San Sebastian

After Biarritz, we headed south about 30 minutes to San Sebastian, Spain. We have been here for 4 days now, and at first the weather had been rainy, cloudy, and a little chilly - until yesterday which cleared up for a while and we were able to get some sun on the beach. On the train ride down, we found out that the day we arrived began the week long ‘running of the bulls’ in Pamplona, which is right near San Sebastian. We are going to try to go tomorrow, although I am a little scared, and don’t want to see anyone or any bulls get hurt. San Sebastian is beautiful. It’s a medium size city that is all walkable in a day - we actually walk it about 40 times in a day. The beaches are filled with surfers and the city is filled with surf shops and bars. It’s very green and lush, and the apartment flat buildings all around the city, with different color window shutters, and black iron rod balcony fences, have a unique look and charm, like something out of a story book. A few things are taking some time getting used to. First of all they don’t have very many restaurants, rather they have bars where they serve “pintxos”, which are like little appetizers or tapas that sit on the counter all day, and you just take what you want. 95% of it is seafood, and I have been a little apprehensive to just pick up something off the counter that may have been sitting there for hours. They do this for breakfast, lunch and dinner too. The other strange thing is that they all throw their trash or cigarettes on the floor in these bars (yes they smoke inside too). When I walk by a place and see garbage all over the floor, it doesn’t really entice me to go in. So, we haven't completely gotten into the food, although we have already had our favorite, 'tortilla espanola" a couple times, which is just a cake type thing made of egg and potato. Spanish isn't as similar to Italian as everyone thinks, and when I speak, Italian is the only thing that has been coming out of my mouth, so it has taken some adjusting to. Sean has fallen right back into it and is speaking for the both of us most of the time. We went on an awesome hike the other day overlooking the whole of San Sebastian - it was beautiful. The sun even came out for a bit although it had been raining all day, casting a pretty glow over whole, green city and blue waters. The sun doesn't actually set until after 10pm, so we have found ourselves spending the evenings on the beach, watching the sun set behind the surfers in the water. We aren’t sure how long we are going to stay here, but are going to explore as much of the coast as possible. And we will get Sean in the water as soon as possible to surf!