Figjam's Epic Adventure 'The Second Coming': San Sebastian and Barcelona! BikeRiding, Skateboarding and Surfing!

27/5/11

1732 (local time)

Well Hello!!! Long time no speak... its almost been a week! So im currently sitting here in a hostel in Barcelona not doing all that much because I have a cold or a flu... not exactly sure... but I don’t feel great. (on second thoughts, its probably because we went swimming at 2am in the morning after being out at a club... rookie error) ~~Probably just a bad case of man flu I reckon~~. Anyway... So I have just come from San Sebastian, which was pretty amazing. I was there for about 4 nights, at some super cheap hostel right in the middle of town.

I arrived via an 100Euro Overnight Train from Paris that left at around 11ish and got me in to San Sebastian by about 9am-ish. The train was fine, got a bit cold but no dramas! My problem was, that I knew that all the hostels were fully booked when I arrived there on the 21^st (Saturday), so my first port of call was to just try to go to any of these hostels to let me know if there was a late cancellation. On my way to the first hostel, I bumped into another guy in the same situation. Simon was from Sydney, Australia and he had been knocking on different hostels for about 2 hours until he was fortunate enough to find one!

After I heard that, I was thinking of other options. I found this place where I would be staying after the weekend (San Sebastian gets booked out on weekends). Was this place called Rogers House that is in the old quarters of town.

I dumped my bags there, so I didn’t have to carry them around, and went walking with Simon for a bit to find different hostels. I gave up on that idea pretty quickly and just accepted that something will come up, and if not ill deal with it then.

So myself and Simon went for a hike up to the big Jesus statue that looks down upon the city, and saw the beautiful view that was San Sebastian. We took a ton of photos and then headed back down to the hostel to see if any availabilities had come up on Hostel World (backpackers website for cheap hostels).

On the way back, we noticed all these protesters hanging out in the main square protesting because of the government are changing the way voting is done there? Not really all that sure as I don’t speak Spanish.

I noticed that there were sleeping bags everywhere, so the protesters must be sleeping in the main square as well... Perfect, worst comes to worst I could just sleep there with all the protesters, No Dramas!

When we got back to the hostel, Albert (one of the staff members) greeted me with great news, saying that a bed just opened up, so I took it straight away.

I settled in, and it wasn’t long until Albert was mixing up a cocktail in a massive pot for everyone! Its great when this happens because everyone ends up chatting to everyone and you make some good mates. I got chatty with 2 guys from America. John ‘The Crunter’ and his mate Flynn. These guys were cool, and they were in the same boat I was in... with nowhere to stay.

Anyway, the cocktail was drunk and it was time to hit the streets. It was a pretty tame night... Strange, as we were all hanging out with random French and Spanish dudes! But still good fun! We got up the next day feeling kind of rough, but it was also raining! So I made the use of that, and took a bus to Bilbou, which is about an Hour South – West of San Sebastian, where there was a Guggenheim Museum which is all full of abstract art. Normally I would think it is stupid, but you pay something like 5 Euros, and you get entry into the museum, and also an audio guide that tells you about the different pieces you are looking at, which made it quite interesting. Anyway, so once I toured through the museum it was getting late so I got enough bus back to San Sebastian where I cooked some dinner and had a quiet night.

The next couple of days were nice, not doing much just chilling out on the beach, going for swims, swimming to an island, skateboarding, bike riding around town... Where I got hit by a car, which was great fun and generally chilling out. The last day was wicked, as I met up with another Aussie guy from Perth, Zach had been travelling for a while, doing similar stuff like myself, anyway he brought a surfboard over from Aus, which he then brought with him too San Sebastian. So with a late start we made it over to the surf beach. After he had finished with his board, I took it out for a cheeky surf. It was good for the first couple of minutes, but an onshore wind kicked in and because the tides were changing the swell went from messy to flat, which means I didn’t catch that many waves... in fact I caught none. But it was still good to be out there.

Anyway, so that night I had bought another overnight bus ride from San Sebastian to Barcelona that left at 12 midnight and gets into Barcelona by 7ish. So before I left for the bus, I slammed down a few drinks and then as soon as I got on the bus, fell asleep. And 7 hours later woke up in Barcelona.

So I got in at Barcelona, and I was smart enough this time to book 1 hostel for 1 night and then another hostel for another night. As soon as I got in, I spent at least 10 minutes looking at the Barcelona metro map trying to figure it all out, because at first glance, it looks like someone threw up spaghetti on a piece of paper. Once I had it all figured out I made my way to my hostel, where I dumped my bags, had a shower and then went trekking around the city. I pretty much saw every main tourist attraction there in one day. Which I’m not proud of, but nothing really grabbed me there. There were some buildings which looked architecturally amazing, but all in all, it just felt like another city.

By 5pm I made it back to the hostel, cooked up some rubbish pizza from the shop, and had the idea that I was going to go skateboarding in town after the sun goes down.

By 7ish, I was a wreck, getting hot and cold sweats, muscle aches etc etc. I was in no shape to go anywhere. So I had a long hot shower, jumped in my sleeping back and watched a movie and drank a load of water, hoping that I would be feeling better the next day.

The next day rolled around, and I still wasn’t feeling 100% but I had to leave the hostel and make my way to another hostel, so I found my inner power animal, and made it to this other hostel where I pretty much spent the whole entire day just relaxing to get my energy back.

I caught up with the ‘Crunter’ and Flynn (2 American Boys) for a bit until I retired back to the hostel to chill out again.

It wasn’t until about 9ish where I found some energy and went skateboarding for an hour, but then had to stop early because my right ankle was feeling like it was going to fall off... yeah I think I’ve injured my ankle again... GREAT!, Probably should wear my ankle brace skateboarding as well.

I got back to the hostel by 10, where I was greeted by 4 American girls asking me if I wanted to go out with them tonight... even though I was feeling slightly average, couldn’t really say no...’ it was the polite option’ J. So we headed out to this sangria bar and then made our way to some super fancy, expensive night club on the beach in Barcelona. The girls got us all in for free... Apparently its a 20 Euro entry ($40AUD) We stayed there for a bit, until we all got bored and caught the last metro home!

It was a cool night, it was just good to get out of the hostel for a bit! Big thanks to the girls for inviting me out!

Anyway, that pretty much brings me to the end of this update.

Not all that inspiring, but im not a performing monkey so give me a break!

Enjoy the photos!

Much love!

Steve

SAN SEBASTIAN