After ten days of constant travel over Spring Break, you’d think I’d be ready for a moment of stillness. Nope. The week following my three-country adventure, I was booked for a weekend in San Sebastian. And I was actually looking forward to it.

San Sebastian is a coastal vacation spot in the Basque region of Northern Spain, promising me a few days of relaxation. San Sebastian is also known for having the best food in Spain, so I knew that my appetite would not be disappointed. The weekend would consist of just me and my roommate Emily, making it almost like a couples retreat (we joked that we were dating for the weekend). Sick of airplanes, we found a train to take us six hours to the north. The train took us through beautiful the countryside (what are trains for?) and at one point it seemed as though we were passing through the familiar green hills of Loyola, where we had our retreat back in February. On the train, the two of us snacked on American delicacies such as Goldfish and Girl Scout cookies, but we knew that Spanish dishes were waiting for us in San Sebastian. While snacking on our goldfish and cookies, I had the worst revelation. I opened up my trusty camera only to discover I had forgotten my memory card. I was stuck with my lousy camera on my cell phone for the weekend. Regardless, I tried to remain positive for my weekend ahead.

Upon arriving in the station, Emily and I realized we didn’t have a map to direct us to our hostel. But knowing that our hostel was supposed to be relatively close by, we chose a direction and just started walking. Thankfully San Sebastian is a pretty small city, so while we wandered around looking for correct street names, we got a pre-tour of San Sebastian. I fell in love instantly. I hadn’t seen the ocean in ages so tasting the salty breeze made me absolutely elated. At one point we passed by a tour center with a map on its window and easily located our hostel. After settling down in our comfortable little hostel (it was like being in a hotel, it was so nice), we went off to enjoy the rest of our afternoon.

A large portion of the San Sebastian coastline consists of the Bay of La Concha, so we decided to walk along the boardwalk to the very end of the city. Along the way we walked down the steps to the beach, where I had my moment of complete happiness. I handed my shoes and jacket to Emily and sprinted for the water, not caring if my pants got wet. Having had my moment with my long-missed ocean, I was able to collect myself and continue on our tour of the city. The boardwalk was beautiful, giving you a view of the ocean and Santa Clara island in the center of the bay. The railing along the boardwalk was white and decorated with old-fashioned lanterns that reminded Emily and I of Disneyland. At the very, very end of the boardwalk, after the tunnel and after the cute residential area, were these unusual pieces of art made out of rusted metal. These Peine del viento or Comb of the Wind statues looked like huge chain claws that were wedged into the rocks. According to Emily’s art history class, it is a modern piece of art where ocean, wind and iron exist in one place.

On our way back along the boardwalk, we came across the most amazing sight. While it’s typical to see artists paint, exhibit some kind of craft, or dress up in a strange costume (usually imitating a statue) in a metropolitan city, we encountered an entirely different performance in San Sebastian. Since the sun was slowly making its way down to the horizon, the tides were low, exposing a large portion of flat, moist sand. Down below the boardwalk, a man was using this patch of sand as his canvas. With just his feet, he drew several images along with the words, “Estamos en La Concha.” We are en La Concha. I couldn’t get over how beautiful it all was.

Having successfully seen so much of San Sebastian in only a few hours, we were ready to eat San Sebastian’s speciality: pintxos. Pintxos (pronounced as pinchos) are actually tapas, but since they are in Northern Spain (where different dialects are used) and since they are prepared differently, they are given a different name. According to natives of San Sebastian, pintxos are better than tapas. They are an art form. And it’s true. The pintxos are more extravagant than the tapas we were accostumed to. The ingredients are piled up in a very conscious way and every pintxo looks mouth-watering. Since San Sebastian is located along the ocean, many of the tapas had some kind of fish, which I didn’t mind at all. Choosing which pintxos I wanted to eat was the most difficult part of my trip. In the evening, Emily and I went to Parte Vieja, or Old Town, to go bar hopping for pintxos and I don’t think I could’ve been happier. By the end of the night we had gone to five different pintxo bars and eaten almost ten pinxtos. I decided that San Sebastian was my kind of town.

The next day, Emily and I were determined to go on a hike over into the fishing village nearby. This hike consisted of climbing a hill that sat between the fishing village and where we were staying. Part of this trail ran through the Camino de Santiago (which I was all over – it was my practice for the real thing). Unfortunately, our hiking day turned out to be the day that the skies opened up and rained on San Sebastian. So most of our hike consisted of sloshing in the mud, with just tennis shoes, regular clothes (but we dressed warmly at least), and a backpack filled with our American snacks. Along the trail we kept running into groups who were geared up in ponchos, hiking shoes, and hiking sticks. We were sure they were laughing at us, but we were laughing at us too. Despite the rain, we were loving our hike. It was absolutely beautiful walking along the coast and looking out at the ocean which seemed to go on forever. After one unfortunate incident – Emily fell in the mud, streaking it all the way down her pants – we finally made it to the other side to the fishing village.

We walked into this inlet where we could see the other side of the fishing village. It was still foggy and rainy out but to us it set the scene of the fishing village perfectly. We even saw some men out on a fishing boat and waved hi to them. We then decided to warm up (we realized we were soaked) and ducked into a little local bar. We had the best creamy lobster croquettas, giving us a substantial snack to continue our walk. Our goal was to reach a particular village that our host mom had said she grew up in. But after stubbornly continuing on, we realized we actually had no idea how to get there. As we continued to walk, we realized that we weren’t making the progress we hoped we would make; it was much farther than we expected. So, hungry and cold, we decided to hop on a bus back to our hostel.

We had a moment to change into dry clothes and relax (we realized we had been out for about six hours) and then went out to get some food. We ordered five different pintxos at one bar – we were starving – and realized we could eat more. So we left in search of a restaurant that the hostel caretaker suggested to us. It ended up being the best choice we could’ve made. This place was known more for its dishes than pintxos, which was a change for us since we had never eaten anything but tapas while in Spain. We ordered a tuna, tomato, and onion salad topped with with olive oil and the simple mix ended up being absolutely amazing. The ingredients were so fresh! Looking around me I saw all of these other fresh appetizers and meals and realized that this was the place to be. I vowed to return if I ever came back to San Sebastian (it’s called Bodega Donestiarra by the way).

Our last day we went on a mini-hike (it was sunny, luckily) up to this large statue of Jesus. Up at the top we had a beautiful view of San Sebastian below. I realized I was going to miss this charming little beach town that made me feel so at home again, having grown up in a beach town in California. I was happy to have gotten my weekend getaway, right before diving into finals at school.