Basque-ing on the North Coast

This past weekend, Tori and I decided to keep it a little bit more low-key than our adventure to Morocco and Gibraltar. Somewhat last minute, we decided to get train tickets to San Sebastian, a coastal town in Northern Spain. Despite being in Spain, San Sebastian also lies in the Basque Country, which is an area spanning the French and Spanish border. These people are very proud to be "Basque" and not Spanish nor French. They have their own culture and values. They even speak their own language that is apparently one of the oldest in the world. San Sebastian, in particular, is a big fishing town and has great beaches (when it is warm enough).

Anyway, Tori and I got to San Sebastian midday Friday and walked to our hostel along the river which feeds into the ocean. I immediately noticed the incredible architecture. It's not too uncommon here to see an awesome building, but San Sebastian seemed to have a cool building every block. In addition to the buildings, the scenery was beautiful. It was definitely a quaint town full of retired Spaniards, but this fact made the city comforting and relaxing. After checking into our hostel, we decided to take a look around. We first tried to find the Museum of San Telmo, but failed. Instead, we climbed to the top of Mt Urgull. At the top, there is a huge statue of Jesus (similar to that in Rio de Janeiro, but not near as big). The views from here were incredible. The layout of the whole city along the water with the mountains in the background was awesome. From here, we continued walking around aimlessly and enjoying not having any responsibilities. We grabbed a great hot chocolate and escaped the cold for a bit. Around 6 p.m., Fried and some of his friends made it to San Sebastian from Barcelona after renting a car. For dinner, all 6 of us went tapas crawling through the many bars. (For those of you who don't know, tapas are basically appetizers consisting of a piece of bread with a topping) The tapas in San Sebastian are arguably the best in Spain (according to my host mom). We had anything ranging from Spanish tortilla to anchovies. They were delicious. After a late night of eating and drinking merrily, we headed off to our hostel.

Saturday was another day of just enjoying being lazy. Tori and I walked until we found something that caught our eye. One of these was the Church of Santa Maria. This wasn't a fancy cathedral or anything, but it was definitely very cool. The inside was decorated with huge paintings and the natural sunlight lit up the whole church. It was one of my favorites since it wasn't so big. From there, we tried to visit the Cathedral of Buen Pastor, but found it closed. The outside, however, was very cool and looked somewhat like a Gaudi building. That night, we hung out with Ben and his friends on the balcony of their hostel. We bought some pizzas and beer and just talked the night away. It was very cool to be overlooking San Sebastian, enjoying the sunset while sipping a beer.

Our train didn't leave to 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, so we once again took advantage of the time to relax. Tori and I went to the beach (the "Firm Boob" beach as described by the brochure) and people watched (NOT for those reasons, geez). We laid on the beach (in our jeans and sweatshirts cuz it was so cold) and watched the surfers. After a couple hours, we grabbed some lunch and Tori had a delicious waffle with chocolate sauce (of which I had a couple bites). After, we headed to the train station and headed back to Madrid. Sorry that this weekend wasn't full of action-packed adventure, but for us this weekend was exactly what we needed. A chance to slow down and relax, while taking in one of Spain's most beautiful cities.