The Birthday Surprise

Tim and I had been discussing the possibility of going to San Sebastian, the foodie heaven located in Northern Spain, ever since we saw the photos from Hassan (when we were in Mumbai).

So try to imagine my utter delight when Tim surprised me with a pre-organised holiday there for my birthday in January!!
He had even booked in holiday time with work with one of my managers (whom he had met at a pub 2 months prior), so on the Friday morning he serenades me with the line:
"Trace, you're not going into work today... cos we're going on holiday to San Sebastian for 4 days! Happy Birthday!" Music to my ears. :)
Even better news, was that we would be there for the annual San Sebastian Day festival! We couldn't wait.

Donostia-San Sebastian is in the middle of Basque country and is the Summer capital of Spain. Unfortunately, being January, it was freezing. We actually saw snow as we were leaving but I digress.
It's not the easiest town to reach... but Tim had organised flights to Biarritz, cab to Hendaye where we crossed into Spain to catch a train to San Sebastian. So by the time we arrived at our flash hotel, that comfy bed was very tempting... luckily we ventured out into the night.
The city's festival is the patron saint's day featuring parades and is on the 19th of January every year. The proceedings last for a full 24 hours, starting at midnight in the town square until midnight the following night. Very rarely does the festival fall on a Friday... but in 2007 it did. The whole town took advantage of that - and the Spanish know how to party!

As if the festival wasn't exciting enough, Tim and I had never been to Spain before and so had not had the chance to experience tapas. The Spanish ideal is to have a glass of wine or a small beer along with one tapas morsel in an establishment before heading off to the next place. You pay at the end for what you take, and each tapas costs between 1 to 5 Euro. Indecently cheap for what you get. We were absolutely in heaven!

Blissed out in a tapas bar.

Eating my nemesis... the sea urchin. Mmwa-ha-ha!!
Victory is mine ya little bastard!

Vino tinto & tapas porfavour!

Bread, roast red pepper, quails eggs and local jammon... marvellous!

The near deserted San Sebastian square at about 10pm on Friday night...
apparently it was once used as a bull ring.

Plate upon plate of glorious tapas... yes, those are piles of morrells
with two truffles the size of your fist resting on top.

The rammed square at midnight.

Time to get out of here!

The chefs drum on their whisky kegs...

They parade around the old quarter with
a followed by a full marching band.

This lovely old man was collecting kisses and handing out shots
of his whisky. I obviously don't need any more.

Tim in his element.

The San Sebastian coat of arms: a fork and spoon. Love it.

The Basilica of Santa Maria del Coro is dedicated to San Sebastian's
patron saint, and where the soldiers performed their routine.

These kind old men made a young pissed lady very happy, just by
giving her their festival hat. Bless. I'm so touched in this photo!

The next day we were extremely hung over but we just couldn't stay inside all day... the festival was still on! So we went back to the scene of the crime in the hunt for a cooked breakfast, and discovered that there were more parades with loud drums and trumpets. Perfect remedy for a hang over, I can tell you!

The best hangover photo ever taken. I remember feeling like seven
shades of shite at the exact moment this photo was taken.

Cooked breakie San Sebastian style: eggs, jammon ham & chips.

After breakfast and a bit more of a wander around town, we felt sufficiently better so we thought we should probably get back into the spirit of things and so headed to... an internet shop. Tim printed off some top tapas bar tips from a website he had been researching (www.todopintxos.com), and armed with where to go for the gourmet shit, we headed off into the night.

A typical tapas bar will have the ageing hams hanging from the ceiling.

This dish cost 3 euros. It's foie gras with apple jelly and it was
am-az-ing. Just amazing. Three euros!

This is the most tender and delicious stuffed squid with a tomato chutney
and it only cost 2.50 euros!

Crab pate in a pastry shell.

The hangover long forgotten, we're really having a lot of fun. :)

Anchovies marinated in garlic and oil... yum!

By the time my birthday actually rolled around, we had been living it up for two nights straight but of course, that was no reason to slow us down! So for lunch, we headed to another tapas bar and got to know the locals. :)

This tapas bar wasn't in any guides but it had a really nice vibe...

... and fabulous ham!

Happy Birthday to me!

We chatted with these two guys in broken Spanglish for hours, they
were great fun, and the guy in the grey top made a mean bloody mary.

Another amazing birthday - thank you Tim! :)

Slackpackers

Well, its been a long time since we posted, so its about time I offered a catch up. We have been living in London now for just over 9 months, and we are loving it.

Well, mostly anyway.

We have been more like Slackpackers when it comes to updating this blog, so its time to post some more.........

Back to the Future

Back to the future is what it felt like, landing in London.


Things working.... Electricity that is on for more than half the day.... No donkeys, cows, or other random animals.

We had a lot of great experiences in India, but I'm sad (I think) to say that one of the best of them was leaving the place... From my perspective at least.

Even leaving India is a difficult process. The main airport in Delhi doesn't have a massive volume of traffic, but none the less, it cant handle it, and has to run flights at all times of the day and night.
our flight was leaving at 6am.
not so bad I hear you say, but India being India you have to be at the airport 3 hours before your flight is leaving. And it takes an hour to get there from new Delhi.
2am. Not much point sleeping then.
we decided the best option was to just sit in a bar and drink the night away.

this resulted in two things, drunkenness (well... duhhh), and total honesty with the locals.

Now, I know I bitch lyrical about India on this blog, but understand, Indians are fiercely proud of their country and their culture, so we generally avoided telling the locals of our gripes, mostly anyway. The thing is that you get asked about your opinions on India a lot, the locals will stop you and ask you what you think of their country, with beaming expectant smiles on their faces. Its hard to let them down really.

so when a young Indian came and sat at our table (to chat up Traci), he coped it.
there was way to much conversation to go into, but here's a brief snippet.
"so how do you like my country"
"I don't, its a shit hole, well.... More of a shit pile really"
"so why did you come to India"
"no idea, I must have banged my head or something"
to Traci:
"so, what do you think of Indian men"
"I think Indian men show themselves for what they really are"
"yeah? What's that?"
"Arseholes. I hate them, they're pigs"

the funny thing is that he still thought he had a chance with Traci.
his honest belief was that white women were slags, and they all love Indian men - of course, that must be the reason that they come here - to have sex with Indian men.


So anyway, getting on that plane was a real relief. Even if it was disrupted by the terrorism scare in England.
even if we had to wait in the plane for an hour after landing.
none of this could matter. We weren't in India any more.
one positive thing I can say is that I am now a much more patient man.


We spoke to my Mum (Hi Mum :) ), and asked her to bring a salad to the airport for us, sounds weird but we wanted, no needed, one. Indians don't eat fresh things, and in our three months there neither had we.

lettuce has never tasted so good.

Yes Miss Moneypenny

Or, rather, No Miss Moneypenny.

Udaipur, the setting for some of the Octopussy film, sucks.

Honestly, I cant even be arsed to bag it. It's too much hass.

So please just take the usual tirade and insert it here.

Anyway, at the time of writing, we are actually in London. We have been really slack with posting, which is partially due to us being over traveling - and especially over India.

So I will bring you up to date.

Jodhpur, the Blue City

(check this post later for some added photos!)

Jodhpur is more what I expected India to be like: snaking alley ways, old mud brick houses painted various shades of blue or white, and of course, the ubiquitous cow wandering around eating cardboard.

We ended up spending about 4 days there in which we managed to pack in lots of nothing, and going to the fort. The fort is this massive, rambling creation set on top of the hill (as forts are), and was great fun to explore.. just not in the heat of the day! The fort also has a brilliant audio tour, complete with pompous Englishman narrator, which points out interesting features along a set path including the museum.

Generally, we were pretty disappointed with the food at most places we ate at in Jodhpur, however we did find a guest house/restaurant called Amar Niwas that was homely and acceptable. That sounds harsh doesn't it? We're getting tired of sauces on everything, so it's difficult to impress the flashpackers at the moment.
Give me a fresh salad that doesn't just consist of tomato/onion/capsicum, and I'll inhale it quicker than you can say, "do you want balsamic dressing with that?". Having said that, they did make us a superb goat curry that melted in our mouths (the little bugger was killed that morning for us), and their version of palak paneer (spinach and Indians' version of cheese) actually had discernible pieces of spinach in there, rather than the pureed green goop one usually gets served in restaurants.

The city really was a joy to walk around, we found the people to be really friendly - especially the kids. I think their English teacher at school must encourage them to go up to westeners and practice, because we found ourselves constantly talking to excitable kids about where we come from, what our names are, what our houses are made from, and do we have any pens/chocolates/rupees for them.