I left my heart in San Sebastian

My next adventure took place as a result of a suggestion from a guy in Barcelona about a small beach town on the west coast of Spain called San Sebastian. After 5 hours of quiant little towns, castles, fields of wildflowers and rolling hills of farmland, my train had arrived. Before this, scenery such as this only existed in my mind as a mere fantasy.
Unbenownst to me, I was pleasantly suprised to find that San Sebastian is a gastronomic paradise. The bars serve tapas called pinxos, which are a true art form. They are displayed on the bar and ready to eat along with sidra (cider), which is poured from a great height so it can aerate. You are given a plate and you take what you want and after you eat, using the honor system, you tell them how many you had. Brilliant. San Sebastian has more Michelin stars that Paris.
The hostel, also a suggestion is called Urban House. I was a little apprehensive at first, when I walked in the door the place was packed with everyone ready to go out for a pub crawl. I was escorted to the room where the girl showed me the bed I was to sleep in while simutaneously taking a pile of dirty sheets off it. It turns out that the place is so amazing that believe it or not it's very easy to overlook all the madness. There were a few quotes on the wall that I think are worth mentioning:
"and this is the corner where the bums and Italians piss" and "what's the word in English for when you touch something with the tip of your penis" Elin from Sweden and "she is my favorite girl because she has the biggest nuts"(reffering to her boobs) Christopher from Denmark
Those were my favorites. It's an anything goes type of joint so you have to take the good with the bad and in this case the good happened to be very good. The place is steps from the ocean and I step out to the balcony in the morning with my tea to the sound of a man playing accordian down below. The gregarious guy who runs the place, Rudy, encourages comradery between all the guests. Everyone in the hostel goes out together at night and we all connected so much and ended up being facebook friends. The guy puts sriracha in his coffee in the morning and cleans singing Celine Dion ballads. He knows all the hot spots for food and drinks in the neighborhood. One of his favorites is called Nestors. They only have a few things they serve, which are: a huge piece of rare steak that is split between 4-5 people, a large plate of heirloom tomatoes with olive oil and balsamic vinegar both seasoned with maldon salt.http://www.maldonsalt.co.uk/ You must try this stuff. It is un-fucking-real. They make ONLY two tortilla espanas at lunch if you are lucky enough to get a piece and also an expresso drink that is made with condensed milk, cinnamon and a secret liquor that no one know about except for Nestor himself. It is in his will though, so the secret will not die with him. It was fabulous but had me up all night. We also went to an anchovy bar that serves anchovy pinxos in any way you could imagine. My favorite was by far the coconut. Some of the best pinxos in my opinion were: roasted red pepper stuffed with crabmeat on a crostini, a battered and fried tomato slice topped with a sardine and I have to mention I had the best ice cream I think I ever had in my life. Rudy also took us to a bar that served cow cheek cooked for 12 hours, so tender it falls apart with a fork, crispy pig ear, and duck in prune sauce. I was in my glory. At the end of a meal, you take a sweet/licoricy liquor shot called pacharon to help digest your meal.
Besides eating, San Sabastian has so many things to do. I went on a few hikes, long walks on the beach, beautiful cathedrals, shopping and I also went kayaking to Isla de Santa Clara with a native named Gabriel. He is a teacher but takes people kayaking for a side job. He loves American music and asked a lot of questions about New York. Here is how a conversation went for example:
"Do you have beaches in Nueva York?"
"Yeah, New Jersey too."
"New Jersey? Bruce Springsteen is from there, do you know of him?"
"Of course." I said
"I love the music of Bruce...." as he's paddling and looking off the horizon.
He took the money I paid him and we went to get drinks with it, not a bad deal at all.
Although I am living my fairy tale, it is not all rainbows and unicorns all the time. I've had my fare share of obstacles. It's been a bit of a culture shock, not too bad but I don't speak fluent spanish and I can ony imagine what lies ahead for me in France as far as that goes. It is very expensive to wash your clothes so I learned that most travelers handwash their clothes and hang them on the balcony to dry. I'm used to the idea now. I was supposed to work on an organic vineyard in the south of France outside of Bordeaux. We exchanged a number of emails but days before I was to arrive, they said they were on vacation. OoOokaaaay. Throw a wrench into my life why don't you? So I freaked out for about a day and a half until I realized that being stuck here is really quite amazing and I need to just enjoy it, there are plenty of farms out there that would be happy to have me. I forget sometimes that the universe always wins.
I did some more haircuts here, which helped me tremendously with cash money records taking over for the 9-9 and 2000.

Barcelona, Montserrat and Figueres

I have started many blogs in the past only to delete them days later. I decided to write in journals and only for myself. Sometimes I destroy those too, but after four days in Barcelona, I have reconsidered. There is so much to tell it is imperative that I document it.
It hasn't yet been a week and my life has changed already. I've seen 3000 works of Picasso, learned how to make sangria and paella, saw Gaudi buildings in person, went to the Dali house in Figueres, hiked to the top of a mountain and did a few haircuts.
The city is bustling with conservative but stylish people, fascinating architecture and is food heaven. I've been living on jamon, which is cured meat on a baguette accompanied by fresh fruit. I have to keep reminding myself that I'm in Spain and not NY. Running from one subway to the next and trying to squeeze everything into one day can make you forget. The metro system bere is so practical. For one, it comes every THREE minutes and has a digital clock to tell you so simliar to the L train in NY. Cellphones work on the train even though its underground and there's no crackheads singing du-wop songs for money. I have to say the people in Barcelona are pretty civilized. I also noticed people are in pretty good shape, I don't see too many unhealthy looking people. Why is it that the trashy people here don't look nearly as bad as the trashy people in the states I wonder. Not too many people have ipods or read on the train but I'm thinking because it's so much faster than NY. Castilian is the language spoken here but my spanglish is getting me around just fine. The streets are not marked well at all. They are tiny little signs on the sides of the buildings and I have to walk up close to even see what it says. This city is so big and very confusing with lots of tiny little streets, streets that turn into other streets, and windy roads. Barcelona is known for pick pockets but luckily I had no issues with that. April 23rd is a holiday in some countries encase you didn't know. It's Saint Georges Day and the tradition is that the girls get roses from the guys and the guys get books from the girls. It's also declared the international day of the book because its the same day Shakespeare died.
I stayed at Mellow Hostel which was incidently nothing but mellow. I didn't sleep a wink on the red eye here or the two nights following. Turns out it's a major party spot. The directions from the website added two extra forms of transportation than necessary and also had the wrong address that sent me to some little old lady's house. It had a big gate in front of it so I rang the bell and she came out and was very nice about sending me in the right direction. What a debaucle. It was a beautiful and very clean place and the staff was very accomodating. To give you an idea of the location, just think of staying in Flushing Queens and needing to go downtown Manhattan everyday. No wait, add very steep hills with winding roads and add 163 stairs to that. That's not a typo, there was 163, I counted them. They have the internet but you have to pay, I probably spent 20 euros on that computer, I lost count. So lessons learned on choosing a hostel are, location, location, location! Ear plugs if you want to sleep and free internet is a must.
Lets talk about art. Between Gaudi, Dali and Picasso my mind has been blown. Sangrada de Familia was started by Antoni Gaudi, a devout catholic who's work referenced nature and christianity. It is a masterpiece and when I saw it, my heart literally swelled. No picture could possibly capture the effect of seeing it in person. Construction started in 1882 and will possibly be completed in 2020. It was great to see the progression of Picasso's work throughout his life. His earlier work really showed his technical talent and the later abstract work showed his creativity but the work in between looked really half ass, like he was bored and couldn't think of anything better to do, like his ceramic work for example. What really struck a chord with me was Dali. His work was so diverse. Each collection was completely different than the former. Saying that he though outside the box is an understatement, he used color, texture and shape like I have never seen before. It was totally worth the two hour train ride each way to Figueres to witness it. I also went to the Museo Nacional d'art Catalunya. I took a lot of picture but they could never live up to the real thing in front of you. There was walls of a church the dated from the 1200's. It's hard to wrap your head around that! The whole section of gothic art was closed due to restoration work which was dissappointing but I saw so much I really can't complain. Close by the museum was Parc Montjuic, the Barcelona version of central park. I could have walked through it all day but I didn't have time since I was trying to see so many things in a day. What the hell is time anyway. I realized that when looking at the art, I would walk right up to the plaque and read the information on who the artist was, but towards the end I realized I could appreciate it so much more when looking from a distance. It fills your soul when you take it all in at once and the perspective is so much better. Similar to having an ocean between your old life and new one.
As soon as I got off the plane, I met a Canadian girl also traveling alone named Teryn. We ended up taking an hour train ride up to Montserrat, which means serrated mountain, and hiked to the top of a 1236m mountain to get to the monastery. It was founded in 1025 after a Virgin Mary statue was found there. It became a holy site and people line up to kiss the feet of the statue. The hike was much steeper than we anticipated and we weren't prepared with food or water but we made it to the top! Where my cured meat and baguette were waiting for me. Of course it's a tourist trap at the top. We also took a walk on the beach later that day and there was people doing elaborate sculptures out of sand. Very cool. Unfortunately Teryn and I parted ways because she's taking a quick trip to Switzerland before doing a 900km pilgrimmage through Spain and France and y'all think I'm crazy! I was sad to say goodbye to my little buddy, I think I met my match as far as guy stories go. She might even have me beat.
I took a cooking class for 18 euros that was well worth the money. They gave us tortilla espana with monchego cheese and olives and toast with jamon and a spread made from crushed tomatoes and garlic while we waited. The chef showed us the traditional way to make paella and the bartender showed us how to make sangria. There were 5 of us in the group and we had a feast.
An Estonian girl was talking to me in the bathroom at about midnight on Friday night and I ended up cutting her and her friends hair. They gave me 25 euros and I really enjoyed doing it. There was a big group of them and they all wanted haircuts but were going out to a club that night. I was a big hit since I came from NY and all. Another note on beauty, I started threading my own lip. I usually wax but I watched a video on youtube before I left and I'm actually starting to get the hang of it. Either that or I walk around with a mustache.