lovely, lovely

On Saturday I went with Aina and her "crew" to a sidrería (cider house) in Astigarraga, a small town near San Sebastian that is known for its sidrerías. There they give you a fixed meal, with all the sidra you can drink! The sidra's great, the food is amazing, it's a good time with friends; all in all, it's a very nice excursion. There's a certain way of getting the sidra: first you pick which batch you'd like to try; next, the staff turns the spigot and out comes the sidra arcing through the air to the ground, and you do your best to get it in the glass and get some nice foam on top. The idea is that a line of people does it, each one with his or her glass under the one before, and thus no sidra makes it into the bucket on the ground. I'll admit we weren't that good at it, though, and we got told off a little bit. Hehehe.

Our "menú" consisted of: chorizo y morcilla (sausage and blood sausage); next, a tortilla de bacalao (cod omelette); a nice piece of bacalao (cod with I don't know what delicious green veggie on top); chuleta (steak, wonderfully rare and salted); and finally dessert of membrillo y queso (quince jelly and cheese) y nueces (walnuts). Sorry about the Spanish... but it's just not that cool in English. Everything was amazing. I didn't know what blood sausage was until afterwards (to tell the truth, I'm still trying to be vague on it so I don't get grossed out), but it was amaaaazing. I was the one going "you're not going to eat that? Ok, hand it over here." Haha. Yummay.

The next day I rolled out of bed and met a couchsurfer from Australia who was just visiting San Sebastian for the day, down from France; we met for breakfast (well, I had a café con leche and a croissant, but he was ready for some pintxos already) and ended up spending the whole day together. It was kind of rainy and shitty, but he was in such a good mood and so willing to do anything that we ended up having a great time together. We went up to the Jesus statue on Urgüll, souvenir-shopped, ate amazing pintxos and drank beer, and even got into the Real Sociedad soccer game for free. (We got there late; I told the ticket-checker that the box office was closed - which was true - and he was like "OK", shrugged, and let us in. Schwing!) It is days like that that make me really love Couchsurfing and couchsurfers. I also love it when there's really nothing you *should* be doing.

En fin, it was a great weekend and it should be a great week. Yesterday night I had a nice candlelit dinner with friends and much red wine after climbing, and today my kids didn't show up for my 4.30 class because the cafeteria workers are on strike (long story, chaos has ensued at school) so I just hung out with Molly before heading to the library. Tomorrow night is 1970s American thriller night at the Teatro Principal, and on Friday Aina and I have been invited to a dinner at a "sociedad" (a kind of gastronomical club, shrouded in mystery, closed to outsiders and historically women) with Molly and her Basque boyfriend. Yep, things are looking up. I hope they stay that way. :)