The Australian salesmen convinced us to stay in San Sebastián for a booze cruise. However, the weather forecast we read the night before was completely inaccurate. It was pouring when we woke up, and the booze cruise was cancelled due to bad weather. The Australians tried hard to sell us on something else and instead promoted a “tapas-tour” around the city. Though we’ve been here less than two weeks, we’ve absolutely had our fill of tapas (pintxos in basque). Every time I eat them, I end up not really feeling RIGHT. I attribute it to the fact that all tapas have fish, meat, cheese and eggs on them–all things that should be refrigerated–yet they sit out all day long every day going stale and attracting flies.
We met Hannah to go to her favorite restaurant behind the surfing beach. Supposedly, one beach in San Sebastián is used by old people and tourists, and the other beach is used by younger people and surfers. On the way by the surfing beach, Aria paused asking us, “Can we all take a moment to enjoy this view?” She was really checking out a pack of six guys with six-packs. Like what I did there?
We waited in Hogar Dulce Hogar after our breakfasts. They could not cook us any food yet because their kitchen was closed until 1:00pm when lunch is finally served in Spain. It was not raining, but pouring as we debated ordering a second round of breakfasts. The cappuccinos and toast didn’t quite do the job. Finally, the rain let up and Hannah took us past her favorite boho-stores in the area. Every store in Spain sells clothing that looks like it came from Free People.
We got Basque cakes and custard as we waited for Hannah’s bus to arrive. A deformed Pigeon tried to attack us as we ate, and somehow again, I was pooped on. Shitty luck. There’s absolutely no way being pooped on is good luck. In fact, it is probably the least lucky thing in the world. With flight velocity, distance, and target radius, the probably that a flying bird’s shit will hit you is basically impossible. However, somehow it’s happened twice in the last three days.
The next thing on our agenda was a Funicular ride up mount Igeldo. A funicular, we found out, is a tilted-train car that practically goes vertically uphill. It was sponsored by Coca-Cola as most things seem to be in Spain. The ticket lady didn’t speak any English, and she yelled at us in Spanish, but we were too excited about the train to care. We were both screeching as the small cart crawled up the hill. The couple beside us gave us strange looks, but we were as happy as two kids in a candy-store and could feel no shame.
Once to the top of Igeldo, we witnessed the incredible view that’s ever-present in ALL post card pictures of San Sebastián. Seriously, go ahead and Google it. The rain decided to subside and the sun peeked out to light up the land below. The small seaside village actually really reminded me of Rockport, Massachusettes, the town I grew up in. Both wearing dresses, we accidentally showed our underwear to several innocent bystanders as we took jumping-photos in front of the view. Typical tourist move.
We caught the night bus to Bilbao, to meet up with Ty Prince. We got off the bus at a scary station around midnight. There were only a few shady looking people there, all the subways were closed, both our phones had died, we had no idea where we were going. A security personnel noted the frantic looks on our faces and used his phone to set up a wifi-hot-spot for us to contact Ty. After cabbing to Algorta, again we had no wifi to figure out where we were going. We called after a girl walking down the street and she joined in our search-party. Thank goodness for people and their kindness, or we would have been sleeping under a sketchy bus-station-awning that night.
