San Sebastian

San Sebastian

Oh San Sebastian, how I love thee!

It truly was that marvelous. We left right after I finished writing that last blog for a 6 hour, midnight train ride. We looked like such tourists on the way to the train station because there were a few of us that were bouncing off the walls we were so excited. We drew way too much attention and I was about to strangle a few people that would not keep their voices down. When we got on the train, we go excited again because the cars were sleeper cars and looked like the train in the Harry Potter movies. Sorry, no pic because there were already people in my cubicle asleep. I´m not sure why they call them sleeper cars because the seats were horribly hard and rigid. Eventually, I got comfortable enough to sleep some by squinching down in the seat and putting my feet on the seat across from me between Keelan and some Spanish woman I didn´t know.

We arrived at San Sebastian about 6:30 in the morning to a drizzle. Hooray. :-p Nothing was open yet, so we hung out and napped in the train station until about 8, when we went to this little cafe for breakfast. It was amazing because we all had an omlet type thing and that´s the first real breakfast I´ve eaten in Spain. I smiled from ear to ear eating that. After that we hit the tourist info place and picked up maps and some fliers for stuff we thought might be interesting. Then we checked into our Hostels. That was interesting because we had mistakenly booked a "double" thinking 2 twin beds, but it was actually a double bed. After sorting that out in our broken Spanish, we walked the wet beach for a little bit and then went to the aquarium. The aquarium was pretty cool, especially since I hadn´t had much sleep. haha. I got to pet an octopus! Saw lots of jellyfish in every stage of their life. Saw some sharks developing in transparent eggs--probably the most interesting thing I saw-- and walked through a tunnel of fish. Not a huge aquarium, but hey it cost me about $12. Then we went back to our Hostels to eat the bocadillos (sandwiches) I mentioned early and to take a long siesta. 

After siesta-ing, walked to the other side of the bay to ride a cable car to the top of a mountain on the bay point to take pictures. Both going up and down we shared our car with a group of deaf people from the U.S. so we made some neat new friends. Then we went out to eat and what else do you eat on the coast besides fish!!!! I had the best fish I have ever eaten that night; mind you,I´m used to Red Lobster. It was called hake fish and it was to die for! Paid a pretty penny for it, but hey, when am I going to eat that again? Went to bed on the early side that night. 

The next day started off drizzly again, but I spent the whole day at the beach anyway. (Yes, Mother; I wore my sunscreen.) By mid-afternoon the weather was gorgeous. At about 3 I went kayaking out in the bay. Oh my gosh, kayaking is so much fun! So glad I did that, even though I´m still sore today! Haha. Swam a little. We swam out to this pontoon they had set up a little ways from shore that had a diving board and a slide set up on it. I went off the slide. That pontoon was a lot further from shore than we thought; we were so tired by the time we got out there we had to rest for a while before going back. Really just did homework, talked, listened to the ocean and people watched all day. Oh and the women tend to go topless at the beach and the kids with nothing at all. The comfort with their bodies also manifestied in that we saw all shapes and sizes of people on the beach, not just the perfectly sculpted ones, like in America. That was comforting. I did get a little sun burn because I didn´t reapply the last time I was supposed to. Not enough to be uncomfortable though, just a little pink. Had a hamburger dinner on the beach that night at a little cafe for a surprisingly reasonable price, then went back for some beddie bye.

Did some shopping the next day and found 1 surprise, but most everything cost too much. San Sebastian is one of the biggest tourist drawing cities in Spain, so they were out to take the tourist for all they had, and I don´t have much. Road the train back at 1:30, got home at 7:30 and came back to the dorm immediatly to make plans for the coming week so I don´t forget to do something here in Salamanca that I´ve been wanting to do, like see a couple parks and eat some nata (whipped cream) ice cream.

I went out for churros this morning with a couple others. We ordered them with chocolate, and so go a cup of what looked like hot chocolate, but I couldn´t drink the left overs of mine like I had planned to do because it was too thick. Drizzled on the way to class today. First time I wish I had brought my umbrella. Oh well; one day out of 30 isn´t bad. 

Well, I have my first final tomorrow. Wish me luck and I had better go study!

Oh, for those this pertains to, my plane will land in the U.S. at 2:30 pm on Wednesday, the 1st of August! See you all terribly soon!