So, I tried to make my way to San Sebastian from Madrid. I went down to the station to catch the train. But oh crap I had to make a reservation to get the train I wanted. And oh crap, the line for the ticket office is huge. And oh crap, they didn't have the "my train is leaving in 15 minutes and I'm a procrastinator" window that they had in every station in Italy. So I missed my train. Not to worry, there was another one leaving in a half hour. Except it was at the other station all the way across town. So I rushed down to the station and managed to miss that train by minutes. So I decided all was not lost and just booked a night train there. Not too bad a deal in the end, I got an extra day in Madrid and didn't have to worry about accommodation for one night.
Unfortunately with the eurrail pass you have to pay a supplement for night trains. The guy told me the fee was 22 euros. I thought that was a bit excessive and that maybe he was charging me for a bed in a couchette, which I didn't want to pay for if it was more expensive. So I tried to relate this preference to him, but it was a little difficult to get through to him as he didn't speak any English. However, it seemed to work when he charged me 17 euros for the trip. A bit more than my night train to Granada, but still cheaper, so whatever.
So, I went down to the train that night to get on, and it was just confusing. Really confusing. There were four separate trains leaving as one. So I had to make sure to get on the right car. The first 5 or so ended in the number one, and since my car was number 31, I just assumed that the ending "1" was superfluous and that I was supposed to get on car number 311. Well, when the ticket guy came to check up on me later that night, he informed me through various miming gestures that this assumption on my part was very wrong and that if I stayed on that car I would never make it to San Sebastian. So, I went on down and tried to find my car. Unfortunately, though, the cars aren't marked by number on the inside, because they apparently never anticipated that someone would make my mistake and get in the wrong car.
So, as I made my way down, I talked to a guy in Spanish, which was fun because, if you recall, I don't speak Spanish. But he told me that the car I wanted was two cars down. Great, so I went two cars down, and it was all couchettes, with beds. I said to myself that I must have misunderstood him. So I went to the next car, found the seat, sat down and started to read some more. We came to the next stop, and shortly thereafter the conductor came back through. He looked at me with great frustration and grabbed my hand and led me back to the car I had just been in. He led me down the hall, opened up a door, pointed a bed, and indicated that's where I was supposed to sleep. So, apparently I had paid for a bed after all. So, I went back, grabbed all my stuff, and went right to sleep and had a pretty uneventful trip for the rest of the way, considering that I was asleep.
So, I finally rolled into San Sebastian at about 7:00 or so in the morning. Now, I had a hostel booked which was great. I had forgotten to print out instructions to get to it, which was less than great. So I resolved to just walk around the town in the dark until one of two things happened: I either chanced upon the hostel, or found an open internet cafe and got directions. So I walked around for two and a half hours, having not found the hostel but found a closed internet cafe. The internet cafe said it would be open at 10, so I waited around for it to open, being a bit weary from just walking around for a couple hours that early in the morning. So, ten rolls around and the cafe's still not open. I come back 15 minutes later and it's open. Fantastic, except apparently the internet cafe doesn't have the internet. I had run into this phenomenon before in Greece and Italy: the place that has the words "internet" plastered all over it, but as it turns out doesn't actually have the internet. Now, I don't open up accountancy offices and then write "restaurant" on them, but apparently it's not unheard of to open up internet cafes that don't actually have the internet. So I walked around a bit longer, found the internet cafe and managed to get to the hostel, which was a very nice and cosy place.
That the hostel was nice and cosy was a good thing, because there's not much of tourist value in San Sebastian, except that it's just a lovely little town in a very beautiful area. Which is not altogether bad, but it can be a bit boring, especially when it's too cold to swim. And especially when the first person you meet is one of those guys that just rubs you the wrong way. I walked into the hostel and just hearing this guy talking I knew that I absolutely did not want to spend time with him. He just sounded obnoxious and full of himself. Unfortunately the place was so small, warm and friendly that being around him was unavoidable. Fortunately, everyone else was quite cool and meant that I never had to really talk to him, except in my way of making fun of him in ways that only me and certain very clever people who know me understand.
Walking through town I spied something I had hoped I would find: a bota bag, a.k.a. wine skin. Now, I was never a tremendous fan of wine, but this trip changed my mind slightly. But having read Hemmingway's "The Sun Also Rises" I decided that no trip to the Basque region would be complete without getting a bota bag. Unfortunately I didn't have a few fishing poles and jake to help me out, nor was there any bullfighting. But I had to get one for the spirit of the thing. And, also, as a humorous side note, this one store had a wine skin that looked like it was made from an entire pig. It was certainly made from an entire some sort of animal, as it still had legs, or at least three of them. It was basically a wine skin shaped like a three legged animal with the nozzle where the neck should have been. I wish I had a picture of it.
I planned on only staying there the one night, however I met a couple of girls from California and a hilarious Aussie guy who convinced me to stay the next night, as it was the owner's birthday and I had to help them celebrate. So I stayed on the next night. We spent most of our days wandering around the town and just relaxing. It was quite nice.
So that night we all hung out, the owner came back and made a huge bowl of his special Sangria, which was pretty good. It was lots of fun, and I met this cool Aussie girl who I'd end up spending the rest of the next couple of days with. Which leads me to the next part of this post: Bilbao.
San Sebastian was very close to Bilbao, so of course I thought it natural that I go over and admire Frank Gehry's masterpiece. So me and the Aussie girl went, and had a great time. The Guggenheim might be my favorite art museum I've been to. The building itself is just amazing, almost to the point that it overshadows all the exhibits on the inside. However, Richard Serra's torqued ellipses were indescribably cool. They are really an exhibit that can only be truly experienced in person. The way walking through the installation throws off your perception of space and direction is really really cool.
Next after we went to the Guggenheim, we went out and met up with a girl who was studying in town. Susan had met this guy from Bilbao while she was in Poland and he had told her to look him up if he came to town. Well, he wasn't in town, but his friend was. So we met up with her, and a few other guys, and then went out to have a few beers and play some pool. Then afterwards we went out for pintzos (Basque tapas). Finally we were offered a place to stay for the night by one of the guys we were hanging out with. So we stayed there. They were incredibly generous giving us a place to stay in their living room, water to drink, and food to eat. I just found it amazing that I was staying with a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend. Two more degrees of separation and I would have been staying with Kevin Bacon.
The next day we went out and got my tickets for my night train back to Barcelona to pick up my bike and baggage I had left. Susan spoke great Spanish, having studied in Barcelona for a year, so she was able to help me out. As it turns out, for some inexplicable reason a couchette costs 17 euros while a simple seat is 22 euros. That, of course, explained a bit of my earlier adventure. Although it still doesn't make sense why a bed is cheaper than a seat.
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