Last week me and my mum went to San Sebastian for a long week end. We went there to celebrate a dear colleague of hers that turned 50 years old, so she wanted her family, us and a another good friend of hers there to celebrate her, which we didn’t really minded =) It was 4 days of amazing food, really good coffee (although nothing can compete with Italian food and coffee if you ask me=)) and amazing nature.
The colleague of my mum had rented a flat just by the boardwalk, so we could see the beach and ocean and the mountains from there. The only thing was that the weather wasn´t that great. It rained a lot. But when it rains there, it is a lighter rain, it´s not a cold rain and when it comes, it does come hard, like it´s raining cats and dogs. However it can rain for maybe 30 minutes and then it can be really calm for the rest of the day. And 15 C there, is like 20 C here, because the ocean is so warm that it heats up the city. Kinda cool I think.
Me, my mum and the Danish woman (the other good friend of my mum´s colleague) we arrived on Thursday afternoon, we got the luxury of being picked up by a guide at the airport of Bilbao (thank u Helena for that! That was amazing to be picked up and not having to think about what kind of transport we would have to use in order to get to San Sebastian) and then we arrived in San Sebastian at 6pm. we went almost immediately to the beach and went for a quick swim in the ocean. That felt soo good.
Afterwards we had some tapas at the terrace and then we went for dinner (in the rain=)) at 2 different tapas places. and then we went back home, some of us with our shoes in our hands because walking barefoot was better than walking in wet shoes =)
The rest of the days we went hiking (ok, not all the way up, we took a cable car to the top) and saw a stunning view of San Sebastian. We went to really nice restaurants and sat there for hours. Everywhere we went we sat there for hours. I think I´ve never eaten so much in my whole life. But it wasn’t heavy food we ate. It was pinxos (tapas), steaks with fries (heavenly good), pastries, fish meals, more tapas…
We went walking, I took a lot of pictures, we got to see different parts of San Sebastian. We got to see a really cool wine cellar. I got to practice my poor Spanish (I used to be soo good at speaking Spanish and now I can barely say, hello my name is… in Spanish…what has happened to me?), both in telephone making reservations at restaurants and in real life. I think I got by. At least most of the time. But hey, I got to speak Spanish so that was really nice. It made me realize how much I had missed it!
We were very social of course, we hung out all the time, and we enjoyed it soo much because everyone was soo nice and kind and warm and easy to be with. However, at 5pm everyday we were all dead tired, so we just took a looong nap at the flat, and some of us went afterwards for a quick swim in the ocean to get energy again. and it helped=)
I even did some shopping, at Zara, they have so much nicer clothes there than back home. So many nice colors and patterns. And everyone wore so much more feminine clothes than us. That was nice to see.
The last day the guides picked us up in their vans and took us to different villages, and the villages were all really beautiful and cute, but it was a shame that the weather wasn´t that good. Because lik all villages, they need sun in order to be really beautiful…But we had a lot of fun anyway. We bought bottles of wine, chocolate (me), charcuteries (me again) and we ate amazing food. We even got to see a church where they used to held the parlament. It was really cool! And apparently, all the Spanish kings have had to come to the Basque country and tell the Basque people that they swore to respect the Basque people and their customs. However, the resent Spanish king, Felipe, hasn´t come there yet,and they think it is because he is ashamed of his father, the former king, Juan Carlos and his story with the elephant hunting…fascinating, no?
So it was 4 amazing days, we had so much fun together, we laughed so much, we ate so much good food, and best of all, we could just relax and live in the now. We all need more of that I think. Just to live more, have more fun, laugh more and most important of all, not take urself and life so seriously …
live, laugh, love. my new motto =)
Amor/ Hanne