Action-packed in Sevilla and Madrid: Aug. 30, 2013

We were thankfully up and bustling about packing at 10am when Miguel came by to clean the apartment. Whoops. Our train wasn't until 11:45, so we just hung out at cupcake land, getting our Internet fix, until it was time to take our high-speed train to Madrid. 

I watched "The Heist" on the English sound channel while Rosie slept. We shot through a lot of fields with hay and cows, including one bunch that looked like they were herding themselves along a dirt road. Picturesque Spain. 

We were meeting our AirBnB host at the apartment, which was 6a. I was really hoping 6a didn't mean the sixth floor with no elevator - but it meant exactly that. I lt is even the European sixth floor, so the ground floor is 0, not 1.

The good news is, that is the last set of stairs we'll have to drag our luggage up. The bad news is that this is the last place we are staying before we go home.

So we decided to jump right in. First was a vegetarian restaurant with a pre fixe lunch. Breaking our typical rules, we both got white wine, the baba ghanoush, and the mixed platter (with spinach egg casserole, paella-type mixed rice, peppers with tomato sauce, and - my favorite - a buffalo mozzarella "panini" that was just fried cheese. Yum.) I got the cheesecake (again, a bit more savory that typical cheesecakes) and Rosie was crazy and got watermelon. For dessert. No wonder she wanted ice cream on our way to the Prado. 

We stopped by a tourist info place to get a map and ask about zarzuela, but the comedic Spanish opera isn't playing right now. The information place was on the Plaza Mayor, an "inside out" palace. It was very empty when we walked in at 4:30, but bustling after we spent 30 minutes on the Internet kiosks researching restaurants.

With it being nearly 6, and the Prado opening for free after 6, we headed that direction, with a stop to actually look around Puerta del Sol, where the metro station that we rode into the city center was.

It is big and bustling as well, though with a lot of dressed up characters instead of just people. The governor's house is there, as is "kilometer zero" where Spain starts. From there, it was also an easy mile walk to the Prado and the giant (but moving) line to get in the museum. 

The two hours before it closed flew by. We were following the tour in Rick's book, but then one of the pieces had been moved to a special exhibit, so we went through that gallery and saw Rubens, Velazquez, Goya, El Greco, and Bosch. 

We hadn't seen some of the major pieces in the tour though, so we circled back for a quick attempt at the tour. We were a bit too late - the side rooms were being shut down and people were being ushered outside. 

We didn't quite have a plan after that, so we wandered up the street to see an arch and a building that might have a viewing floor (we are going to try to get to it tomorrow - it was closed today).

No plan, of course, always turns into food. So we began our tapas crawl at a dark, wood bar with a free tapa with our drinks - some tortilla with lettuce and tomato in it, like a sandwich. Next, we moved to a brighter, more sterile bar that had a free patatas bravas and some delicious fried eggplant. So thin, so crispy, so good. 

We had to go to the place for "gambas" (shrimp), so a boiling bowl full of those, oil, and garlic, and we were pretty happy campers. 

There was a microbrewery down the street, so we popped in for a baby beer. After we paid, we brought it up front to people watch, and I got enough liquid courage to ask the group of guys next to us where to go dancing.

They said they didn't know, but their friend would, so just stick around. So we did, hanging out with Michael, Dommy, and David until two more friends came by. We stuck around at that bar, then at another one (with some ribs, tortilla, and salchicon on bread fueling the moves). Dommy introduced us to calemocho - coke and red wine. It sounds weird, but it is a very refreshing way to drink it. 

So, our new friend Paula was chatting in the streets with some of the club promoters, and we got stamps for a club in the future before going to a bar with dancing first. There, a cute married couple (with the wife's arm in a sling) talked about the wedding they were all going to tomorrow (which is why all these college friends were in town) and then their own wedding.

We did eventually get to the club, and dance, and have some sickly sweet mojitos and vodka-límons. However, eventually it was time to go, and that's when we realized it was five o'clock in the morning.

Savoring in Sevilla: Thurs., Aug. 29

Sevilla is about experiencing, not really site-seeing, but there were two sites that were on our list: the Alcázar (a palace) and the cathedral and Giraldi bell tower. 

We had a lazy enough morning, with an alarm that was more of a suggestion and long, hot showers that still didn't completely remove the grime from our feet. Our apartment, as cute as it is, doesn't have any WIFI, so it was off to the cupcake shop a block away for some breakfast and Internet and to plan our day.

CUPCAKE & GO is all pink and sugar and the proprietor went along with our attempts at Spanish. Tostadas, which was a tomato sauce for me and ham (Rosie just learned that "jamón" was ham and not salmon) for Rosie, were the main breakfast fare, with cupcakes (Rosie looking up, then butchering "what is the best" using Google Translate) for dessert. Because vacation. Mine was a cutesy Minnie Mouse-themed chocolate one (with another flavor that might have been orange) and Rosie's was toffee (which the guy said was the best).

After we left the shop, as we headed toward the cathedral, we had a bit of a conversation of gay versus European. The typical "clues" (well-dressed, drinking fruity drinks, hugging and kissing for greetings) don't translate well. The lisp that is often attributed to gay men in the US is a part of the Spanish accent! "Gracias" is pronounced "grathias." I guess unless we went to that gay bar in Córdoba, we would have no idea. (Oh, except for the ones that clearly wanted to dance with us. I'm guessing they were all straight.)

Anyway, history and architecture and stuff. The cathedral was built on the site of a mosque, though completely demolishing the mosque, unlike Córdoba, and keeping just the minaret to turn into a bell tower.

It wasn't enough just to demolish the mosque though. They had to build the biggest Gothic church ever. Which they did, by volume, recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records. 

The massive altarpiece is still undergoing renovations, so we got confused when we sat down facing the choir area instead of the main altar and started our Rick-guided tour. We figured it out, and saw on the massive photo over the construction the 44 scenes from Jesus' life. 

I do my best to educate Rosie on what stuff means when we visit cathedral and churches and the like so she can at least be entertained by my slight butchering of Bible stories. Here was no different, and baptism (spurred by a picture of John the Baptist by Murillo, a famous Spanish religious painter) was the topic of the day.

To be fair, as we were climbing up the bell tower I learned about Hebrew names and how Rosie got hers, so I was learning as well. 

As I mentioned before, the first 2/3rds of the bell tower were the former minaret. The floor was sloped - great for going up, awful for going down - because the muezzins doing the call to prayer rode up on horses! Lazy bums - we walked. 

There was some bell ringing right when we got there, and some great views on the old parts of the city. The statue on the top of the tower (supposedly a weathervane, though it looks too big to move) is the highest a building can be in Sevilla, so we were looking down on everything. 

Besides the tower and its size, the cathedral is also known for housing the remains of Christopher Columbus. He has been buried in Spain, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and now in the mausoleum in cathedral. His remains were verified in 2006 - definitely Columbus. He's right next to a mural of St. Christopher and a clock from 1788.

There is also a fancy crown, Spain's most valuable, with the world's largest pearl shaped into an angel body. Don't I look good with it on?

With the cathedral fully wandered through, we decided to take Rick's walking tour of the Barrio Santa Cruz, the old Jewish ghetto that turned into residential streets of old town. We saw some painters' houses, some plazas, some sculptures (including one of the original sex addict-atheist Don Juan), and some tiny, cute streets. 

We were ready for the palace. It was 1pm and amazingly still cool outside, though sunny, so we still had time for another site before lunch. 

I think the palace amazed us both with how different it was and how much we liked it. It is of the Mudejar style, mixing Christian and Islamic elements, just the way it was built. King Pedro I took it from the caliphs when he conquered Sevilla, but merely expanded it in the same style. Many generations have expanded it, but all have kept the general gist, if adding the trappings of their time. The current king and queen still use the palace as one of their residences today!

It is cool, literally and figuratively, built around pools, tile, and patios. When Pedro moved in after the renovations to the caliph's palace, he brought his mistress along instead of his wife. 

But the moldings and the mosaics and the marble floors are stunning. So many tessellations of colors and textures. The rooms are mostly bare. One exception is a tapestry room, with one being a map of the Mediterranean oriented south - makes you feel like you are on your head!

There are gardens outside, with a bath underneath the palace (named in honor of the mistress). They were pretty, but our stomaches were rumbling.

Rick led us to a restaurant a few blocks away, but away from the tourist crowds. The wooden accents, and large adobe jugs, were old world at its best. And the tapas - a little of a "taco" (which might have been misordered as tuna - delicious regardless), a little "mini hamburguesa" (I'm missing home a bit), some "pisto" (mix of veggies that tasted curry-like), some sausage called salchicá, and two orders (one on purpose, one a happy accident) of "espinacas con garbanzos" (spinach and garbanzo beans). And some of the best and cheapest house white wine we've had. One euro to wash down the first few tapas, and one more euro for good measure (to make sure our walk to the park for siesta was nice, of course).

Near to the bench where we read and napped was the Plaza de Espanya (hope you can figure that one out). Besides and adorable canal that ran around the edges, there were cities from across Spain as painted tile mosaics and benches. We took pictures with the ones we've been to, but San Sebastián, Seville, and most of the cities in the Rioja didn't make the cut. Maybe they are just the capitals?

Rosie was set on going to Eslava (a restaurant a guy eating an avocado on the roof of the Córdoba hostel recommended), but we hadn't figured out exactly where it was. With both of us on 5% or less battery on our phones (all that park blogging), we found Internet fast at McDonalds. We stood outside for the three minutes it took to locate the restaurant, then crossed the bridge into Triana, a hip part of town with great views.

Due to the dead phones, this is the last picture we captured:

Now, I'll just have to describe to you the green and stone along the opposite bank, the walls of Alcázar and the bell tower of the cathedral, all in a tableau facing the setting sun, giving extra saturation to a river shore filled with color. The runners, bikers, skateboarders and strollers (both those with wheels and those people without) were out enjoying the coolness of "paseo" (the evening walk).

There were some kayaks in the water, playing around, and a group playing a game with a ball. And then there was us, posted up on a bench on the riverside, where Rosie beat me again at Rummy 500.

With dusk firmly settled in, we made our way to Eslava, and weren't disappointed. We had a zucchini pastry and the cutest scallops with a delicious sauce. This was with our glasses of Verdejo - because now that I've discovered this white wine, I won't complain about not liking whites again.

At this point our table was ready. Just with no stools, so we were standing up anyway. It was for the ambience we were outside anyway, not the comfort.

Everything was adorably mini. We got some winner of some tapas prize, a slow-cooked egg with other stuff called "huevo sober bázcocho boleius y vino dulce." Super yum, and different than tapas we've had before. With the came the "cigarro para becquer" - some dark mush deliciously wrapped up in maybe seaweed paper? Regardless, it and the ribs (the suggestion of the waitress) were delicious. 

We had been unabashedly staring at other plates as they came out of the kitchen, and we were both entranced by the baby clams. They were so cute! And so delicious - olive oil and garlic bath and teeny tastes of delicious. 

The reason Rosie wanted to come to this restaurant was because of the cheese ice cream. I was delectably different - not quite savory, not quite sweet, a little like cheesecake filling and also like goat cheese. As we were walking the winding streets (with very small walkways) back to the apartment, we discussed how we would bring it back to the US.  

Rhythm in Córdoba and Sevilla: Wed., Aug 28, 2013

The 8am wake up came too soon this morning. The air-conditioning was lovely, the bed was lovely, but the sights were waiting to be seen (and seen for free!)

We grabbed some cereal on our rush out the door. The Mezquita was free until 9:30, when the morning mass started, and then 8€ after, so we were happy to get there at 9am. 

The gist of the building is that it is a mosque that was converted into a cathedral, then found to be on top of ruins of a Visigoth Christian church, so it is ok for them to not convert it back into a mosque since it was originally a Christian site. 

As almost everything in Córdoba, there was a beautiful courtyard, with the orange trees in rows evoking the columns inside the Mezquita.

We had a little Rick Steves tour to guide us around the inside. First was the mosaics from the Visigoth church, visible through a glass panel in the floor. Next was the mihrab, the mosque's altar, which was facing south (not east to Mecca) because the Córdoban Muslims had their roots in Syria, where Mecca is south. 

The cathedral that is built in the center of the building, however, points east, to Jerusalem. It is a church within a mosque, with the ornate gold and paintings and plush one would expect. However, when it was built in 1523, King Charles V ordered it done, then realized (according to legend) that he had made a huge mistake. 

When the Muslims had built the mosque, they had done so using bits and pieces from their conquerees buildings, scraping off faces so that "Christian" turned "art" and it was acceptable to re-use. 

Around the walls of the Mezquita are galleries which I think are of patrons of the church - probably for family tombs? There are more tombs on the floor and a final royal chapel with tombs for kings that is closed to the public (but you can see the ceiling from the mosque and it is pretty sweet).

With that, it was 9:20, and the ushers were herding out the mere tourists to clear the way for the parishioners. When we got outside, we got to hear the 9:30 bells for Mass in what used to be the minaret and call to prayer. 

Next was the fortress, the Alcázar de los Reyes Cristianos - the castle of the Christian monarchs. Rick Steves wasn't a huge fan, but I enjoyed the ornamental gardens, and who doesn't like a good climb to the top of a tower? It was built along old Roman walls and used for the Inquisition, but doesn't have much more interesting history besides that. 

We were near where there were stables and a patio "museum", but both didn't open until 11 and 10:30, respectively, and it was only 10:15. So we went to the Jewish quarter. 

Along the way to the synagogue, one of three still standing in Spain and the only one in Córdoba, we wandered into the artisan market. I got myself a silver ring as an early birthday present. Isn't having a job and traveling grand?

The synagogue was a small building. It had been used as a "hospital for hydrophiles" (I first read it at homophobes, then as hydrophobes... I'm still not sure what the information panel meant). Plastered over, the Arabic-influenced decorations of passages from the Torah remained until they were discovered after the persecution of Jews had passed. 

Our check-out at the hostel was at noon, so we headed back for some bread and jam (and olive oil - it's the new butter) and fresh squeezed orange juice. And a shower - my hair looked mad greasy. 

We were back out and wandering the Jewish Quarter before noon, probably. The temperate day was waning, giving way to temperatures of 95 degrees in the shade. We lunched (at a completely unacceptable Spanish time of noon) on oxtail and salmorejo - a creamier gazpacho. 

We went back to the stables, where we saw clips of a performance and a horse being trained to rear.

We went back to the patio "museum", which was actually just a commercialized patio, potentially with a restaurant we got a brochure for on the way in? All you really need to know is that there was a terrier named Elvis with mysterious eyes that loved us. (Ask Rosie for that picture.)

Then it was to the postcard-perfect flower street (disappointing) and the group-picture-perfect "tiny street" that is only two shoulder-widths wide. 

(We had done a bit of shopping in the awakened Jewish Quarter after lunch - much different than 10am this morning!)

The Roman bridge was fun to bike across last night, so we decided doing it on foot during the hottest part of the day would be just as nice! (Note the sarcasm.)

Regardless, it was on our list, so we checked it off with sweat dripping from our brows. And some pretty scenery too, I guess. 

After that, I was ready to call it time for a siesta (with a scoop of ice cream to get me to the hostel). Jose, from the hostel, had kindly offered to keep our bags and let us use the common areas during the day as well, so Rosie did some napping, blogging, and networking on the roof while I did some reading, napping, and blogging on a bean bag in the common room.

Post-siesta, Rosie wanted her share of sweet, cold things, so she got medium frozen yogurt while I got the "second half" of my ice cream from earlier. If it was just a continuation, then we don't have to count my two scoops in four hours.

Walking to the train station was a breeze, so we actually had to wait on the platform for ten minutes before it came. What wasted time!

Manuel, our AirBnB host from Sevilla, met us at the train station and walked us to our complete apartment that we had rented. It's a cute studio that's in a bit of a alley, but is big and comfortable and has air conditioning. All those, and the fact that our bags are heavy, were reasons to open a bottle of wine we bought (a young crianza from Campo Viejo but under a different label).

Manuel had given us directions to a flamenco performance, and Rick Steves had offered a suggestion for a tapas place on the way. We had stuffed artichoke (it, and the two accompanying slices of pepper, were deep-fried) and seafood meatballs (too salty). Service wasn't as good as this afternoon when both waiters were only watching us (as their only customers) and the speed reflected that. Rosie had a cup of gazpacho and I had a "cervesa", my first of the trip. It's light, more taste than most light beers though.

Maybe it was the beer that caused me to knock over the water-filled ashtray all over the table and the menus. Rosie is convinced I'm clumsy. I'm convinced that everyone is clumsy. 

We thought we had time for one more tapa at a different place, but by the time the check came around, it was 8:50 and the performance started at 9. So we headed along a street without storefronts until we found a bar through one of the large wooden doors. 

Students were playing flamenco guitar and piano as we walked in, so we weren't quite sure if that we where the performance was. A group (that looked like they had a much better idea of what was going on than us and the guy who wandered in with us) moved to a second, tented room which was "beer garden-like," with a low stage up front that we missed until we asked the bartender. 

We sipped at our pitcher of sangria, played some rummy, and waited for the performance to start.

The three musicians came in and sat down, starting slow - first the guitar, then the soft, rhythmic clapping, then the thrilling voice of the male singer. Then, a few songs in, the dancer stood up. 

Everyone (the room full of tourists) perked  up at that. She moved her arms and body with great precision and started using her feet as instruments too.

Rosie, a tap dancer by training, was focused on her feet the whole show. The different between tap and flamenco, she told me on the way home, after the intermission (with more rummy) and a second performance, is that the dancer uses her heels more than her toes. 

Perfect timing in San Sebastián, Logroño, and Cordoba: Tues., Aug. 27

Like I mentioned, we had a 6:15 alarm to head to the car by 6:45 to be on the road by 7. We made it out the door, but navigating the one-way streets around the apartment was tricky, so it was more like 7:15 by the time we grabbed the bags and toast and left the apartment. 

I had looked up the route on my phone and corroborated it was the route on the GPS, and things looked right. It went south, curving to the east a bit before avoiding a town and then going west to get to Logroño.

It was only after about thirty minutes of driving, when Rosie asked if we were on track, that I confidently said yes, we were headed to Pamplona, only to be informed the GPS directions had veered us off that path and on to another highway. 

So I looked a bit closer. I had set the GPS to no tollroads (they had seemed easily avoidable before) and it put us up and over a mountain in a national park to avoid going near Pamplona and what must be a tollroads. My iPhone map confirmed (Google maps caches, so it is easy to scroll around and store a map while online to access offline - as long as you are online at some point). Well, we had deviated too far from taking the toll route anyway, so up and over the mountain it was.

I'm so impressed with Rosie. I could tell she was stressed, since our ETA was slowly increasing to 9:30 (with our train at 10) while we were creeping over the mountain. And there was fog, and narrow roads, and cows. I was freaked out that we weren't going to make it, and I was just a passenger.

After what felt like forever, we started descending, and after another forever, we made it back onto a highway. We were at 9:35 ETA now and still had to do a gas fill-up. 

There was a gas station a few miles before the town, and right off the road, so we pulled over, and, using the skills we had learned at our fill-up two days ago, twisted the gas cap open with the car key and filled it up. 

We found the train station pretty easily, but the parking lot had a separate entrance. We pulled into a spot (all of the Avis ones were taken) and grabbed our stuff to take it into the office. 

If one thing hadn't worked - finding the entrance, the man in front of us taking a minute longer, the inspection finding something, really, anything - we wouldn't have made the train. As it was, I had sent Rosie ahead so she could stand in the doorway as I was trying to finish up the transaction. We still aren't sure who's credit card ultimately got charged - it had to be reserved with Rosie's, but we wanted to switch to mine since it was in euros - because I bolted out of the office while it was still processing. I raced down the escalator and into the closest open door, waving at Rosie a few doors down to jump in. 

We hiked all the way to the front of the train, where our seats were the ones right behind the conductor. And with that, hearts beating rapidly from the stress and the exertion, we sank into our cool, mechanized chairs to fall asleep for a few hours. 

Rosie ate the cucumber, I ate the carrot, after I had super vivid dreams of eating cheese puffs. (Hey Dan, interpret that dream.) We had been stopped for a while, with an alarm going off and men in safety vests wandering the train (which I easily incorporated into my dream and slept through), so I wasn't sure if we'd be on time for our station at Córdoba, but indeed, we were even a few minutes early. Maybe it was the 199 km/hr the train was going!

At the station, we bought our tickets for tomorrow (Córdoba to Sevilla) and for Friday (Sevilla to Madrid). Then it was an easy, though hot and sweaty, walk to our hostel. 

It is called Córdoba Bed and Be, with the "be" also standing for bicycle. And it is great. José (who I thought was Hussein when I first heard it) greeted us, gave us an orientation on a map, helped us carry our slightly lighter load up the stairs (we accidentally left the two bottles we bought from the Spanish-only wine tour we did on the train - they were basically bought just to pay for the tastings we did anyway). All in all, great intro to the city. He even told us a place to get some savory snacks for lunch after we freshened up, even though we were right in the middle of siesta. 

At La Tortuga ("The Turtle"), I was trying to ask when "nuece" was in English and ended up ordering the "Roquefort y nuece" pastry, which we deliciously shared. It's walnuts!

We both scouted the map and Rick Steves. This map is a cool concept - called "Use-It", it is sponsored by the EU and three students helped make it for Córdoba, the first city in Spain to have it. We've been loving it so far!

One of things on the map was a bike tapas tour, so we had to be back at the hostel at 9pm for that. Since we would be around the Old City and Jewish Quarter tomorrow, I proposed we head northwest to Palacio de Viana. 

We wound our way on the streets, stopping at a few plazas and buildings to read about them. When we got to the Palacio, it was closed for siesta and would reopen at seven, in one hour. 

So we started by wandering. We checked out a garden with a sculpture dedicated to the beautiful women of Córdoba. My theory is that non-beautiful women get turned into white pigeons, since I've seen more here than all other cities combined!

When we sat down to do some recon, we found a recommended shop with some more unique items (not just the standard stamped and painted in China stuff in other shops). I found great posters of patios to hang in my bathroom!

As we read and heard, Córdoba is known for their patios and their patios festival in May to pick the most picturesque. The Palacio has twelve connecting patios, and I think I took a picture of Rosie in basically all of them, when we got there at a bit past seven. 

Some were themed after a specific plant (the Patio of the Orange Trees), some after sculptures (the Patio of the Madama), and some just had sweet walls or pots or hedges or really anything fresh and green. 

All of them had great posing opportunities.

And Rosie's dress looked great among the foliage. 

We wound our way through the cute residential streets, only getting stuck in one dead end. But we made it back to our street (José Cruz, but we call it José Cuervo) and the cremeria that was there to fill a very persistent need. 

We made it to the hostel just in time for the bike tour. Javiér, our guide, introduced us to the Old City, which was great to see via bike. 

He only took us to two tapas places. The first was the markers of the largest (thickest) "tortilla" - potato and egg omelette, which we had with salmorejo, their delicious and creamier version of gazpacho. I love it. That and the wine with a lemon soda in it to make it slightly like a wine spritzer/cooler thing. And we drank it right out the mesquites. 

Chatting with the people on the tour, two were French-Canadian and two were economics students from Germany that are staying in the hostel until they can find a place to live. All were nice, and we shared some good cultural and life stories. 

Next was in the Jewish corridor, a place called Bicyclette. Sangrias and cheese for the North Americans, just sangria for the Germans. 

While we were noshing on our cheese plate, we talked through siesta and what that means for schools, etc. We some how made it onto the the topic of reality television shows after we had gotten some good advice on Sevilla. 

It was simply a ride back to the hostel and a group picture with us doing "nose goes" (something I had subconsciously done with the last of the cheese plate and had to explain) that'll be posted on Córdoba Bed and Be. Might even be there now!

Getting wet in San Sebastián: Mon., Aug. 26

After staying out until 4, it was easy to sleep until 11. (You see why when we sleep at midnight, I am still jetlagged.)

I made breakfast, eggs and ham on toast this morning, and Rosie got out of the shower and put on her bathing suit right as it started to rain. 

So instead of straight to the beach, hot drinks sounded good, so we started back at our cafe from yesterday. I had some "menta" (mint) tea and Rosie had her typical café (espresso) con leche (with milk). The cafe gave out little chocolate wafers with each drink, so that alone was worth getting one (or just stealing some extra, like I might have done yesterday...)

We took our hot drinks on a stroll toward lunch. The Conneticut couple we met Marqués de Riscal had given us a restaurant recommendation for lunch. I knew (or thought I knew) what street it was on based on my google search. We walked the length of 31 Agosto Calle, couldn't find it, asked a shopkeeper, and found closed doors. Not open Mondays. We looked to Rick for a recommendation - with the footnote being "not open Mondays." So then it was as easy as "this one has people in it - lunchtime!"

We sat at a table in the back, so ordered real food off a real menu. No tapas here! Our appetizer was peppers stuffed with crab (I really need to get a hold of these canned peppers - you can eat them with anything!) and then we had the three tastes of cod for our entree. 

I was interested in trying "pil-pil", a sauce made from the skin of salted cod. I'm so glad the waitress steered us toward the sampler, since the pil-pil was this buttery, fake, sweetly plastic taste that was pretty awful. The waitress clearly likes it, because she was surprised when we preferred the brown and white sauces to the whitish pil-pil sauce. The cod was also just a bit rubbery as well. 

However, we were finished with lunch, so had our next adventure/recommendation - kayaking. We went to the tourist information center to ask about it and other suggestions, and then made our way to the shop under the boardwalk. 

Neither of us were completely prepared for kayaking, but I was especially unprepared. I wasn't wearing mg swimsuit, but decided today's skivvies were good enough. I walked out from changing with my shirt on, and the guy kindly offered us rash guards (surf shirts) to wear under our life jackets. 

We dragged our double kayak out to the surf, then waded in. We let the kayak get parallel  to the waves, and it flipped before we climbed in. The waves were crashing around us and over the boat, so we waited for a bit of calm to jump in and start frantically paddling. 

It took us a good while to get the kayak away from the breakers and headed toward Santa Clara island.

San Sebastián has an interesting shape. There's a peninsula, which is where Monte Urgill is topped with a Jesus statue (more about that later). Dividing this peninsula from the "surfer beach" and the area of Gros is the river Urumea. The peninsula shelters a beach in a bay, and in the center of this bay is Santa Clara Island. 

We paddled out; I splashed myself with seawater so much I hardly noticed when it started spritzing on us. We reached the small beach on the island and began to climb uphill in our bare feet. 

We saw one couple during our complete tour of the island. Maybe it was siesta, maybe it was the rain, but it was almost lonely walking past unused picnic tables and some building at the top of the island. My feet clearly have been in shoes too much as we gingerly stepped on rocks to get to the great overlooks. 

I started to get a bit concerned as the rain dropped a little harder, but our rash guards and life vests were insulating enough that our half hour poking around wasn't chilly. There were some birds on the island - a juvenile seagull and a chittering mini-bird among the interesting ones.

We circled the island to try to get back to our beached kayak, but ended up just walking a ring around the top before taking the same stone steps down the steep hill. 

We paddled in, and as we got closer and closer to shore, Rosie got more nervous about riding the breakers in to the beach. I figured we'd either hit it right and be washed up on the beach, or hit it wrong and be swimming anyway, so why jump out and swim?

We hit it right! We surfed in with a wave, then were swept sideways and still managed to not flip! Our attempt to jump out and swim the kayak out to do it again failed with the kayak being swept back by a wave without us in it, but we still have that one grand show. 

We washed off the kayak, then ourselves. Neither of us had towels, so I sacrificed one of my layers to dry myself off. Given that I had been swimming and fully dunked in my underwear and didn't want to get my one pair of jeans wet from the inside out... Well, you can fill in how I got back to the apartment without being naked (on the outside, at least).

We switched into different clothes to hike up Monte Urgill, the hill with the Jesus statue on the east side of the bay. We took a bottle of the fondo (since we bought six of those) and the dark chocolate we bought at the fair yesterday. We couldn't find a corkscrew on the first look through the kitchen, so I attempted to use a screw and pliers (since we found some of those). The pliers ripped the screw out of the cork, sadly (I really wanted to be MacGuyver in this situation), but Nat's daughter peeked out of her room and she pointed us to a hidden drawer, which held a corkscrew.

We were hungry yet again, and found a bar near the bottom of the hill in Old Town that had an appetizing display of tapas. I had a seafood salad in a pepper on bread, a little pastry with beef and peppers in it, and a smoked salmon seafood salad on bread, while Rosie had a bacon-eggplant topping on bread and Brie with jam and ham and walnuts on bread. (Almost all pintxos are on bread. I don't mind a bit.)

Our hike up the hill was still cloudy and grey, but had some great vistas. We found a bench nearly at the top and sat and ate and read and drank. Funnily enough, the guy that we had asked for tapas suggestions (the one that knew English in the bar with anchovies) was walking by with his friends! What a small little city.

It was perfectly timed - we had two glasses (or plastic cups, since that was a really what we were drinking out of) of wine left when it started sprinkling, then raining. We hid under a tree and in the doorway of some stone wall until it passed, then decided to actually get to the top of the hill to get closer to Jesus. 

We found the museum, cups still in hand, and peeked in to see if we could walk in. There was a sign that clearly said no food or drink (using symbols, which is why I say clearly), so I walked outside again. However, the nice receptionist just asked if we wanted to get to the top and gestured us through the museum. 

I would appreciate museums more if I could always have a glass of wine while walking through them.

We made it the two floors up to the balcony, and it was an even better view. A giant statue of Jesus looming over only made it better of course.

Another museum employee came over to us and asked what was in our cups - coffee? wine? We fessed up that it was wine and he told us no alcoholic beverages. So we had our final few sips and put the cups away to enjoy our slight tipsiness and the captivating views. 

The museum was closing in a few minutes, so we headed down the stairs. On our way out, we asked the supervisor man about a bathroom. He told us it was closed. When we got the reception and asked again, so told us it was around and outside. It is clear who our favorite employee of this museum was. 

Well, "out and around" weren't quite clear enough directions, so we ended up outside the museum gates without finding a bathroom - I guess you win, evil museum employee. Let's also just say "out and around" is where we ended up peeing anyway. 

It was a lovely walk down - no more rain, there were people out and about, and the sun was setting over the Atlantic. While it wasn't the beach days we wanted, it was still lovely beach days.

We grabbed some pintxos on our way back to the apartment, after we figured out we'd have to be up and leaving the apartment at 6:45am tomorrow morning. Some of our typical favorites were closed, but we stopped at a new one by the harbor that had "patatas bravas" and "calamari bravas" - I'm guessing "bravas" means smothered with a delicious cream sauce and decorated with a yummy spicy sauce. I cleaned the plate with bread with that one (like I normally do, actually - they give it to you and charge you for it for a reason!) Then it was a shrimp kebob - gotta have one that was our tried and true staple.

Instead of ice cream, we wandered home with a bit of frozen yogurt. Mine was a strawberry and natural yogurt mix with a kinda gross aftertaste, but I got to try these flat M&M candies that were delicious and reminded me of my mom (Hi Mom!)

The surfer beach was empty except for a group with a metal detector, and we still had packing to do. Nine bottles of wine don't just disappear into carry-on bags without a bit of effort. We'll keep trying to lighten our load before heading back to the US, don't you worry. 

Meeting friends in San Sebastián and Uharte-Arakil: Sun., Aug. 25th

Rosie's boyfriend (and my friend) Dan has an aunt that lives in Madrid. Rosie has been emailing her, and she told us about a cheese festival her friend was judging in a city near Pamplona, so about an hour away from here. We have a car, so might as well use it!

Breakfast was self-serve, so Rosie made us egg sandwiches that we ate on our balcony. Last night we went on a wander to make sure we could find the garage where the car was parked (I also had a forgettable mushroom pintxo on the way), and she told me about the puzzle it was to get the car in the garage. 

I said yesterday, I stayed at the apartment while Nat went with Rosie. We are renting a spot in a garage from Nat's friend, so they went to get him. Our tiny car only fits two, so now this guy is riding with Rosie, who has just been double- parked in the middle of the street for ten minutes with cars swerving around her. The garage itself is a funny affair, with a door that takes forever to swing open. Then it is "right, right, right" down to the car. 

 We plugged the city into our GPS (Kelly, have I mentioned how grateful I am for letting us borrow it?) and were off.

The countryside we've been driving through has been very different from the Rioja out to San Sebastián. The Rioja had two mountain ranges on either side, with the Ebro River running through the middle, but the land was rolling hills with vineyards in the clay-like soil. They had had a wet spring, but it was drier than I expected, not a lush green.

On our way to San Sebastián, we had gone over the mountains (in second gear - oh, tiny cars) and landed in a much lusher area, with a lot of forests and fields. That had continued until outside San Sebastián when the hills got steeper and rockier right before we got spit out into the tree-lined city.

Now, on our way to Uhare-Arakil, we went through tunnels, a dozen of them, and only saw trees on the mountain hillsides until the pasturelands in the valley the town was in. 

The exit we were supposed to take was closed off by the fair organizers, but the next exit led is efficiently into a pasture to park, then walk to an entrance table where everyone (including the dogs) got a sticker. We were told to look for Nancy at the cheese table, so off we went. 

On the way to this fair, I found out about the lack of experience Rosie has had with state fairs. Nancy had described this as a 4H fair - had to tell Rosie about the 4H club. Next I mentioned the prizes and how you "show" animals and vegetables and such, then some of it gets auctioned off. And, the smaller county fairs all build up to a state fair. The only experience she had was our trip to the Strawberry Festival when we went to Virginia Beach over Memorial Day. 

Now that Rosie had been prepped, first were the stalls of the random junk that's at every fair - squeaky dogs that walk, colorful bracelets, earrings, scarves, wood-working, and other knick-knacks. 

Next, though came the cheese. Not just one cheese table, but a dozen in a crowded square. With free samples. It was of two types - a hard, sheep's milk cheese called "Idiazabal" and a soft, spreadable one that I'm assuming is also sheep's milk.

I might be assuming this because this was a fair "pasture" and the sticker had a sheepdog looking over a herd of sheep on it. But it proved even more true when we got to the pens of sheep. The "adultas" were in one area, while younger, though sadly not baby sheep, we in another area. 

We found Nancy by the judging stations - turns out she got wrangled into actually being a judge. So she was sampling even more cheese than we were! We said our brief hellos, then went to wander the next alley. 

A campfire smell brought us to a demonstration on cheese making. A pot, which could have been over the fire earlier (it was hot, so probably) was filled with a mash that was molded, put in cheesecloth, and pressed with a wooden head "powered" by boulders. 

This fair took over the main square of the town, and off another branch we heard a microphone and a countdown. We edged our way over to find a sheep shearing competition! Four guys, with cut-off sleeves and more piercings and tattoos that I would expect, grabbed a sheep, flipped it, trapped its head between their legs, and sheared away. 

The competition went on for over five minutes, as sheep after sheep was let out of the pen. Luis won at the end, ahead of the final place by nearly a whole sheep. It was impressive. 

We wandered down the next alley of sweets, eventually trying a chocolate magdelene, which was basically a muffin with some chocolate in the middle, but was a little too dry to be enjoyable. 

The food that was enjoyable, though, was the talo. A cornmeal dough was patted into circles, then cooked on a big griddle and filled with delicious options like cheese (of course), pancetta, and a mini-sausage called txistorra.

They were amazing, and a delicious lunch. Fairs always have good food. 

Also, there were dogs. We were in the foothills of the Pyrenees, so there was what might have been a Pyrenees mountain dog (though it looked a little more Burmese). There were some other cute breeds. And puppies. 

 

It was beautiful and sunny, so we decided to go back and hit the beach.

Sadly, those mountains I mentioned changed the weather significantly. It was grey and maybe 80 degrees when we got back to San Sebastián. But, gosh darnit, we were going to go to the beach!

We put swimsuits on, but I never took my dress off. Rosie made a valiant effort and was down to her suit, but after an hour of sleeping and reading on the sand, the wind was getting chilly and the skies were just as grey as when we started. So we called it quits. 

Rosie was ready for her post-siesta espresso, and I was open to a pastry for my afternoon treat. We walk into a cafe and find it - churros and chocolate!

I had been (probably wrongly) informed that churros and chocolate were a post-bar snack, but we haven't been able to find it except when we don't want it. Now, now was the perfect opportunity. And I was so happy. 

Going to say, the chocolate was a rich, milky chocolate, not the melted chocolate I was expecting. (They had just filled the machine was milk but not chocolate when we walked in.) But the experience was had and I am hoping that next time it is even better. If there is a next time. 

It had started to rain, so we went back to Nat's to ask for an umbrella and a place to go out and meet people. She ended up inviting us out with her and her friends for some drinks! We met them at the bar - watching a bit of soccer and sipping our sangria while we waited. Augustine and Maria, her two friends, were great, and Augustine knew English pretty well, so we were able to chat as well.

Rosie asked about dancing, and it turns out the bar we were in turns into a club in Sunday nights. (Potentially every night, but that part was lost in translation.) We had a few hours before that, so we decided to grab some pintxos before changing and meeting them back out.

We basically followed the same trail as last night - shrimp kebabs and spider crab dip, switching up mushrooms and a seafood tartlet instead of anchovy tempura, beef cheeks instead of risotto, and maybe another dish we've lost the memory of. The trick of asking for "un crianza" instead of "tinto vino" has given us much better wine to sip as we eat. 

So back to the house, changed into dancing clothes, then waiting until around 11 when we were supposed to leave and head to the bar, with Nat following us shortly thereafter.

We got some "vodka y límon"s (a carbonated lemon drink) and sat while the bar got more and more club-y, and people slowly trickled in. Nat showed up, took us to her friends, and then we all went back to dance. 

It was a great night - the bar was full of chefs and other service workers on their night off. A certain Santiago took a liking to me (and could speak English), so I had a dancing partner whenever I wanted.

We had decided to finish our night in a discotheque Augustine knew down the street, but they were charging cover. So it was back to the bar, where her friend the bartender wrote us a note to get in for free! I should've taken a picture of it, but it was something like "Hello. Please let these three ladies in. Thank you." But it worked and we finished the night off dancing in a basement club in San Sebastián. Not bad for a cloudy, rainy beach day. 

Road-tripping in Briones, Haro, Laguardia, and San Sebastián: Sat., Aug. 24

Rosie and I didn't have to share a pillow last night (though we have one of the long ones again tonight), but getting to bed at a decent hour (around 1am, due to the boredom of Briones) meant that I woke up at 3am and realized I still had some jetlag, I've just been masking it by being awake when my body wants to wake me up anyway. 

Our morning started smoothly, getting to our 10am appointment at López de Heredia just on time and after only one round-about u-turn. This was a more expensive tour than the others (nearly double at 30€), so I had high expectations.

The entry building was stylish and modern, with tilted metal doors that I managed to scrape my foot on as we walked in. This tour was in English, so us, a trio from New Zealand, and a couple from the UK got started by entering the truck unloading zone. 

With López de Heredia, the emphasis was on tradition tradition tradition. First were the traditional grape-carrying baskets called "comportas" that were four feet tall and make of wood. Then the 100+ year old fermenting tanks made of oak (we've only seen steel for those elsewhere). The tour guide said the wood was insular and made it ferment quicker because of the yeast left in the wood from the previous batches. However, if the temperature, which rises from the fermentation, reaches 35 degrees, then the fermenting stops. Between batches, the massive tanks are cleaned with sulfur and water. 

The next step for the wine, though, is clarifying. López de Heredia uses egg whites as well to clarify their wine, and our guide explained the process more thoroughly so I understood it this time. The whites get added to the wine, where they sink to the bottom, collecting sediments as they go. Six eggs are needed per barrel, so about one per every forty liters. It takss 25 days for the wine to settle. They also use vine shoots to filter the wine when it is poured from the fermentation tanks as well, so very natural and old- timey systems, as everything about López was. 

The barrels are one of the things that makes López unique. Not only do they use their barrels for 15-20 years because they don't want the oak flavor, they have their own cooperage to make and repair the barrels. All their wood is American oak because it is less porous - necessary for their long aging times. The coopers dry the wood outside for about a year to age it, then they have it shaped into staves. They line up staves along a metal measuring stick to reach the desired barrel circumference. 

Once the staves are chosen, one end of the barrel is created with iron rings. A fire is then created to heat the wood to make it pliable enough to round out to a barrel shape using a cable to tighten it, then the iron rings are replaced with steel rings, stronger and tougher for rust. 

For the top, reeds are added between boards to increase the air-tightness of the barrel. I didn't get how it was supposed to fit inside the smaller circle, but if you find out, let me know!

After the wine goes through the very long barrel aging process, they mixed the wines together in a process called "cornache" (a French term I couldn't find on the Internet) before bottling them but . López is another winery that almost doubles the required time of fermentation. The crianzas are in oak for 3-4 years (though that includes the fermentation tanks, so adds a couple months that don't count for most other wineries) and bottle for 4. The reservas are in oak for 4-5 years, then bottle for 4 as well, and the gran reservas are 10 years of barrels, 10 of bottles - incredibly old! Each is also rotated twice a year. The great-grand-daughter of the founder is still in charge of the wine- making and tasting. 

We went down to visit their cellar, which was hand-dug in 1890 by 70 men so the rocks could be used to make all the buildings. The winery didn't waste anything - old staves stoked the fire for the new barrels, discarded grapes and stems were fertilizer for the vineyards. The cellar, though, is the largest hand-dug in the area, at 130 meters long. At the end of the cellar, it opened up to a view of the Ebro River.

The cellar was dank and dark, like the others, with mold everywhere. The mold attracted spiders, and spiders caught the moths that would otherwise eat the wood of the barrels. They had some bottles that were incredibly old, and just covered in mold, which they saw as a status symbol and proof of the age. 

At the end of our tour, we tasted three wines, starting with a white that was aged and fermented just like a red! Their Viña Gravonia was definitely startling because of this. It smelled like a red, but was fruity and finished like a white. They are very vineyard specific, mixing grape varieties, but not vineyards. A bottle of wine was included in the tour (as well as some cured meat, nuts, and other snacks), so I ultimately wasn't unhappy with the price we paid. 

However, at this point, it was just slightly before noon. Our last day in Rioja wasn't finished yet! We had a tour scheduled at Ysios, back near Laguardia, at 4pm, but had quite a bit of time between then. 

We both wanted to see another winery, but had only emailed some the night before, and no one had responded with spots for that afternoon by the morning. We decided to drive into Haro, since we were just on the edge of town, and poke around for some Internet and maybe something else interesting to see or do. 

We parked and started wandering, but the grey day mixed with a city that just wasn't very pretty made it hard to like Haro. We found a hotel with Internet and had gotten no responses from the vineyards in the area. So we decided to attempt a tour of the Dinastía Vivanco, museum of wine culture. It was almost a stone's throw from our hotel last night, but it was big and corporate so we had overlooked it. Well, big and corporate is the only thing you can do spur-of-the-moment!

There was a tour leaving in half an hour through their winery, so we signed up for that and the museum, with an English audioguide to supplement all of the Spanish. Rosie had her espresso, and we both had delicious little zucchini and ham pinxhos (the Basque word for tapas).

The tour was us, following the group and the guide who was speaking in Spanish, with us, our shared earphones that couldn't turn up the volume quite loud enough, hunkered in a corner trying to hear the English recorded version.

Every winery I end up learning a little more about the process, even though it seems Rosie and I could open one up by now, with all of our tours. At this one, I learned the founders had come from Logroño, the soil in the Rioja is clay- like, and ground cover between the vines helps add competition, reduce erosion, and keep a healthy insect balance. Freezing the grapes after they are picked helps lock in the color, tannins, and aroma, and fermenting is most stable at the lower temperatures.

I hadn't realized some of the chemistry before either. The cap created at the top of the fermenting tanks of the skins and seeds rises there because of the carbon dioxide released in the process. When the malolactic fermentation is in barrels, for the small batches, they can't be sealed because of the carbon dioxide until after it has completed. Lactic acid makes the wine "mild and silky" and makes it bio-stable.

They used much more modern techniques than López de Heredia, and were proud of them. Computerized systems controlled their fermentation tanks to keep them the right tempurature, instead of air flow at López. They filtered their air to prevent the mold López was so proud of. Overall, much more sterile, but it resulted in good wine. 

We had 30 minutes to wander through the floors of the museum which, given that we are experts on the process now, meant we focused on the history and the corkscrew collection. It was pretty hilarious. 

We made it to what we thought was Ysios, and ate an afternoon cucumber. When it was 4:00 and we left the car, however, we realized we had prematurely parked and we were at a restaurant instead! We scooted the last hundred meters down the road to the wavy building we had been taking pictures of, now realizing it was probably where we wanted to be. 

The tour had just started with four other people, so we joined and learned about this new venture. Conceived in 1998, the building opened in 2001. The wavy curves are supposed to be reflected in the pools out front to show a row of barrels. The oval shape and the surrounding roads make the whole area look like a wine glass from above. And the tasting room we ended in was the ship's prow. 

Ysios is all about exclusivity and high-end clientele. There's a club you can join and buy a barrel of personalized wine for €3000. They make one vintage of reserva per year, and often have a special, non-Rioja label wine for special occasions, such as the one we sampled which was by a perfume maker.

Their process has some quirks. They use algae instead of egg whites to clarify their wine. Their fermenting tanks are conic so the skins have more contact with the wine, and they have a constant spray to re-wet the cap and break apart the skins so they incorporate more into the wine. 

Their aging process is similar, though we learned that French oak barrels cost 600€, 200€ more than the American oak barrels. Because of this, they are also experimenting with Hungarian oak as a cheaper alternative to French. It's about 5% of their barrel stock, and they've been using it for about six years. They, like others that want the oak taste, use their barrels when new for three years. 

Their two reservas (no gran reservas or crianzas) are aged 14 and 18 months in the barrel. They sort those according to the vineyards, with the older aging for the 80-year-old, low-producing vines, and the less aging for their 12- and 35-year-old vines. All are then in the bottle for two years.

Their cellar was the middle of the building. While most are underground, because they can regulate the tempurature and humidity, they have windows with some natural light to make it a bit brighter. 

Their capacity is 250,000 bottles a year. They only have about 5000 bottles using the old grapes, however, which are numbered for collectors. 

Lastly, we saw the drawings for the building, as well as an exhibit of the "Seven Deadly Glasses" by Kacper Hamilton. Each represents a sin. We couldn't take pictures inside the winery, but here's a link to them:

http://www.kacperhamilton.com/www.kacperhamilton.com/7_DEADLY_GLASSES.html

We had some snacks with our wine, which Rosie and I stayed to finish off since our lunch was a cucumber. The wine was great, but we had had equivalent wine for half the price. But the herbal smells of the second we tried were quite impressive. As were the views. 

After that, it was off to San Sebastián!

The drive went well, only one wrong turn, and we showed up to our AirBnB exactly at 8pm when we said we would be there.  Natalia, our host, got in the car with Rosie to go park it as I hauled the bags upstairs in the teeny elevator with the help of her friend. I chatted with Nat's daughter, and pulled out the translator a couple times. We talked about where they were from (Argentina), the weather, the beach, surfing, and a myriad of other topics. Her English was conversable, but at one point she had to stop to conjugate "to go" in her head. It was fun and cute. And her little brother roared around with a Transformer. 

We were ready for some food, and all we knew about San Sebastián was where the pinxos bars were. So off we went!

To get from Gros, where we are staying, to the old town area where all the bars are, you must cross a bridge over the river, right near where it meets the sea. There are breakers, and it was our first taste of the ocean.

Our first taste of pintxos (and how many tourists there are) came a couple of blocks later. We followed Rick's suggestions on bars and their specials and started with some spidercrab dip and a shrimp kebab at Bar Goiz-Argi. Next was Bar Borda-Berri, with a mushroom risotto that was killer.

We wandered a bit more to see if anything seemed good. Another of Rick's recommendations was said to be good for anchovies. I think we ended up confusing two of them (so I think we were at Bar Tamboril), but I got anchovy tempura as we asked one of the patrons if he had a suggestion for where to go next.

He seemed a bit confused, trying to describe the street we had just been on, then suggesting a place with mostly cold pintxos. So we consulted Rick for a final time and found ourselves at Bar Astelena. I had a beef tortilla, so an omelette. Rosie ordered a pistachio criquetta, which they fried up and served to us. It tasted good, a little like falafel. 

We have to be up early-ish tomorrow, so even though it was a Saturday night, we decided to wander the beach. We caught an ice cream shop just as it was closing (whew!) then began our meander. 

It was pretty empty, though under the boardwalk (which was made of stone) were gaggles of pre-gaming friends. One couple was having some wine and a picnic on the beach, and there were a fair amount of people strolling along the pedestrian paths not on the sand. Rosie and I dug our toes in and chatted in the chilly wind. 

We navigated our way back to the apartment, and, remembering the conversation we had with Nat, pushed the key in and attempted to pull it out just a little before turning it. 

But it wouldn't budge. I tried, Rosie tried, I tried again. We tried all the other keys to see if any of those would fit. We didn't want to buzz because it was after midnight, so we pushed and pulled and puzzled again. 

On the seventh minute of looking like we were unsuccessfully trying to rob this apartment building (and we did try a credit card to see if we could slide the bolt), Rosie asked, "Are we sure this is the right building?" We both peered into the door a little harder, looked at each other, moved a door over, inserted the key, turned it, made it into the foyer - and doubled over laughing. We had been trying the wrong building the whole time! But home sweet AirBnB at last.