San Sebastian

Guys, we just want you to know that we really look forward to reading your comments. Thanks for keeping up with us. We´ve made it to Barcelona safe and sound, but we´d like to tell you about San Sebastian.

Our travel plan from Paris to San Sebastian was to catch the InterRail at 3:15 in the afternoon from Gare dÁsuterlitz, the train station the ticket lady reassured was the right one when we bought the tickets. So with plenty of time, we took the bus and made it to the train station. It does take a while for us to get our bearings in the large train stations with the language barrier and people who are either unable or unwilling to communicate with us Americans. Once we found where our train should have been departing from, we realized it wasn´t there. It was definitely one of the OTHER large stations in Paris, but a 30-minute commute. We rushed to the Metro to go to the other station, but at this point we were trying to accept the fact that we would miss our train. The whole way, we were thinking of Plan B and Plan C and hoping that we would not have to sleep in a train station, while still having to pay for our hostel in San Sebastian because we hadn´t called "24 hours ahead of time to cancel."

We got to Montparnasse and went directly to the ticket window (as we were too late). And to our surprise, there actually was another train going to San Sebastian in 12 minutes. The only problem is that we had to pay full price for the tickets...we´re not going to tell you how much that was. But we knew that was the best option and quickly made the purchase and ran to our platform. Phew! We made it to the train and got on, and then we breathed. A second too soon...after all, why WOULDN´T there be TWO trains at the same platform?? With a few minutes to spare, we figured this out and booked it. Thank God we´ve got this down by now. Moms, Dads, we know. We should have left earlier, double and triple checked the tickets, and we may not have run into this disaster. But you have to admit, we learned our lesson...and won´t let it happen again.

The train ride itself was actually pretty great. Our travel ride was about seven hours from start to finish (connection at another station - a whole other story we´re not getting into...let´s just say unorganized doesn´t even explain the extent of it) but we definitely found ways to amuse ourselves. We noticed an empty miniature cabin behind where our seats were and decided that would be a much better place to sit. To our surprise, no one bothered us. On the ride, we read, looked over travel plans/maps, slept a little, made a scavenger hunt for the rest of our Euro trip, and climbed on top of things we weren´t supposed to climb on and took pictures (#5 on our list) and no, we weren´t drunk.

We made it to our hostel with the help of a friendly local on a bike who pointed us in the right direction. We were later than we thought due to the train debaucle, and almost missed check-in, but Miguel was just right next door having a drink and noticed us. Miguel owns the hostel we stayed at and turned out to be the sweetest man...after he gave us a little scolding. Our room was adorable. We had our own balcony overlooking San Martin St. - one of the main streets in the city, if you can even say there are main streets because of how small it is.

It is, of course, a party town, containing the most amount of bars per square meter in the world (in the Old Town section). So naturally, we had to check that out. There weren´t many locals. There were LOTS of kids...and lots of Australians. We found it really interesting that half the people we met had just come from Pamplona - where the famous Running of the Bulls takes place. The stories/videos/pictures we´ve seen from the event are undescribable and horrifying...yet, exciting and intriguing. We stayed mostly at one place, but when it closed, the bouncer pointed us in the right direction to another open place. This same process happened two or three times until about 6am. During that time, other than the million and one Australians we met, we also met some fellow Americans. Some were from Colorado, but the majority were firefighters from New York. The Red Sox/Yankees rivalry is so deeply rooted that it travels with us, and yes, it reared its ugly head. I think it bothered Liana more than Ashley, but she handled herself well, and eventually they just liked us more for it.

Our first day was...relaxing. Just what we needed. A five-minute walk took us right to the beach, where we stayed for hours in the sun.

We met two more great people. Ane is from Bilbao, just an hour´s drive away. She´s a very sweet girl and we had interesting conversation about politics and the rising desire of the Basque people to be considered separate from Spain. You guys should Google it. We also met someone from San Fran named Lawrence...the name was probably the most interesting part about him, but we had a good time. We knocked off #20 on our list by building a sand castle from our empty beer cups, complete with a drip monument in the middle and its own moat. Gorgeous if you ask me.

Later that night, we started with dinner at the Wharf. It was challenging at first, due to the fact that neither of us are big fish eaters. But we got over it and chose a little place with an incredible view of the entire cove: beach, lights and boats creating the panoramic view. We started out with delicious Sangria and then decided to split Merluza con salsa verde...in other words, Hake with a green broth. When it first got to the table, we have to admit we were a little nervous - Ashley more so than Liana. Apparently this plate wasn´t served as a fillet as expected. It was still on the bone with some skin and spine...it actually looked pretty gross. But we grabbed our forks and gave it a shot. We were really impressed with how tender and fresh the fish tasted. It was really quite good. Be proud.

We bar hopped a bit after dinner and ended up at the same place as the night before. Along our travels, we got a red running of the bulls scarf, salsa lessons, and a late-night walk on the beach complete with San Miguel beer. Second late night in a row. We went home and passed out.

It was tough getting out of bed the next morning, but we had promised ourselves that we would swim out to the floating raft to use the diving boards and water slides. So we did. Coming back, we felt a little bit like Tom Hanks from Cast Away, complete with dehydration and dry mouth. Needless to say, our time on the beach was cut short, and we went to the supermarket for some water to cure the hangover.

Having learned our lesson, we made it to the train station nice and early. We ate our lunch (another baguette, Laughing Cow cheese and apples...same lunch, different country). We´re now in Barcelona laying low for tonight. Our hostel is awesome. We´re going to go get some sleep so we can wake up nice and early and begin our only full day here. Wish we had more time. Spain is really beautiful.

Hope you´re all doing well back home. Stand by for pictures...we´ll be checking the blog tomorrow for your comments. Love you all!