Hotel Santemar Santander

... an old lady eating a breakfast of only toast and olive oil, as is commonly done in Spain. This brought back memories of "Spain: On the road again", and the incredibly lovely Spanish actress Claudia Bassols. One of her co-hosts asked her why she eats toast with olive oil, and she explained that she loves it, and eats it almost every day for breakfast. He almost laughed at her, which I never understood - perhaps that's how she maintains such lovely ...

... overlooking the beach in El Sardinero, then returned to the pension to change for the beach. I picked up a ****** little beach mat and realized how poor quality it was - it'll probably disintegrate after just a few uses, which shouldn't be a problem as there won't be that much beach time on this trip.

The beach was great, and was nice and hot when the sun wasn't hidden behind the clouds. The clouds were shifting and changing ...

... did end up forgiving the waitress for her rudeness, because she was a typical Spanish cutie. I also forgave the salesgirls from Springfield, as well :)

After lunch, I headed to the bus station. Burgos was nice to visit but like Leon, there's not much to draw me back. I'm still glad I came, because I first heard of the town from a couple of American students staying at my hostel the second time I was in San Sebastian. They were in Spain ...

... women with slightly less in the
pneumatic chest department. This really is the 21st
Century you know! At least I think that by employing the marketeers
from Brittany Ferries they would maybe have called the festival
Tractores y Chocolate y Tetas or some such giving some clue to the
actual content, I mean anyone hoping for a bar of chocolate or a ride
on a tractor would be sadly disappointed.
Anyhow, things ridiculous aren't
confined to ...

... of the scenery today was just incredible, as the winding roads cut a path through the tree covered mountains i was regulerly greeted with the most amazing views, views which were visable due to the regularity by which i was climbing and descending through said mountains. I fear and relish in equal measure the fact that this rise and fall may well be the story of the next two weeks, could ...

Not going to Germany like I have purchased tickets for. I would have had to leave at 12:30, and there is no way I could have put myself through that. Im whiped. Plus there is no place for me to stay, and the girls I would go with have differnt places to go and no plans of anything to do/see. Not to mention the 100 euro train ticket! No thank you! Chilling with my friends tomorrow. We will eat pizza and watch Ditry dancing. Relaxing is nice!

... siesta. I ended up getting a hamburger from a bar. The bread amazing! The hamburger the pinkest Ive ever eaten, and so good! Good news I didn't get sick off of it. I didn't do much walking. When we got back I met up with the group of kids in my program(Now referred to as the group) and they got me flowers, and a handmade card. It was great, because my day had started out rough. We ended up going dancing that night till pretty late. I had so much fun!

... we were not allowed in. Then we went to a place where we were supposed to ride a lift up the mountains, but the lift was closed due to snow. So the only thing we could do was walk around a town during siesta. Which means nearly everything is closed. They did give us lunch. I ended up finding a place called Asian Bizarre that ...

... Between all the spikes are the statues of Santander people. Women, men, children, all with sticks in their hands raised towards the other end of the monument. This centerpiece represents the battles they fought defending the rights the Spanish was taking away. The statues were very intense, as if the sculptor had lived through the event himself. Their faces were not solemn like our statue of liberty or serene like the Sphinx, but very emotional and full of pain and anger. Whew. Then ...

... and we decided to try and negotiate Santander together. She was going to be living in Santander for six months or so on some kind of exchange programme. After about an hour, during which the map and our accumulated guidebooks were rendered pretty much useless, we found a pension called 'Hostal Ipanema' on the third floor of an otherwise unoccupied building. It has big old rooms and lots of ...