Last day in San Sebastian

We wondered if we had made a mistake staying 2 more nights, moving to the Adore Plaza in Constitution Square. Now we're glad we did. We have a great room overlooking the square. Saturday night in the square there were giant 10 foot puppet costume thingies, a man and a woman, marching bands, celebrating soccer fans and everything else. We went into the old cathedral yesterday morning which was beautiful. Anita had never seen statues showing Jesus being taken down from the cross. We also stopped in front of Skunk THC shop where you can buy about 50 different varieties of cannabis seeds and other paraphernalia. I should have stopped in here about 40 years ago. From 6 pm to 8 pm a loudspeaker system and music was set up. The local Basques arrived, put all their purses and jackets in the middle of a circle and then danced. They seemed to know all these Basque folk dances. It was like a big circular square/line dance. Lots of tourists joined in, including us on our balcony. There's also some custom of costumes with a few men in dresses and a few women dressed up with fake wigs etc. One had a fairly large penis (by my standards) attached to the front of her dress. We're not sure what this means.

The weather has been hazy and mid to upper 20s since we arrived but yesterday afternoon and this afternoon was a little sunnier so we went to the beach both days. It's quite crowded at one end but at the other it's empty. It's a huge beach right in town and for some reason most people cluster together near one end. I guess they like the company. We had no problem finding a quieter place to be.

This morning we climbed the mountain that used to be the old fort. It's very cool and very good views of town. There's a little museum and a chapel right on top. We thought it would be too much of a climb but it was fine, even in flip-flops.

Before we came here, we knew only one Basque person, Zack's friend Aneko who has stayed at our house. He's a very cool dude. Now we know a little more where he comes from. This is a very cool place where they're very proud of their culture and seem to take the attitude that they are governed by Spain due to some mistake of history and they're not too happy about it. Everyone is very friendly and seem to reserve their animosity for the Spanish government.

Tomorrow we're off to Barcelona.