Thursday, February 01, 2007

San Sebastian

I started writing this last week...

I had a fabulous Sunday. I woke up late after a night out with some of Kim´s government friends. Great folks. I understood so much of the conversation at dinner, I was shocked at myself. And, a gal named Mercedes and I talked about old American movies for a long time... in Spanish baby, yeah. Eres muy buena Darby!

So, Sunday, we headed to San Sebastian and spent the day. They are famous for their pinchos, so we got there around 2:30 and hit the bars. The pinchos, basically fancy little snacks, are laid out across the bars and you just take what you want to eat and tell them how many you had after and pay.

They have two typical drinks there, Chacolí and Sidra. I think the Sidra tastes like olive juice and isn´t terrible. I looooooove the chacolí though. Depending on the pincho you choose, either could be great.

I´m trying to remember all the snacks we had... there were lots of slices of baguette with various fish salads on them, hot peppers with anchovis and olives on a toothpick, hushpuppies stuffed with different meat mixtures, octopus, pork and beef scewers and tiny tiny desserts that came with the tastiest little baked apple thing. It was quite an experience. Here´s a shot of me standing at one of the bars. For some reason I looked faded, but I swear, this time, I wasn´t...
Now, some pictures I took after our bellies were about to pop... this is a gazebo in town that I liked. I think making sure the purple flowers were in the shot really makes it pop, don´t you?
Here are a few of the coastline along the Bay of Biscay...
Gorgeous huh? We caught it on a grey day and I still thought it was beautiful. I´m going back this summer for sure! Here´s a shot of the city´s saint. A huge statue of Hay-soos watching over from a hilltop...
Here´s me fishing with some pros on the beach. Can´t you tell i´ve done this before? Once...
Here´s me again (wow I´m egocentric) in front of a gaggle of boats... can you imagine how pretty it would be in the summer? Well, I´ll let you know when I come back...
These little geisers you see shooting out of the ground are from the sea. There are 7 holes in the stone boardwalk (stone boardwalk, I know) and they sort of give the water a little air and a fun spritz for anyone who walks by at an opportune moment...
We also checked out a men´s professional basketball game. It was neat to see the stadium and the differences between fans here and at home. Here´s a shot from our seats...

This was way before the game even started. It was packed by gametime. It was interesting that Iñaki thought these were terrible seats because at home at a pro game, these are pretty good. I´d say the skill level was about that of a D2 college team, lower level D1.

Sorry this is mostly pictures, but I´m not my usual fast talkin´self with this damn bug in my bod. I hope you enjoyed the slide show anyway.