San Sebastián 3

I would be taking an overnight train, the only one for the trip, so I would have no place to siesta. After breakfast in the comedor, I visited the Mercado de San Martin, where I bought pipas. I sat on a bench at the promenade and ate them, feeding the pigeons some. Two Australian girls walked past and I realised this only after I saw the flags sewn on their backpacks. I hesitated so lost them.

I walked around the base of Monte Urgull and visited the other market, Mercado de la Bretxa, where I got ¼ kg of cherries. It was late morning so I returned to the pension, had a shower and packed. While I was dressing police sirens screamed. A small demonstration had begun. Apparently a youth in Irun, on the French border, had been hurt by police.

I carried my backpack to the main building and decided to read in the comedor until the hostilities blew over. It was on the second or third floor, as I recall, so I had an overview of street. Youths with handkerchiefs over their mouth threw rocks at the police vehicles. The police charged. The youths retreated into an alley. The police stayed at the end of the alley with perspex shields and gas cannister launchers. Eventually the police left and the youths peered out of the alleyway before dispersing. The intriguing thing was that the townsfolk walked past the alley entrance as if nothing unusual was happening.

The pension owner was unfazed by all of this. I asked him about a hole in a window pane. Si, roto por una manifestación, he said in annoyance.

The lunch was fantastic. We were served a tomato, potato, peas and egg salad, followed by a pork cutlet with cheese and ham. While we were eating, an explosion was heard from the market area. Youths had hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails. The police charged and the demonstrators retreated. They went back and forth a few times until calling it quits for the day. We finished our lunch in peace with a banana desert. I had to admit to frisson from witnessing my first street demonstration.

I left my backpack and went back to the beach. There I bumped into the Aussie girls again, K and B, from Melbourne and Perth respectively. They had met in Paris and decided on a quick trip down to Spain. We chatted and walked up Urgull then had beers in a bar. I gave them the maps and tourist info I had on San Sebastián. They invited me to share a pasta dinner with them at the youth hostel. We bought groceries at a supermarket before catching the bus. At the stand we met S and C, a Kansas girl and a Canadian respectively. They were taking the same night train I was. We chatted over beer, chips and pâte in the common room, then moved to the kitchen for dinner. It was steamy there from the cooking. The conversation ranged seamlessly from Australia to beer to music to education to travel to pop music to TV shows. Nearby was a Basque teacher with her young charges. It was fascinating to hear Basque spoken.

Around 2030 I collected my backpack from the pension where the owner teased me: ¡estas vivo! S and C were already at the station when I arrived. There were heaps of backpackers going through San Sebastián enroute to Barcelona or Madrid as it is one of two major railway routes into Spain.

It was a bit uncomfortable sleeping in the couchette in my street clothes. The pillow was tiny so I used my jacket to prop it. And so the train trundled into the night for the last leg of my Spanish odyssey.