day 6 - Donostia San Sebastian

day 6

After a sleepless night, i got out of bed 30 minutes earlier that the arrival time, i tried to make the less noise i can getting down the bed with my backpacks.i arrived at the at San Sebastian Station at about 6.45 in the morning, it was dark as hell.

The city welcomes me with an unexpected beauty, i wasn't expecting to get so charmed by it right way. The street lamps are really beautiful and there are so much different ones, all colours and shapes that gives the Urumea river the final touch to stun me.

It's 6.45 local time, and there are already people jogging, crazy ones, I would give everything for a good bed and a few hours sleep. It is still early to go to Andre (lets call it andre for privacy purposes) place, but I've already seen some directions that he told me to took. I went looking for the tourist information post, it was located in the old part of the town, that is incredibly well taken care off, expect for the floor that resembles the war in Saygon, it stills has the signs of last night party. Some garbage trucks and huge water hoses clean it in a flash.

Obviously the post isn't open already, so i start my exploring.
By now it is all very beautiful, every old buildings are impeccable, each one with amazing architecture and beautiful balcony's, they all have something that connects them. It's not like an isolated building in the middle of others.

Next, tired of walking i went to Andre's flat, it was not so hard to find, after all, if you have a mouth you can get anywhere, one problem stands, what is the perfect hour to wake someone up?

I make a bit of time outside till it is 10 in the morning and then i ringed the bell, a voice came up saying “si?” i said back ”Andre es Romeu, couch surfer de Portugal”, the door opened and off i go.
This tall, skinny guy was waiting for me at the door in the 4th floor. Introductions made, he showed me the his home, a small one bedroom flat.
Have your ever meet someone that 5 minutes after being introduced delivers you the key to is home? So i have, Andre after showing me the place gave me a key so i can go in and out for as long as i like, he didn't even blink. I'm so amazed by is gesture that i almost forgot to give him the present i got for him.

After a few minutes without nothing to say I went to see the town on day light, uauuuu....
It's is a must see place, it is a naval and merchant typical city, but it is so beautiful. It's a five star place, and it is so small i can see the all city by foot really.
I got a map and started to walk to all the places Andre recommended me, but i'm really fascinated by the buildings, they are really awesome.

Completely exhausted, and sleepless i went to get informations about the bus to Bilbao and get back “home”. The other couch surfer that was going to be at Andre's place has already arrived, this truly outgoing american girl, with a big smile on her face. Mean while Andre's cat's here climbing the wall and the chair like lunatics, no one could stop them. I finally got the opportunity to relax a bit before dinner, and fell asleep on the couch.

We all went to eat pintxos, a traditional dish in San Sebastian, that they proudly say that overshadow the tapas. The american girl is an AA, so she doesn't drink nothing but juice during our rally to the local restaurants. It's kind off cool this social ritual. First we established the “bote”, one person that collected equal amounts of money from everyone, and they will be responsible to pay everywhere we go. We start to taste pintxos and wine in a few bars. There are smalls groups of people inside, some very loud, the spanish loud type.
We drink and talk for a little and then went to the next bar to try more of this pintxos, that isn't more that bread with sauces and something to go, like ham our cheese.

Our last stop, we got to try the famous “pata negra” ham, and the fame it has is well deserved, trust me. This bar is a more traditional one, it has bull fighting posters in the wall, some of them are really old. After the ham, we tried some fried peppers with garlic - "guindillas", they were really cool and fun to eat to, because we know that once in a while one of them comes out to be really spicy, fun thing to watch someone unexpectedly eat a spicy pepper. Andre is a regular costumer, so the owner came to talk to us and I asked him if i could take one of the posters with me, he answered with a funny smile “sure you can”, we all laugh, and we started talking about the dates of the posters and bull fighting related stuff.

On my way out i heard my name out loud, when i turn around the owner was offering me three posters, how cool is that? One of them is dated from 1985. Awesome, now i have to figure it out, how to send the poster home.

After an ice cream to calm our tongues from the spicy surprises, we went back at the flat we sat down, and had a little chat, i tried the "Patxarn" this liquor drink, and talked about drawing, cats music, our background, couch surfing, its cool to have a place to have a drink and relax after a night out, and obviously someone to talk to.

Everyone is tired and Andre has a volley game tomorrow morning so its time to bed. Tomorrow i will try to relax a bit and upload my photos to a website so that all of you can see it.

Thank you all for the incoming comments to the blog, it's really a warm feeling when i get the chance to read them.