Pinchos in San Sebastian, Pamplona

So yesterday, slash the last two nights I have been SO tired. So I apologize for the length of this little guy... there are lot´s of pictures though so don´t worry :)

Let´s see WHERE did I leave off. OH, yes so San Sebastian! Ohhhh I am obsessed with that city. For sure going back. After the pub that night, we got back to the hostel and Sean (the American guy) was eating some pasta. This triggered the beast within and I realized I was starvinggg seeing that I only had that baguette of bread. They pointed me the E ( stands for express) which is a series of vending machines like randomly on the street. They have like normal things, you know like chocolates and stuff... then they have this one that has sex toys and such, I guess for your late time needs?

What really got me was this one. HOW can a hamburger/hotdog/pizza come out of a vending machine? Maybe one day when I´m feeling bold I´ll spend the 3 euros on it and let you know. What is the best though is that it says GOURMET.

yummmm....


Anyways the next day I was planning on waking up early, round 8 or so, to walk around. (NOTE: waking up before 9 doesn´t make any sense. The sun like doesn´t even rise till 8 and NOTHING opens until at least 10. Other than breakfast places.)






It was the first time I have slept suuuper comfortably though seeing the first two weeks I was in Gandia and, well, if you have been keeping up with my blog you know sleeping wasn´t really a priority. Then when we did move to Valencia I had to crash at Mats since my room was unoccupied till this week. So I woke up at 9, which wasn´t bad. I was going to go for a run but the weather was kind of miserable so instead I got all bundled up and decided to go be obnoxious with my camera around the center of the city. I have a tripod so I don´t even have to bother people to take pictures of me, me/Randy.
 <-- this is what happens when you DO ask an old person to take a picture of you so you´re like not even a little bit ready for the picture..

I feel like black and white is appropriate for a rainy day in San Sebastian :)

 Anyways, so the night before the Austrailian guy that works at the hostel said he would take the 2 Austrailian tourist girls and I to an amazing breakfast place, so I headed back to the Olga´s Place round 10 30am. We ate DELICIOUS tortilla so Spanish style standing outside. Tortilla is not like the Mexican flat..thing. It´s kind of like an omelett, but made with potatoes instead of eggs and has onions. It´s really good, trust me.

So, you know how I´m like all about doing my own thing? I was planninggg on dipping out after breakfast and walking around the Casco Viejo (old part of town- I think Spanish people got lazy (surprise!) and decided to keep the names of the old section simple... Pretty sure all Spanish towns slash cities have a variation of Caso/Pueblo Viejo/Antiguo). BUT I didn´t want to be rude so I decided to just walk with them and then leave when appropriate.. well it was not appropriate. We (the Aussie girls and I) had basically a private tour of this WONDERFUL town by people that lived there. They knew exactly where all the key things were.
I´m sure people were like, why the eff is this chica taking a picture in the middle of a road. SHUT UP I THINK IT´S PRETTY. Matt (the Austrailian guy that works there) was like, "this is my favorite bar street. There are two churches on either side: Romanesque (shown in picture) and a gothic." Why can´t Midtown have two balling churches???? JK Welfare is the shit. But really...



 This picture of the dog made me "gig" (giggle). It´s like literally freezing outside and we see this little guy tied up outside the tapas bar. Not only does he look miserable, but right above his head there is a NO DOG sign. Poor pup.

San Sebastian is like right on the water. You can´t really tell in this picture but the water is like aqua. Matt and Sean were telling us that it is wonderfullll during the summer. And, there are these bars in these islands that you have to swim to get to. The challenge is to go there and drink, and swim back before you´re drunk. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Anyways, so if this private tour hadn´t been enough to satisfy my tourism of San Sebastian, 12pm rolled around and it was time for TAPAS. NO NO, pinchos! (side note: I am in el pais Vasco, and they are the ones that have been trying to secede from Spain for the last idk how many years. They call their tapas "pinchos." Regardless, it´s acccustomed to go from bar to bar ordering one or two pinchos with a drink. It´s like a small sized dish for like 2 euros. So you normally go to like 4 or 5 and tada! You have eaten a full meal :) )

I am so so so so so SO happy I stayed with these people or else I would have not tried any of these tapas slash even have known which tapa bars tog into. They looked so bizarre with ingredients I wasn´t even aware of but I think I ate the best I ever have in my life. And only for 10 euros (I had 2 beers also). We would order a few at each bar and share them between us so we got to try like 10 different ones.

 

 
























I am not going to tell you what they were made of because out of  context it would probably gross me out too... but trust me when I say that you just had to throw away your preconceived notions and try them....

Anywho, so I had plans to catch at 1515 bus to Pamplona. 1430 rolled around and we had just finished eating our tapas and Sean and Matt were trying super hard to convince me to stay another night and they would show me the night life of this fantastic city. Trust me when I say it took ALL of the self control I contain to say I had to keep to my schedule and move onto the next city. BUT, like I said before, I will for sureeee be coming back to San Sebastian soon. 30 euro bus ticket, check yesssss for a great weekend :)

When I first got to Pamplona, I initially regretted it. At first it did not look neeeearly as ballin as San Sebastian did. Granted, I was still kind of bummed I had left. Luckily, I had my agent (Dennis :) ) book me a wooonderful hostel, Hostel Hemingway. I got settled and talked to the receptionist and gave me a map and where to go, SANKS and off I was to Casco Antiguo (told you).

Side note: so at hostels and stuff, people alwaysss ask where you are from (sorry if I have already comment on this, I dont remember what I write..). I am always like, oh yeah United States A town, wuddup. But then they are super confused as to why I speak spanish so well and why I do not have an American accent. If you know me well enough, you know I have like crazy backround. I feel like as soon as I start explaining, the person asking regrets it... I just stick to, yeah I live in the US but my family is from Venezuela. Deal.
Pamplona is where the running of the bulls is (in July) You know, that crazy shit where they let a bunch of pissed off bulls run wild and people decided it would be a good idea to get in front of them and run. I decided to more or less walk the path the bulls run to get to the bullfighting ring (but backwards) and of course took lots of pictures :)

That red door is where the bulls actually run through to get into the ring.

See the white lines? Those designate the path of the Running of the Bulls.

Well it started getting dark but I decided to continue to wander.Good decision Camila :)

 

Plaza Mayor (another example of the creativeness of Spainish names)

A monument for this WONDERFUL idea. Tradition are funny haha

O

 I just thought that was funny. I am not really sure if it is a play off Dunkin Donuts? But am assuming so. But Duffin does not mean anything in either language, and I am pretty sure they sold like ice cream and deserts, no bagels. Whatevs.

Once it got paaainfully cold, like negative 3 degrees celcius, and it started snowing, I decided to head back a different way than I had came. One of the things I LOVE about Spain (and I think a lot of countries in Europe are like this but I do not want to generalize to avoid offending anyone..whatever) is that you walk around and then all of a sudden something like this pops up.