No kidding.

Well, I'm really behind, sorry friends. About 3 weekends ago, we went on our first excursion with USAC to 2 coastal towns in France and a coastal town, San Sebastian, in Spain. I was really excited about getting a tan but as it turned out, I ended up not bringing enough to layer. It was so cold!

First, we visited Bayonne, a very typical French Basque fishing village. We had a cool tour of that, visited the cathedral, visited a chocolate shop which was amazing, of course. My goal was to find hot chocolate because it was raining cats and dogs and we were freezing. So we stopped in a local chocolatier and got hot chocolate with flavors!
This is ginger chocolate... oohhh. I got hot chocolate with cinnamon- delicious. To top it off, she got a piece of the cinnamon chocolate (which looked like a sheet of paper) and set it on top so it melted in. She made all the chocolate by hand and had it around the store. As I said, it looked just like paper or fabric that had folded, only it was chocolate. Very interesting. And then we had to get back to the bus. So, we tried to hop from awning to awning, but unsuccessfully. Puddles unseen soaked our jeans and the edges of the awnings just poured water down the backs of our necks. By the time we made it back to the bus, we looked like wet cats. Really. Look at that picture. And we found out that Bayonne hasn't had rain since July, and this particular weekend it rained so much that they evacuated people for the flash flooding. What luck have we!! (:

From there we went on to San Sebastian, which I have heard praised as one of the most beautiful cities in all of Spain (clearly by those who haven't seen La Granja or Segovia). Anyway, I had tapas for the first time (isn't that sad?) of kalamari, mussels (gross), and fries with a really good sauce. And of course, bread. I actually really liked the kalamari, and what was really fun was that after eating the mussels, you just threw the shells in this little trough on the floor. Reminded me of Logan's, but it was very messy. Not advisable.



It was still raining, so my pictures of San Sebastian are few. However, these are pictures of the beach at night, the lovely buildings, and the town in general. Also, as it turns out, Brad Pitt was in town (no lie) for a famous film festival, but we didn't get to meet. He called to see if I wanted to meet for tapas, but I was busy. What a shame, right? The most, let's see, tragic / comical part of San Sebastian, though, was that evening. We left from the hotel about 9:15, going to look for some food. The others were going to take a bus, but we decided to walk. It was about 1.5 miles, more or less, and as soon as we got down the street, it started to rain. Lightly, at first, but pretty soon it came down. I mean, the heavens were opened and what evaporated in the parting of the Red Sea poured down on us. I had an umbrella, and so did the other 3 girls, but the boys had nothing. And so they got absolutely drenched. Through their jackets, both of their passports got wet, and we walked for well over 30 minutes. Did I mention it was cold? Like, heavy coats and scarves cold. So, while they're beginning to shiver from hypothermia, we begin to look for something to eat. It is now beginning to close in on 10:30. We didn't think any restaurants were still serving, so we decided to go to a cafe to get something to drink. Closed. We start turning down side streets, looking for something a). spanish and b). open. Finally we stumbled into this tiny tapas bar, I used my stumbling Spanish to find out that we had to order quickly as they were turning off the stoves. We got sandwiches with omelets, and spent the rest of the evening in the bee bop bar listening to jazz (debatable) and other forgotten songs from America. So, that's all I've got of Spain so far.



Things aren't over yet, though, guys. After San Sebastian, we headed over to the touristy town of St. jean de Luz back in France. This is another coastal town famous in France as a weekend getaway. It really was adorable. We also got to watch them set up for a Basque freedom meeting... ooohhh. Yes, we walked away gracefully.


This next picture is of typical Basque architecture. Most of the houses look like this, although the red could be blue or green, mostly paint that's left over from painting the boats. Originally, it was red because they used to paint it with oxblood. That's right, ox blood to protect from insects or something like that... not really sure.


Anyway, it was a memorable weekend. It wasn't much fun at the time, but I smile when I think about it, so that's good. And I'll leave you with a Viva Espana!!