san sebastian

after leaving ondarroa (to no small grumbling on my part) we headed towards san sebastian, made it there relatively quickly, parked the car and started looking for hotels. the prospects were discouraging at first, seeing as everything was "completo" or absurdly expensive for not so nice accomadations, we decided to just walk along the beach out to the sculpture "comb of the winds" by eduardo chillida, which is an amazing sculpture actually built on site into the rocks in the ocean. in addition to the sculptures, the plaza has "blow holes" built into it. it is hard to describe, but the plaza is built on the edge of the ocean so that the waves can enter in underneath a part of the plaza and the resulting wind is compressed into a few holes which come up in the walkway of the plaza...(ok tag team action...diana here)...and this forced a huge rush of air straight upwards...(think marilyn monroe standing over the ventilation grate in seven year itch except about 20x more powerful)...the kids who would discover it were just amazed. i don't think i've ever seen anything man made...so perfectly combined with its site... i myself was quick to be charmed by san sebastian...i have a weakness for the basque, and the food there was amazing. we walked along the beach, did some semi-hikes half way up the mountain overlooking the city where eric found some bouldering problems which he attempted in sandals.

later that night we parked on the beach next to the moneo building where there was a free jazz festival...well, at least the part we saw on the beach was free, we saw dr. john sing about new orleans to a bunch of spanish people who probably had no idea what he was saying, on that night we were the unwilling witnesses to some very bad "euro-dancing". i love free music...especially on a beach in spain...with your belly full of pinchos. alas...too many people love san sebastian...and we could not stay for long...but one day we shall return.