San Sebastian - Day Thirteen

I finally did it; somehow I have made it out of Barcelona. I tried booking trains to the South of France and was foiled by French rail strikes, and I tried to catch a 19 hour ferry to Rome but was thwarted by crowds of holidaymaking Spaniards booking every seat on the boat. In the end, I have had to slightly retrace my steps and am now back in the Basque country, in San Sebastian in Northern Spain.

Scott, my Australian mate from Hostel Kabul in Barcelona, and I caught a sleeper train last night and arrived in sunny San Sebastian this morning. It seems like a great town, but at the moment I'm just impatiently killing time before I can check into my hostel and have a long overdue shower.

After the sort of stay we had in the Kabul, our last night in town had to be a special one (especially being a Saturday night). We started with a few drinking games in the hostel bar - joined by Shelby and Lesley, the Canadian girls from the other night, as well as a selection of good friends from the hostel, including Ben, Andie, Vidtoria, Gustavo, Stephan, Paddy and Leandro, amongst others. We headed to town and joined up on an organised pub crawl - which sounds a lot tackier than it actually was! Went to about four bars and ended up at a club called Sunset, down at the waterside. We hooked up with a group of American girls on the pub crawl and partied well into the morning. I managed to make it down to breakfast for the first time in my stay, purely because I didn't get to sleep that night. I fumblingly packed my stuff and checked out of my room while I was still feeling tipsy, forgetting to have a shower before locking my bag in the safe room. This would prove to be a serious oversight.

Andie, one of the girls from Kabul, let me grab a brief powernap in her bed that afternoon while she went out shopping, but I didn't manage more than an hour and a half...

Sunday developed into a peaceful last day of chilling in the sunshine of Kabul's roof terrace and saying my goodbyes, despite gradually suffering more and more for the night before. When Scott and I finally left for the station at about 8.30pm and were waived off by a big table full of friends it felt like leaving a new found family behind. I'm going to miss that place.

Was excited about bunking down in the sleeper car of my train last night, but I do feel sorry for the people I shared it with. I wonder if they'll let me have that shower now...