//Europa 2006//

There are certain seaside vacation spots that, despite their popularity, are pretty worthless.

San Sebastian is certainly not one of them.

It's been a long hard ride from our little swiss village to this balmy resort town, but we're definitly here. I believe Will's working up something about our adventure in transit and our various brushes with death, the law, and couchettes. I'll just describe where we are today and leave you in dreadful suspense about our obvious survival.

Some of you may know that we planned to enter Spain via Barcelona. 'Twas a grand idea, but we eventually found out that seats are booked untilthe 19th. Not much help. Our other obvious point of entry was the costal town of San Sebastian. Somehow, we arrived there (here) this morning. The place is hoppin' with vacationers and tourists galore and there was absolutely no room. Anywhere. The desperate telecommunications effort dirested toward a number of pensions (guest houses) was fruitless. So we did the only thing we could think of: stood at a tourist information center looking glum, sipping on nearly-empty water bottles, silently screaming that we needed a room. Miraculously, a short woman soon appeared out of the blue and started talking in spanish about a pension. For the first time of the trip, I could actually make sense of the fountain of words flowing at us and we followed the little old lady to a lovely room. The beds needed to be made so we helped our hostess who seemed pleased and remarked "Tienes una madre." (you have a mother) With our Home Economics workout complete, I took a shower. (I was going to say "much-needed" but that would have been a huge understatment. You see, i hadn't showered in 4 days. Will will tell the story.) We headed out to the grocery store and then to the overcrowded beach. The water was perfect, the sun was hot, the sand was, err... sandy. Thus began the reduction of our impressive farmer's tans. Afterwards, we relaxed in our plush room and Graham found a wireless network here. I swear that kid's life is in no small way connected to how much wireless he gets. He could live for years on just wireless access and Coke.

We eventually headed back out to walk the city and see the sites. Oh... by the way, I neglected to mention that there is a free Bob Dylan concert on the beach here tommorrow night. We saw the stage and a preliminary sound-check. We made a wide and beautiful arc, stopping only to get a spanish hamburger: with ham, fried onion, and a perfectly fried egg. Fountain Pepsi was a capital idea.

After I checked the boys into the room for the night, I took my guitar to a paradise-like park and played, sang and wrote some and shared the instrument with a Spanish guy who, whenever a female walked by, would drop the current song and play what he seemed to think was his best love song. I talked to two spanish girls who asked me for cigarette paper and they said that the last guy they asked turned out to be Bob Dylan. I couldn't help but think how old the fellow is when they said that he didn't have any paper. Bob Dylan? Without means to roll a cigarette? What happened? I played a full-length version of American Pie for a guy and some folks from Florida gathered around and we swapped songs awhile. Predictably, I had the most fun between 01:00 and 03:00.

I won't disclose the time right now. It's quite early and I rather believe sleep would behoove me. Just a wee bit. Maybe.

Cheers,
Caleb