San Sebastian Day 1:
So after a little bus confusion and some stolen WIFI, Tess and I find each other. Funny story-she also ended up at Pension Amaiur instead of Amalur….Im sure that poor lady at Amaiur was getting pretty sick of the stupid American girls who kept knocking on her door that day.
Me in bed at the Pension Amalur
As soon as we found each other we celebrated with sangrias in the Plaza de Constitution. In the olden days bull fights were held in this plaza. All of the apartments facing into the square had little numbers above them. When the bull fights were still going on, the apartment balcony’s were owned by the city and would be peoples “boxes” to watch the fight from. The people who owned the apartments would either have to pay for the box on their own apartment balcony or try to see over the heads of those who had paid to sit on their balcony.
After a couple sangrias, we attempted to eat dinner. For dinner they eat small plates called pinxtos (prounounced peen-chos). They are kind of like tapas, but to be considered a pinxto, it must be able to be eaten in no more than 2 bites (thanks for the info Rick Steve). You order them at a bar by pointing at the plate you want and you pay for the food and drink at the end. They work on an honor system so it would be pretty easy to eat and run but Tess and I were too nervous to ever do that J
Tess ordered shrimp, bruschetta, and a white fish crep. I ordered a chorizo skewer, goat cheese risotto, and what I thought was a ham crep but turned out to be a seafood crep. Yuck. Then, since we had both traveled that day we walked along the beach home and settled into our 8-person bedroom. Of course we were the first ones home.
San Sebastian, Day 2
Today we headed to the Brexta Market (prounounced Bre-cha) and got ourselves a picnic before we were going to head to the beach. On our way to the beach we stumbled upon a little place called San Sebastian food which taught cooking classes and did pinxto tours around the city! What a find!! Tess and I immediately signed up for the pinxto tour because we were so overwhelmed/confused the night before.
We then headed to Zurriola beach. It is considered the younger, hipper beach where the all the surfers hang out. The man at San Sebastian told us to go there since we were young and would not be surrounded by a lot of families. I think Tess and I misinterpreted “younger” and “hipper” beach and made our way to Zurriola. Turns out-younger and hipper just means nudity everywhere. I have never seen so many naked men AND women in my life. We saw the cutest little brother and sister running around together totally naked (they were like 3 and 5) and then up walked their parents, also completely nude. All 4 of them were holding hands walking down the beach…Mom, Dad, Chris-interested??
Tess then went to jump in the water and I stayed and read my book on the sand. While she was gone the woman who was sitting behind us (topless, about 60 years old, about 210 pounds) came over to me to let me know that our wine was going to go bad out in the sun. She could have just stood over me and told me, that would have been scarring enough. But no…she completely bent over to tell me. Her chest was dangling in my face. Oh my goodness. I used as much broken Spanish as I could to tell her thank you for her help so she could get on her merry way back to her spot and far away from my eyeballs!
For dinner, Tess and I tried a pinxto bar again. We ate at La Cuchara de San Telmo, which ended up being our favorite place overall. We attempted to use Tess' kindle to translate some of the spanish food words but still were pretty hopeless. Tess got cod, scallop wrapped in bacon, and foie gras. I got goat cheese and veggies, goat cheese risotto, and argentian beef and potatoes. Seeing a pattern here? Tess-always seafood, Lauren-never seafood. We walked along the beach back to our hostel, watched the sunset, and like the night before, we were the first ones in bed.
San Sebastian, Day 3
Today, Tess had the brilliant idea to rent bikes and ride around San Sebastian. We rode from one end of the coast to the other in the most gorgeous weather I have seen since I have been in Europe. We rode to the far end of the coastline and saw these incredible sculptures called The Wind Combs. The sculptor wanted to combine steel, rock, water, and wind in his piece. They also “comb the wind” (whatever that means) around the coastline. After the bike ride we laid out on the OTHER beach in San Sebastian, La Concha, the one which was supposedly more family friendly, to hang out for the afternoon. Less nudity here, but still a pretty good assortment of nakedness.
That evening we went to our pinxto tasting tour at San Sebastian Food. We had a Swedish tour guide who took us to 6 different pinxto bars and ordered their signature dishes and alcohol to go with all of it. I tried everything once but didn’t necessarily like everything. Tess loved it all and let me know she was very proud of me for trying everything!
Pinxtos we ate, by bar:
1. 1. Mussels, fried squid, potatoes bravas. Cider (must be poured from high above the glass)
2. 2. Grilled shrimp, pimientos. Txicholi (sparkling white wine)
3. 3. Anchovies on toast with foie gras, olive pimiento and anchovie kabob (this is actually the original pinxto). Cider. This was actually something I DID NOT try....but Tess did
4. 4. Veal cheek, risotto, goat cheese, foie gras. Red wine
5. 5. Cutlet of the most delicious red meat on toast. Red Wine
6. 6. Cheesecake. Txicholi.
If anyone is keeping count, Tess and I are up to 6 drinks here so we are having a pretty good time and are getting to know the other people on the tour with us….most of the time we were trying to figure out the dynamics of the 4 women with us but couldn’t quite figure it out. After the last pinxto bar, our tour guide left, we all decided to keep hanging out and went to a bar the guide recommended with the best gin and tonics in town. The women were very kind to us, realized Tess and I were on a budget, and bought us drinks. Then we got the full story on who everyone was. I wont use real names just in case anyone knows these people. J
A is the dominant one. B is her older sister. A is a successful lawyer (she let us know she made a lot of money) who was the head prosecutor on all of the sex abuse cases in the Catholic churches a few years back. B is a teacher with 5 sons. A has a 15 year old son and tells us that she is friends with all of her old lovers. Little did we know at this point how true this would be. A has been on Oprah, BBC, CNN, and others over the hundreds of people she represented during the past few years. C is A’s partner in LAW. They handled all the sex abuse cases together. D is C’s partner in LOVE. C and D have been together a couple years and A kept telling us all night how happy she was that C and D found each other. As the night goes on, we learn so much more about all these women and are having such a fun time with them. B then pulls us aside to let us know that before A and C were partners in LAW, they were actually partners in LOVE. So we now understood more how she was friends with all her old flames. She even works with them. They were quite a hoot to say the least. Tess and I then walked back to the hostel and for the first time, were the LAST ones in bed!
San Sebastian, Day 4
Tess and I spent the morning napping on the “family” beach waiting for Jill to arrive by train from Barcelona!
When she arrived we then hiked up to Monte Urgull, a fortress on one end of the coast that protected the city from attackers back in the day. The small hike we thought we were going on turned into quite a hard climb and Tess, Jill, and I were panting sweaty messes once we finally made it to the top. There is a free museum at the top that was “mildly interesting” (direct quote from Rick Steve). There was supposed to be a restaurant at the top but we were unable to find it….so we walked back down in about a third of the time it took to get up and introduced Jill to pinxtos in the Plaza de Constitution. It was so nice just to sit with Tess and Jill and just catch up on a couple months of lost time with best friends J
We did pinxtos again for dinner, of course. We met a couple guys who were taking a bus around Europe travelling to different countries. They were lingering obviously because Jill and Tess are so cute and in the second bar we had to kindly let them know we hadn’t seen each other in months and really wanted to just hang out the three of us. Sorry bros.
San Sebastian, Day 5
Our good friends from the pinxto tasting tour recommended a beach to us a few towns away called Zarautz. It was the most quaint little beach town filled with families on holiday. We dozed in the sun all day, and Jill and Tess attempted surfing until huge black clouds and a terrible sand storm ended the day and we took the mini train back to San Sebastian.
We really wanted to try paella for dinner instead of pinxtos for like the 10th meal in a row but couldn’t find the restaurant recommended to us. The cold rain and hungry tummies won out and we stopped in at a restaurant we just found on the street with a menu that looked tasty. None of us ate anything particularly Spanish but were happy overall with it. Then, as usual, were the first ones back to the hostel, ready for an early morning train to Barcelona to meet up with BIG BRITT!!! When this goes up, we will all be together!!!
This San Sebastian trip came at the most perfect time. I needed some good friend time in a place other than the busy loud city of Paris. A few days of beach therapy with besties can cure just about any case of homesickness.
Adios mis amigas. Barcelona post to come in a few days!
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