After driving for over nine hours, we just felt lucky to have finally arrived in San Sebastian, Spain. The day's worth of driving had been horrendous! We left a traveler at a truck stop by accident, got stuck behind an accident, etc…All the sleepy travellers on the bus were anxious to disembark and search for their hostels.
I completely missed the beauty of the city as we drove in, looking only at the time on my watch slowly creeping by. I barely noticed the sun setting behind the hills that kissed the ocean. Only when the bus stopped in a square, did I really look at my new surroundings and realize that San Sebastian is a beautiful city.
As everyone took their tired bodies from the bus, dozens of people suddenly surrounded us, shouting in Spanish how many beds they had open. In this way, we were each finally taken to a home and told the price of the hostel. (Unfortunantely for me, I speak no Spanish, the proprietor spoke no English. This was a fairly confusing moment.) My friend and I paid the older woman, whose grandchildren peered at the strange visitors from the living room doors, and were off in search of a fun place.
San Sebastian is a fun town, where work doesn't start until 9 a.m., a siesta is practically required from 1 p.m. until 4 p.m. and happy hour doesn't get swinging until 10 p.m. In fact, there was a dance club we heard about that didn't open until 3 a.m.!
The bar we found was handing out flyers that included a coupon for a free Sangria. We decided that was good enough. By 11 p.m., there were tons of people stuffed into the bar, all drinking Sangrias, beer, any kind of alcohol possible. Then the dancing. Dancing with locals, dancing with foreigners, dancing with anyone who wanted to! San Sebastian left us with a smile (not really the next morning, however), and a continual wish to return.
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