San Sebastian

Well, I've done it. I've officially visited a place that I first imagined through the eyes of an author; I've walked the streets and pretended what it was like for him in the 1920's. Those streets were in San Sebastian, Spain, a coastal city in the Basque Country that I first learned about in Ernest Hemingway's book The Sun Also Rises. In the book, Hemingway describes the city as a charming place tucked away in the rolling green countryside of the border between Spain and France. The book also describes the meaningless pilgrimage of the protagonist and his friends as they make their way down to Pamplona for a week of revelry and disillusionment. I was thinking about these things as I stumbled off of the bus at 6:30 in the morning after 11 hours of hazy sleep and discomfort (where I also watched Black Swan, which was quite strange). Damn it was cold and dark! I proceeded to cover my mouth and nose with my scarf and put the hood up on my jacket before following the river that runs through town on its way to the ocean. I had the number of an Australian friend of my friend, Nathalie, but I didn't want to call so early in the morning. I walked along the sea, taking in what I could of the city at that time, this mostly consisted of idly observing the few drunk people still on the street. I was staring into the night-shrouded ocean when I turned around and caught 2 guys in a red car looking my way. It seemed strange to me so I continued on to find a city map. The same car passed me a few minutes later and stopped a 100 yards ahead, so I crossed the street. I was looking at the bus map when the car again pulled up beside me, this time with the windows down, and the man in the passenger street stared me straight in the eyes.

We held the gaze for an uncomfortable moment before he quickly got out of the car and came towards me. I started to back away and he grabbed for my backpack straps, but I ducked just in time and shifted behind him. I started running in the opposite direction and the red car immediately swung a U-turn and came after me. My backpack was effing heavy so I dropped it off behind a dumpster and hoped it would still be there later after all of this finally ended. I was down a side street, not knowing where the hell I was, when a Chinese man opened the backdoor of his restaurant and signaled me to enter. "Alright," I thought. It smelled like wontons and my eyes had to adjust to the neon lighting. I turned around and the Chinese man reached for my face and pulled down my scarf and hood. "You can't dress like that in this city," he said, "they'll think you are a member of ETA. I saw you get off of the bus, so I know you're a tourist." 

He asked if there was someone I could call and I thought it'd be a good time to call the Australian. He picked up quicker than I expected and asked with a heavy accent where the shit I had been. He had expected me to call around 6:45. I asked if he could meet me at the restaurant and he said he'd be there soon because it wasn't too far from his place. The chinese man gave me scrambled eggs and wontons and I waited.