BIENVENIDOS 20/01/07

My plane to San Sebastian was awesome because I could see all the mountains and lakes and cities from the sky. San Sebastian was absolutely beautiful from the sky…much more scenic and stunning than Madrid (sorry Madrid people but its true).

I waited at the San Sebastian airport for Santiago, the University housing director, to pick me up and take me to my flat. The airport was smaller than Schaumburg’s, but unlike Schaumburg’s airport, I could see France to the right and water was less than a football field away to the left. [There were tons of rowers, Mary!!! You would love it]

When I got into the city, it was jam-packed with people because I arrived on their biggest holiday of the year-San Sebastian Day, of course. So since it was their Saint Day…there was pretty much complete madness for 24 hours.

Santiago told me it was a bigger party holiday than New Years. Just imagine tons of loud Spaniards all drinking 40’s and bottles of wine lining the streets to watch the 24 hour marching band/snare drum/chef and peasant parade. (That is the parade’s unofficial name of course.)

Yes, it was the parade that never ended with the song that also never ended. It goes on all 24 hours…and all 24 hours it goes on in pieces through out every neighborhood of the city. This means that you can never NOT hear it or see it. And lucky me…I live in Plaza Sarriegi. Sarriegi, the man, happened to be the composer of 5 songs very important to San Sebastian. So, in short…every hour on the hour my plaza got filled with hundreds of people playing those 5 songs over and over with encores.

Because of this holiday madness, all the streets were closed and I was forced to walk 15 blocks with all of my luggage to my apartment. On top of that it was about 65 degrees and I was wearing 2 sweatshirts and a winter coat = very sweaty and gross… and the walk culminated with 4 flights of stairs to my flat…...

I’m not going to lie, the parade was bizarre and the people just never did get tired of it…they were excited every time they saw it over and over…and they hummed along and sang in Basque/Euskadi.The men in the parade were all dressed like chefs and the women dressed like peasants. Some of the men chefs carried giant forks and knives and spoons….Then there were the random people with hoes and shovels. Of course, I have no clue what these people represent…a chef revolution? All I know is, San Sebastian is known for having the best food in all of Spain…sooo that’s as logical as I can get.