Day 8: Ola San Sebastian!

So I'm sure you're wondering if I've met any interesting people so far. Well to be honest, not really! My hostel in Paris was quite small (plus the fact that I had to go to bed super early to catch that train). but I did share a room with a couple of nice girls from Nova Scotia and a crazy Finnish guy from Ireland. At the hostel in Bordeaux it seemed like I was the only person who spoke English, so that wasn't really the best place to meet people. But tonight in San Sebastian I finally chatted with a few nice people over a few drinks, so hopefully I will meet more people along the way!

As you can imagine I am doing a TON of walking on my trip so far. I'm going to have legs of steel by the time I get back! But all this walking also means very sore feet...I brought three types of shoes with me: flip-flops, running shoes, and a good pair of sandals from MEC- all which give me blisters in different areas of my feet. Everyday I wear a different pair of shoes so that I distribute the pain...hopefully my feet with get accustomed to my shoes and the amount of walking very soon!

You may think with all this walking I'm doing that the weight would just start shedding off. That is NOT the case since I am in carb overload right now! Everywhere I turn its baguette! Baguette for breakfast, baguette for lunch, baguette for dinner...how are French people not ridiculously overweight?!

I guess I still haven't answered the much asked question "Isn't it scary doing this by yourself?" I must admit, the answer is no (well, so far anyways!) Yes, sometimes I have to backtrack, sometimes I have to re-check my map a million times, but for the most part its been pretty easy so far! (knock on wood) I think that (amazingly) my elementary-level French has come in handy. Its funny how it just comes back to you after all these years! On a related note, I was playing sodoku while waiting for the train this morning - thats the game where you need to put every number from 1-9 in a box or line without repeating any. So normally Iĺl go through the list, counting in my head "one, two, three..." but this morning I started counting "un, deux, trois..."- can you believe it?! Three days in France and I'm already THINKING in French!

Although I'm feeling quite comfortable so far, I think it will get tougher as I go. I know a tiny bit of Spanish - pretty much how to count to ten and how to ask for a beer (which doesn't help because I don't even drink beer!). But then its off to Portugal where I don't know a SINGLE word in Portugese. Literally. And then there's Greece where I can't even READ their letters (how is a triangle a letter?!), so I KNOW that will be a challenge. But I've gone this far and I'm not turning back, so I gotta just go for it! This should be interesting...

So a quick recap of today's events: got into San Sebastian around 3pm- like usual, I didn't stick around the hostel but immediately checked out the town! It was a little cloudy today, but it was still beautiful....the beach, the architecture, the water...I loved it all! I also took a ride up the funicular to get some amazing views of the whole city (and of course I took some pictures for you guys!) This area is well-known for its tapas bars so I wanted to check one of them out, but its more of a socializing kind of thing, plus I am really not comfortable with the language yet, so I ended up just relaxing at the hostel tonight. I will spend tomorrow morning checking out a little more on San Sebastian and then I'm off to Bilbao in the afternoon! Talk to you then!


Love, Dianna