San Sebastian

i caught an overnight bus to San Sebastian, if you've been reading this blog a while you'll probably know how much i hate overnight transport, it just totally ruins you for the next day, but it does save you a bit of money. i don't think i got one wink of sleep but having said that, the bus was a lot more roomy than other buses i've been on, which make it a bit more comfortable. while i'm on the bus i had a spanish girl sit next to me on the bus who wanted to talk to me, problem was, she didn't speak any english and i don't speak spanish, i tried to explain to her i had no idea what she was saying, but it didn't stop her. after a solid hour of one sided conversation, she got the picture. when i finally arrived at about 7am in the morning i was pretty tired to say the least, but i couldn't check into my hostel until noon. so i just dropped my bag off and had a wander around. i was a bit worried at first the weather wasn't looking very good, and San Sebastian is right on the water and pretty much everything revolves around the beach. so if the weather was crap, i was expecting my time here wouldn't be too grand either. lucky for me the weather came out and i sat down next to the water and sunned myself like a lizard. i nearly fell asleep in the process.

since i've been here in Spain, i've already experienced a few little changes in culture. got in on a Sunday which in Europe is generally a really quiet day, but for some reason, people were everywhere and San Sebastian had plenty of stuff going on ie: markets, soccer games on the beaches and a number of shops open. i found out later that in spain some shops will stay open on a sunday and close on a monday, which is a bit different to the rest of europe.
i haven't been caught out by the town shutting down from everyone going for a 'siesta' as yet, which is what i kind of expected coming to a smaller town because thats what i experienced when i was in Cinque Terre in Italy, things close but not to the extent that its a ghost town. but, then again, i do say 'yet', its still early days.
also i dunno what it is, but it seems that every second person has a body piercing. bottom lips and noses in particular.

my old work mate Aaron, who is also quite well travelled, told me that while i was here i should check out a place that sold really good local food. it took me a little while to find it, but the search was well worth it. the place was packed, standing room only, and there was a real vibrance in the air. i shuffled my way to the bar, problem was, i couldn't see a menu so, the guy behind me saw that i had no idea, so he said 'do you want me to help you order?' to which i replied 'yeah, that would be brilliant!'. he orded me 2 different dishes, the first was a meat dish that was so tender it seriously melted in my mouth. The other one he ordered for me was cod in a light batter, which also was cooked to perfection. best of all it wasn't expensive at all, in fact the perfect price for a traveller so i invited a few people from the hostel to show them how good it was, they all loved it too. if you're ever in San Sebastian make sure to check out 'La Cuchara de San Telmo', just look for a red spoon hanging out the front. i found while i was here i found out that its considered polite to throw your servette on the ground, and that tapas here is called 'pintxos', supposidly tapas is what they say in Barcelona, i heard that one of the languages they speak in Barcelona, called Catalan, sounds totally different to normal spanish, so tapas could be a Catalan thing. but it hasn't all been fine dining, i've been cooking for myself as well, i went to a little butcher and brought some sausages and cooked them up, they were delightful. i've found the fresh food here quite good compared to other countries i've visited.

San Sebastian is a really pretty place. really clean and from what i can gather its a bit of a swanky holidaying area, but if you're looking for sights you're not really going to find much here. there originally was a wall around parts of the town (i think to stop others attacking from the sea, but don't quote me on that) but most of it has been pulled down over the years to expand the city. they have some sculptures here that they are pretty proud of, one of them is called 'El Peine del viento' which is kind of looks like giant rusted steel forks coming out of rocks, i think the main reason the locals like it so much is because the artist, Eduardo Chillida, used to be the goal keeper for the local soccer team here.
on the top of one of the hills is a kind of fortress thingy that has a giant jesus on the top of it. it was kind of a poor mans version of 'Christ the Redeemer' the well known Jesus statue in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. except he didnt have his arms out he was giving the peace sign. it could be the delinquint in me but while i was up there looking at the view (which was pretty by the way) i was thinking to myself 'if you knocked off the pointer finger it would look like he was giving the bird to boats floating passed' of course i didn't do it, but it shows how much spare time i had on my hands while i was here.
i pretty much spent a lot of the time chilling out on the beach and enjoying the scenery. something that was rather funny, i was walking to the beach and i ran into a guy called Kyle, who i used to go to high school with and i hadn't seen him since we finshed. he was here for a couple of days for business, i hate saying this word but it was really 'random', i never expect to meet people that i know.

while i was here i did a day trip to Bilbao, which was an enjoyable hour bus ride through the hills. Bilbao is a nice little place, not really much there except for the thing i went to Bilboa for, the Guggenheim. going to the Guggenheim was on my 'must do' list when i came to spain, its a pretty amazing space to see and walk through. apart from being another of, Frank Gehry's Architectual masterpieces (you may have noticed, if you'be been reading the blog for a while, i have seen a few of his buildings now) its contents are pretty good. they had some Richard Serra sculpture, i saw his 'clara clara' piece in Paris (click here to read the Paris blog) but they had a room at the Guggenheim that was given to him to design something for it, so that was pretty interesting.
also they had a Japanese artist called 'Murakami' who is pretty cool, i've known about him for a little while now, some of his work hung at GoMA while i was living in Brisvegas. i quite like his stuff, he does work in a number of different mediums: sculpture, animation and painting to name a couple. all of it tends to have a very sickly sweet anime quality to it, but on the other hand, its very sexual. i wouldn't be surprised if he's quite heavily into Andy Warhol because he kind of blurs the lines between artist and commercial artist, for instance he did some designs for patterns on Louis Vuitton handbags, he also sells wallpaper and action figures of his work.
they also have a couple of Jeff Koons sculptures. i missed out on his exhibition in Berlin by a couple of days so i was glad to be able to see some of his work while i was here. one was just outside of the main entrance, its of a giant dog (probably about 20m high) made out out earth, and had flowers growing all over it, which was pretty cool.

the hostel i stayed in was pretty chilled out and the people that worked there were really friendly, i also met some cool people while i was here, i got on really well with a swedish guy in particular, his name was David, and had just moved to Spain for work, from what i could gather, he designs websites. i dunno what it is about the Swedes but everyone of them i've met have turned out to be awesome. i liked San Sebastian, i think i would've liked it a bit more if it was just a little bit hotter so i could enjoy the beaches, but oh well. now i'm putting the rest of my spanish exploring off for a moment and heading off to Porto in Portugal for a while. i think its going to be another epic train ride, i'll do my best not to rant to much on the next blog.