The past three days have been very unusual.
First, I was stuck in Barcelona for one more night because all the train tickets for San Sebastian were sold out .Since I had one more afternoon in Barcelona, I decided to walk around the Victorian Quarter and then to visit Guadi’s building, a must thing to do. So I walked around 35 minutes to get to the Victorian Quarter, where I took some pretty pictures of the Victorian houses and sat at a coffee shop to drink a “coffee frappe”.
It was time to go to Guadi’s building, so I took the subway, and when getting out of the “Metro” station, I saw a lot of people and it was very noise. I was so scared that actually I did not go out of the station, and I took the train again, this time in the direction of the hotel. Oh no! A lot of people are outside of the station again! Actually, there were two subway stops from Guadi’s building to my hotel.
On my way out from the “Metro” Station in Barcelona, Cataluna Reion, Spain
I asked people around the Metro before getting out to the street (very smart 🙂 ) to inform me what was going on. They told me that it was a protest by the Catalans asking for an independent country (as usual). Anyway, that was the only route that I had to take to get to my hotel, and it took me 20 minutes to cross the 6 lane street.
Catalans' Protest in Barcelona, Cataluna Region, Spain
I was already on the corner of the street, when a person in front of me fainted, and very smartly, I started blowing air into her face and back of the head, two persons next to her held her, and we started walking in between people. Everybody was giving us fast access, and it took me only 30 seconds to walk the same distance that took 20 minutes before.
During the time that I was away from the crowd, it was time to watch the soccer match between Uruguay and Germany for third place in the South Africa World Cup 2010. I went to a nice little place where a lot of young people were hanging out. I ate the most desired sandwich ever (my stomach was empty for 7 hours) and I watched the first period of the match. Then I hit the hotel, where I watched the rest of it.
Yesterday, my train for San Sebastian was early, so I was out of the hotel at 6:45 A.M. It took 5 hours, and I got to San Sebastian in the early afternoon (around 1:30 P.M).
San Sebastian is a small city and it is a vacation spot, rather than touristic. I had only a couple of things to do, mostly to do with sun, beach and partying, which I did not get to do any of them. Even though it was cloudy, it was nice weather. It was kind of hot. Since it was nice outside, I decided to walk from my hotel to the beach (two small blocks away), I was thinking about getting into the Ocean. I wet my feet, and the water was cool, and with no sun, no wonder no one was at the beach (it looked like a ghost beach city).
La Concha Beach, San Sebastain, Vasc Region, Spain
I walked to the Cathedral, then I went to a fort where one of the battles against Napoleon was fought, and then I went downtown. It was a nice walk. I saw a lot of little shop places, and I took some pictures of the narrow streets with wonderful views.
Cathedral in San Sebastain, Vasc Region, Spain
Entrance to the Fort from the top of the hill, San Sebastain, Vasc Region, Spain
City Hall in San Sebastain, Vasc Region, Spain
IMG_3629 MISSING
San Sebastain, Vasc Region, Spain
The city was kind of dead, between the weather and the San Fermin Festival (known as the “Pamplonada”), nobody was in the city. No big party around, especially for a night when the Spanish team won the World Cup (which I wasted two hours of my trip watching such a terrible match). In a few words, no sun, no beach, no party. However, I really enjoyed San Sebastian. So far, it is the place that I would live if I moved to Europe. The pee odor is still a characteristic in all the Spanish cities that I have visited, and San Sebastian is no exception.
The original San Sebastian plan was to be one whole day on the beach, and a morning walking around the town, but I changed all the plans, because there was no way I would stay at the beach for more than one hour. So today, I walked again around the city, since I really like it.
I’m on my way to Pamplona, and I already bought my red belt and my red handkerchief to be a doc with the festivities.
