San Sebastian

Oh how I loved this place! Finally a place to relax, enjoy some delicious food, good wine and drinks and not have to worry too much about sight seeing. San Sebastian had enough to look at and do but it wasn't overwhelming like a few of the other places we have visited recently.

We were here again with a few mates we made in the greek islands and also spent a bit of time with in Madrid. There was Rob, Cam, his girlfriend Tara and Amanda, Tara's cousin. Most of the time here it was the 6 of us hanging out and doing our thing around town.

We got to our accommodation and were told that the night before our room had been flooded from the storm. Now being in a town known for its beaches and surf, we were devastated to here that the weather was pretty ordinary. We were shipped over to another place where a lovely old lady by the name of Kati ran and owned the unit/apartment. I am not sure what to classify it as because it felt like we were living in someones house, literally like the study or something which had a few bunks shoved in there. I didn't mind it had a nice homely feel to it. Kati did not speak English but she did her best to give us it ins and outs, the do's and don'ts of the place. Most of the time we did not understand and just nodded our heads :p.

The first night in the town we headed out with the busabout crew. Planned was a tapas crawl and let me tell you what, it was bloody delicious. San Sebastian is apparently one of the worlds culinary capitals. As soon as I heard this, I felt a jolt of excitement because I knew we were in for a treat and wow did we get to try some delicious local specialties and traditions.

The first night we went to a great little pintxos bar. A little background information, San Sebastian is part of the basque region, here they do not necessarily consider themselves Spanish. It is kind of like Barcelona having the Spanish and the Catalonians. Spain seems to have these regions or areas which consider themselves separate entities, this is all brought upon by past wars and dark periods, please don't quote me but from my memory it is something along those lines. So what I was getting at, in Barcelona, Marid etc. you get tapas bars and in the basque region you get pintxos. Now the one specialty we tried, which I absolutely loved, was the Carrilleros Guisadas, which was small serving of cows cheek with a dollop of mash potato served with a delicious rich thick gravy sauce. Now I know what you must be thinking, cows cheek bleugh really?? But it hit a spot which hasn't been filled for a long time. The meat was juicy and tender, much like the texture you would find from an osso bucco type stew. The first bite I took I got really excited really quickly, finally a decent serving of meat with an amazing gravy!!At this same place there were a few other things I tried, one being a wild card pick from the menu, it was called Basatxerri con salsa piquillos. Im not sure if this was beef or lamb bit it was similar to the Carrilleros just with a tougher steak like texture - YUM! We also tried the croquettes which are crumbed balls of mash potato and a couple other standard type pinxtos. On the other hand there was the local specialty - cider and calimuchos! The cider you order and it comes in a champagne type bottle. The way the locals do it here is you only pour about just less than a quarter of a glass at a time but you pour it from a height to aerate it! Seriously from like a .5m to a metre and don't worry if it spills anywhere, that is all part of the fun. I honestly love the Spanish, they have crazy traditions and festivals, they are alive and passionate, creative and just totally different really! Now calimuchos is a drink and a lot of you may turn your nose up to this as I certainly did as well, but you are here and you have to get into the local traditions. It is red wine and coke, nothing else. My initial thought was well if I'm drinking lots of cheap red wine I'm going to wake up with an almighty headache and if it is wine which is any good I really don't want to be wasting it mixing it with coke. Never the less I let it go and enjoyed the night drinking cider and calimuchos.

The next bar we went to specialised in seafood, after a few rounds at the last joint we were fairly full anyway but decided to get 2 of the recommended dishes a try. These were mussels served with a creamy tomato type sauce and calamari with different mayonnaise type sauce - both were delicious but did not compare to the beef!

Day 2 we woke up and it was raining, how disappointing you might think, ahh we can't do much today. Well we gave that thought the finger, threw on our joggers, grabbed a map and our cameras and decided to see the town on foot. Our lack of routine, poor sleeping patterns and over indulgence over the last month and a bit, has led to a little more chub around the mid region. We jogged around town taking photos, wiping lenses on anything dry we could find, our tops and tops of strangers on the street who willingly lent us a patch of scarf or shirt. We probably just looked like the two crazy blokes from Australia but we made the most of the day and took some good shots of the town and its sights. From there Ross and I parted.

Ross went for a surf and I went with Cam, Rob, Tara and Amanda to the aquarium. It was really just like most other aquariums, it was enjoyable and a few models of battle and fishing ships used back in the day, a few jars fish found in the deep deep oceans, and some enclosures which housed star fish, sharks, turtles, eels and various fish etc. Now the subject of gargoyling was introduced to me on this trip and a few of our mates we had met through the greek islands had gargoyle in some pretty interesting locations. Gargoyling involves stripping down to nothing getting down on one knee and posing as a gargoyle. Rob had to dare me and talk me into performing this manoeuvre within the aquarium. We would have loved to do it near a tank, that would have been the ultimate but it was way to risky, I'm not that ballsy, no pun intended. Instead we found a quiet exhibition with a long passage way leading to it, found a spot in the corner where the cameras wouldn't catch us and sat and waited for the room to clear and the passage to be free. Tara spotted the hallway and we quickly got the shot we were looking for. By no means would I do this back home, but this is a holiday and moments like this will be times I will remember and stories I can share :P. We headed home after that little bit of excitement as that night Ross and I had a tour booked to visit the Cider House.

I don't know how but we managed to get 10 euro off the market price!! 18 euro for 5 courses and unlimited cider with the added bonus of a few new friends, great value. The cider house was well worth it. Inside they had 3 separate rooms of big barrels of cider. Each room nurtured the barrels to a different temperature, starting from roughly 10 degrees and getting colder. Throughout the night we were able to walk up and pour straight from the barrels, check out our pictures for examples. Your glass is positioned about 1.5 -2m away from the valve and it was a lot of fun doing this in large groups. We no doubt and very unsurprisingly got a little silly after getting a few too many glasses into us and where we once used our glasses to drink out of, being relatively civilized, we resorted to using our mouths. Yes you can imagine a stream of cider pouring out at you, you being a little bit tipsy / bordering on drunk with 30 other people alongside you, attempting to continuously drink as a group from this never ending stream of cider, it undoubtedly ended up in and on more places than just our mouths haha :P On the topic of food, well this was excellent and I love the idea. We all sat on long large benches of say 12 -16 people, were grouped into 4's and were served share plates. This is great because everyone tries or does not try to be polite, there are awkward moments when 2 or more go for the same piece of food but in the end, it is a fantastic way to meet and interact with total strangers. We had so much fun at the table. The bits of the menu I can remember included; Spanish omelette served with like sliced French bread, a whole fish of Hake in a garlic buttery type sauce, a very large thick cut of steak in a simple salt and pepper seasoning - so delicious because of how well it was cooked, another dish was cheese with couple sides and I can't remember the last. All I know is that it was a great night, delicious food and drink, memorable moments haha like learning to crack walnuts with your hands and forehead by crazy Texas-ians, haha there you go nuts were the last serving. A thoroughly enjoyable and memorable night!

We then went out with a few new friends to a couple bars. We carried on talking to a few girls in one of the bars where the topic of gargoyling poped up, now having a few drinks under the belt and trying to be hilarious, thought what better way to show someone what gargoyling is, by gargoyling. So wearing the cider coat of no shame I dived into the ladies toilets, picked out a cubical, undress and ran back out, climbed over a rail to get onto a podium type platform, gorgoyled, had someone take the picture and ran back into the toilet and locked the door. As I was getting dress I heard a load knock at the door and I just ignored it until it went away haha. As I came back down I had a light warning by the bar staff and was able to continue the night, occasionally getting a couple high fives from the locals who thought it was hilarious. The night finished with a detour to the small casino, where earlier that night Cam had won 200 euro, I managed to lose a mere 5 euro and decided to leave, and from walked the ladies back to their hostel. We sat in the Hostel stairway until 6:30am talking rubbish, Hayley had a cab to catch to the airport and Melissa was heading off in the afternoon.

Day 3 was a slow start and our group of 6 just headed off to the beach to catch some sun, work on our tans considering it was the last beachy stop for the trip and to generally just relax. There was a pontoon out in the middle of the cove which had a diving board and slide on it which we obviously had to swim out to and try. Tara got straight up and impressively nailed a backflip! A few guys did some dives and I did one backflip. The group has this line we use to dare each other to do things all the time, the same line used on me in the aquarium, for example as Rob said to me on the pontoon, "you won't double backflip off that diving board". As silly as I am I agreed to try a backflip and a half which ended in an almighty slap and a lot of pain when I back flopped on entering the water…Ouch!!

We really just relaxed for the rest of the day, Ross and I went and bought a new backpack each. Ross also purchased a new pair of shoes to replace his last tomato infused pair of vans which he kindly left back in Madrid.

For dinner Cam and Tara had a recommendation from a family member to head out to another little pintxos bar. This place was just as good as my favourite one from the first night, may be even better. Here they served the local specialty of chows cheek as well, it was just as delicious and may be even more tender. I also had beef shoulder which was recommended, the duck with a plum puree and pork which were stand outs browsing from the menu. I also tried a couple wild cards looking up on the chefs specials board, I had a squid in this green herby looking and garlic tasting sauce, beautifully cooked scallops and another pork type dish. This was our last night in Spain and I did not want to leave without a decent reminder of what great food these people truly have. I tried all this alongside a couple glasses of red, which I have been craving for a while now, I have been drinking too many cocktails, beers, ciders, sangrias and calimuchos and the wine cravings were coming on strong. Just before we left I saw a dish come out which was crispy goats cheese, well I think the crispy was actually a thin toffee lid which was placed on top of the goats, cheese served with a side of plum puree, it was delicious :D and I shared it around with the others because it was that good I didn't want them to leave without having a taste! Ross enjoyed it so much be bought one himself!

We went back to our place after a long struggle trying to hunt down a store to purchase a few quiet drinks from. They were all closed so we went back to the hostels honesty fridge purchased some passion pop bleugh (we only drank half a bottle of the 3 we had purchased), the receptionist gave us a ¾ full bottle of white rum. The only place really to go was mc donalds to grab the mixers. From here we headed up to our accommodation where we had a small little balcony. We shared a few photos from the trip and a couple more stories and at 12 called it quites. Hopefully we get to see them all along the way again before they head back home. We really made some good friends out of this lot and will definitely be catching up with them back home.

Day 4 we had to get up early and catch the bus to head over to Tours in France. Here we say goodbye to Spain for the rest of our trip!

Spain has been an amazing place to visit. I really had no prior knowledge on spain, I didn't know that this is the home of chupa chups - yes it shocked me to :p haha. But I love the culture, the language, the passion, the food, wine, traditional drinks, atmosphere, the bars and clubs, the markets, the history, the incredible art and architecture, clothing, shopping, busketiers, their rebellious ways towards the law, just the general vibe of spain blew me away and it has left me wanting more. One day I will return to soak up that little bit more, may be trek down to the south of Spain and see what suprises are hiding down that way. Here we have missed out on seeing a bullfight, a gruesome thing to watch I'm sure but it will be an experience non the less, as well as a football game - a place were im sure you will experience the Spanish passion at it's peak, but I am happy with this because it leaves me something to come back to, something new to experience on day in the future. Thank you Spain you have been an eye opener and I have had an absolute blast experiencing a little of all you have to offer!

-Ryan