The tapas feast has come to an end

Our Spanish feast has finally come to an end.  I never thought I would say how excited I am to be out of Spain so I do not have to eat any more tapas!!  I have never eaten so many things served cold on bread that we would normally serve hot before.  After running with the bulls we decided to try and avoid tapas as much as possible and on reflection managed to succeed.
We finally caught up on some sleep when reaching San Sebastian and ventured out of our very cool balcony overlooking the old town to get a meal for dinner.  We had been recommended a burger shop on the boulevard so we jumped at the chance to have something that was warm.   There was a bunch of burgers to choose from but I opted for a classic chicken, lettuce, tomato & mayo burger as it had been a while since I had had some poultry.  We were a little surprised that it still came with a pintxos spike and was basically a small burger so we did fail a little on avoiding the tapas but it still hit the spot and was great to eat something warm and freshly cooked.

The weather in San Seb unfortunately was not beach weather so I decided to get up and go for a run along the river to see some more of the town.  I cannot believe how clear the water is in the river let alone the beach, it was so clear you could easily see the bottom which made for a lovely morning out in the fresh air.
I spent a lazy afternoon wandering around the old town and looking at some shops which was a very relaxing day.  We met up with some friends from our top deck tour and also from running with the bulls to give tapas one last go.  We may have hit the jackpot with the tapas bar we randomly decided to go to (for anyone going to San Seb I would highly recommend this bar txalupa fatelxea which is in the old town).  It is clearly a very popular bar with the locals and the only down side is that they rush people through and if you don’t have food in your mouth, you are off the tables.  I wasn’t keen to choose some pintxos off the bar and ordered some calamari from the menu.  This was possibly the best calamari I have ever had.  I realise this is a big call but it was cooked to perfection and the only way to make the night better was to top it off with a cocktail before bed.

This was our last full day in San Sebastian so I decided I would check out the beach, even though I was in leggings and a jumper, it was another relaxing day wandering the streets and watching some kids attempt to get in the freezing water.  We decided it was time to cook another meal while we had the chance and my sick little travel buddy requested one of her favourites to make her feel better, chicken pesto pasta salad.  I got some fresh produce from the markets and made a very basic version of the dish with chicken, semidried tomatoes, tomato pesto, capsicum, spinach and pasta. It was very tasty and again so happy to get to cook something myself.
We decided that we should use what little time we had left to explore more of San Seb so we hired some bikes for a couple of hours after dinner and rode around the coast of both the swimming beach and the surf beach.  A thunderstorm was brewing so it made for an interesting ride but the views were amazing and I loved that there are swimming pools on the surf beach, my first beach pools that I have seen.  A great way to finish our time in San Sebastian making me want to return when the weather allows for some beach time.

An early flight to Barcelona meant we had checked in to our hotel and organised ourselves by around 1pm just in time for lunch. Not knowing anything about our street yet again we went for a wander until we found a buffet all you can eat and drink for €10, it was amazing! It mainly consisted of salads with a selection of meats to cook on a grill but most importantly it had frozen yoghurt and chocolate ice cream to finish off the meal, yum yum. 

The weather at Barcelona was a major step up from San Seb and we were taking full advantage of this by heading straight to the beach for the afternoon.  We soaked up enough sun to work up an appetite so we headed back home to tackle the other direction of our street.  We were still well over the tapas so when we found a Mexican restaurant we jumped at the chance to have some spice.  My method for choosing was anything that had jalapeños on the list as I miss them oh so very much.  I decided on the burger even though the waiter was trying to talk me out of it as his logic was ‘you are not from here and this will be too hot for you’ he was somewhat surprised after I had cleaned my plate and told him that it could have been spicier.

The next day we were back into the sightseeing swing and headed to Barcelona Football Stadium.  It was a pretty nifty tour and we got to see some amazing trophies in the museum, including the FIFA world cup from 2011/12.  After spending a good few hours admiring the views we headed into the La Rambla, the main street in Barcelona, to find some lunch.  We went to a gorgeous little cafe that is designed as if you are in a tree house.  It is off the main strip but one of the travel girls had been there before so took us there for the experience.  I was yet to try an empanada (a pie/pasty) since arriving and I have heard great things so I jumped at the chance for a jamon(a cross between prosciutto and ham) empanada.  It was a flavour sensation which included many herbs and spices with potato and cheese, a delicious choice.  Before once again hitting the beach we took a look around the famous food markets.  These are well known for the fresh juices you can buy at almost every stall.  I tried what was meant to be passionfruit, but to my disappointment it had an odd orange juice flavour to it and a rare trace of passionfruit but on the upside mine seemed to be the only one from the group that was not enjoyable, I must be bad at picking!

After some more sunning on the beach we headed back to get ready for dinner and a visit to the magic fountain.  We decided to catch the metro into the fountain and find a place to eat here.  There were a number of restaurants so we choose what looked to have great food and the moment I saw calamari that was not deep fried I couldn’t resist. I am sure you have noticed that I have been devouring a lot of calamari but the seafood options have been limited and for someone that eats limited red meat when I get the chance to eat chicken or seafood I am there.  Before I tried the calamari I decided to give this Russian salad another try, it was enjoyable and luckily as the second disappointment for the day was the overcooked chewy calamari.  I did not even finish my meal I was so shattered.  I was looking forward to the magic fountain that plays music and it was awesome.  I would highly recommend this to anyone that travels to Barcelona.  This was an instant pick me up of my mood and people were grooving to the tunes.  It was breathtaking and we spent a good hour or more here taking in the atmosphere.

It was time for our additional travel buddy to jet set home but before doing so we were up and off to check out park Guell, Gaudi’s park, where he built structures that look similar to gingerbread houses.  It was not as breathtaking as I expected but was massive.  Something that I would say you could give a miss, perhaps for a day at the beach I would suggest. After seeing our buddy off we had some lunch and I was so excited to have a prawn salad dressed with tomatoes and cranberry sauce.  A very refreshing meal after all of the bread we had been served recently.  We decided we best check off the other major sights on the Barcelona list and visited the Casa Batllo and Lasagrada Familia, both Gaudi’s artwork.  Our last night in Barcelona was spent sipping cocktails and enjoying some nachos before heading home to pack.

Our time to head to Greece had all but arrived.  We were both so excited, but our flight was not until 11pm.  Unfortunately for us we had to check out of our hostel at 11am so that was a total of 12 hours to kill. We decided to head into town and have a juice and some lunch to pass some time overlooking La Rambla as it was much busier on a Saturday with lots of markets on.  We finally made it to the airport around 3 with the intention of doing some shopping as this was a new airport and we had heard that there was a lot of shops.  We thought we would try our luck and check our bags in, the attendant basically laughed at us and told us we were crazy for being there so early but he kindly checked in our bags 9hrs early! We headed into the shops and well, we see why he thought we were crazy.  We had done the shops in about an hour and spent the next 8hrs walking around and around trying to kill some time.  We even found some play equipment in the middle of one of the terminals!  After eating some horrible tapas we finally boarded our plane at 11:30 but due to air traffic control we did not actually leave until 12:30.  Greece was waiting patiently for us at 4am, however we then had to sit another 3 hours at the airport for our bus to arrive.  After all of our sitting around and running off about 2 hours sleep we were so happy to finally arrive at our destination at 8am where we have spent most of the day sitting around/sleeping by our amazing pool and enjoying the sunshine.