Our time in San Sebastián did end up being defined by food, though not in the way we anticipated. We arrived late afternoon and, after checking in to our apartment, wandered towards the packed jumble of stone streets and alleys that is old town. I’ve come to think of this stretch of afternoon as no man’s land, though perhaps no man’s sandwich would be more accurate—after lunch, but before the famously late Spanish dinner time, the beginning of which roughly coincides with our youngest’s bedtime. Especially since the old town of San Sebastián (or Donostia, as it’s known in Basque) is quite touristy, I figured we’d be able to scare up something to eat no matter what time it was.
As it was a Sunday, many restaurants were closed. The places that were open were bars showcasing the region’s famous “pintxos,” or often-elaborate Basque tapas. Our airbnb host explained that the way to do pintxos was to have one pintxo, one drink in one bar and then move to the next, etc. Sounds like fun, except if you’re trying to feed three hungry kids who couldn’t care less how delicious the 1.90 euro/cup vino tinto is. After establishing that there really was nowhere we could sit down and order dinner, or even take away sandwiches, we settled on a couple of pintxo bars down an alley that weren’t too crowded. We tried our best to grab snacks that were appealing to all, with varying degrees of success. There weren’t a lot of other kids around, but no one seemed to mind ours. Rafa Nadal had just finished winning the French Open (again), and patrons at most bars had been watching the match. I’m not sure exactly what we ate, but most of it was delicious—seafood, roast peppers, pickled beans, olives, anchovies, bread with cured meats and cheeses, various creamy salads, fish.
Eating in the area had a learning curve beyond the timing of meals. Every bar or restaurant has its own procedure for acquiring and eating pintxos, and no one seems particularly inclined to help a newbie out. Eventually Ryan and I would just go greet someone and ask how things were done. I can’t say people were overly friendly, or friendly at all really. I had to ask a lot of very specific questions, leaving me wondering how people with no Spanish manage. I often find American service overbearing, even aggressive—this was the opposite. No one cared what you bought or if you bought anything at all, and they were certainly not going to serve it with a smile or a suggestion. In the end, we had some snacks and drinks and split up to find the one small open grocery store and bakery in town to buy provisions. We went back to the apartment, and I made the kids pasta. We snacked on bread, jamón, and cheese, and went to bed.
I had planned the next day as recovery. We had been sight-seeing in Paris at a decent clip, then traveling, and I thought we could all use a sleep in and non-ambitious itinerary.
What I got was food poisoning.
I went from being mildly sick to completely out of commission. So much for our first taste of pintxos! Actually, I know better. If you’re going to eat food that’s been sitting out buffet style, don’t eat the creamy stuff, and only eat at places that have good turnover. I guess I felt overly confident eating in a city with more Michelin stars per square meter than anywhere else in the world (16 in a city of approximately 187,000 people, or roughly half the size of Hamilton County, IN for reference).
Ryan took the kids out, though, and they had a great day wandering through town and hanging out with the surfers at Zurriola beach. Ryan made an early reservation at renowned restaurant Gandarias, and they enjoyed a by all accounts wonderful meal, while I lay in bed alternating between sleeping, getting sick, and watching bad Spanish television—mostly novelas, and then a dubbed episode of Law and Order. I figure I might as well go on adjusting to the accent. When a Mexican novela (one of those cheesy morality shows) momentarily popped up, everything was blissfully clear. After the littles went to bed, Ryan snuck down to the bar/cafe beneath our apartment and watched a soccer game with some locals. I was asleep by 9pm.
I started to feel human the next day, but we were all very lazy until lunch, which we had planned at a place outside the city. We took a local bus to the town of Astigarraga, famous for its cider, and ate at Kako, a traditional Basque restaurant. We had grilled cod, monkfish, squid, salmon, salad, a lovely white wine, and we marveled at the packed house in the middle of a Tuesday. Long live the long European lunch! The food was simple, fresh, not shy on butter or garlic, beautifully prepared, and appealing to everyone in our crew.
But for dinner or a dinner time snack, we found ourselves in the same predicament as the first day. Saved again by the grocery store and a couple of frozen pizzas.
Our final full day, we took a road trip to Bilbao and a couple of other places, which I’ll write about separately. But we had a light breakfast at home, and then snacks throughout the day, somehow missing the elusive lunch window yet again. We ended up at a recommended restaurant off the beaten path that would only sell us pintxos I didn’t have much of a stomach for. By the time we were almost back to San Sebastián, we were all so hungry, not having eaten much of anything since the toast we had for breakfast.
In short, we had been in town going on 4 days, and I’d had one real meal. I just wanted to bite into something substantive. So we recalled seeing a burger restaurant, and I had the strongest, most uncharacteristic drive to go there. We don’t eat fast food. Rarely eat at chains. Rarely eat beef. But I really wanted a simple burger. And after a long and complicated order, I received my “Classico,” which turned out to be made with… egg. Not in addition to the burger, but instead of. What could I do but laugh and drink my beer in a glass, because that’s what you get at a chain burger joint in Spain. The kids all ate and enjoyed their (actual) cheeseburgers, though, and I at least felt somewhat full.
Redemption came easily on the slow walk home. We crossed the street to Playa Zurriola in the golden twilight and watched surfers and groups of friends and families hanging out on the boardwalk. We walked along the river, watching the fresh water come down from the mountains mix with the breaking Atlantic surf. Kids playing soccer next to the cathedral kicked a ball towards Sebastian on accident, and he pulled it from a construction dumpster for them. Leafy boulevards, ornate buildings in a mash-up of architectural styles, shops closed for the day. The cafes under our apartment were packed, people spilling into all available doorways and steps. Sebastian and I found an open grocery and picked up snacks for the next day’s trip and a bit of wine to fortify us for the packing process.
Próxima estación: Barcelona.
