Sunday: We got ourselves, up, packed, and out today by 10a. Kati and her husband allowed us to leave our bags in their hallway for the day so we could go out and walk around for a few hours without all our stuff. We started the day off with an absolutely stunning breakfast at a little café table under the glorious sunshine. The food is still getting my mouth watering when I look at the pictures: Spanish café con leche and two sweet, pastry-type treats. The first was a doughnut that had a crunchy and sweet apple glaze on top and pieces of caramelized apple inside. The second was a soft, slightly sweet warm bread with hardened chocolate on each end, sugar sprinkled on top, and a strip of thick chocolate inside. OH- MON- DIEU!!
I remember eating this, but it feels like it never actually happened because of how much I crave the food in this picture!
After breakfast ( = after tearing ourselves away from this Heavenly spot!) the three of us headed to San Sebastián's Aquarium. Erin wasn't really interested in the Aquarium so she headed off for a walk or whatnot around the beach. But Rosie and I definitely like doing some of the touristy stuff when we're visiting all of these foreign places, so we paid the 8 euros to go inside. Since it was Sunday, there were probably two or three other parties in the whole Aquarium for the two hours we were in there. We had such a great experience strolling through, taking our time, admiring the view of the ocean out of every window, and watching the fish in the tanks but I am really really sad to tell you that my camera died while we were inside. :( I got a couple of good pics of old ships, tools, and expositions from San Sebastián's whaling history while walking through the history-based section, but the highlight of the Aquarium is its underwater tunnel. And this is exactly where my camera died! I had brought my charger with me to San Sebastián but I hadn't thought to grab a different sized plug-adapter for traveling into "Southern Europe."Though this and my "Northern Europe" adapter look exactly the same, apparently they are different. Basically, I was never able to plug in my camera during the weekend. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to go back. ;)
Notice the whale that was caught, off to the right?
The skeleton of a baby whale
I didn't like this picture at first because it's so dark that you can't see my face; but now I realize that the background makes this picture fantastic and the fact that I am just in it is a bonus.
The view out every single window in the Aquarium.... ahhhhhhh. :)
This was a splendid way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday. Afterwards, Rosie and I met back up with Erin and the three of us walked across the way to a bizarre that was selling San Sebastián and Donostia (the Basque name for the city) merchandise. I bought a few gifts for my family and for a couple of friends and then we headed out to find lunch. Our last meal in Spain was more of the typical fare: I had the same type of ham as yesterday, some fries, a rather bland salad, and two croquettes. Besides the salad, it was bliss. :) When we were good and full, we headed back to our hostel to gather our things and then head to the tram station. We took the tram the 45 minutes back to Hendaye and then had a good half an hour to kill before our train to Pau arrived. We bought some pick-me-ups at a café across the street (I had a cappuccino that tasted more like coffee flavored hot chocolate) and then we had a leisurely train ride to Pau. We switched trains one time in Bayonne but on both trains we had our own empty compartment. It was a very nice, relaxing ride.
At the train station, Lionel AND Christine were there to welcome me home. :) They offered rides to both of my friends, because they are just that cool, so the five of us packed into their little van. Once back at home, we settled into an apéritif courtesy of Maÿlis. She was leaving in the morning so she wanted to celebrate her last night with us. We had some more of Lionel's Spanish wine, cassis liquor and water, tortilla chips, and barbecue flavored Pringles. As un-fancy as the snacks sound, they were (and always are) served in nice ceramic bowls. We started dinner off with a carrot soup and then moved onto the main course of yummy pasta salad. The salad consisted of those twisty pasta noodles, tomatoes, Greek cheese cubes, cucumber, and green olives. With that we had some more bread and a spinach salad. For desert, a pineapple, apple, and banana salad- it was a salad bar kind of night!
This was a very excellent weekend for me; I enjoyed my experience in Spain immensely and would love to go back to San Sebastián one day. I ate well, felt the sun on my skin, and saw many beautiful things- I go to bed as happy as can be!
Bonne nuit!
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