Europe 2007: Sep 02 - Sep 08

This week we hit the tourist spots in Paris, make an overnight trip to the Normandy region, return to Paris for a day, and meet up with Jeff and Jessie in San Sebastian.

Photos:
Paris
Normandy
Return to Paris
San Sebastian

Sun. 09-02-07 -- Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-08-07

This morning we woke up at 8:30 because we had lots planned! Since this is the first Sunday of the month, entrance into the Louvre is free! But we wanted to get there early in hopes of beating the crowds.

We got there around 10am and the crowds were already there in full force! We entered through the glass pyramid and went straight to the Greek & Roman statues. I love looking at marble statues, there is so much amazing detail! We saw the Venus di Milo and Kara wormed her way through the crowd to take a picture. Then we made our way to the paintings and sought out Mona Lisa. The room was SO CROWDED, Kara practically had to body surf to get close enough for a picture! After Mona Lisa, we quickly moved through the room we were in and headed for the nearest exit! Kara and I just aren't much into art, so we were there just to see the famous stuff.

After we left the Louvre, we walked to the Musee de Orsay metro stop and bought one day pass & rail tickets to Versailles. The train came right away and the ride was about 40 minutes or so. When we got there we were hungry for lunch and there was a sandwich place in the train station. We ordered 2 sandwiches and a bottle of coke. We left the station and found a wall to sit on and eat our sandwiches (the coke tasted different).

After lunch, we walked to the entrance of Versailles and we were already impressed! The courtyard was huge, straight out of a fairy tale castle. We walked through the main palace and the interior was very lavishly decorated. Audio guides were included with the tour, but we found them too chatty, so we would only listen to a portion of each entry as we walked through the rooms. After the palace, we walked through the Dauphin's apartments and the princesses' apartments. All pretty cool, but maybe a little boring... and that's when everything got 100X better!

We took a trolley through the expansive gardens over to Marie Antoinette's estate. We walked through the Petit Trianon which seemed like a very nice but pretty regular house. Then we went for a walk through the "backyard." There were tons of little pathways around and over ponds. We stopped at a Greek style temple/gazebo called The Temple of Love. Then we walked back to Marie's hamlet. This place was absolutely unbelievable! It felt like a Disneyland about peasanthood. There was a little mill, and a farm, and a chalet, all of the buildings were so cute and quaint. I was pretty amazed with the place. After that we caught the trolley to the Grand Canal, a HUGE artificial body of water. Then we walked up and through the magnificent gardens. The fountains were all turned on (they only turn them on for a few hours each week) and everywhere you turned there was a different and spectacular fountain. It was seriously stunning to see such extravagance spread over such a large area. We probably saw 20 to 25 fountains, many of them different from the rest. Seriously amazing!

When the fountains turned off, we left and walked back to the train stop. We were starting to get hungry, and when we passed a McDonald's, it was too great a temptation! I ordered a Royal with Cheese (Samuel L. wasn't lying) and I got a beer with my meal! Oh, there was Dijon mustard on my burger, and Kara's deluxe potatoes came with spinach dip in one of those little sauce packets! I felt guilty when we were first going in there, but the experience was unique enough that I felt justified when I left! We were pretty worn out, so we took the train back to our hotel and hung out there before we went to sleep. We also washed and hung our first load of laundry in our room. We had to devise a way to hang the laundry line, but it seems to have worked well.

Mon. 09-03-07 -- Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-09-07

This morning we didn't have a lot we needed to get done, so we slept in until 10am. We slowly got ready then took the metro to the Eiffel Tower. The tower really is WAY bigger than I thought it was. We paid the €11.50 each to be able to ride all the way to the top. We rode up to the 2nd floor and got out to look around. The city spread out in all directions as far as I could see. It was neat to see the Seine snake around, and I spotted the Arc de Triomphe, Louvre, & Notre Dame. We took the elevator to the top floor and from there, everything was so tiny! It was really windy up there too! We circled around the platform, took some pictures then went back down to the 2nd floor. We were getting hungry for lunch, so we checked out what kind of food we could get on the tower. The fast food place had a meal of 2 sausages, fries & a coke for €7.40. We bought that, sat on a bench and split the food. After lunch, we walked down the stairs to the first floor, walked around, and finally took the elevator down to the ground. It was neat seeing the city from so high, but the Eiffel Tower wasn't in the skyline! :(

We walked away from the tower toward Trocadero Square and took more pictures of the tower from there. With an album-worth of pictures, we left the Eiffel Tower behind and started toward the Arc de Triomphe. We could see it peeking through the trees, so we knew we were heading the right way.

Once we finally found the underpass to the Arc, we walked under the Arc for a while and then sat down. We received an email from Jessie this morning confirming that Sept. 7th in San Sebastian is a go. So while we were under Napoleon's Arc, we decided how best to conquer France and Spain for the next week! We came up with ideal & backup plans for train trips and wrote them out on a piece of paper. Our through was that if the person at the ticket window couldn't speak English, she could probably still book our tickets. The only place we know where we can buy train tickets is at the train station, so we hopped the metro to the nearest station (Paris has like 6). Once there we hunted down the ticket office and tentatively approached the counter. The lady we got spoke English pretty well, so we didn't have much difficulty getting our desires understood. The noon train on the 7th was no longer available, but there was a 7am train that got us to San Sebastian by 1:30pm. Stage 1 of our trip booked! We were happy to find out that there were still beds available on the night train to Barcelona on Sept. 9th. Stage 2 booked. Our final step was a train to Nice on the 11th, and sadly we discovered there is no night train from Barcelona to Nice. The best we could get is an 8:45am train on Sept. 11th, which means not even 24 hours in Barcelona. However neither of us had any deep desire for Barcelona when we first planned the trip (we weren't even going to go to Spain until the idea of the Jeff & Jessie rendezvous came up on our last night on Maui). The train will get us to Nice around 7:30pm, so it's about an 11 hour trip including a 2 hour layover in Montpellier. A long trip, and I kind of feel like it'll be a waste of a day, but on the bright side we could really use a down day, and the scenery along the French Mediterranean coast should be nice! So with that our trains to Spain and back to France were fully booked.

With a sense of accomplishment filling our sails, we hopped the metro back to our hotel. We are checking out of our hotel early tomorrow, so I wanted to pay our bill tonight. We needed cash to do that, so we asked the hotel desk manager where we might find a cash machine. She gave us some vague directions and we set off. We had to wander around a bit but we eventually found one. As we were wandering, we found this quaint courtyard with a church and playground and a few cafes surrounding a fountain. It was idyllic small town in the heart of the big city. I wanted to sit down at an outside café table and soak in it for a while, but Kara & I were too intimidated by the language gap to attempt it. I felt lame as we walked away, but we'll have 2 more nights in Paris after we return from Normandy, so I have a few more chances to try it!

When we got back to the hotel, we used the free computer to send and email to Jeff & Jessie to let them know when and where we are arriving. We also sent emails to a few hotels in San Sebastian to see if there are any availabilities. With that done, it was time to find dinner. We are tired of store bought meals, but we are intimidated by French restaurants, so what ever shall we do? We came up with the perfect plan, go to the Indian restaurant we passed on our long walk home a few nights before. I mean Aloo Gobi as Aloo Gobi in any other country, right? So we retraced our steps from a few nights ago and found where we went wrong. This time the walk seemed much shorter probably because we weren't tired & lost! We were able to read the menu, Kara got Aloo Gobi and I got Poulet (Chicken) Tikka Masala. We also ordered garlic naan, which was so tiny compared to back home (about 6 inches in diameter, a perfect circle). The food was really good (Kara says her Gobi was the best she's had in a long time). We mostly spoke English, and they understood us.

After we returned to the hotel, I devised a way to get our pictures from London & Paris onto my website. The free computer at the hotel isn't locked down (software-wise) so I was able to install my image resizer, an FTP client, and attach the camera to get our pics off. The sign says that gusts should limit their use to 15 minutes, but I must have been on there for 45 minutes or so! :s

With that finished, I went back to our room and packed up most of my stuff since we are checking out tomorrow... We're going to Normandy for about 24 hours, then we'll be back in Paris (same hotel) for 2 nights, one day. So far this trip is a blast!

Tue. 09-04-07 -- Bayeux, France & The Normandy Beaches
Originally published on: 09-12-07

Today was pretty incredible! We got up early this morning because we had a train to catch to Normandy. We got to the station just fine, but then we didn't see our train on the board that showed which track to go to. We wondered if we had bought our tickets for the wrong train, but no, a quick look at our tickets confirmed that we were at the correct station on the correct date/time. I spotted the help desk, so we went over there and showed the guy our tickets. He flipped his monitor around and showed us that we needed to go to track 23. Sure enough, our train was on track 23, I'm still not sure why it didn't show up on the board!

The train ride was smooth and uneventful. We saw a few quaint looking farmhouses but mostly it was flat farmland. When we arrived in Caen, we went to the rental car company and got our car (€113 for one day including insurance). Kara navigated while I drove us from Caen to Bayeux. Driving in France isn't much different, though I often had to have Kara translate a street sign with our guidebooks. Another difference is no yellow lines on the road. A two lane highway is divided by a dashed white line and small roads often have no lines even though they have traffic in both directions. So I kept feeling like I was driving onto one-way streets! The only other major difference is round-abouts where you have to circle around the intersection until you find your street to turn off.

So, we made it to Bayeux without any major snafus, but we didn't have a map of the city to find our hotel. So I parked the car and walked to the tourist office where they not only gave me a map, but circled where the hotel was on the map. It wasn't far from where we were parked, so we just left the car and walked our bags over to our hotel. When we got there, there was no one at the counter, so we had to stand there and wait for maybe 10 minutes! When the lady came, she didn't speak English, so checking-in was confusing. Our room was supposed to cost €68/night, but she tacked on tall these fees (which I'm guessing was just B.S.). So our bill actually came to €78. Part of the additional fees were for breakfast and when I told her that we didn't want breakfast, she either didn't understand or played dumb so as to keep the charge on there. As if we weren't ripped off enough, she made us pay right away, and in the confusion of her pointless blabbering in French she (and I'm assuming this was intentional) short changed us by 10 euros! I didn't realize it until we were at least a half hour down the road. So our €68/night room ended up costing €88... Oh well, I've learned my lesson on trusting that I'm being treated fairly.

So we dropped our bags in our room and then walked back to our car. On the way we stopped in at the grocery store and bought lunch. We ate the lunch outside on a park bench, then got back in the car and headed out to Arromanches to start our D-day tour. Arromanches' claim to fame is as the sight where the Brits created a huge artificial harbor to drop tons of troops, equipment, and supplies on France in a short amount of time. They did this by creating a breakwater wall by sinking their own ships and 100 yard long concrete barriers off the shore. A good number of these concrete 'mulberries' are still visible from the Normandy beaches. We arrived in Arromanches & parked our car up on the cliffs above the town. From there we could look down to the sea and see the remnants of the artificial harbor. We walked around on the cliffs for a while, then we bought tickets to the 360-degrees movie about the D-day experience. The film was a mix of modern day Normandy mixed with footage of D-day and the days after. The movie was a good reminder of what the soldiers had to go through. After the film, we walked down to Arromanches town and walked on the beach. It's strange to realize that the Normandy beaches look & feel just like any other beach. If it weren't for the monuments, you'd think you were at the Oregon coast or any other cold water beach. It's almost impossible to keep in mind that this was a place of great death only 60 years ago.

We took a trolley back up the hill to our car, and then drove west along the coast to Longues-sur-Mer. There, in a field 300 yards off coast are 4 great big gun batteries build by the Germans. The enclosures are almost all completely intact and 3 of the guns are still there and pointing out to the sea. I've seen a number of gun batteries in my lifetime (Oregon & Washington coasts, most recently Diamondhead Crater) but these were the first I'd seen that actually were used heavily in the war and they are also the first enemy fortifications I've seen! I kept having to tell myself (all day) "people died here." I thought "one day Germans were manning these guns, and then one day the Allies captured them." It seemed so unreal! We hiked down a nearby road and found the lookout pillbox for the guns. Both stories of the box were open, so we went inside and peeked out the slits. I stood where German soldiers kept lookout for Allied ships! We hopped back in the car and drove down a narrow road to the shore and looked back to Arromanches. We were quite a ways down the coast, but we could still see the concrete blocks off shore.

Our next stop was the American Cemetery that overlooks Omaha Beach. We took a long walk through the memorial and cemetery, and it was staggering to see how many tombstones there were. Every one of them is perfectly aligned, so it is kind of mesmerizing to watch the patterns as you walk past the graves. It almost seems like an optical illusion, like it isn't real, and then I got close enough to read the names on the nearest row. Then it was very real, all of these crosses were real people that died within a few miles of here. Even now I know that it is true, but I can't really fathom it... After the cemetery, we drove down and walked on Omaha Beach. We walked down on the sand, and then walked back on the top of the grassy sand dune next to the beach. I tried my hardest to picture the carnage that took place, but I failed. I could only see a peaceful, beautiful beach with rolling waves and squawking seagulls.

We drove west along the shore of Omaha Beach (it's quite long) and ended up in the Charlie section of the beach. There was a monument to American soldiers built on top of a large German gun battery where the giant gun is still attached. The monument was a thank you from the French to the soldiers and it spoke of "the hundreds of brave men who died within sight of this monument, some even killed by the gun on which this monument was built." (not an exact quote, paraphrase). Reading that gave me chills and helped me, if just for a second, picture what happened here.

After Omaha, we went to the Pont du Hoc Ranger Monument which, as I had read earlier, was the most heavily bombarded Germany position on all of D-day. I had read it, but I hadn't thought through what that meant until I saw the first HUGE crater. Kara said "Is that a bomb hole?!?" and I said in astonishment "I... guess... so?" Then we looked up and saw that the ground out to the cliff was like swiss cheese. There were giant craters everywhere, the place was completely torn up! There were also a number of German concrete batteries & pillboxes, but most were split and broken and scattered. It was a bombed out wasteland and the far-flung chunks of concrete formed an eerie Stonehenge of death & destruction.

Our final stop was the German cemetery outside the village of La Cambre. I wasn't quite sure how I should feel about visiting the place. The visit to the American cemetery filled me with feelings of awe and respect, but I didn't really feel anything going into the German cemetery. I even felt a little guilty like I shouldn't be there because I wasn't there to pay respect... I was there to gawk as a tourist. But seeing the endless rows of graves gave me what I hope was an appropriate feeling... sadness that so many people have died in war. Where the U.S. Cemetery is bright white with perfectly cut handsome crosses, the German cemetery had dark nameplates (2 names per plate) and roughly hewn stone crosses. The cemetery was still attractively laid out (with a monument/mound in the center that you could climb and see that the graves truly do reach as far as the eye can see) it just had a dark and sad feeling. As I left, I saw a mural by the foundation that maintains the cemetery. Their poster said that they maintain this (and many other war cemeteries) as a monument for peace. I hope it's effective...

With our D-day tour complete, we drove back to Bayeux and grabbed dinner at the grocery store (baguette, stinky cheese, 2 pears, & tabouli salad for €5.11). We cut it all up in our hotel room and ate it while watching CNN international news (wow, this room has a T.V.) This room also has a shower which we both thoroughly enjoyed using as it has been our first shower since we left London! All clean and all caught up on my journal... time for bed!

Wed. 09-05-07 -- Bayeux, Caen, and Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-13-07

Back in Paris for a few nights, we're back at the same hotel and everything! Today was semi-laid back, but we saw a few things. This morning we got up around 8am to get our included breakfast from our hotel. Once we finished eating we went for a walk in the brisk morning air (we could see our breath). We walked to the Bayeux Cathedral which was almost empty at 8:30am. The cathedral was very big and had high ceilings & stained glass windows. Below the alter was a crypt which we were allowed to go into. After the cathedral, we walked over to see Bayeux's claim to fame, a 70 yard long tapestry that was sewn in the 1000's. The tapestry was really cool because it told the story of William the Conqueror's triumph over Harold of Hastings' attempt to seize the British crown. As we walked along the tapestry, an audio-guide told the story and the tapestry showed the corresponding pictures. VERY COOL!

Once we finished our sight-seeing of Bayeux, we went back to our hotel, packed up and checked out. A short drive back to Caen and we dropped off the rental car. We wanted to see the WWII memorial/museum in Caen before we left, but we were starting to run out of time (our train would leave in 3.5 hours). The museum was not very close (we'd have to take a tram and then a public bus) so we decided to take a taxi to the museum. It cost €15, but it was worth the time it allowed us at the museum. Once we got there & bought our tickets, we checked our big backpacks at the coat/bag check (sweet relief). The museum had lots of interesting things to look at, but the most interesting section was about German occupation of France. It showed the French people's perspective that I had never really contemplated before. The highlight of the memorial was the two films: "D-Day" and "Hope."

D-Day was really two films or rather one film and a multimedia presentation. The film was a superb presentation of D-day using actual film footage of the war and no narration. The unique aspect of the presentation was the use of split screen. The left screen footage began with troop preparation in Britain and proceeded chronologically while the right screen showed German footage at bunkers in France. For the most part, the film continued this way, Allies on the left, Germans on the right. Warships approach on the left, gun batteries firing on the right. Bombers making bombing runs on the left, AA guns peppering the sky on the right. Troops storming the beaches, Germans firing down from bunkers, etc. It was a very effective presentation.

The multimedia presentation showed the French liberation following D-day. There was a computer generated map that showed German occupied territory shrink over time while flipping through corresponding images and playing quotes of the world leaders of the time. The presentation was quite interesting and exciting. Every time a French city was liberated, a flag would pop up of the country (U.S., U.K., or Canada) that liberated it.

When we left the museum, we had one hour to catch our train. We exited and didn't see any cabs. We did, however, see the bus stop, so we went over to see if there were details at the stop. We felt we understood enough of the French metro signs to try and ride the bus & metro back, so we got on when the bus arrived 2 minutes later. The ride went smoothly, but we got to the train station with only 20 minutes to spare! The transfer to the tram was a little tricky because the tram was full and we had huge packs. We ended up getting on different doors so that we could squeeze in! We made it to our train seats with 17 minutes before the train left, perfect!

The rest of the day was uneventful. We rode the 2 hour train back to Paris, got hamburgers for dinner, rode the metro to our hotel, and mostly hung out here for the night. We washed a bunch of our laundry, and now I think we'll go to bed early (10ish) because we're both pretty tired.

Thu. 09-06-07 -- Paris, France
Originally published on: 09-14-07

Today we got up around 9am and got ready nice and slow. I checked my email and discovered that I had received an email from a pension in Barcelona that said they had rooms. I went back to the room to finish getting ready, and then we hit the computer one more time so that I could send them my credit card number. I was pretty paranoid about someone capturing my card number from the computer, so I typed it out of order (to confuse key loggers) and deleted my sent mail in case some one could get into my email.

Then we set out toward the catacombs which is walking distance from our hotel. After maybe 5 or 6 blocks of walking, we stumbled across an ATM, so we decided to withdraw more cash. As I fished for my ATM card, I realized that I never put away my credit card! I turned to Kara and said "What did I do with my credit card?" as I started frantically patting my pockets. "Did I leave it by the computer?!?!" I asked myself out loud. We started walking back to the hotel, but then I handed my day pack to Kara and ran back the rest of the way. When I got back to the computer, my credit card was sitting there on the keyboard! Good thing I was all careful when I typed it in! I walked out and found Kara on the street walking back and gave her the thumbs up.

The upside of this adventure is that we walked back to the ATM from the other side of the street where we saw a farmer's market. We picked a few bananas for breakfast then waited to be served. We waited for some time without being helped before a woman behind the counter told us in pantomime & French that there was a line & we were not in it! We got in line with our bananas and then noticed the people weren't picking their own produce. The customers would say what they wanted and the person behind the counter would get it and bag it. Oops number two! We decided to get an apple and a pear for lunch too, but we waited until we were served and pointed at them instead. The people behind the counter were quite nice with us even though we were doing everything wrong!

We ate our fruit as we walked down the street, and then we hit up the ATM for 290 euros (an amount that gives us a few small bills). Then we walked to the catacombs, paid, and climbed down the seemingly endless spiral staircase. The catacombs were originally a quarry, and we had to walk through some long quarry tunnels before we actually made it to the rooms with bones. The rooms with bones were pretty creepy at first but they went on for so long that I eventually grew numb to the creepiness. The walls were made up with stacks and stacks of human bones. The were actually laid out in patterns with femur ends poking out and occasionally a row of outward facing skulls. I kept daring Kara to touch a bone, but she wouldn't do it (I wouldn't either!) We eventually made our way through and emerged a ways from where we entered. We found a supermarket and bought cheese, some unrefrigerated moldy sausage, and some fruit juices. Then we went to a bakery and bought a nice big baguette. We hopped the metro to the Eiffel Tower, and had our picnic in Champs de Mars with the Tower as our scenery.

After lunch we walked to a bike shop and rented bicycles for the rest of the day! Paris is a pretty bike friendly city (bike lanes, separate bike paths, even special stop lights for bicycles) but it still didn't make riding in downtown a peaceful experience. It was hectic at times, but it was still very enjoyable! We rode from the shop out to Hotel des Invalides which is a cathedral that houses Napoleon's tomb. The whole cathedral has been converted to this purpose, and it was seriously over the top! Napoleon's remains are housed in this HUGE stone coffin thing and all around are statues and these relief carvings that show scenes of Napoleon's great accomplishments. In these scenes, Napoleon is depicted as an ancient Roman on a thrown laying down his law. The whole thing really did feel beyond what would be considered reasonable (at least to me). Whether it was done for French nationalistic propaganda purposes or the true idolization of the man, it seemed so far above and beyond that it bordered on worship.

We left Napoleon's alter ... er tomb (it was interesting to see, I enjoyed my visit, I just sound grumpy about it now) we visited the World Wars I and II museum that was included on the ticket. The exhibits were mostly in French, so we just walked through kind of quickly and looked at the exhibits.

Back to our bikes and we rode to Luxembourg Gardens. I thought this might be a nice park to ride our bikes through, but it wasn't that pretty. It was mostly gravel grounds and we just walked our bikes through a little section then got back on the road. We rode over to Notre Dame to see the memorial to the French people deported by the Nazis in WWII. It was a simple stone area that was very stark and isolating. A quiet place to ponder rather than a place to read and learn.

With that our day's planned events were done so we rode back to the bike shop. We rode all the way back from Notre Dame along the left bank of the Seine. We passed lots of cool buildings and bridges including the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, and, but of course, the Eiffel Tower. I shouted forward to Kara "look up at the Eiffel Tower as we bike past it, it's a memory that will last!" and we did just that.

We turned our bikes in and rode the metro back to our hotel. We had a dinner of our leftover bread, cheese, and meat along with the pear from this morning's farmer's market. It was so yummy that we took some silly pictures of Kara eating it.

After that it was reading, checking email, and some writing. And now an early night to bed because we have to catch a train at 7:15 tomorrow morning. See you in Basque country!

Fri. 09-07-07 -- San Sebastian, Spain
Originally published on: 10-05-07

This morning we had to get up at 5:30am so that we could catch our 7:15 train to San Sebastian. We checked our email, and we read that Jessie wasn't able to find two rooms for tonight. They booked one room for one night, so we had to look for a place once we got there. We hopped the metro to the train station, got our Eurail Pass validated, and boarded the train.

The train ride took about 6 hours which felt pretty long. However, since we left so early, we got to San Sebastian at 1:30pm. We read in a tour book that there were lockers in the San Sebastian train station, so our plan was to lock up our bags and then walk from hotel to hotel until we found a room. Well that plan didn't last long, because the lockers at the station were out of order! So, we had to lug our bags out of the station and down the street.

First thing I noticed about San Sebastian is that it was warmer than London and Paris. There was still a cool breeze, but there were less clouds and the sun felt nice and hot. The second thing I noticed was how pretty this little town is. The town is located on the northeast coast of Spain and there is a little river that runs through the middle of it. The buildings look old but nice and the whole town is nestled between beautiful green hills.

We walked along the river toward the coast, then crossed a bridge into the Parte Vieja. We stopped in at the tourist information office and I asked if they had a room finding service. The guy handed me a book full of hotel listings and told me my best bet is to go door to door until I find a room. We walked further into the Parte Vieja which is a car-less few blocks of town. The "roads" are narrow, and there are tons of bars and pensions on both sides of the street.

We rang on penion's doorbell and the guy said he had no rooms. We rang another door and no one answered. The third place we rang, Pension Aires, answered and showed us a simple room with 3 single beds for 60 euros. It seemed pretty expensive, but it was within our budget and I didn't feel like shopping around. So we took it. The place was only available for one night, so we'd have to find another place for the next night. The pension owner told me that he'd help me find a place tomorrow, so we were set.

With our room settled, we left our bags and searched out lunch. There were tons of tapas bars where you walk up to the bar and take whatever you like. We didn't really know the system though, so we didn't want to go in and do it wrong. So we searched around until we found a regular restaurant where we could sit down and order food. We eventually found a place that sold Mexican, Italian, and sandwiches/burgers so we grabbed a table. We both ordered burgers, I got one with a fried egg on it. The egg was over easy, so the egg gooed all over the burger and made it VERY yummy.

After lunch, we walked around the town for a while, walked down to the beach and sat down for a while then went to an internet cafe where we typed up some of our journal entries for our blogs. After a little while longer, it was time for Jeff and Jessie to arrive, so we walked to La Plaza de Constitucion and waited for them to show up. Hugs all around when we found them, and then we went looking for a tapas bar. Jessie knows Spanish, so we had a translator that could ask questions!

We found a busy bar and squeezed our way in. The bar had plates of many different appetizer-like things, most of which had seafood on them. We got some beers and started grabbing food that looked good. When we were ready to leave, we told the bartender how many tapas we ate and he gave us our bill. We left that bar and walked around until we found another place that looked good. We ordered more beers and the grabbing of tapas began again. The second place' food wasn't as good as the first, but the beers were bigger, so we hung out there for a while chatting about Jeff & Jessie's recent wedding, Maui, Barcelona, Paris, etc.

We decided to go back to the first place, but they were closing soon... but we did order this sparkling white wine that is popular in this region. I wasn't a fan, but then I'm not a wine fan, so I'm not one to judge. We stopped at an ice cream place and got some ice cream and then grabbed some chairs at an outdoor cafe in the Plaza de Constitucion for a final beer of the night. We planned to meet up at 11am the next morning and walked back to our room to go to sleep. The party on the street is still going strong, so it is quite loud in our room! However we have earplugs which should block out most of the sound.

Sat. 09-08-07 -- San Sebastian, Spain
Originally published on: 10-06-07

Slept like babies with our earplugs in and got up this morning around 10am. We got ready and packed up and the pension owner found us a place. We met Jeff and Jessie down in the Plaza then walked over to our new pension. The rooms were clean, but they were basically spare bedrooms in an old lady's house. 50 euros for the night was nice & cheap so we paid up.

Jeff & Jessie left their bags at their old place, so we walked over there to pick them up. Then we walked back to Victorina's (the old lady's) to drop off their bags. It was like noon by that time and none of us had eaten yet, so we were really hungry! We ended up finding this egg theme restaurant named Don Huevons that served sandwiches and stuff, most with eggs. We ate breakfast/lunch, then we went on a long walk around all of San Sebastian's coast.

We started east of the river, walked along the coast across the river and behind Parte Vieja. We circled around Monte Urgull and then climbed up the coast side of it to get some amazing views of the bay. We came down on the city side and walked south between Parte Vieja and the harbor and then went down on the beach at Playa de la Concha. We all took our shoes off and walked in the water until the beach ended. We continued along the bay and made our way to the funicular (a cable driven rail car that climbs steep hills) and rode up the side of Monte Igueldo.

The view from here was even better than the other monte. The bay is so beautiful with sandy beaches ringing most of the shoreline. There are green hills marking the land on both sides of the mouth of the bay, and a green hilly island dead center in the mouth of the bay. Once we rode the funicular back down, we finished circling the bay and found some abstract sculptures and these neat manmade blowholes in the walkway (when the waves would come in, these 5-6 blowholes would shoot air out at high speed). After we had seen what we could see, we headed back toward our hotel.

Jeff & Jessie wanted to take a nap, so we decided to split up and meet back up at 9pm. Kara and I walked down on the Playa de la Concha again then went to our room to change for the beach. Then we crossed the street and laid down on La Playa de la Zurriola. We relaxed there for an hour or two, then we went back to our room and took showers to wash off the sunscreen. We hung at our room a little while longer then walked over to the Plaza de la Constitucion.

When we met up, Jessie had written down some restaurants that were recommended in her guidebook, so we went in one and sat down at a table. We looked at the menu, and only had vague ideas of what this food was. We made Jessie order for us, family style, and it really worked out well. We got a plate of cured meats which we ate with pieces of bread. Then came a fish dish which was cod in a tomatoes & peppers sauce that was pretty tasty. Then finally came some yummy local cheese with a fruit paste thing and walnuts. It was all good; thank goodness for our translator!

We left the restaurant and went back to the bar that was nice to us the day before. They remembered us from the night before and joked around with us a bit. When you order beer here, they give you just a little bit in a smallish glass. Today when they poured my beer, they put a little in and said "ok?" We said "more" and he filled the glass (which was about the size of a restaurant water glass) to 2/3 full and asked "ok?" with a big smile. We said "more" and he filled it all the way up and acted like he was doing something completely crazy. Even the people at the bar were like "wooooah" as he filled it up. It was all pretty funny because that was clearly a comically large beer for their standards, but it was still pretty small by our standards. We had a few tapas (I had some fish on bread and skewered octopus) and then we paid and left.

We walked back toward our rooms and sat at an outside table at a bar one block from our place. We had a few more half-full beers and then went to our room. We couldn't get the front door unlocked because you have to turn the key like 3 times in the right direction, so the old lady came to the door all annoyed. I think she thought we were drunk (I heard her say "ladrones") but we weren't. We just couldn't figure out her crazy door!