Viva Espana!

So, we left the baguettes of France to head over the Pyrenees to the Basque Country. With Rob, Emma and Jenny, we had a great night in San Sebastian, doing a bar crawl eating "pinxos" (tapas). There are many bars that serve pinxos - we chose ones that had large hams hanging up in them.

Some tips for people who are choosing to visit foreign cities:
1) Check the location of your hotel. Is it near the local football stadium?
2) Check if the local football team is playing that evening
3) If they are, try to avoid timing your arrival at the hotel 30 minutes before the match begins
4) Perhaps find out if it is an important match, such as one that would get the local team promoted from the second division to the first...
5) When the local team wins and get promoted, sit back and ejoy watching people of all ages celebrating in bars and cafes across the city.

Cantabria
So, saying au revoir to Rob, Emma, and the tapas munching baby (turns out 6 months old like calamari too), we left El Pais Vasco (Basque Country) and their love of words with the letter "x" in them and headed to Cantabria to meet Martin's brother and his family.

Unfortunately their arrival coincided with the worst flooding that area has seen for years. Great. The Stanford "very unusual weather for this time of year" curse struck again!

However, we made the most of it, going to a (partially flooded) zoo to meet a parrot who said "Hola", visiting beautiful medieval villages, and eating nice food (mostly - did manage to have the worst meal out in our year away).

Luckily the weather perked up so - vamos a la playa! Yes, we got to the beach! Our first true sunshine and beach since Australia. It was a bit of a novelty to be able to go in the sea without fearing you'd be attacked by the crocodile riding a shark waving a jelly fish monster.

What next? Well, we thought we should actually achieve something on this year out... so, we're now in the Castilla y Leon region (our third in Spain so far!) in the AMAZING old city of Salamanca on a Spanish course.

Things we have done:

• had the shock of going back to school but on a Spanish timetable ie lessons from 10-14.00
• get used to living the Spanish way as we opted for the "stay with a Spanish person" accommodation. This means sweet stuff for breakfast, large lunch at 2.30 (!!!), siesta (everything closes from 2 - 5), then light dinner at...9...!!!
• wandered round the city last night when Spain was playing Honduras. It's ragingly hot here, so all the plazas (squares) have tables and chairs outside. Last night these were all facing the same way - towards tv screens, either in the bar windows or hooked up outside. It was pretty cool - lots of flags, lots of dressing up... and when Spain scored their two goals, lots of singing of "Viva Espana!".
• a guided tour (in Spanish!) of the city. We cannot tell you enough how beautiful it is - if you like history, if you like lovely buildings and shady gardens and tiny squares with cafes on, this is the place for you...

The other BIG and important thing is that we have met a cat more annoying than Kit and Nicky's. We thought Ripley was noisy with her constant squawking at you but the lady we are staying with, Marie Sol, has a cat called Buffy. This animal LIES IN WAIT so that when you get up in the morning she hears and stands outside your door squawking. This racket continues until you feed her.

Oh, and Marie Sol is convinced Martin needs double the amount of food I eat so he is on BIG portions. She's very tiny, sweet and energetic and so Spanish.

LOVE IT OUT HERE!