Great Weekend in San Sebastián and Bilbao!

Right now I have the choice between writing my blog in Spanish for my class in Oviedo... Or writing my fun blog in English... I think it's pretty apparent which one I am choosing. My weekend can simply summed up into one word: "wow." Wow what an incredible weekend. San Sebastián and the Guggenheim in Bilbao were definitely highlights from my trip so far.

The weekend started when I walked to the bus station on Friday afternoon to prepare for our departure to San Sebastián that afternoon. Of course I was there about 45 minutes early when realistically I could have arrived about 10 minutes early and would have been just fine but... knowing me and more importantly knowing the bus strike that was going on at the time I figured I would be better safe than sorry. Once I got to the bus station I realized that none of the boards were lit up to tell you which platform your bus would be on... At this point I realized that I would have to struggle through yet another conversation with someone at the bus station in Spanish. I walked inside and saw that every platform was filled with a bus but as far as I could tell there weren't any bus drivers and no one seemed to be getting on the buses. I had checked the night before to see if our buses were still going but of course me being me I jumped to conclusions and thought we were going to be stranded in Oviedo and would not only miss out on our weekend in San Sebastián but that I would also be out the money that we spent for a hostel. After reaching these conclusions I decided I needed to go ask someone what was going on and where my bus was (assuming there still was one). I saw that the line had about 20 people in it and only one person working behind the counter. As I'm waiting in line I am adding everything up in my head: the board isn't lit up, there are no bus drivers, there are too many buses, the line is so long even if I do finally get the chance to talk to the one person working at the entire bus station I would probably miss the bus if it was in fact still going.... and finally... I am going to die in Oviedo. To make matters worse this man in line in front of me started talking to me and he said "no hay autobuses hoy" I couldn't tell if he was asking me if there weren't any buses that day or if he was telling me that there weren't any buses that day but regardless I freaked out even more. After talking to him for a few minutes I found out that he was an "extranjero" (tourist) as well. My friends also showed up eventually and it turned out that our bus was in fact still scheduled to go to San Sebastián that day. Because of the shortage of buses it took us about 6 hours to get there because we had to make what seemed like forty five stops on our way to there.

Despite the minor heart attack the bus ride was incredibly peaceful and beautiful. We followed the ocean most of the way there. Northern Spain is unique in the fact that they have many green mountains and once you get to the coast these mountains drop straight off into the ocean which makes for some really beautiful scenery. On top of that they also have the most pristine white sand beaches to sit on and enjoy the views. My friends and I really look forward to bus rides because they are some of the few precious moments where we aren't rushing from place to place trying to figure out how to stay alive and we can just sit back and enjoy some cherished American music. Even though I complained about the fact that we made fifteen million stops on our way to San Sebastián I actually really enjoyed it because it gave me a glimpse of even more small Spanish towns every single one containing at least one pretty church we could see from the bus.

Once we finally got to San Sebastián our next quest was finding our hostel. I had the name of the hostel and the street name and general location of where it was but that was it. The hostel was located in the old part of town which has very small, narrow, curvy, confusing, streets that are almost impossible to navigate rationally. We wandered down the main road through the town which was right next to this big river that is formed by the ocean and divides the town into two. The lamposts that lined the bridges along the road reflected off the dark water which was really pretty. There were also several statues that were quite impressive at night as well. Just walking down the street, even at night, I knew immediately that I would love this town. It is a classic European town and every time you picture what Europe would look like that stereotype would fit San Sebastián. The cobble stone roads lined with tall trees and the most beautiful historic architecture I have seen thus far. Once we got off this main road and started attempting to navigate the small paths that lead to our hostel (I say path because they basically were... no cars allowed and filled with people). We ran into many interesting characters in our journey to our hostel and most of them would begin to speak to us in Spanish and then by the looks on our faces would quickly turn to English asking us if we wanted to go to the bars with them... I was so shocked by the number of people that tried to hit on us in the five minutes it took us to find our hostel (we were determined to find it quickly to escape the drunken fools chasing us through the streets). Despite all of this trauma at first it was really funny to look back on and in fact I have a really funny story as an example of how dumbfounded I was by the forwardness of these boys on the street.

As we were walking down the street a kid on a bike rode up next to me and either because he was drunk or because he was too busy staring at me instead of the road a head of him almost kept running me over.. Regardless this is how the conversation went
boy: "hey girl what is your name?
me: jaw drops continued with a long awkward pause
boy: tried some other combination of words thinking I didn't understand him
me: long long pause followed by a faint... "Jaime??"
at this I walk quickly away from him and my friend Becca looks over at me and says... "Jaime? Of all the names Liv really??" and at this we all burst out laughing... this exchange with the incredibly drunk boy quickly became a highlight of the weekend. It's not that I am not used to getting creeped on because I definitely am... I think it was just a combination of stepping off the bus in a new strange city and being approached by millions of drunk kids while trying to find where we were going to sleep for the night was just all too overwhelming. I was not expecting boys to be crawling out of the woodwork (bars) and yelling at us on the street so I was completely shocked. It was really funny to look back on now because whenever someone yelled at us "Hey where's the party?!" we all just stared back at them with our jaws dropped... what I sight we must have been that first night.

Once we successfully arrived at our hostel it was time for some rest before our big morning. I was really excited to see what San Sebastián would look like during the day because I was already quite impressed with it in the dark. Our hostel was actually quite pleasant and they had a kitchen with breakfast in the morning but most importantly they had coffee!

After enjoying a lovely breakfast we went out in search of Bocadillos... Earlier on our trip I finally figured out a good way to eat good food and save money, it is by buying what is called a bocadillo. You have to be careful though because they have bocadillos everywhere and some cost a lot more than others. Bocadillos is basically the word in Spain for sandwich so of course there are all different shapes, sizes, and types of bocadillos. One afternoon when we were in a city north of Oviedo called Gijón I walked into this little tiny fruit store in search of something to eat. I saw a small paper sign that said "Bocadillos de Jamon" (ham sandwich) I asked how much it was and ordered one. The lady grabbed some fresh baked bread and loaded my sandwich with a lot of freshly sliced jamon and queso. The ham in Oviedo is very delicious and doesn't taste or look like it does in the United States. It looks more like pastrami and has a very mild but delicious flavor. When you order "jamon" the butcher grabs an entire pig leg (yes hoof still intact) and they slice some meet off of the leg. After I found this grand bocadillo in Gijón I've been searching for them everywhere we go. In San Sebastián we ran into many cafes that claimed to have bocadillos but they were about four euros for the size of a roll. The trick to finding cheap and filling bocadillos is to not look in a cafe but rather a small fruit stand like store. Eventually we found this very small fruit stand and squished our way to the back of the store and asked the lady if she had bocadillos. She was very kind and made us delicious sandwiches. We grabbed some fruit as well and headed to the beach.

The beaches in San Sebastián are some of the best beaches I have ever seen. In the summer (July and August) San Sebastián is packed with tourists but thankfully we haven't reached tourist season yet and we were basically alone on these pristine beaches. We were probably also alone because it was mostly cloudy all day and we had to wear our jackets most of the time. Sometimes we also had to run for cover when it started raining. Some might have been disappointed in this weather but to me it made the beaches and the ocean even prettier! I was also happy because I was able to take much better photos when it wasn't blazing sunlight.

After enjoying our bocadillos and avoiding the rain we decided to walk around the city and visit several shops. There are two beautiful cathedrals in San Sebastián as well. There are many beautiful historic buildings that line the beaches which was truly the best of both worlds.. I could sit on the beach and enjoy the rich history all at the same time.

Later in the afternoon we decided to go to the other beach in which isn't protected in a cove like the other beach we had visited earlier so the waves were much bigger... In fact these were some of the biggest waves I have ever seen. I was thankful to be observing them from the shore rather than first hand. Not only were they massive but they crashed one after another pretty consistently. This beach is considered to be one of the best surfing beaches in Europe and now I could see why.

Later that evening we decided to be adventurous and seek out some authentic food for dinner. I have to say eating out is not one of my favorite things to do in Spain... I never get full from the portions and everything is always incredibly overpriced. Not to mention I never understand the menus, although sometimes it's kinda fun not knowing what you are ordering. To make matters worse in the restaurants in San Sebastián is that most of the menus at the restaurants there aren't in Spanish but in Basque with a lot of x's and k's... I had no idea how to even begin pronouncing most of the things I was trying to read. We ended up at a restaurant with food already out on the bar which I found helpful and I just pointed at random things and ordered them. At first Becca and I weren't feeling very adventurous so we ordered the familiar "tortilla" (the egg and potato omelette type thing). After that I ended up ordering us a fried crepe with cheese and salmon in it which was delicious! We also ordered some risotto which was also good. Once again we paid about ten euros and were still starving once we left the restaurant. We decided we just needed to stick to our bocadillos and gelato in order to stay within our budget.

The two beaches in San Sebastián come together to form a point in the middle which is where you can find the old part of town. This point is also a small mountain with a statue of Christ at the top. It is incredibly green so we decided to walk up the path and check things out. Turns out there was an old castle nestled within the trees on this mountain with the Christ statue on top. At the top we had a view of both beaches and the entire city. The statues and parts of the castle were covered in moss and flowers. I felt like I was living in a fairy tale!

Once we left San Sebastián we headed for Bilbao for the night so we could wake up early and visit the Guggenheim museum. Bilbao was a dramatic change from San Sebastián. It's an incredibly dirty and depressed city. We walked by a park that I'm pretty sure has turned into the town dump. It was really sad somewhat gross to see. Let's just say we were glad to check into our hotel and go to sleep so we could wake up early to get to the museum. Becca and I woke up at 6 am in order to get ready and check out of the hotel and make our way to the museum before it opened at 10 am. Granted we had given ourselves probably about three hours to many to accomplish all of this but we were too excited to sleep. In the morning we attempted to find some food but the streets were absolutely dead... at 8 am... on a Sunday... It got so bad that we actually ended up back at the bus station and ordered food at the run down restaurant there. We ended up paying almost ten euros each for a mediocre breakfast but hey that's life. I got some coffee and that was all that mattered.

Because Bilbao is such an undesirable city we headed back to the Guggenheim as quickly as possible. It still confuses me why such an amazing building ended up in Bilbao but I'm not going to question it. Outside of the museum there is a giant statue of a dog made completely out of flowers which we thought was really cute. They love dogs in Spain so I had to wonder if that was the reason for this giant statue. Becca and I of course were the first ones in line (just like at the Prado in Madrid). We sat and anxiously waited for the security guard to unlock the doors.

The inside of the Guggenheim is just as impressive as the outside. When we bought our admission tickets they gave us free audio guides in English as well. I really enjoyed the audio guides and felt like I had an insight to some paintings and artists that I otherwise wouldn't have had. I learned that an important part of the Guggenheim is intertwining art with architecture and I can tell you they did a superb job of doing so. What made the Guggenheim even more exciting was the fact that they were having a huge David Hockney exhibition at the time. If you aren't familiar with David Hockney I strongly suggest you look up his work online. He is one impressive artist. Becca and I spent a good five hours at the Guggenheim looking at absolutely everything. The nice thing about the museum is because architecture is so important to them there is just as much to see of that as there is actual art. I didn't feel overwhelmed with room after room after room of paintings and paintings and paintings. The rooms were manageable and well planned out so you could easily walk through everything without feeling overwhelmed. We weren't allowed to take pictures once again but when the security guard wasn't looking I snapped a photo on my phone of David Hockney's huge painting of the Grand Canyon (which I will include in my blog).

After we finished our time at the museum we made another attempt to find some food and ended up finding some delicious tortilla sandwiches. We also attempted to find a grocery store because we would need to buy some food to eat dinner on the bus but of course this was once again another food crisis. Bilbao is the fourth biggest city in Spain and by God we couldn't find a grocery store to save our lives. The streets were absolutely dead (even for a Sunday) and eventually we came across this... convenience store.. deli place where we found some potato salad, rice pudding, yogurt, and sandwiches. I was so thankful for this random place... It saved my life.

The bus ride home was once again a very enjoyable experience and I had WiFi on the bus so I was able to send some messages and pictures home to my family so they could see how my weekend went.

I apologize it has taken me so long to post this! As you can see I have quite a lot to say about my fantastic weekend. Things are getting more crazy around here as we begin to wrap up our studies and begin preparing for our post program travels. Next Friday is my last day of class in Oviedo and then we will be heading back to Madrid to fly to Paris and then onto Rome. I am sad that Oviedo is coming to an end but there are still adventures to be had! I will do my best to keep my blog updated on these adventures!