Holy jalapeño margaritas and jet lag batman, but I just slept for almost 15 hours which I haven’t done since Phil’s wedding. And believe it or not, that was mostly travel exhaustion and jet lag after being awake for like 48 hours straight. I really should have just went home and packed after happy hour, but who can resist Guantanamera! And I had to say hasta luego to NYC, didn’t I?
Anyway, here I am in lovely San Sebastián (Donostia in Basque), and have absolutely no idea where I am. I mean, I really really don’t. Not in the mood to figure it out right now so I thought I’d jump on and keep up the daily momentum of posting.
Much later…
Okay, so I just laid down after writing that to take a little power nap and poof, suddenly it was 8 a.m. I didn’t even take my boots off, or unpack Stanley, I wonder if my headlamp is in there.
Wow, I guess that was one long ass travel day. Bronx to Manhattan to Queens to Frankfurt to Bilbao to San Sebastián. Bus-train-train-plane-bratwurst-plane-bus-van. And that freakin’ sausage probably didn’t help…knocked me the hell out.
I rented this lovely loft apartment through airbnb from a woman named Teresa, where I’ll stay for the next three weeks to work and explore Northern Spain. Was in San Sebastián about 10 years ago, only for two days but really loved it and I’m super excited to have the opportunity to return…and pretend to myself I just up and moved to Spain.
It does actually feel like I live here. The apartment is adorable and cozy and I am in a real neighborhood, with neighbors. Apparently the guy next door is a famous Basque painter. Teresa was away so I had to somehow get the keys from her friend Fatima. I was supposed to call her from the airport to tell her what time I would get to the bus station and then she was going to bring me here. Couldn’t get through to her when I landed, left some dodgy Spanish messages, I mean, who knows what I was saying all hopped up on pork and no sleep.
So I just got off the bus and kinda sat there, waiting. Started chatting to some cool looking Spanish dude with a mountain bike who was also kinda sitting there, waiting. I asked some stupid questions in Spanish about how to make phone calls and whether or not this was the central bus station. I really didn’t know if I was in the right place, there were just a bunch of buses lined up in a row outside. On a street. It didn’t seem like much of a station to me. He was going to Asturias and starting a three week bike trip. Buena onda, hombre!
Anyway, finally got through to Fatima, and I guess she understood me and my description of Stanley, because about 10 minutes later some kid who turned out to be her 11 year-old son, Merlin (pron. mair-leen), was running toward me yelling “Pah-tree-cia, venga, venga” so I followed him and we hopped into a van. He was such a trip! Very funny, friendly, animated kid. He spoke to me in English and I answered him in Spanish. I love doing that. Hmmm, wish I paid more attention to the route though, instead of yapping away, because when we were driving around my new barrio, it looked fairly labyrinthine and confusing. There were no visible street names and there seemed to be a roundabout every two seconds. And I get very confused on roundabouts.
And then I got here and apparently passed out before taking my boots off.
Spanish spoken: A lot. Airport bus driver, random guy, Fatima (phone), Fatima (in person) and Merlin.
Food eaten: Bratwurst. Lufthansa cream cheese wrap.
Hola Prima!!
And Stanley is super happy that you’re happy to see him ( ;
I’m already slipping with the posting…I have so much material from the last two days too, but started work early yesterday after a big food shop. Will try and do a big catch up post later! I’m taking a little lunch (dinner here!) break now to heat up the delicious spicy chorizo tomato sauce I whipped up last night. Que rico!
Como estas? Would you like to try and cook some Spanish dishes and post pictures here? We can have a transatlantic collaborative cooking blog!
xx