San Sebastian Stories

I have a lot to write about! It was my birthday this Friday, we took a trip to San Sebastian, and I went to a Spanish church service. Muy interesante!

In years to come, it will be very cool to say that I turned twenty in Spain. I didn't expect too much from the birthday, because it's in another country where I've barely known anyone for a week. It turned out to be very good. A girl from one of my classes brought me a huge plate of delicious homemade cookies. I was very touched. Then Carmen made a nice lunch for me and baked a special dessert for me. So lots of birthday sweets! After that, I didn't do a whole lot because the people I knew wanted to stay in because of our trip the next day, which was fine. I just watched the first two episodes of Downton Abbey series 3. My kind of evening.


The international committee at the university scheduled a trip to the coastal city of San Sebastian. We paid fifteen euros and left on Saturday morning by bus. For the Spaniards, and most other Europeans, leaving to go somewhere at 9:45 is extremely early. That is when we met to leave for San Sebastian. We actually left about 10:15--the concept of time is very laid back, which is different for a schedule oriented American. It was about a 45 minute bus ride. I sat next to a girl from Chile who didn't speak very much English; however, with my bad Spanish and her little English we were able to make some conversation.

Once we arrived in San Sebastian, the members of the committee spread out and we broke into smaller groups. My group was about five other international students and three native Spanish speakers (our committee member and two girls from Mexico who are students at UNavarra). The committee member is named Paco and he's originally from either Brazil or Mexico. I know he spent several years in both of those places, but I don't remember which he's actually from. Anyway, he showed us around San Sebastian.

We began our tour of the city on this bridge. We had quite the mix in our group. The language that we spoke the whole time was English--which was both good and bad. Good because it's nice to speak in your own language and bad because I wasn't practicing my Spanish. The interesting thing about this was that the only people in our group who English was their native language was me and another guy from England. I've been thoroughly impressed with all the Europeans I've met and their capacity for language. We had one girl from France, a guy and a girl from Austria, and another girl from the Czech Republic. It was very fun and we pretty got close in the several hours we spent together.

For those of you who read my post about
tortillas, the picture on the left is an example
of a Spanish tortilla. We went to a pincho
bar for lunch an I got a egg-based tortilla
with some bacon, if I remember right.
It was about 2 euros per pincho and so I
got two of them. I also figured out by
asking Paco how to order a glass of water.
It was much easier than I thought. In
German you say tap water, but in
Spanish you just ask for a cup of water.
Very simple.  

Our next stop after the bridge was the old part of the town. We went into a beautiful cathedral--which you can see is just chilling at the end of the alleyway. Cathedrals typically have the same elements inside of them, but this one was a little different because it had a nativity scene set up. Jingle bells was also playing in the background. I'm not sure why that was because the Spanish finish celebrating the holidays on January 6th, but no complaints from me!

After lunch, we decided to try to climb one of the foothills that look over beach. Along the way, we passed a shop called Akuna Matata (I realize it's spelled differently than the song). I was talking with the guy from Austria and I asked him if he knew that song. He started singing the German version and then asked me to teach him the English version. I did that and then he asked the Spanish girls how to do it in Spanish. Then the girl from Czech did her version. It was extremely cool to be able to come together with a Disney song.

To get to where we needed to climb, we had to walk across the beach for a while. It was so pretty. I definitely want to go back when the weather isn't gross. I can see how gorgeous it will be in the springtime. The waves were so big there!  It was kind of hard to believe that it's the same ocean I see whenever I'm at the beach back home. I saw a Spanish family--complete with little kids--walking down the street wearing wetsuits and carrying surfboards. That's pretty hardcore. I was impressed.

To get to the top, you have to climb up some stairs. You get to this little area with a library/museum called Urgull (which sounds like an excellent name for a troll, in my opinion). There were cannons and a nice view of the ocean's cove. Then you go up more stairs and there is a nice little park. You can then enter the Castillo which is kind a castle/fortress on the hill. It was very interesting to explore. The view was spectacular. I took the picture of San Sebastian's cove that's at the top of the blog from this point.

Here's a statue of Jesus that you can see from pretty much anywhere in San Sebastian. Speaking of Jesus, today (Sunday), I went to a Protestant Spanish service. It was very interesting. I could understand a lot of the sermon, I could at least follow his changes of topics. Before and after the sermon, they sang praise songs. Now, I'm going to sound like an old lady, but my ears were hurting! The women behind me were singing so loud and off key that it was kind of painful. I tried to sing along, but it was so off pitch that I couldn't do it. I even knew a lot of the songs because they were translations of American contemporary songs like "Greater Things Are Yet to Come" by Chris Tomlin and "Our God is an Awesome God." It was also a really long service, I'm used to an hour and a half tops. Okay, my Presbyterian is showing. My favorite part of the service was communion. When the pastor read the story, it gave me chills to hear that story I've heard so often read in a different language. That was awesome.

I was also very tired at church because I stayed out extremely late the night before, so that's probably partly why the service dragged for me. Sorry, I'm jumping around. I just thought I'd tie the Jesus in. Anyway, after we got to the top of the mountain, we climbed back down and grabbed a coffee. When we were finished, it was time to leave and so we went back to the buses and headed back to Pamplona.

After we got back, I went shopping with some of the girls from my group. I bought myself a hat for the warm weather. After shopping, I went back to the apartment and ate some dinner with Carmen. Then, I went over to one of the girl's apartments where we hung out until midnight or so and then we decided to go downtown where the nightlife was happening.

Spanish nightlife is like nothing else. They go out at midnight or one o'clock. Back at PC, the fraternity parties have to be finished by two. It's just so different! I got back to the flat at 5:30 in the morning. By the time I'd showered and gotten into bed, it was 6:00am. I can definitely say that I've experienced the Spanish nightlife now, that's for sure.

All in all, it was a very exciting first weekend in Spain.

Photo credit goes to Alex :)