San Sebastian

I arrived in San Sebastian and was immediately blown away. It is by far the prettiest city in Spain and now I know why Hemmingway loved it so much. I arrived at the hotel and asked the front desk what time the restaurants closed. He said 11pm (ok, now this is like going from Hollywood to Santa Barbara). So I dropped off my bags and headed out. It was barely 8:30 and all the shops and cafe's were closed. A few bars were open, but that was it.

After much seaching I found one that met my requirements and went in for a couple of beers and read my book. Nobody talked to me besides the bartender and I went back to the hotel room about 11:30pm. My room was beautiful, it was on the 6th floor with crown molding, jutting balconies and a large double bed. I sat on the edge of my bed and my sister Skyped me. We had a nice conversation while I drank a couple of the tiny beers from the fridge. I went to sleep about 12:30 knowing that times were different here and I should be up early.

When I awoke at 9am I started getting ready and was almost complete when I tossed back the covers to put them in place. There was a large pair of men's leather ski glove exactly where I had been sitting the night before talking to my sister. It took me a moment of pondering as to what exactly this meant. Then I inspected the room more, nothing was missing (and yes I counted my panties- I've had them stolen before) but there was a large cigarrette ash on my side of the bed kind of near the center. My heart just stopped.

I finished getting ready and went down to the front desk carrying the glove in the tissue. While trying not to cry, I explained what I had found. There was a sales manager as well as the front desk clerk that were just staring at me with horrified eyes.

He asked if I wanted to call the police, and I said I thought he should (my spanish not enough in the circumstance). He made me immediately change rooms. When I pointed out the ash he did not look happy at all.

So I sat in my room waiting for the police to come and they never did. I finally left word with the front desk that I would be back in a couple hours once I had lunch (which I never ate) if the police need to speak to me. I came back and hung out in my new room, which was not half as nice my old one, and instead of a nice big double bed had two twins (I didn't realize how handy that would come in).

I e-mailed Marc in Barcelona and told him what happened. He told me to call the front desk, immediately and have them send over an English speaking officer. Instead I went to the police station myself. They were very nice and concerned, but I don't think they knew what to do with this. From all accounts San Sebastian is the safest place in Spain and returning lost wallets might be the most they know how to do.

But the woman who spoke English (and sat behind a desk in plain clothes, was this the detective or the secretary, I didn't know) was totally appalled and an officer who spoke better English was called in off the street. Angeles bought me a coke, it was going on 6pm and I hadn't eaten yet, oh that coke was needed. After much discussion between them I finally said, look, here's the deal. You can't do anything for me, you need to make a report. The report comes in handy if there's another case such as this, then you have a trail. That's all I want. Much more discussion, they decided to make a report. Like I said, they weren't the best equiped to handle this (oh, why couldn't I have been this forceful with the front desk?)

So I left them, and wandered some more. I hear the tappas are great here, but unlike the rest of Spain they just keep them out in the open and not under sneeze gaurd. I was finally getting used to food not being refrigerated, but now people are laughing, smoking and coughing over it. I just couldn't do it. I found myself back in old quarter looking for a restaurant I had seen earlier, when I saw a German band on the street, I passed them and threw them a coin, and took off. Got turned around and found the German band again, started to get annoyed and walked away, when they started playing "Roll out the barrell", which was my father's all time favorite song, so I stopped and I knew he was with me. Seconds after it finished (and I threw them a couple euros) I found the restaurant I was looking for and sat down for a well deserved dinner.

When I finished dinner it was 9:30pm, the last thing I wanted to do was go back to my hotel room. I decided I wanted to actually talk to people and I broke my cardinal sin and went in search of an Irish bar. I couldn't find one and gave up. As I was walking home I saw it, the beckoning light of the Guiness sign.

The bar wasn't crowded but there were two Brits sitting at the bar and I asked them if I could join them, and then quickly unloaded my burden on them. One was an ex-cop and he was horrified, I just felt so much better.

I finally got sick of feeling creeped out and decided to have some fun, they were nice good guys. So we went to another bar, exactly like all other bars, but people danced in this one. So we danced too. After a while a group of early 20 something Spanish boys showed up and took an unusual interest in us, they barely spoke English, but just kept talking to us. I was taking pictures and they kept posing, then the fabulous international word was spoken- FACEBOOK? Yes, YAY FACEBOOK! So we exchanged names.

After a lot of dancing the Spaniards grabbed us and told us to come with them. Neither the Brits or I had any idea of what was going on but we followed. They took us to the river and pulled out a trumpet (trombone, trum something) and one started playing music at 3am in the morning with no one around to take coins from, just for the shear joy of playing music by the river. We all danced and it was good.

Gavin, one of the Brits agreed to sleep in my room (turns out they were staying in the same hotel as me). I told you that twin bed would come in handy, and it was nice that he was there.