(appologies to Tolkien for that title.. too good not to use 🙂 
I was able to upgrade a saw using some points. I had so travel was easy. We met up with Gabe and Frankfurt… Which is a huge airport that I spent so much time in over the years.… We went to a lounge got some breakfast and then got on our plane to Bilbao. That was a short two hour flight and we got to fly over landing

We picked up our rental car… And appointed Gabe is our chauffeur. Great driver… And it’s so much fun to be a passenger for me.

We got a quick view of Bill as we were driving out… Lots of art, well dressed people. We’re gonna come back here on our way out, so we’ll spend more time.

About an hour later, we got to the wonderful city of San Sebastian where we’re going to stay for most of the week. It too was full of beautiful art. We checked into our Airbnb on a pedestrian street and out of our friends.,

there Three beautiful beaches right in this town… we followed them on the crowded beach. It was so great… White Sands, lots of families and people out… the speech had rough and there were quite a few people surfing. We found our friends quickly. It was so great catch up. 

After the beach, Diana and I sit out to explore the town. San Sebastian is so cute… There are tourists here but not so many that it’s uncomfortable. The old is full of small and narrow streets. The tourists we saw were mostly Spanish.

This was our first introduction to this basque fast food Pintxos.. (prounonced ‘pinho’) .. It’s like a mix of tapas and sushi. Small bites usually on a piece of bread with all sorts of fish meat. You name it. You go up to a counter and point to a bunch of things and you have a full meal with amazing variety and about 10 seconds. 
One thing that I was surprised by but enjoyed is how vital of the Basque language is. I had somehow in my mind that the language was only spoken by older people in remote villages, but thanks to the Basque nationalist movement Basque was taught in all schools as a primary language. All signs were in Basque and in Spanish… And most advertisements were in both or only in Basque. One interesting side effect is that all the young people here speak Basque while their parents do not.

After some exploration, we went to the Airbnb, where Deb Britt and Brian and Rory were staying… we met up with lots of folks there Hannah, Olivier, Deb, Matthew, Leyre, Barry, Katie, Lucy and her boyfriend Jayrow. ..Leyre’s parents Maria and Edo .  And of course Brit, bran and new baby Rory !!!

It was Bran’s birthday so e had an impromptu birthday party. We ordered a bunch of pizzas… They were pretty much like American pizzas… 

It was fun being there and our first introduction to this bilingual wedding… Later parents didn’t speak much English so I had to break out my rusty Spanish. It was fun getting to know them.

It was so great getting to meet Rory… This is Deb’s first grandkid. What a beautiful baby.

After pizza, Diane Gabe and I went off on more exploration

then back to the airbnb to get soem sleep !

So far, we’re really loving San Sebastian !

nite all, nite sam 
-me