Same Shirt, Different day-2012 Adventures of the "Devonport Wonder Babes"

Thursday 4 October 2012 San Sebastian Spain

Another nice morning and slow start to the day. Then about 10.30 am left hotel and went off to explore our immediate suburb which is called Gross and find a supermarket.

Fascinating especially when we came upon smoke from a fire in a top floor apartment, everybody out on streets looking, fire engines there, police blocking streets etc. No great action so moved on.

Apartment buildings around here are relatively low, about 7 stories high, often with a small deck but there must be hundreds if not thousands of people living in each street. On street level there are all sorts of local businesses, hardware stores, bread shops, supermarkets (2, one called BM which was beautifully appointed, clean and well lit and the other a chain we have seen in all countries called Lidl which is cheap), garages, clothing stores, air-conditioning, hardware  and plumbing supplies.

In late morning lots of women out doing their shopping plus quite a lot of gossiping on the streets

Older women especially, very well dressed and no one has white hair, all dyed. Only white haired women we see here are tourists/visitors, just like in Cuba. We stick out like sore thumbs with white hair, cut off pants and T Shirts !!

Walked through this area and down to river, then continued on west bank to train station (free loo and kiosk with today’s Herald Tribune which has English insert of key article from El Pais the major Spanish daily ) then across the very beautiful Maria Cristina bridge and on to square by the Cathedral.

 

Lyndsay spotted  shop that showed potential   and we went into this lovely old fashioned shop where a woman made us 2 rolls with freshly sliced ham (tasty and salty) and cheese, plus 2 fruit juices for €4.40. They were eaten on a park bench and were divine!!

Continued on through very upmarket food market towards centre of town, again with beautifully presented fruit and vegtables  and also this one had fresh flowers.

 

 

Continued on to beach, Lynds slept in sun on sandy beach whilst I swam –only half way between low and full tide but plenty of water, nice bit of gentle surf and €2 to change and then return to shower and change afterwards. Most women on beach topless sunbathing.  Obviously no such thing as melanoma in Europe, we are still the only people wearing hats and shirts.

 

Wandered back to hotel through Gross again, back to BM supermarket and purchased enough 250 ml packages of UHT milk for a week plus fruit for breakfasts.

Also need to take back comments yesterday on public toilets because  when you actually look at the tourist map they are all marked and are very clean and free, though not many of them.

Wonderful coffee back at hotel and an hour of internet surfing –we see the wonderful  Dot Com saga continues at home, Mr Keys sucking of teeth, John Banks really showing his true colours  and really important stuff like Waikato wins Ranfurly Shield from Taranaki. Go the Mooloos !!

Other world news, Curiosity photos likely stream bed on Mars indicting likely water in past millions of years and  Portugal will hike average personal income tax rate from 9.8% to 11.8% with an additional surcharge of 4% to  take it to 13.2% to meet their deficit reduction commitments to EU. Makes 33% look fairly large doesn’t it. Perhaps NZ does live in the real world.

Wandered down to local cafe/bar (AMA-LUR Bar Restaurante) and had great dinner with locals. large portions tho.My 1/2 chicken could easily have been 1/4 !!

Cough is a bit better today, really just ignoring it cos this is too nice a place to be sick.