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| The beach in San Sebastian |
This weekend trip was, in reality, much more than a
weekend. We left on a Wednesday for this
particular excursion, which was a very welcome blessing after the strenuous
week of studying while simultaneously partying at El Rey León and the Medieval
Festival (I know, I have such a hard life).
So after only two days of classes, we were off to Northern Spain and the
world renowned Basque Country. As we
passed through the beloved city of Burgos and continued our way to the Northern
coast of Spain, I found myself absolutely unable to slip into my typical
iPod-induced sleepiness because the environment was becoming progressively
greener and more lush the further north that we traveled. It would have been simply ungrateful for me
to have slept on the ride up and forced my eyes to live in darkness rather than
beholding the wondrous greenery of Northern Spain. 
Our first stop was just outside of Santander at a beautiful
outlook point with a tragic historical significance. Hundreds of years ago at the very point that
we stood, 30,000 of Franco’s prisoners were all forced to jump off of the cliff
side and into the Cantabrian Sea, one after the other. A statue now stands there as a commemoration
to this tragic event in the history of Spain.
Shortly following this visit, we drove a little further down and visited
our first beach of Northern Spain. The
best comparison I can make between the beaches of Northern Spain and any other
beaches I have visited previously in my life is as follows: take the greenery
and lush surroundings of the East coast of the United States, double it, and
throw in some beautiful Basque red and off-white architecture with a dash of
European class. Then you might come
somewhat close to picturing exactly how beautiful and how surreal it was for me
as I wiggled my toes into the sand of this beach in Santander, the first of
many beaches we frolicked on this excursion.
When we could no longer stand the amount of fierce and
relentless wind, we boarded the bus and headed out for a bit of leisurely
shopping as we waited for the Cathedral to open for our viewing. I finally
encountered the perfect pair of European, charcoal grey boots I had been in
search of for so long without having to pay an arm and a leg for them, which is
one of the largest conundrums I have experienced with European shopping. There are always plenty of cute shoes, clothes, jackets, hats, and just about
anything in any store you walk into, but as a broke college student it is much
harder to find anything that would fall under the category of “bargain
shopping.” That being said, these shoes
were quite the find, and I left the city of Santander with my head held high
and the triumphant burden of a new shopping bag in my right hand.
Once we arrived at our hotel in Bilbao for the night, we
discovered that this hotel had a fitness center located on the top floor with
an outdoor turf area that spread out onto the roof. We did some squats, push-ups, lunges, and
other exercises as a group and I topped it off with some much needed cardio on
the stationary bike. After freshening
up, we left in pursuit of a late night dinner, and Hope and I decided to
splurge on a four course Asian meal. At
first I felt a little guilty eating Asian food in Spain, but this was no Panda
Express. My four courses of choice were
as follows: shrimp tempura, fried rice with fresh vegetables and beef, squid
smothered in some sort of buttery heaven sauce, and some tropical fruit for
dessert. That meal was absolutely worth
every Euro we paid for it.
Due to the generosity of our new directors and their
profound understanding of the need that college students have to sleep in as
long as possible, we left at about 10:00 to tour the Guggenheim Museum. I must say that I prefer the Guggenheim to
the Reina Sofia. I have always been more
of a realist when it comes to art, so the Prado is still my favorite, but the
Guggenheim was filled with much more interactive and creative art without
becoming too bizarre and bordering on nonsense like some of the pieces in the Reina
Sofia. The most celebrated aspects of
the Guggenheim are not the works within the walls of the museum, but rather the
walls of the building itself. It has
been said that the architect of the Guggenheim simply crumbled up a piece of
aluminum foil for his inspiration, then proceeded to make a building imitating
this wad of shiny material on a much grander scale. There are also many three dimensional
masterpieces surrounding the building, including a giant dog made of flowers
and a huge metallic spider. Although I
am terrified of spiders, I have a huge amount of respect for whoever created
this statue made of intertwining pieces of metal. After our fulfilling museum visit we were on
the road again and stopped in Zarautz for lunch, where Sarah and I shared a Doner
kebab filled with lamb and then proceeded to take a romantic stroll on our
second Spanish beach of the trip with the rest of our group.  |
| Me and my friend Evelyn running into the ocean |
Next up was what I now consider one of my favorite cities of
all time: San Sebastian. Although it was
drizzling and rainy during our entire stay in this beach town, nothing could
put a damper on the charm and cheery atmosphere of this European city. A lot of girls in the group set strait out to
go swimming in the ocean, and I went out with Mary, Evelyn, and Maddie with the
intention of going out to tapas bars and later swimming in the ocean. However, our plans changed. The call of the ocean was just too strong, so
Evelyn and I decided to swim before we went out on the town and then just slip
our clothes on over our wet clothes after our little swim. Unfortunately, a few mishaps occurred. First, after our lovely Kodak moment of
running into the ocean, we were immediately taken down by the wave and thrown around a bit, almost losing some
articles of clothing in the process. As
we emerged from the ocean shivering and sandy, we witnessed the rising tide as
it approached the spot where all of our extra clothing and belongings were
situated, unable to save our jeans and jackets from getting a little damp. With the small, and now rather damp, hand
towels we had snatched from the hotel, we dried off as best as we could,
fluffed out hair, and we were off to conquer the famous tapas bars of the
North.
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| From the bottom left going clockwise: mushroom, shark, and kangaroo |
As I have stated in past blog posts, I have already been to
my fair share of tapas bars. However,
before this last Thursday night in San Sebastian, I had not yet gone tapas bar hopping.
Tapas bar hopping is basically exactly what it sounds like; starting at
one tapas bar, ordering a few small things, and moving on to the next one. At the first tapas bar, I ate brucheta de
gambas (shrimp bruchetta), coquetas de jamón (small mozzarella stick looking
things filled with ground up ham, cream, and other mysterious ingredients), and
una bola de carne (something filled with yummy meat). We stood the entire time, because nobody
stays at these tapas bars long enough to sit and be served, and when we wanted
something we would simply approach the bar and ask nicely. Whenever our tapas were ready, the cook would
scream out the food item we had ordered and finish the phrase off with “…para
la guapa!” in reference to any of the four of us. We have grown quite accustomed to the cat
calls that we hear directed at us on a daily basis by the nasty hobos and old
men on the streets, but when the men at this tapas bar called us “guapas” it
was far more endearing. At the next
tapas bar, we got a little more adventurous with our food choices. I ate some sort of mushroom dish encased
within a cylindrical croissant and a canguro con dos salsas, or rather kangaroo with two sauces, one of which
was a very rich and elegant raspberry glaze.
I am not ashamed to say that kangaroo meat was one of the best meats I
have tried since coming to Spain. This
rare meat had the appearance and thickness of a medium-rare New York steak, but
upon cutting into it was surprisingly tender.
The rich flavor of the kangaroo meat paired with the raspberry glaze
consumed simultaneously with the boiled and butter soaked potatoes that came
with the dish was absolutely mind blowing.
On top of that, I also got to try a little bit of the shark that Mary
ordered, making for a very interesting day full of new meats and new
foods.
The next day, we left the now familiar surroundings of San
Sebastian to embark on our day trip to FRANCE.
Yes, France. I still find it hard to believe that
crossing the border from Spain into France was as simple as driving up on our
bus, waiting in a line of cars for a couple minutes, and then passing
through. We didn’t even need to whip out
our passports! No wonder Europeans
travel around so much if things are really that simple. Only a few minutes after crossing the border,
I could already observe a clear change in the architecture. We would not be going through some slow
transition from Spanish style buildings into French; we were really in France, and the proper
architecture with the red accents screamed it at us. We first got off of the bus in the small
beach town of Berraritz, famous for the royal palace where Napoleon and his
lovely Spanish wife spent countless summers so long ago. This palace is now a five star hotel, and we
walked inside we could smell the
luxury and the wealth of the building and all of the guests within. I was wearing a sopping wet BYU sweatshirt,
feeling extremely American and extremely out of place, so we didn’t stay for
long. As everyone in the group wandered
around in smaller groups doing their own thing, and Hope and I happened upon a
small locally owned crepe place. If you
have ever pictured yourself drinking out of an elaborately decorated teacup
chatting nonchalantly in French with a few a your friends, this would have been
the place that your dream played out. We
experienced a lot of confusion of trying to communicate what crepes we wanted
to the French husband that co-owned the place with his darling wife, not
knowing whether the probability was higher that he knew Spanish or that he knew
English. In the end, we just pointed to
the menu items that we wanted and made enough gestures with our eyes and hands
for him to figure out how he could help us out.
After about twenty minutes, our crepes were simultaneously brought out
to our small two-person table, and as we took our first bites, our expressions
went through various phases of awe and bewilderment as the sweet flavors of the
crepes danced on our tongues. My crepe
was filled with a buttery caramel with clusters of almonds to complement the
richness of the rest of the crepe, and I am not exaggerating when I label that
particular crepe as the best crepe I have consumed in my entire life.  |
| Le Port de San Jean de Luz |
An hour or so later, we were back on the bus, driving along
the French coast and taking the more scenic and leisurely route back to San
Sebastian. We stopped in one more town
before crossing the border back into Spain, a French town by the name of San
Jean de Luz, where we snapped countless pictures of the ships and fishing boats
in the port and poked around a few shops, inserting a friendly bounjeur,
arvioe, and merci as often as we could, especially since we had no idea how to
say anything else. Soaking wet from the
constant rain but nonetheless very satisfied with the day’s events, we returned
to our hotel in San Sebastian, cozied up in our pajamas, and ordered some
Telepizza to eat in our hotel room.
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| A taste of French architecture |
This morning we stopped at one last lookout point before
saying adios to our beloved San
Sebastian, and as I looked over the city, my heart was filled with nothing but
triumph and pleasure as I reviewed the memories that I had made over the past
few days with some of the most incredible girls I have ever had the opportunity
to call my friends. Although we only
left the Basque country earlier today, my heart already aches for the sight of
the ocean and the greenery of Northern Spain.
Whatever it takes, I will return to San Sebastian, of that I am
sure.
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