San Sebastian!

The following is a cut and paste from last night.... slightly belated but still relevant!!


We are here! What a long day of travel… and then we arrived to our very cute, very clean apartment which unfortunately doesn’t have wi-fi either… and again I thought it did but never really checked. This allows us to find a new ‘internet bar’ which could prove interesting anyway. As for now I’m writing at 11:15 pm on Saturday, August 21 and will cut and paste this (hopefully) tomorrow.

We woke up this morning and packed up all of our belongings, got back our damage deposit and hopped in the car for the trip back to Barcelona. We were very glad to be driving in the direction we were because the highway was completely backed up in the other direction. Apparently everyone was leaving Spain and heading for France today! The drive was uneventful, and we managed to get ourselves to the rental car return at the train station thanks to an excellent map and Amazing Race style navigation. After a quick bite we headed through security. Yes, security – at the train station. We have never had to put our luggage through xray machines before but today we did! What I found interesting was that there was a single man working the machine and I’m not sure what he would have done or who he would’ve alerted had he actually seen something suspicious. Then we went and stood in a long line and showed our tickets (similar to boarding a plane) before we were allowed to go done to the track – and people were only allowed down 10 minutes before departure. Also interesting… every other train we’ve taken in Europe has allowed you to just wander willy-nilly and just show your ticket to a guy on the train.

And the train… well, it was not exactly as we were expecting. It was nice enough, but the bathroom deteriorated very quickly (why are people so gross??) and a guy with a serious nicotine addiction kept smoking in the bathroom and thinking he was being really slick, but after going in right after him I smelled as though I’d just taken a tour through a cigarette factory. And the route we took – well, that was interesting. It’s like the train planners were drunk and thought it would be funny to send people in a spiral pattern instead of a straight line. We went through Pamplona an hour and a half before we were due to arrive here and I think we could’ve walked from there faster than going through the 4 other towns in between. It was weird. But, on the upside, Jeff and I shared the tastiest sandwich in our entire life. A baguette with Serrano ham and Brie, but the bread was so amazing and toasty. Yum.

The scenery on the way was fascinating. After leaving Barcelona we headed directly west and saw endless vineyards on one side of the train and the gorgeous deep blue Mediterranean on the other. Then, as we headed north, the landscape at first was very hilly then completely flattened out – as flat as Saskatchewan! Then all of a sudden there were interesting hoodoos and then suddenly super arid desert that looked like an ATV-ers paradise. By the time we were getting close to our destination it was more than obvious that we were no longer in a Mediterranean climate – we were in deep forests with tall pines and cute white washed buildings. No more rustic castles on hills! It is humid here, very humid. And although I haven’t yet seen the ocean I can smell it. I’m looking forward to exploring tomorrow!

We arrived in San Sebastian at 9:30 pm and the station leaves a LOT to be desired. It was surprising to arrive into a dinky, dirty station in such a big city. The bathroom, well, let’s just say we weren’t that desperate. There was a tobacco shop open but it didn’t sell any maps and everything else was closed. We waited in a taxi line for about 15 minutes and then had the good fortune to get a super nice taxi driver who spoke pretty decent English. It was a short drive to our apartment but we had to kill a little time before meeting the lady with the key so we strolled for a bit. We are very close to a central square with a bunch of bars and restaurants and it was very busy tonight. We’re not sure if it’s because it’s a Saturday night, or because it’s the final night of a yearly festival (not sure what it is called) or if it’s just always like that in this area. We saw HUGE fireworks to close out the festival and they were really loud and went on for at least 15 minutes. It was fairly impressive.

And now we’re winding down and about to get ready for bed. This is the first place that we’ve turned on a tv since we’ve been here and we are currently alternating between The Karate Kid (dubbed in Spanish) and a bull fight. The bull has it’s horns on fire! We are having trouble tearing ourselves away from it – morbid fascination! Bed calls…. Buenas noches.

PS – There was a heat wave occurring in the Barcelona area and we were glad to miss it. While we were there last week it averaged around 27 C and it was 35 C yesterday as we passed through. Of course in a big city with lots of concrete and little shade you know it feels hotter! The train had an outdoor temperature gauge and we could see the temperature through the middle of Spain was approaching 38 as we passed through. Hot stuff!