Espagna

Yesterday will probably go in the books as one of the best days I've ever had. It's not often that you have a day that is truly great start to finish.

Well the day started off with Alison, Kaelyn and I going for breakfast at a place called Regatta. Here they have this thing called Pinxtos, which is essentially a buffet of appetizer like things that you pick what you want and pay for individually. They have them at pretty much every bar, lounge and cafe. They're originally meant for people to have one or 2 with a drink to stave off hunger, or then move on to the next place and repeat. Either way, I don't have a clue what most of the things are, but they were delicious. We sat on the terrace and had a few different pieces of breakfast pinxtos each, had some tea and enjoyed the beautiful morning.

After that, we stopped at Fnac and I helped Kaelyn, who is from the States and just moved here to San Sebastian, get a cellphone, and we did a bit of shopping and browsing in some local shops. Found a beautiful scarf for 4,50. After this, Alison and I took a walk on one of the piers, stopped for a smoothie and met this awesome girl from Brazil, browsed the shops and bought myself a bracelet and Alison got a Chinese fan, and finally made it to the hiking trail at the base of Mount Urgull. We then went on a couple hour hike to the top of the Mount to where the statue is. It was amazing, so beautiful and so much history. On the way up we met a French family, stopped at the bar halfway up, met an Aussie working in the Middle East on vacation here, and found a tiny blue car that had somehow gotten to near the top.

After this, and a little siesta for Alison, we headed to La Concha beach, one of the 3 beautiful beaches just minutes away from our Hostel in Parte Vieja (Old Part) of San Sebastian. Amazing. Not only is it so beautiful and warm outside here, not only can you drink absolutely anywhere (and people do), but you are free to go completely topless on the beach if you want (and people also do). Probably about half the women on the beach were laying, walking around, and swimming topless. So I joined in too :)

After many hours of sunbathing topless, swimming in the ocean, catching waves, people watching, and enjoying the scenery, Alison, Kaelyn and I headed back to the hostels to get ready for supper. Alison and I found this Paellas Restaurant, and we were so hungry that we each finished an entire dish of the most amazing Paellas Valenciena I've ever had; along with a 10 euro pitcher of Sangria of course.

After a long and very interesting supper conversation we finally finished our pitcher and headed out to wander the streets. Parte Vieja is filled with bars, clubs, cafes, lounges, and terraces. We talked to a couple people handing out flyers, a few locals, and were eventually led to our first bar of the night. After a few rounds of free shots from the bartender and the man sitting next to me, we met a local who was going to Bilbao today to check out the festivals that are going on this week. Now, Alison had really wanted to go to Bilbao for these festivals, but hostels and transportation there were way too expensive, so we came to San Sebastian instead. So she was naturally overjoyed when he offered to bring us along to Bilbao today (we shall still see what comes of this).

At the next bar I met Simon from Munich, home of Oktoberfest, and we partied with him for a while, met and danced with a TON of people, talked to a group of French guys from Lille who were here for the night, and eventually I headed home "early" at about 3:30am. Apparently people here do not stop partying until at least 6am.

All in all, it was an amazing day. I love Spain. The Spanish I remember from 3 years ago is serving me well. And the best part is? This entire trip, start to finish, everything included, is costing me less than 300 euro :)