One Does Not Simply Escape SAS Students. We are Everywhere.

            Today I went with a field program to Hondarribia and San Sebastian. We visited Hondarribia first, an older town with some slightly medieval-like buildings. These buildings, and more of the painted balcony buildings, fed into my obsession. Many pictures were taken. At one point we stopped at a balcony at the edge of the town and could see part of France! Unfortunately, as one of the Life Long Learners stated, seeing a country does not mean you have visited a country. As this is true, a trip to France remains on my bucket list.

            Next we visited San Sebastian, a hot spot for SAS students. While walking by the beach and through the shops we must have run into four groups of students, at least. Many of them stayed in town for a night or two because they wanted to frequent the beaches of San Sebastian before we get into the colder countries. Apparently seeing monuments, museums, and other tourist attractions is not what we are supposed to be doing on this trip. No, we should be spending multiple days at the beach because the United States does not have any beaches. Really. One of the things we keep hearing at pre-ports is to try to blend in with locals as much as we are able. This is hard to do when obnoxious SAS students are yelling for their friends across streets and are decked out in SAS clothing and/or nice jewelry and watches. They have heard the same warnings I have, so I have decided at this point that if something happens to their stuff, I really don’t care. Maybe a little callous, but I’m not their mother. Lots of eye rolling occurred each time SAS students made a scene.

Update: Several people had things stolen from them in Spain, but not as many as in Portugal. I found out my roommate got her wallet stolen in Spain and I hate to say I told yo— who I am kidding, I TOLD YOU ALL THIS WOULD HAPPEN. I feel bad for her, but bad decisions lead to theft. Hopefully she, and others, have learned their lesson. 

            We finished the field program from the top of Igeldo Mountain. We could see the entire coast of San Sebastian and the view was so incredible that I, once again, took more pictures than I will ever be able to do with. I’m not going to lie—some pictures had me in them. I feel the need to prove to both myself and everybody else that yes, I was actually in Spain. You can see one of these photos at the bottom. 

              The nest day was probably the least interesting day I’ve had in Spain so far. I paid the $12 fee to get on the bus to Sopelana for the festival there. Bus boarding started at 9:45, left at 10, and arrived in Sopelana around 10:30. This meant that there was a bus full of Americans ready to come to a festival already in full swing, or half-swing, at least, only to be told that the festival does not start until noon. In other cities this would not be a big deal, we would just walk around the city and go into shops, maybe get some food, and then circle back for the festival. But since this country is primarily Catholic, and Sopelana is a small town, most shops were closed because either the residents were in church (presumably) or they simply do not get up early on Sundays. 

               To kill some time my friends and I found a local park and stayed there until noon. As we were waiting we went on the swings and sat on a bench just getting to know each other better. While I personally think my friends and I are very interesting, something much more entertaining arrived at the park. This “something” would be the constant arrival of Spanish families with toddler-age children. I don’t know if it’s a Spanish thing or a Basque Country thing, but every child we saw was absolutely adorable. There was not one ugly child in the park the entire hour and a half we were there. And believe me, ugly children are not a myth. They exist, but they don’t seem to exist in Spain. So as a change of topic my friends and I moved on to the topic of these adorable children and their coordinated outfits and the amazing genes they must have. This killed time until the festival, at which we meandered around and bought souvenirs until the folk dancing started. The folk dancing started out well, with children in costume dancing a choreographed dance to some instrument that produces a whistle sound, but after about 20 minutes of watching children dance slightly different steps for each song, we were just about done with the festival. We were also informed later that the night before there had been a huge party for the festival that we obviously missed out on. 

              Back on the ship after this festival, my friend Emily and I played ping pong. I don't know about all of you, but I am not particularly talented at table tennis, so the game was interesting. No points were kept, because we are both terrible. I would give us an A for effort but a C+ for technique. Thankfully, there was no one around on Deck 7 to watch us make fools of ourselves because everyone is in Bilbao enjoying the nightlife. 

A stained glass pane from a church in Hondarribia

The view from Igeldo of San Sebastian

San Sebastian is beautiful!