Trip to Pais Vasco, Part I: San Sebastian

This past weekend, I travelled to San Sebastian and Bilbao in a trip led by the ESN Oviedo organization. We left at 7 in the morning on Saturday and took a 5 hour bus ride to San Sebastian. Upon arriving in San Sebastian we went up in a funicular to see a panoramic view of the city. 

We hiked up to El Christo later in the day.

There were some people sailing in the bay.

At the top there was also some carnival type rides including this sketchy rollercoaster. Not many of the attractions were open however.

After that we had time for lunch. Most of the students on the trip had lunches packed by their host mom. My mom gave me a huge chicken sandwich and 2 clementines. My group ate ours in a park that had this interesting clock.

After this, the ESN members led us on a city tour. I was a bit misled when I saw there would be a city tour on the schedule. I thought it meant there would be an actually tour guide, instead it was members of ESN who didn’t know very much information about the things they were showing us, giving the tour in English to 50 students who are supposed to be studying Spanish.

The following day was a holiday celebrating Saint Sebastian. Festivities technically began at midnight Saturday, but we did see some people already dressed up and this band of middle school aged children performing. 

In addition, San Sebastian was also hosting a soccer game against Barcelona. I believe they said that these flags were in support of the San Sebastian soccer team.

The last item on the agenda in San Sebastian was to climb up to El Christo. El Christo is up the mountain in a fort.

We were told to not climb on the canyon.

Then we got back on the bus to head to Bilbao for the night.

Stay tuned for Part II: Bilbao!