. She was very enthusiastic about photographing us in the room.

I had a chocolate souflee for breakfast.


Kara and I spent Sunday walking around San Sebastian. We visited the other beach, which is apparently more for surfers, and ate some more tapas for lunch (see photo at top of post).