San Sebastián, Tours and Paris

The weather forecast for our last day in San Sebastián was thunderstorms. Luckily, the rain held out during the day. However it was horrifically windy, and quite cold; and the sky was an ominous grey, hinting at a storm all day. So not the best day for laying around the beach or going hiking. We had found a bookstore the previous day that sold English books, and we were both in desperate need of a new book, so we decided to make that the first task of the day. We made it just before they were about to close for seista, and thank goodness we did! They not only had English books, but they were so cheap! We found the next few books of the few series that we had started reading, and got them all for a ridiculously good price. We were more than happy! For lunch we found a cheap kebab place, and sat in the sun and ate kebabs. We went for a bit of a walk along a walkway that wound around the rocks and connected the surf beach to the swimming beach. 

About halfway along we had to turn back. The wind had gotten worse, it had gotten colder, and it looked like the sky was going to burst at any moment. On the walk back to the hostel we stopped at an ice cream store and got some ice cream. We got cappuccino and brownie. They competed with the Italian gelato! It was delicious ice cream. 

Before returning to the hostel we had stopped at the grocery store and bought groceries for dinner that night, as the hostel had a kitchen. However, when we walked in the front door, the lady who's family owns the hostel/guest house informed us, in very broken English, that we were infact not allowed to use the kitchen, as it was for family only. We were so annoyed! We had just bought all this food and it was going to have to go to waste. We lay around in our room for a bit, really not wanting to go out into the rain to find dinner. Before we headed out, we found the lady and used google translate to tell her that she could have the mince we had purchased, as we were leaving the next morning and couldn't keep it. I think she felt bad for us, but she used the translate app to say that we could use the kitchen, but fast. And that she never saw us in there. It was very nice of her! So we rushed into action, and hammered out the quickest pasta bolognase ever. We had to sit out the back to eat it so no one would see us. It was a strange experience, but we were really grateful that she let us cook. 

The next morning, as we do every 3 days, we got up bright and early to catch the bus. Today we were travelling to a place in France called Tours. We were done with Spain! I was pretty sad to say goodbye to tapas and siestas. Our first stop of the morning was in a small town called Biarritz. The place we stopped had a beautiful view over the ocean, and a cute coffee shop where we got a delicious sandwich. 

We arrived in Tours at about 5:00. Since Tours is fairly small, there weren't any hostels, so we had to splurge and get a hotel room. We had looked up our hotel before arriving in Tours, so we knew that it was quite far away from the drop off point. We were unsure about buses and public transport to the hotel at this time, so we had to catch a taxi. The taxi took us further and further out of the town centre, and eventually stopped at this run down looking hotel on the side of the highway. Needless to say we were a little nervous. However once inside it was much nicer. Our room was very tiny, just a bed, small desk, and a tiny bathroom. But it had a double bed, and it was our own room which we hadn't had for a long time. It was nice to be able to spread our stuff out, and not have to worry about anyone else. 

Next to our hotel, there was a nice looking Chinese resturant. We decided to have dinner there, as we didn't have a kitchen to cook our own dinner. We walked in, and were the only customers in the whole resturant. We sat down, looked at the menu and ordered our food. We had ordered spring rolls, but rice paper rolls came out instead. We were a bit annoyed but didn't mind too much, as we both like rice paper rolls. We took a bite of the rolls, and almost had to spit them back out again. They were disgusting! I rolled mine up in a servitte and put it on my lap, and we opened Harrison's up and salvaged what we could from it. They were the worst rice paper rolls I've ever eaten. It was like they had been frozen and then thawed, which they probably had. Next came the meals, which were actually okay. We ate and got out of there as quickly as we could, dropping the wrapped up rice paper roll in the bin on the way out. 

After talking to the hotel staff, we found out that there was a bus into the town centre. So we decided to go explore Tours the next day. After a 40 minute bus ride, we finally made it there. We went into the tourist info centre and grabbed a map, and made our way into the old town. On the way there we stopped at an adorable little cafe and got some lunch. There isn't too much to see in Tours. We had walked around the old town and seen most of the important sights within an hour. 

We wandered in and out of little shops and strolled through the cobbled streets. We came across a candy and liquor store, which I found quite amusing. After walking around for a bit, we felt satisfied that we had seen all there was to see in Tours, so we stopped at a pub and got a drink. 

We caught the bus back to our shabby little hotel, and walked to a grocery store to see what we could do for dinner, as we knew better than to go back to the Chinese resturant. We got some tuna, veggies and bread and had tuna sandwiches for dinner that night. They actually weren't that bad. Better than the food from the previous night. 

The rain came down hard the next day, the day we had to leave. Our bus only arrived at 5pm, so we thankfully didn't have to get up too early, and were able to hide from the rain in the hotel for a while. As the time drew nearer, we trekked to the bus stop and made our way into town. There is large train station in Tours, that we hoped had lockers for us to store our bags while we waited. Unfortunately they did not. They were able to point us in the direction of a bike rental store that had luggage storage, so we went in search of that. The rain was coming down quite hard at this time, and it took us a little while of walking around in the rain to find the bike rental shop, but we finally found it and they were able to keep our bags for only €4! Our next mission was to find lunch. So back out into the rain we went to hopefully find somewhere indoors to eat. Ironically we stumbled across another Chinese takeout place, which was the only food place we had found with available indoor seating. The food was not much better than the previous place, but we did get proper spring rolls this time at least. After lunch we went walked around for a bit in the rain, and I got a new phone case as mine had broken during the trip. 

Once we were done we sat in McDonalds until it was time for the bus to arrive. 

The bus ride to Paris was only supposed to take four hours. However due to the ridiculously heavy rain, the traffic was atrocious. Luckily it cleared up near the end of the trip, so we only ended up getting in an hour late. Since we were driving passed the Eifle Tour at night, and on the hour (10pm), we got to see it light up and sparkle! It was an incredible thing to see! The sparkling made that ugly piece of metal into something beautiful and magical. I am really happy that we got to see it! We also drove passed the Moulin Rouge, which was cool to see at night. 

We finally got to the drop off point at 10:30, and it had not stopped raining. We donned our rain jackets and trekked into the night, in search of a metro. We welcomed the dryness and warmth of the train. We were due to change trains, so we hopped off the first one, only to discover that there was track work on the line we needed. To get to the station we needed we would have to go back the way we had just come, and get on two more trains after that. I was tired, hungry and drenched so I put my foot down and basically demanded we get a taxi. It was almost 11:30 by this point and we had not eaten since lunch time, it was raining heavily and the train station we were in smelled like pee. I had had enough. We found a taxi and finally made it to our hostel, just before midnight. 

The whole bus ride to Paris, I had been really itchy. I had hopes that it was just from sitting for so long, or just in my head. But when we got into our hostel room, and I stripped down, I was dismayed to find bites all over my arms, legs and back. After four months, we had finally gotten a taste of bedbugs. And not even from a hostel! From a hotel! I was so annoyed. Luckily Harrison didn't get them too bad, but I am covered. Even on my hands the little bastards! And I have not reacted to them well, the bites have swollen to three times their original size and are itchy as all hell. I got into the shower and tried to scrub away the itch, but nothing helped. By 12:30 we had settled in and finally been able to go make some dinner. However I was so exhausted, I felt too ill to eat so I just went to bed. 

This morning, the first thing we did after breakfast was scout out the closest laundromat and wash all of our clothes on the hottest wash we could. Hopefully we managed to kill any bugs left on our clothes. Tonight we are making the awful over night bus ride to London, so we have just been preparing for that all day. I can't believe that our time in Europe is over. It feels like we just arrived in Paris to start our journey, and now we are leaving. It has been an incredible few months, we have experienced so many amazing things and met some equally amazing people. This trip has changed the way that I look at the world, life and myself. It has been a huge eye opener, and a true test of character. And if I am being truly honest, I am really proud of both Harrison and myself. We have faced and overcome some pretty bad things, like having our stuff stolen during our first week in Europe, sickness and hospital visits. We have made so many incredible memories. I am proud of the person that I have become, and the things that I have achieved. I am sad to be leaving Europe, and our backpacking days, but I am also so excited to be starting the next chapter of our adventure in South Africa! 

Madrid and San Sebastián

We arrived to a really great hostel in Madrid, which is always a good start for any new city. The hostel is fairly new, so everything was super up to date and good quality. It is always such a relief to arrive at a hostel, and have it be really nice. We got checked in, and headed out for dinner with a bunch of people from the bus that day. Our guide took us to this awesome Mexican place, not far from our hostel. I had been absolutely craving a burrito, so I was more than excited! We arrived and the smell was incredible, everything I had been hoping for. Harrison and I got a burrito each, and we split some nachos and a litre of margarita between us and a new friend from the bus. The food was so delicious! 

And they really weren't shy with the helpings! I don't think anyone got through all their food. 

When we had arrived we had been informed that there was to be a karaoke night at the hostels bar that night! So after dinner we made our way back to the hostel. We were a little early and the karaoke bar wasn't open yet, so we grabbed some beers and sat in the hostels common room and waited for the bar to open. The time came, and we made our way down to the bar. We were pretty much the only people in there! Spain really starts its nights very late. We went in anyway and ordered some drinks. It's great going out in a group, because more often than not bars will have deals on jugs of alcohol. So when you're in a group you can all put money in and the jug ends up being really cheap. We got a few jugs of sangria, and waited for the karaoke to start. Soon enough the bar started to fill up, and they finally started the karaoke! It wasn't very good, the sound system kept dropping out and a lot of people didn't show up when called, but it was still a fun night! We only ended up getting into bed at 2am, and I'm sure the party went on much later into the night. The Spanish are crazy with their late nights.

The next morning we got up and went on a walking tour provided by the hostel, with some people we met on the bus. It was quite an interesting tour, we got to see the oldest resturant in the world!

(According to the guinness world record book). And we stood in the very centre of Spain!

We saw a lot of Madrid and learnt some interesting things about the cities history.

Though it was so hot walking around in the sun that by the end of the tour we were just wishing it would be over. For lunch the four of us decided to go to a tapas bar that we had been told about. But first we had a bit of a pit stop at another bar that served 80 cent beer! And that was the bigger size, you could get a smaller cup for 40 cents. It was pretty awesome! Once we got to the tapas bar, we ordered our drinks and waited for the tapas to come. At many tapas bars around Spain, you have to pay for the tapas that you get with your drink. However, at a traditional tapas bar you only pay for the drinks and the tapas is free. This place was a traditional tapas bar, so we each paid €6 for a drink and that was it. The plates of tapas started arriving, and the food was so good! The first few plates contained pieces of bread with delicious bits of prosciutto and chunks of pork on them and a whole plate of potato wedges. When the waiters saw the plates were empty, they brought more! This time we got a plate of deep fried cheese balls which where absolutely amazing, a plate of paella and a plate with bread with mixed toppings such as omelette, pork, prosciutto and beef slices. It was incredible! All that food for €6 each! If you didn't get up and leave once you were full, they would just keep bringing you plates of food! It was one of the best and cheapest lunches we have had. It was fairly late in the afternoon, and as we are in Spain we decided to uphold the tradition of an afternoon siesta. 

Once we were all rested we walked to the Rein Sofia art gallery, as after 6pm it was free entry. Luckily we didn't have to wait long at all to get in, and there weren't that many people inside. I was particularly excited, as this art gallery had a lot of Salvador Dali's artworks. I had really hoped to visit the Salvador Dali museum whilst in Spain, but due to poor research I was mislead to the whereabouts of the museum. I had really thought it was in Madrid, but this was unfortunately not the case. It is actually located in a town an hour out of Barcelona. I could have kicked myself, I was so disappointed. However this gallery gave me my Dali fix, so that made it a little less painful. 

The first half of the museum was very interesting, and had some great artworks. However the second half focused on minimalistic artwork, which honestly I just don't understand. (In case you don't know, minimalistic artworks are those canvases you see that have a few dots or lines on them. In one case there were blank canvases. And a candle in a shoe. Not my kind of art.) We quickly grew bored of lines, dots and paint splashes and decided to go find some dinner. 

It was quite late, and we were eager to get some food so we made the hasty decision to eat at a little resturant down a side street on the way home. We looked at the menu and ordered our food. In all honesty, I don't know what I ordered. It was in Spanish, but I could see it had prawns in it so I decided to be brave. What arrived was 3 fried eggs, a few prawns, grilled squid and caviar ontop of some French fries. Let's just say that the only good thing about the meal were the eggs. They had absolutely butchered the prawns. They were so incredibly over cooked, they had the texture of McDonalds chicken nuggets. The squid was fishy and chewy and over cooked. And the caviar was just disgusting. But hey I can say I've tried caviar now. Everyone else's food was less disastrous. Even though our one friend only got his burger after the rest of us had finished eating. 

By the time we got back to the hostel it was about 10:45. We had all decided to go out, so we quickly got ready and headed out again. We had planned on going to the hostels bar, then a big club. But the hostel bar was closed, and the club had terrible reviews on the internet, so we decided to join the pub crawl that was conviently leaving the hostel instead. During the first hour, in the first bar we arrived at, there was an open bar. We paid a set price and then were able to order as many drinks as we could in that hour. There were now 5 of us, and we all drank more than our money's worth at the open bar. The next few bars were fun, and we danced a lot and met lots of people. 

The pub crawl ends at a club. We all danced a lot, and had so much fun. It was an incredible night! But if we had thought the previous night was a late one, we were wrong. We made it back to the hostel at 6:30am, just in time for the sunrise. And just in time to find a guy that had passed out in the toilet whilst taking a poo, puked on himself, then passed out again still sitting on the toilet, and help his friend get him into the shower. 

The next day was not so good, and we didn't do anything. Open bars and shots are bad and I will leave it at that. 

The day after that one, we were on the bus to San Sebastián. It wasn't that long of a bus ride, we arrived at 4pm. Harrison and I had to walk a bit to get to our hostel from the drop off point, so we began on our way. There was a mix up with the address of the hostel so it ended up taking us over an hour to find it. When we finally did, we were less than impressed. This accomodation was one of the most expensive we have had to pay so far. We arrived to an apartment owned by 3 guys, that had been converted into a 'hostel'. Meaning that they had put 5 bunk beds into their garage. It felt like we were staying in someone's basement. Except with 10 strangers and in crappy bunk beds. We were also informed that the hostel would actually be closing the next day so we would have to be moved, but more on that later. At least there was a decent kitchen at this place. 

The room we were in had no windows, as it was a garage, so we woke up really late. Both of us had woken up a few times during the morning, but because it was still so dark our sleepy minds figured it must still be night time. We weren't the only ones. Almost everyone in the room has slept in, most missing check out. Today was the day we had to move. Apparently the hostel was closing for the season, yet they still let us book to stay there. I have no idea why they would do that but they did. So we had to pack up our stuff and move to another hostel up the road that they had made arrangements at for us. Luckily, this hostel is leaps and bounds better. It is more of a guest house than a hostel and is in an adorable old Spanish house, and we are not sleeping in a garage. However we do have to share our room with a Brazilian guy who also had to be moved from the previous hostel. This wouldn't be too bad, if the room wasn't a private room with a double bed, that they have just put a trundle bed in the corner of. It is a fairly small room as well. But oh well, at least we aren't in a garage. 

Due to the disruptive morning we only got out quite late this afternoon. We headed down to the beach and city centre to find some lunch. Whilst in Barcelona and Madrid tapas is the thing, in San Sebastián and surrounding areas it's pintxos (pronounced pintch-ohs). Pintxos is similar to tapas in the way that it is small portions of food you get with your drinks. However pintxos aren't free. And you get to chose what you want, unlike tapas where they serve you whatever they are serving that day. The bar is filled with plates of all sorts of different types of food, with skewers in them. Traditionally you order a drink, get a plate and chose what you want, and then when you are done you take your plate up, they count the skewers and you pay. But since San Sebastián is so touristy, most bars will make you pay before you eat. We made our way into old town and picked a bar. We ordered our drinks and received our plate. None of the pintxos are labelled, so we just dived in and grabbed stuff. We didn't even get that many pintxos, but it was really expensive! 

I prefer tapas. I have no idea what we tried - I am pretty sure it was mostly seafood - but it was all delicious! 

After lunch we made our way through the old town towards the beach. We had been told about a place that hires stand paddle boards on the beach, so as it was quite cheap we had decided to rent some boards and give it a go. We collected our boards, which are much bigger and heavier than surfboards, and made our way into the ocean. We paddled out past where the waves were breaking and attempted to stand up and paddle board. I say attempted, because it didn't really happen. Harrison managed to stand up and stay up a few times, and by the end was actually quite good! 

However, I did not. I managed to stand up briefly a few times, but came crashing down moments later. We only had the boards for an hour, so I feel like if we had had them for longer I would have gotten better. Even though I never got to stand up and paddle board, I still had a lot of fun! I managed to sit cross legged on the board and paddle around which was great! It was a hilarious and exhausting hour, and we both loved it. Although my knees and elbows did not! 

On our walk back to the hostel we came across a fruit shop so we brought some fruit to eat on the way. And as per usual it was delicious. We also passed by a churros stand, and since we haven't had any churros yet in Spain we decided to try some. They were also very delicious. 

Once back at the hostel and showered we were both so tired from our long day, that we decided to just get pizza from the pizza place down the road for dinner. We had actually wanted to buy dinner from the grocery store, but once again forgot that it was Sunday so the grocery store was closed. So pizza it was. But, when Harrison went down to get the pizza they wanted to charge us €25!! For one pizza! We think they might have been trying to rip us off since we are tourists. So we didn't get pizza. We had to walk back into the city centre to try find food. There wasn't that much open, and we couldn't eat pintxos again, because whilst they are delicious, it is expensive to get a lot of them. So we caved and went to McDonalds. I can proudly say that it is the first time this whole trip that we have eaten at McDonalds. We are not proud of it, but we were tired and hungry. It was crap anyway. 

Tomorrow, we are hoping that the weather reports are wrong and it's going to be a nice day. If it is a nice day we will probably go on one of the many hikes in this beautiful part of the world.