S2E3 - ¿Estás confundida?: Buses in the Basque Country and Miracles in Montserrat
Kaixo guztioi eta ongi etorri blogaren beste edizio batera.
I want to start off by saying that my sitting down to write this blog right now is pure dedication, because I am so tired. Not only that, but I’ve given up my free ticket to the Picasso Museum to sit down this afternoon with my second coffee of the day (or really, the second coffee I’ve consumed in the past two hours) to muster some energy and thoughts on this exciting week. It has been the best week of the entire trip so far—maybe even my best week in Spain ever. But to understand my tiredness and the greatness of these past few days, we should start from the beginning: last Monday. If you recall, last week I left you with many unresolved, let’s call them “issues.” First, we had the whole internship situation with no work to do and a whole lot of culture shock. Then, we had the cardboard bed and sauna bedroom situation, the blackout, and the phone call from the volunteering Spanish women.
Some call it luck, others a miracle, and a few just everyday life, but somehow everything started going right this week… well, minus the blackouts. I think we had a total of three, none of which I contributed to, for the record. To start off, on Monday I went into the office with my roommate. We needed to interview an employee who had been with the organization for over 30 years to assess what she thought of the different offices they’ve inhabited over the decades. After our 20-minute conversation, I emailed the entire office in Catalan to remind them they had exactly one day left to finish our survey. Side note: if you ever need something done in a Catalan office, just send the email in Catalan—it really gets stuff moving. Afterward, my roommate and I still had a few more hours to sit around just to say we worked in person. Though, as I think I mentioned last week, our supervisor was away on a trip all week, so there really was no one monitoring whether we were there or not.
Maybe it was the trip to get a nice coffee at her favorite shop before heading in, or the sheer absurdity of sitting in a corner surrounded by weird curtains in this odd office doing absolutely nothing, or the oddness of the interview we had just conducted, or my sheer exhaustion from not sleeping well on a cardboard bed, but my roommate and I just started to talk about life. I have no idea how the topic of my mattress came up—probably me complaining about how tired I was and how thankful I was for our pre-work coffee run—but I must have gone on for something like 15 minutes about how terrible my bed was. I joked that the study abroad organization must have really hated whoever they put in my room, which, as you all know, is essentially a closet in comparison to my roommate’s air-conditioned, massive room complete with orthopedic mattresses, two beds, and a desk. Of course, all of this was said in a nuanced, less-complainy way and framed more as a “this is so funny” moment. To my surprise, my roommate offered to give me one of her orthopedic mattresses, because she really only used one and just stored her stuff on the other. Maybe she was just trying to be polite and it was one of those offers I was supposed to turn down, but the second I got home—well, after I cooked lunch and recovered from a poorly designed shopping trip (more on that later)—my old mattress was out in the hall and I was knocking on her door to do the switch.
For some comparison, because all of this may sound highly exaggerated, I carried my old mattress out into the hall with one hand. It was incredibly light. Moving my roommate’s mattress just off her bed, however, took two people using two hands, and even then it was a struggle. The new mattress was so substantial that we didn’t even know if it was going to fit on my bed frame, since it was a little wider than my actual bed. But it did! So now I am the happy and proud owner of my own real, orthopedic mattress. It feels like living in absolute luxury. Yeah, there’s still the whole no-AC situation, but it’s been pretty cool this week, so it hasn’t really been a problem. If you can’t tell from my three-plus paragraphs of ranting here about a mattress, I was, and still am, very happy about this switch. The moral of the story is that coffee always resolves problems. It worked with my second roommate freshman year when I moved in mid-September and she didn’t want to unbunk the bed, and it worked to get a new mattress this time around. So, if you ever find yourself facing a crisis, head to your nearest fancy coffee shop (or a Starbucks if you’re in the US), and all your problems will be resolved.
Now, I promised a story about a poorly planned shopping trip. While this week was great, one of the worst parts was definitely this specific errand. Having some elaborate meals planned for the week, I didn’t want to head to my local, smaller Mercadona to get the ingredients. Instead, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to go to the massive Mercadona near my office. Three overflowing bags later, plus my heavy backpack, and a 45-minute journey on the metro resulted in some severely bruised palms and a very tired Delia. Lesson learned: unless you have a car, always go shopping near you.
Still on that same Monday, I had my first check-in meeting with one of the advisors from Princeton who handles the international internship program. To be honest, I had no idea I even had an IIP advisor or really what they did. With the program being tied up with the broader study abroad office—and you already know how much I dislike that office and their lack of helpfulness and responsiveness—I had very little optimism that this meeting would be of any use. However, within the first five minutes, this advisor not only seemed to completely understand all of my problems but was vocally committed to fixing them. Maybe she fed off my aggressive nature, as this was my second meeting of the day about the internship situation. The first had been at 9:00 AM with the local study abroad agency, who still didn’t seem to care or take the lack of work seriously. To them, I had bluntly replied, “I didn’t come all the way to Spain to sit in my living room.” In hindsight, that may have been a bit too aggressive, as the woman looked completely shocked, but it got the ball rolling when she reached out to the university.
The IIP advisor agreed that the whole internship situation—doing nothing and not being given a secondary project—was ridiculous, and promised she would be talking with the agency the next morning to get everything sorted out. She even told me that if I wanted, she might be able to find me an entirely new apartment if the heat in my room got too bad! Like, what?! What do you mean, an entire new apartment?! Of course, while I may occasionally give off a spoiled princess vibe—as one girl delightfully told me in 6th grade when I went to Girl Scout camp for a week (not kidding)—I’m not that much of a diva. I don’t need an entire new apartment just to deal with the Spanish heat. After all, Toledo was much hotter last summer and we had no AC there. Plus, I live in Mathey at Princeton, where having no AC is just part of being a Moose. The mattress was enough of a win; I don’t need to push my luck.
Anyway, by the next day, the lady from the study abroad office had an entire plan for us. We could either continue at our current internship with her and the agency being much more hands-on to closely supervise and create a new project—since our current office project was not at all aligned with my or my roommate’s academics—or they had found us a brand-new internship where we could start Monday. It took some mulling over. It wasn’t because I was happy with how the work situation had been going, but because I was actually kind of interested in the whole strategic planning thing (more so than what they were planning on switching us to) and wanted to know how it all worked. That, and I had already posted twice on my LinkedIn and told everyone I knew about this internship! Plus, the fact that I had already been in Spain for almost three weeks at this point meant starting over with a new organization seemed like a massive challenge.
In the end, my roommate and I both agreed to the switch. I’m not really learning a bunch about Spain from my apartment’s living room (maybe the kitchen, but definitely not the living room), so hopefully this change will be worth it. To give some context about this new internship, we will be working at ELFAC, the European Large Families Confederation (what does the “A” stand for?). I heard we’ll be interviewing families and possibly writing some articles. I can’t say that at any point in my life I’ve thought to myself, “Wow, large families are super cool, I want to go work with them,” but I can definitely get behind some article writing (obviously) and talking to people. As I told my roommate, the only way is up from here. The internship is still only two days in person, but from what I’ve heard, these two days will be a lot more interactive, working very hands-on and “feet on the ground” (as the IIP lady repeatedly said), so I’m optimistic. Of course, I’ll keep you all posted on how it goes as I start my second “first day” as an intern in Spain, so wish me luck. Hopefully, the coffee is better in this office.
Tuesday was a whole lot of cooking, and also a whole lot of nothing. My roommate had devised a plan to go clean up a Barcelona beach and wanted someone to go with her. Being very familiar with the cesspool that is the beaches in Barcelona, I was very supportive and told her I would absolutely come help out. After searching for a net all day Monday with no luck, she said she would go out early on Tuesday to try and find one. Apparently, “early” to her meant getting up at 1:00 PM. Meanwhile, I was up in my swimsuit, ready to go at 9:00 AM! I thought about heading down to the beach myself, but it was cloudy and I was kind of tired, so I just hung out in the piso for the whole day until 6:00 PM, when we finally headed out to clean the beach without a net.
You may be wondering: Delia, why do you need a net to clean the beach? Just put on some gloves and pick up the trash. The thing is, most of the trash is actually in the water and is on the smaller side, so some kind of pool net would have been incredibly useful to scoop it out. Instead, we headed down with our trash bags, dishwashing gloves, and only me in swimming attire to go tackle the shoreline. For me, this meant going into the water to pull stuff out while my roommate stood safely on land to pick up cigarette butts. Highlights included an entire pole to a beach umbrella, a giant wooden board, a razor (why someone brings a razor to the beach is beyond my level of comprehension), and a guy buried halfway in the sand who literally flagged me down just to pick up his empty beer can.
I wish I could say the buried man was the only person who treated us like a personal cleaning crew, but no—multiple other people walked right up to us like we were mobile trash cans to drop their garbage into our bags. Apparently, volunteering to clean up the beach equals being a public waste bin. Anyway, an hour and a half later, we had filled about six trash bags and called it a night. I have no idea if we’ll head back next week; hopefully we do, because it was a nice, cheaper activity to do with our free time and was actually kind of fun… for the first 30 minutes.
On Tuesday, I also tackled a giant cooking project: a seafood paella that took a solid two hours and 45 minutes to make. I don’t know if you can technically call it a paella if you make it without a proper paella pan and use two frying pans instead, but it came out very good. I offered some out of pure pity to a guy from Princeton who mentioned he’d had a truly terrible paella the other day (of course you did, you’re in Barcelona), and he declared it was absolute “fire.” He told me I had to make it for him again, to which I replied that he’d have to buy all the ingredients next time since it takes almost three hours of my life. That seemed to be a no, but honestly, the ingredients are incredibly cheap in Spain.
Back in the US, making paella is easily a $50+ project. I usually make the broth myself, which involves a whole mountain of veggies and an entire chicken, and then you need the actual specialty ingredients like the right rice, the spices, and the specific sofrito tomato sauce, which usually comes in an expensive import kit. When I made my paella here in Spain, I bought a packaged paella broth that was about one euro, the saffron and paprika were probably a euro each, plus some fresh tomatoes, a frozen paella seafood mix, rice, onions, and garlic. I think my entire grocery trip for the week was about €50, so the paella itself cost a fraction of that. Of course, I wasn’t sourcing the absolute finest ingredients (frozen seafood in a plastic bag, anyone?), but it was still incredibly tasty and made a massive portion that basically lasted the entire week.
Other cooking projects for the week included some gambas al ajillo, though apparently what I bought weren’t technically gambas—they were langostinos, even though they looked identical. I still don’t know the scientific difference between a shrimp and a langostino, but they tasted like shrimp and were fantastic. The absolute best part, however, was dipping crusty bread into the pooling, hot, garlicky olive oil and getting some amazing accidental garlic bread out of it. So good.
I also made some gildas. To be completely honest with you, looking at the ingredients and then the final outcome, I was deeply scarred to put this thing in my mouth. Between the intimidating peppers that looked incredibly spicy, the anchovies (which are terrifying for someone who has never eaten seafood out of a tin before), and the olives all impaled on one stick, it took me a solid five minutes to work up the courage to taste it. But I’m happy to report they were really good—would 10/10 recommend. I made enough for my roommates, especially after learning one of them didn’t even know what a tapa was after three weeks in Spain (though really, this was a pintxo if we’re getting into the regional details), but neither of them dared to touch them. Their loss. There is truly no better way to get ready for an ultimate Basque weekend than eating scary-looking food items on skewers.
There is actually a hilarious story about making the gildas. I put the olives on the toothpicks and then went to open what I thought was a tin of anchovies. I cracked it open, and to my absolute surprise, it was just a tin of anchovy-flavored olives! I guess I should have gotten the hint from all the pictures of olives on the packaging and the fact that it was sitting squarely in the olive aisle, but there were literal anchovies printed on the label too, and I simply didn’t read past the word “anchovies.” Because of this, I had to change out of my pajamas and head out to two different grocery stores because I couldn’t find real anchovies in the first one.
People must have thought I was completely losing it as I stood in the canned fish section of the Bon Preu for a solid 20 minutes, staring blankly, before leaving entirely empty-handed. I then went to the Mercadona across the street and ran into the exact same luck. Eventually, while standing in the middle of Mercadona, I had to Google: “Why can’t I find anchovies in Mercadona?” The internet gently replied that they are kept in the refrigerated section. Total “you are really dumb, Delia” moment. So, I walked all around the store again, and after almost giving up hope, I finally sourced the stupid anchovies. I even bought some pre-made gildas just because I was worried I had messed up the ingredients for this three-ingredient-on-a-stick appetizer. An hour later, I finally had my homemade gildas. And yes, all my ingredients were right, though the store-bought ones didn’t seem to be spicy at all, while my homemade ones had a much better kick to them.
I was also suppose to attempt some calamares—basically a fried squid situation, which is really good by the way—but I ran out of time and had too much leftover paella to eat, so it’s officially a next-week project. I also really want to cook some squid in its own ink, which has been on my bucket list for a while, so maybe this is the week. Though honestly, that might be too much squid for one week.
I feel like this week is the perfect time to break out some Basque recipes, because I may or may not have sourced some Txakoli, a Basque wine, while I was up north. It would only be right to pair it with some regional seafood. For all you wine people out there, The Grape Grind describes Txakoli (pronounced cha-ko-lee) as a lightly effervescent white wine made in the mountainous hills of Basque Country in Northern Spain. Known for its zesty acidity, subtle bubbles, and low alcohol, it’s a wine equally suited for fine seafood dishes as it is for day-drinking on a warm summer afternoon. It’s bone-dry on the palate with tart green apple, lemon, and delicate floral notes, and its bracing acidity puts Champagne to shame.
I would describe it simply as great—which is clear, considering I hauled it all the way from Basque Country back to Barcelona—and highly enjoyable. Now, this is the time for the big reveal. You may be wondering, Delia, how did you bring back a bottle of wine from Basque Country? That’s way over the liquid limit you can bring on a plane. You’re right… well, unless I bought it inside the airport. But no plane was utilized in my journey to San Sebastián.
While I wrote last week that I had scored a trip to Bilbao and San Sebastián for under €75, there were a few things I hadn’t considered: things like where I was going to stay the night, eating, and buses to get from place to place. Then I started thinking more about the logistics. The whole reason I wanted to go to Bilbao was to leave the city on a bus to do this incredibly cool coastal walk in Gaztelugatxe, which involved a massive amount of coordination with bus timetables and tickets.
On top of that, this “magical” cheap trip involved a flight at 7:00 AM. I would have had to order a €35 Cabify just to get to the airport because the metro doesn’t open until 5:00 AM, and Gemini told me I wouldn’t make it on time if I took the train. It also required a grueling bus ride back to Barcelona from San Sebastián. As you can tell, it was going to require way too much planning, coordination, and extra money, which was really not the vibe I was going for. So, I cut my losses, bought a two-way bus ticket straight to San Sebastián, and just went for a day trip on Saturday. The bus tickets still cost €80 total, but it was still less than the original plan when you factor in the ride to the airport.
Earlier in the week on Wednesday, I decided I desperately needed to escape the apartment and my living room/Instagram slump… so I went on a shopping spree. Well, not a total spree—there was a detailed plan—but I think my wallet felt it a little bit. Basically, during last week’s adventures, two of my favorite shirts took an absolute beating: one lost a button on a shirt that only had three to begin with, and a giant hole appeared in another. While both are repairable, my cross-stitch kit needle was way too big, and I didn’t have a spare button. Considering both were shirts I sourced in Spain last year—one being a €5 Primark find—I think they lasted pretty long for cheap clothes. Still, I couldn’t be walking around the office with a missing button and a giant hole, so I went on an adventure to find replacements.
I went to all the usual places: Zara, Primark, Lefties, and El Corte Inglés, before eventually ending up right back at Zara. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like all the prices have gone up substantially since last summer. Maybe—probably—it’s because I’m in Barcelona, but it was crazy. When Primark wanted €19 for a kind of ugly shirt, I said, “No thanks,” and went back to Zara to pay €20 for a shirt I actually liked. It still felt like a lot, because last summer I think I got my Zara shirts for closer to €12 or €15.
Along this journey, I also picked up some Tour de France merch and a jersey for the World Cup. Unfortunately, somewhere during my weekend travels, I lost my new Tour de France pin off my backpack, so I may be heading back to the shops again soon. As a cyclist, I absolutely love the Tour de France, and the fact that it’s happening right outside my balcony and roof is insane. There is definitely going to be a Tour de France viewing party on the roof, though given that one of my roommates just learned what the Tour was this week (along with learning what tapas are), “party” may be an exaggeration of what is actually going to happen. I’m also so excited to be watching the World Cup and supporting Spain while actually being in Spain. I’m not entirely sure where one goes to watch the matches yet—Google suggested an Irish pub in Barcelona, which seems a bit odd—but we’ll figure it out.
Thursday marked the start of the Corpus Christi events in Barcelona. Corpus Christi (Latin for “Body of Christ”) is a Catholic holiday and tradition—though still a regular work day here—that celebrates the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. To be perfectly honest, I still don’t fully understand it. From what I remember when I was in Toledo last summer, they have this giant golden object, which Google tells me is called a monstrance. It’s a sacred vessel that they take on a solemn procession throughout the city.
Here in Barcelona, things are a little different. Instead of just the religious vessels, they have these giant, weird statues of historical figures, dragons, and donkeys, and they parade them through the streets. The Barcelona tourism website says that the Church originally used these towering biblical and mythical figures to catechize a largely illiterate population, visually acting out stories to teach the public, but over centuries they evolved into beloved symbols of civic pride.
Barcelona also features l’ou com balla, or “the dancing egg.” It’s basically a hollowed-out egg balanced perfectly on top of a water fountain jet, covered in a massive display of flowers. The city website states that the egg, water, and abundance of flowers are all symbols of fertility and regeneration, capturing the vitality of the spring season. Popularly, it’s thought that the dancing egg represents the host inside a rich casing decorated with precious stones.
Throughout the city, there are tons of these dancing eggs, flower displays, and free entrance into buildings that are typically closed to the public—like City Hall—or usually require tickets. I spent the day wandering around to see the displays, touring City Hall, and even seeing the mayor’s desk.
The day was great, right up until I got scammed by a coffee shop. I had a highly-rated specialty coffee shop on my walking route, so midway through the afternoon, I stopped in. When I got ready to pay with cash, they flippantly replied that they didn’t accept it. That sounded incredibly odd to me, but since they had already poured the coffee, I just pulled out my card and paid.
I took my coffee, sat outside on a bench, and immediately Googled: “Is it illegal to not accept cash in Spain?” Google AI instantly brought up the 2022 Spanish law that explicitly requires all businesses to accept cash. I was so angry that I immediately left them a scathing one-star review on Google. My review translated to something along the lines of:
I went to this establishment and, when it came time to pay, I was surprised to find that they do not accept cash payments, only card or electronic methods. I want to remind them that, according to Article 47 of the General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users in Spain (amended in 2022), refusing to accept cash payment is an infraction and is completely illegal. You cannot force consumers to pay exclusively through digital means. It’s a shame, because the service and product aren’t bad, but I don’t plan on returning to a place that doesn’t respect consumer rights or current legislation.”
So that’s me, Delia Bousquet, standing up for Spanish consumer rights, one Google review at a time. This was actually the second time my roommates and I have run into people trying to pull a fast one on us. A few weeks ago, I was forced to attend a Vietnamese restaurant with them—mostly due to their complete inability to try a single Spanish food item. They asked for tap water, to which the waiter flatly told them they didn’t have any, and instead charged them €3 a piece for bottled water.
For some reason, right before this happened, I had been reading up on water laws in Spain and knew that restaurants are legally required to provide free tap water. However, there was no cell service in the restaurant and I wanted to double-check my facts before I said anything. When we got back to the apartment, after listening to them complain about the water bill the entire way home, I looked it up and confirmed I was entirely correct. Luckily, I hadn’t ordered any water myself. Let this be your lesson: when you travel to Barcelona, know your rights, because some businesses will absolutely exploit a lack of local knowledge.
Switching gears, it seems like the Catalans are deeply obsessed with this whole fertility thing; it feels like every holiday or religious symbol has to do with it. For example, the caganer (the famous pooping guy in the nativity scene that I told you about a few weeks ago) is actually a symbol of fertilizing the land for a good harvest. And when I went to Montserrat on Friday, it felt like every story we heard circled back to fertility. Before it became a famous home for Catholic monks, the Romans had actually dedicated the mountain to Venus, the goddess of love, seeking her blessings for matters of romance and conception
On Friday, I headed out to the famous Montserrat with our study abroad organization on a free excursion. People always say that Montserrat possesses a “profound aura of divine love and peace” and frame it as a bucket-list destination, but as a non-religious tourist, I didn’t quite get the hype. Maybe it’s because, while the program coordinators were great for offering the free trip, our tour guide talked continuously the entire way from Barcelona to the mountain. I definitely fell asleep during the bus lecture, and by the time we actually arrived, we were only given a mere ten minutes to go inside the basilica. It felt like I came all that way just to be rushed out. I should have been given a little more time to capture my perfect, blog-worthy photos!
After checking out the church, we headed up the funicular. That was honestly the first time I’ve ever heard that word in my life, though since hearing it at Montserrat, I’ve noticed it everywhere because San Sebastián and Bilbao have them too. In fact, I am 95% sure I rode one when I visited last year, but I clearly didn’t remember the actual term for it. Apparently, they have these in a few places in the US, like the Monongahela Incline and Duquesne Incline in Pittsburgh, or Angels Flight in LA. Back in New England, specifically New Hampshire where there are plenty of mountains to climb, we do things a little differently. We rely on cog railways, auto roads, chairlifts, gondolas, and magic carpets. Maybe New England needs to invest in a funicular.
We then walked down the mountain back to the monastery and had two hours of free time. I used that block of time to buy my iconic postcards, take some scenery photos, and watch a terrible movie I had downloaded on my phone. Personally, I wouldn’t call Montserrat a full day trip from Barcelona—it’s much more of a half-day excursion. In my humble, non-Catholic opinion, it felt a bit over-hyped. Sure, the jagged mountains looked cool, but they certainly weren’t the best peaks I’ve seen in Spain. I think my bus ride to Andorra and my flight over Bilbao last year offered vastly better views. But perhaps if you’re religious, haven’t traveled to those other regions, or have never been on a funicular before, you’d absolutely love it.
We got back to the apartment around 3:00 PM, even though they originally told us we wouldn’t return until 6:00 PM. I rested up and prepared to head right back out for San Sebastián. Oh yes, did I forget to mention that this bus ride to San Sebastián was a grueling seven and a half hours? That is exactly why I took a plane the last time I went to Basque Country! But it was fine because I had a thorough plan. I almost always fall asleep on long bus rides, for better or worse. Somehow, guided bus tours act like instant melatonin for me; the minute someone starts talking into a microphone, my brain goes into immediate siesta mode, whether I’m in Athens or Montserrat (both true stories).
On top of that, during my dancing egg tour on Thursday, I popped into Ale-Hop—the famous novelty store in Spain that you always enter looking for nothing and leave with a bag full of random items—and found a travel pillow that rolled up into a tiny sack! It was lightweight, comfy, and fit easily into my backpack so I could sleep on the journey. I had it all mapped out… well, until I boarded the bus and discovered I had a aisle seat. That immediately made my grand plan of propping the pillow against the window completely useless. To make matters worse, the bus made about ten different stops, each involving the driver turning on all the bright overhead lights and yelling out the location as new passengers boarded. The good news is that about halfway through the trip, almost everyone got off the bus, so I finally scored a window seat to myself and managed to get some quality sleep.
I arrived in San Sebastián around 6:00 AM, exhausted and desperately ready for a café con leche, but obviously absolutely nothing was open yet. Gemini, acting as my trusty AI travel companion this summer, had collaborated with me earlier in the week to sketch out a highly detailed itinerary for my 18 hours in the city. Step one of the plan was to head straight to the beach to watch the sunrise. Being well-prepared, I broke out my beach towel, set it down, and promptly froze on the sand in the sweatshirt I had brought along because I knew the northern coast would be chilly. The sun ended up rising a bit further to the right than the beach actually faced, but it was still pretty.
It was also highly entertaining to watch all the Spanish teenagers and young adults stumbling out of the nightclubs and heading straight into the waves for a drunk, morning cold plunge—or, in a few cases, a full-on skinny dip into the ocean. I dipped a single foot in, and trust me, it was freezing. After a good hour of sitting on the shore, shivering and seriously contemplating my life choices, I looked at the next step of the itinerary. Gemini had planned a scenic walk for me to see El Peine del Viento (The Comb of the Wind), a famous iron art installation built directly into the coastal rocks. What Gemini completely failed to take into account was that the sculpture was a solid two miles away from where I was sitting. Wanting to conserve my energy for the rest of the day, I walked toward it for about thirty minutes, pulled out the zoom lens on my phone to snap a picture from afar, and headed straight to a specialty coffee shop instead.
This is a good point in the story to tell you what actually brought me to San Sebastián in the first place. There really is only one reason anyone ever visits Basque Country: to eat… or really, to eat and take in the dramatic coastal views. I didn’t come for a massive historic monument; I came for the food. Nestled within the green, tree-covered mountains, San Sebastián is unofficially called the food capital of the world, boasting one of the highest concentrations of Michelin-starred restaurants per capita. The people here simply do food right.
They are famously known for their pintxos, which are essentially the Basque version of a tapa—small, gourmet bar bites usually served on a piece of bread with a skewer. The bar culture itself is wildly unique because there is no sitting down and relaxing at a table or a terraza like you find throughout the rest of Spain. No, the pintxo bars are a complete war zone where everyone is packed shoulder-to-shoulder inside a tiny room with the counter at the center.
Ordering and paying is an absolute art form. You have to track down a bartender and give them “the look,” which is a subtle wave combined with a slight eyebrow lift. The entire secret relies on making direct eye contact and barking out your order as fast as humanly possible. There is no line and zero organization; it is pure, unadulterated chaos. As a shorter newcomer, the experience was incredibly intimidating. The secret is combining a touch of patience with an underlying aggressive lack of patience, shoving your way to the front, and projecting absolute confidence. You need to know exactly what you want and be ready to yell it out. So, basically, everything I am not! But I didn’t sit on a bus for seven and a half hours to leave empty-handed, so for ten hours, I forced myself to become a completely different, assertive type of person.
Which brings us to our very first bar experience: Antonio Bar. Known for their unique take on the classic tortilla de patatas, their individual-sized skillet tortillas feature caramelized onions and green peppers. Some food critics call it the best tortilla in the world, or even “life-changing,” though there is a fierce local rivalry with Bar Nestor down the road. Securing a slice of this tortilla at 9:00 AM was no easy feat. The bar doors open at 9:00 AM, but they don’t actually start serving the fresh tortillas until 9:30 AM. Gemini had told me to stroll up a little before 9:30 AM… well, the AI was dead wrong. I walked up a bit before 9:00 AM just to scope out the location, and there was already a massive line forming down the sidewalk.
Clearly, everyone else had received the exact same memo about the life-changing breakfast. I hopped in line and got ready. Forty-five minutes later, I finally had my first official Basque bar experience. I didn’t even make it inside the actual building; I ordered from the exterior ledge and ate it standing up at a little metal counter outside. It was tough to navigate, but extremely worth it. I have to say, the flavor was incredible, though I’m not sure you can even compare it to a standard tortilla. The taste is completely distinct—very savory and rich, but excellent. It’s an entirely different experience and easily won the title of the best meal of the entire day. My only complaint is that I desperately needed more than the tiny sliver I was given. 10/10 would recommend.
After breakfast, Gemini had a museum on the list, so I headed over to the San Telmo Museum, which is dedicated to Basque society and culture. The exhibits covered absolutely everything: vintage ColaCao commercials, old cars, historical comparisons between Basque wartime struggles and the paintings of Francisco Goya, traditional clothing, and more. I learned all about the history of Basque Country as a major hub for whaling, iron production, Industrial Era manufacturing, and modern-day coastal tourism.
It was fascinating to see the distinct parallels between the historical Basque economy and my own home state of Connecticut. New London, a small city about thirty minutes away from my hometown—and where I went to summer camp as a kid and have worked virtually every year since I turned 16—also used to be a major whaling port. It was also incredibly cool to see an exhibit on traineras, a traditional Basque style of fixed-seat rowing boats. As someone who rowed in high school, seeing their unique maritime racing culture was amazing, and it is definitely something I hope I can try firsthand at least once in my life. There was also a ton of beautiful art that I perused in a completely unscholarly way (the absolute best way), where my only metric for observation was simply whether it looked cool or not.
The only major element of Basque culture that the museum seemed to completely miss was the entire gastronomic aspect. Where did pintxos actually originate? Why did the bar culture evolve into this specific, high-energy standing setup? Why is the regional food just so universally good? Honestly, it sounds like the perfect outline for a tasty sociology research project.
When I stepped out of the museum, I was met by a total downpour. For context, the morning had started out perfectly sunny with zero cloud cover. I would say this sudden shift was bad luck, but honestly, it’s just the authentic Basque experience. It is always raining in the north! Luckily, I had come prepared with a rain jacket after learning my lesson from the constant downpours during last year’s trip to Bilbao. Look at me, actually learning from past experiences.
By then it was around 12:00 PM, which meant it was officially time to start the txikiteo, or traditional pintxo crawl. My first stop was Ganbara to try their famous txakoli (the effervescent wine, remember?) paired with their legendary hongos a la plancha—wild, locally foraged mushrooms grilled up with a rich egg yolk resting right in the center. It was at this exact moment on the food tour that I realized this was going to be an incredibly expensive day; the bill cost significantly more than I was expecting for a relatively small plate of mushrooms. But man, it was delicious. Did I have to wait in a line for thirty minutes in the pouring rain just to get a spot inside? Yes, I did. But that was mostly a self-inflicted choice because they didn’t open until 12:30 PM and I showed up aggressively early at noon.
My next stop wasn’t actually on Gemini’s curated list of suggestions. I noticed a much calmer bar down the street that wasn’t overwhelmingly packed, and I could hear plenty of people speaking Spanish right outside the doors—a local feature that was noticeably missing from the tourist crowds at Antonio and Ganbara. I popped inside and grabbed a skewer of rape y pulpo (monkfish and octopus on a stick), a café con leche, and a slightly weird jamón and egg situation. The flavors were good, but I had one massive complaint: the mayonnaise. I do not want mayo spread all over my jamón, nor do I want it coating my octopus. I had been explicitly warned on Instagram about the sheer scale of the mayo situation over here, and how Spaniards love to put it on absolutely everything, but this was a terrifying new level of mayonnaise. I just don’t get it. It’s gross! But if you look past the mayo layer, the food itself was great.
The final stop on my lunch tour was La Viña, the historic, supposed inventors of the famous tarta de queso vasca, or burnt Basque cheesecake. Of all the culinary spots I visited throughout the day, this one easily had the largest crowd and the most chaotic environment. Fortunately, by this point in the afternoon, I was well-trained in the art of bar combat; I pushed right into the crowd and secured my cheesecake. To be perfectly honest, though, I am not entirely sure what the internet hype is all about. It was great, but it wasn’t life-changing. At the end of the day, it’s just a plain, crustless cheesecake. Personally, I think it could heavily benefit from some sort of fresh fruit compote on top, or even just a warm chocolate drizzle.
After lunch, I walked around the Old Town to see a few architectural sights, grabbed some postcards, and then wandered into another boutique shop where I bought even more postcards (paying way more than I probably should have) and accidentally picked up a cozy souvenir sweatshirt. By then, the rain was still coming down hard, and the next step on my itinerary was a “digestive hike” up Monte Urgull, which promised a panoramic, bird’s-eye view of the city and the crescent bay.
The scenery was beautiful, but as I hiked upward, the rain picked up to the point where my four-year-old rain coat officially met its match and decided it would just let all the water seep straight inside. So there I was, halfway up a mountain, freezing cold, soaking wet, completely exhausted, and functionally blind—because I quickly learned that wearing glasses in a downpour is exactly like driving a car in a storm without windshield wipers. But luck was on my side; I stumbled upon a small stone shelter with a bench where I could rest, wring out my raincoat, and wait for the worst of the storm to pass. Thirty minutes later, the downpour stopped and I finally made it to the summit. The sweeping coastal views were absolutely incredible and well worth the soggy effort.
On the way back down the trail, I crossed paths with a random guy who proceeded to talk to me the entire way down. By the time we reached the bottom of the big hill, I suddenly realized that I might have volunteered a little too much personal information. In the span of a short walk, I had told this stranger that I currently live in Barcelona, that I was visiting San Sebastián entirely by myself for the day because my roommates thought Amsterdam was cooler, that I took a grueling overnight bus to get here, that I study sociology, and that I write a travel blog. Yeah, pro tip from Delia: do not talk to strange men on isolated hiking trails and tell them your entire life story, especially the part about being alone in a new city. Luckily, this man was very polite and did not kidnap me, but I definitely learned my lesson either way.
To be completely fair to myself, I was just incredibly excited to finally be practicing my Spanish with a real person. Honestly, I had no idea what he was saying half the time anyway, because he clearly wasn’t from Spain based on his accent, nor did he sound like he was from any of the Latin American countries whose speech patterns I can actually understand. That list easily crosses off Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Puerto Rico—well, maybe not enough to understand what Bad Bunny is saying 100% of the time, but definitely enough to recognize a Puerto Rican accent. That left the entirety of Central and South America. Maybe he was Chilean? I’ve heard that specific dialect is notoriously fast and difficult, but I’ve never actually met anyone from Chile before.
The thing about Spanish accents and regional varieties is that there isn’t anything that makes one inherently more challenging than another; it really just comes down to exposure and how much you’ve heard a specific region speak. I grew up listening to Mexican and Peninsular Spanish, so those are the varieties I comprehend the best. I can even understand a decent amount of Andalusian Spanish, though the dialect I encountered in Sevilla last summer was quite mild compared to some of the thick accents I’ve heard online.
After surviving the mountain and my over-communicative hiking companion, I headed over to see the grand Buen Pastor Cathedral, rested on a plaza bench for a few hours to recharge, and then headed back out into the Old Town for round two of pintxos. At this point in the evening, I was thoroughly exhausted and not in the mood to track down the busiest, high-intensity bars on the map—especially one that Gemini recommended that featured a massive line stretching all the way down the block. Instead, I ducked into a quieter bar.
The mistake here was that while my quiet lunch bar was filled with locals speaking Spanish, this evening spot was a pure, English-speaking tourist trap where everyone was sitting down comfortably at tables. I was the only person standing up at the counter. Safe to say, the food was not fantastic. To be honest, by that point in the night, I would have been perfectly happy with a simple bocadillo de jamón (ham sandwich), but I had convinced myself to do a proper second round of pintxos. I completely missed the name of this establishment, but I ended up ordering more octopus on a stick—this time a whole pata (tentacle) served with sliced potatoes—along with a plate of carrillada, or braised veal cheek. I am 99% sure the staff just heated the cheek up in a commercial microwave, but it was still decent.
Figuring there is absolutely no way I’m making it to Asturias this summer to try their famous sidra, and knowing that Basque cider is also historically famous, I figured this was the perfect moment to try a glass. It was a pretty odd drinking experience. The cider was totally flat and incredibly bitter. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it certainly wasn’t the best cider I’ve ever tasted—which says a lot considering I am still under the legal drinking age back home in the US, and do not engage in any illegal underage drinking.
The final food item of the day was a pastel vasco (a traditional Basque cake), which came complete with a tiny Basque flag toothpicked into it. I ended up consuming it straight off the floor of the bus station—an activity I don’t necessarily recommend, but it was a logistical necessity at the time. Finally, I boarded the right bus at 11:30 PM and headed back to good old Barcelona.
Only, my peaceful departure was immediately thwarted by a group of loud, honestly maybe a little tipsy, Spanish abuelas and one abuelo. They woke me up with their boisterous chatter the second they boarded the bus. One of the women looked me straight in the eyes and demanded to know if I was confused. Before I could fully process the question, the old man turned to her and muttered that he didn’t think I spoke Spanish. The woman then snapped back at me in Spanish, claiming I was sitting in her assigned seat.
What followed was a midnight standoff. In the best Spanish I could possibly muster for 1:00 AM, I replied that I was, in fact, in the correct spot. I sleepily scrambled through my phone to pull up my digital ticket to prove it. She continued to insist it was her seat, and I continued to thrust my screen in her face. The bus driver finally intervened, telling her to just pick an empty seat with the rest of her group.
For the next five hours of the journey, at every single stop, I was violently jolted awake by their incredibly loud talking right behind my head. I had to endure them complaining endlessly about how I had stolen their seat. I have never wanted to yell “¡Cállate!” (shut up) at someone more in my entire life. Like, move on! My ticket explicitly said seat 23, and I was sitting in seat 23. Find a new spot and get over it; it’s not my fault.
But don’t worry, I wasn’t the only one dealing with the seat police. At every single stop along the route, there were major seat disputes. New passengers would board demanding that people move, and the exhausted, sleeping passengers onboard flat-out refused to budge. It was an absolute logistics disaster. Luckily for the abuelos, we did eventually make it back to Barcelona in one piece, with zero verbal altercations on my part. I stumbled back into my apartment at 7:30 AM, utterly exhausted and ready to sleep until 2:00 PM before finally sitting down to start this blog.
Like I said, it was quite the week. It was incredibly fun, heavily exhausting, and my wallet is definitely hurting after all of it. Oh, and by the way, the official supermarket tally is now eight Mercadonas and one Eroski. After last week’s observation that Basque Country doesn’t seem to favor Mercadona, I figured I had to give this “other” supermarket a try.
All in all, if this week taught me anything, it’s that surviving in Spain requires a mix of legal precision, aggressive confidence, and a highly durable raincoat. Whether I’m citing consumer defense laws to a coffee shop, fighting for my life in a packed pintxo bar, or holding down seat 23 against an army of angry abuelas, I’m definitely learning how to take up space and stand my ground.
My wallet might be entirely empty, my rain jacket might be functionally useless, and I may never understand the local obsession with mayonnaise or fertility symbols, but I’d still take a soggy day trip to San Sebastián over a standard weekend any day. Now, I’m going to go sleep this bus fatigue off and try to mentally prepare myself for tomorrow, when I officially start my second first day at my internship. Wish me luck!
Until next week’s chaos!
Ondo izan aste honetan eta hurrengora arte,
Que tinguis una bona setmana i ens veiem al proper,
Que tengais una buena semana y nos vemos en el próximo,
Have a great week and we’ll see each other in the next one,
P.S. Btw, the Spanish volunteering women never called.
PPS. Should I add Galician to the sign-off?