So before posting about my trip in Spain, I figured I should probably at least sum up how it came to be. So where to start with the events of the last week that has led me to be here in Spain...
Well first of all, Tom left for India for an international conference on Thursday and will be gone until September 3rd. So to avoid spending 2 weeks alone in our apartment, I had thought about taking a trip somewhere. Because Tom works for an organization that deals with internships, coming and going, we end up having a lot of people stay at our place. One of the girls, Christina, invited me to go with her and a few friends to Morocco. This looked like the plan for a while, until I got more details and realized it would be costing upwards of 800 euro. So after canceling on that plan I started browsing internet sites for a travel buddy to go somewhere. Tuesday evening I ended up finding travelbuddy.com where Alison, currently living in London, and I ended up finding each other. By Thursday night she was on my couch in Brussels and we were looking for plane/train/bus tickets to Spain. Friday morning we found a cheap bus ticket and a good deal on a hostel in San Sebastian and planned to head out Saturday.
Alison is one of those people who are really truly remarkable. We both believe that we were clearly meant to meet and were sent to each other. She is so easy-going, fun, loving, free-spirit that believes in Karma and positive energy. She is exactly what I needed.
So having the day in Brussels, Friday Julija and I showed Alison the city and did some shopping. I finally took my camera with me and got some pictures of Brussels that I will post soon :) Then, Saturday at 1pm Alison and I headed to Gare du Nord to catch our Euroline bus for the 14 hour bus ride to Spain. Now, a 14 hour bus ride does sound daunting, but it actually went by really quickly and was fairly good; up until about 1am when we tried to fall asleep.
To make a long story short, the bus driver was incompetent and we lost 2 hours at the start when he had to go back to Brussels because he forgot people. Then in Paris, we almost didn't get let back on the bus by a new Spanish driver who didn't speak a word of English of French. THEN Alison almost got left behind because she ran in to get things she forgot on the counter in the terminal. Literally, I had to run up and plead with the bus driver to stop and let her in as he was backing out and she was running up to the bus. Seriously, I'm starting to think that the Universe just does not want me in Paris. Every experience has been a head-ache.
After this it was pretty good. Got many pictures of the French country-side, which looks astonishingly like Saskatchewan but with more trees and windmills. Then after 5 hours of very uncomfortable and restless not sleeping, we finally arrived at San Sebastian about 5:30am. After making the 20 minute walk to our Hostel, we discovered that it was actually 5:30 in the morning on a Saturday night (Sunday morning), the last Saturday night of a week long festival. So the streets near our hostel were jam packed with people. Sooo many drunk people. To make things even better, our room wouldn't be ready until noon, not the 7am we expected. However, the extremely nice Front Desk guy let us crash on this loveseat on the top floor until our room was ready. However, it was extremely humid and hot and stuffy, so we had to open the doors to the terrace. But, the terrace overlooked the street, which was packed with people partying. AND we were 2 people on a tiny loveseat. Needless to say, after hours of laying there listing to people outside, and then listening to the huge loud cleaning truck, our room was finally ready at about 11am.
After all of this however, we were finally in Spain, with a room and beds to sleep on :). So we made the most of our day by wandering the streets, seeing monuments, trying out some food, pastries and teas at local restaurants, planning the next few days, meeting people, and relaxing on a terrace by one of the beaches with a pitcher of Sangria.
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