After Pamplona, we caught a bus to San Sebastian. At this point, I hadn't slept in days, but the bus ride was only one hour. Gray clouds covered the sky of San Sebastian, so we split a taxi to our hostel for the next night, hoping we could find a room for tonight. "5 star" hostel is in an apartment flat that doesn't look like a hostel at all from the streets, but we tried it out anyway. We found our way upstairs only to learn there were no available rooms, so we walked to a cafe at the corner and tried to find a new place to stay. The hostel owner found us there and offered us a single room between the four of us. We took it because any bed and heat sounded great after a night in the bus station.
Only 10 min from old town, we walked to find some delicious pinchos restaurants. Pinchos is the Basque name for tapas, and San Sebastian's pinchos are world famous and generally regarded as the best in all of Spain. We hopped from place to place, trying tons of pinchos. We each took turns paying the bill, the cool thing about San Sebastian pinchos bars is that all of the food is presented on top of the bars and you just ask for platos and then help yourself to whatever you want. All the pinchos are the same price, we enjoyed seafood, patatas and of course jamon. My favorite however was the
The next morning, we officially checked in at our hostel. After we checked in, we walked around the old town and grabbed some more pinchos. Eventually, we decided to climb to the top of the tallest monument, a statue of Jesus Christ overlooking the whole city. The views from the top of the bay, beaches and buildings were spectacular! The rest of the day was spent relaxing on the beach before we got hungry.
After spending so much money on dinner the night before, we decided to eat on the cheap. We headed to a local supermarket and picked up some pasta and chorizo, salad , baguettes, cheese, sangria, and some nutella. We cooked our own dinner and had 4 courses for under 5 euros each. We met some Aussies while we were eating and convinced them to come out with us at night. We aren't generally going to join an organized pub-crawl, especially for a hostel so small, but we decided to go on this one since it was such a small town.
We started the night at a bar that I think the hostel workers also work at, but it was expensive. After that bar, we headed to the old town and found our own way with the Aussie girls and a few Norwegians. The sloppiness was a factor at this point of the night but eventually, we made it to another bar. We ended up at a bar called Be Bop which was supposed to be fun but really wasn't. Mike, drunk and unable to communicate in espanol almost got into a fight with a local, the anger was diffused by Pat and I and Around 5 am we headed home. We came back to the hostel kitchen and finished all of the nutella and some random loaf of bread. We also finished our cheese. Essentially, we finished anything we could.
The next morning once we got our stuff put down in the new hostel, we took a nap for a few hours. When we woke up around 4:30 pm, we went to the beach. It was pretty cloudy, so we didn't get a ton of rays, but enough to be ok. Pat and I swam out to the floating dock in the bay for some much needed exercise and diving. After 2 hours, we decided to walk along the boardwalk for the full 2 miles of the beach coast. We got to the end to some famous architectural pieces where the wind from the waves blows up through the rocks but the water doesn't. The photos from standing over these "blow holes" however were very humorous.
Eventually, we headed back to the hostel and finished our food from lunch, and then realized we were still hungry so we went back to the supermarket and spent a few more euro buying food, wine, and beer. We came back and ate and met some more Aussie girls. After we ate, we showered and met a new Canadian in our hostel room and then some different Aussie girls in another room. They all came out with us eventually. It turns out the Canadian girl didn't run with the bulls when she was in Pamplona, but she was there on the same day as us and actually was in the crowd in the stadium. We didn't bring our cameras because we didn't think we could, but our new roommate actually had pictures of us inside the stadium!
The night was spent with Pat and I attempting to dance/ pick up french girls, which brought us to a terrace bar overlooking the bay. A great place to enjoy the moonlight over the bay and the san sebastian nightlife. Pat and I wandered back to be bop only to again be underwhelmed. The french girls, had left us and we moved onto meet two fellow Americans from New York. Another wild night which ended far closer to sunrise than midnight.
In the morning we set out for Bilbao to catch a flight to the island of Ibiza. Bilbao is a very artsy place and we all enjoyed the guggenheim museum and some Doner Kebabs, as we prepared for what would be some of the most intense partying I've done. Next post... Ibiza
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