So here goes
my latest adventure… last weekend
I went to France with a friend who is a fellow Au Pair here. You know of San
Fermín; well every week after that for about 2 months a different city in the
Basque Country hosts their ‘fiesta’. So it was in Bayonne, which is like a 2hr
bus/train ride from where I live (cool that France is that close right?) It
really is crazy that you can get off short bus ride and suddenly it’s a
different world: the language, the people, the food (mm). It was kind of a last
minute trip and we left without every finding a hostel to stay at for the
night, but the crazy Spanish parents are like “oh you’re young, you don’t need
a hostel, fiesta all night, sleep on the beach or meet some guys to invite you over”.
They are nuts. So we take a bus to San Sebastian Saturday morning and finally
get to Biarritz in the early afternoon. By the way I don’t know a word of French,
I don’t know how I continue to survive my trips there. I’ve been to Biarritz
before so I show Mika around the shops. Mika is a 24-year-old Californian who’s
been in Spain for 2 months.
We hung out
at the ‘famous surfing’ beach for most of the day, the waves were ginormous. In
the evening we catch a bus to Bayonne for the fiesta. When we arrive everyone
is happy, drunk, French and wearing the familiar white and red. A nice site. We
go through the streets to the carnival. I love carnivals. Something about the
look, the smell, the people, it’s some kind of magical. We stop and get churros
because I love churros. Afterwards we walk around the old part of town. It’s
beautiful. Similar to the Casco Viejo’s in Spain but a little more French and
with a beautiful river running through. Each street is filled. People are
dancing and singing and whenever they walk by me I pretend I know French and
sing along. Everyone is in good spirits there. We make our way through the
narrow streets. A few times we were packed like sardines, literally squished in
as we tried to get through. Music is playing in the streets so loud you don’t have
to go in the bars, which is convenient for us because we both have backpacks on
carrying all our stuff. I’m sure I looked like an idiot dancing in a full
backpack, but it was fun. At one point Cotton Eye Joe randomly came on and
people laughed at me because I knew how to dance to it (“I’m a little bit
country”…just kidding, it’s my Texas blood.)
To make a long story shorter, we spent all night walking through the streets, dancing, and meeting people (French people are extremely outgoing, very different from N. Spaniards). 4am hits and people start leaving the old part. This got me worried because we didn’t have a safe place to sleep. In Spanish fiestas the people literally do not go to sleep all night and so I was just betting on staying the streets. It was also weird because I am making all the big decisions. We first follow the crowd and get to the train station. Some harmless looking French guys offer to share and pay for a cab to Biarritz, (like 15min away) so we take it. When we get there we go to the beach, our backup plan. It’s pitch black and freezing so we decide to walk around the town where there’s some light. An hour passes and the sun begins to rise, it’s very pretty. We make our way to the beach, find a spot, lay out our towels and lie down. It’s still freezing. I fall asleep for about 30min and wake up with tingly hands. I decide I can’t do it anymore and we go to get some warm breakfast. We stay in the café for sometime until the weather looks better and then go back to the beach at about 930. It’s significantly warmer. I’m able to fall asleep and stay asleep until about 130 and when I look up the beach is packed. Mostly hungover young adults with hints of red and white on them. It was really very funny.
We get a crepe for lunch and make our way to catch the bus back to San Sebastian. We wait, and wait. The bus never comes. I call the bus hotline for help and of course they only speak Spanish. A true test of my Spanish level. I do great! He can understand me; I can understand him (more or less). In the end he tells me to ask the Office of Tourism where to catch it. My phone then runs out of money because of the expensive French charge. Well the office doesn’t know anything about the bus company. (Still a mystery.) They tell us it is safer to take a bus then 2 trains to San Sebastian. So we leave, I get a French pastry because I’m very stressed, and we make it to the station where I have to communicate with the French people through their small knowledge of Spanish. By the time we get to our 2nd train we have an hour before our bus leaves for Lekeitio (home). Stress starts to hit. I do not want to have to try to stay the night in another town again. On that train I end up talking a solo backpacker from Canada and an old Spanish couple for a time. I was grateful for those moments of connections. Somehow we get into San Sebastian and run to the bus stop with 8 minutes to spare. It was quite the series of unfortunate events and it was the greatest relief to get on that bus. The ride home along the coast was horribly windy, but beautiful.
We finally make it home and I sleep for ever and ever because I am tired.
To make a long story shorter, we spent all night walking through the streets, dancing, and meeting people (French people are extremely outgoing, very different from N. Spaniards). 4am hits and people start leaving the old part. This got me worried because we didn’t have a safe place to sleep. In Spanish fiestas the people literally do not go to sleep all night and so I was just betting on staying the streets. It was also weird because I am making all the big decisions. We first follow the crowd and get to the train station. Some harmless looking French guys offer to share and pay for a cab to Biarritz, (like 15min away) so we take it. When we get there we go to the beach, our backup plan. It’s pitch black and freezing so we decide to walk around the town where there’s some light. An hour passes and the sun begins to rise, it’s very pretty. We make our way to the beach, find a spot, lay out our towels and lie down. It’s still freezing. I fall asleep for about 30min and wake up with tingly hands. I decide I can’t do it anymore and we go to get some warm breakfast. We stay in the café for sometime until the weather looks better and then go back to the beach at about 930. It’s significantly warmer. I’m able to fall asleep and stay asleep until about 130 and when I look up the beach is packed. Mostly hungover young adults with hints of red and white on them. It was really very funny.
We get a crepe for lunch and make our way to catch the bus back to San Sebastian. We wait, and wait. The bus never comes. I call the bus hotline for help and of course they only speak Spanish. A true test of my Spanish level. I do great! He can understand me; I can understand him (more or less). In the end he tells me to ask the Office of Tourism where to catch it. My phone then runs out of money because of the expensive French charge. Well the office doesn’t know anything about the bus company. (Still a mystery.) They tell us it is safer to take a bus then 2 trains to San Sebastian. So we leave, I get a French pastry because I’m very stressed, and we make it to the station where I have to communicate with the French people through their small knowledge of Spanish. By the time we get to our 2nd train we have an hour before our bus leaves for Lekeitio (home). Stress starts to hit. I do not want to have to try to stay the night in another town again. On that train I end up talking a solo backpacker from Canada and an old Spanish couple for a time. I was grateful for those moments of connections. Somehow we get into San Sebastian and run to the bus stop with 8 minutes to spare. It was quite the series of unfortunate events and it was the greatest relief to get on that bus. The ride home along the coast was horribly windy, but beautiful.
We finally make it home and I sleep for ever and ever because I am tired.
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