Okay, it meant other things as well. For one, we were leaving the Basque Country and heading back to Cantabria (those are two autonomous communities, kind of like our states, within Spain), so no more signs with words written in Basque and unfriendly Basque people :) Also, it ended up meaning that we were actually going to get some sunlight on our trip!
See? Sunlight!
Santander is located right on this huge inlet/bay that you can see snippets of on the left side of the image above, so naturally it's a port city. In addition to shipping, banking is super big in Santander. In fact, one of the main banks in Spain (and coincidentally one of the ones that didn't charge me frustrating transaction fees, or at least claimed that they wouldn't) is named "Santander."
Santander is also along one of the routes of the Camino de Santiago (a really famous pilgrimage route that we learned about in our Tres Culturas class). The remains were found during a time when most of Spain was under Muslim rule, so many scholars say that the remains in the tomb probably don't belong to James but rather were claimed as such in order to encourage pilgrimage, which would spur moral support in the midst of trying circumstances. All that to say, if we had wanted to go on a pilgrimage, we could have. On the flip-side, if we had just wanted to get out of Santander, we would've known right where to go; the sign on the right designates it perfectly.
One more interesting thing about Santander for those who were on SIS: there was a huge fire there in 1941 known as "The Andalusian." Why? Because it started on Calle Cadiz and ended on Calle Sevilla (great time for one of those Inception watch-slowing-down moments...)!
Since it was sunny, it made a lot of sense for us to go to the beach. First, however, we found our hostel, helped a British (if I remember correctly) man with his computer problems, and made a stop at the Russian store right next to our hostel (go figure - Russians are everywhere!). In the image above you can see a picture of my favorite Russian drink: березовый сок (birch juice). It's really good, promise. Ask Tori and Michelle; they'll tell you! This brand was pretty good, but I got to try some that my cousins actually collected from birch trees and bottled themselves when we visited Belarus eight or so years back. So good! Oh yeah, and there's one of the water bottles we had to pay €1.50 for at the Chinese restaurant in San Sebastián. We made sure to get our money's worth out of the bottles by continually refilling them. We are, after all, frugal college students.
Above on the left is the Palacio de la Magdalena (Palace of the Spongecake). I have no idea why it's called that. Then a lonely lighthouse, some green grass, urban rock-climbing, a lawn you're not allowed to play fútbol on, a Biscayan wave (the body of water that nestles itself into the corner formed by Spain and France is called the Bay of Biscay), and an epic UNO session. Due to the weather, we ended up playing a lot of UNO on our trip. But not just regular UNO, because that's boring. We were playing UNO EXTREMO. Four times the speed, four times the fun, fourever.
Here's a little marina we passed on our way back.
#artsyshot
After an afternoon and evening of walking around, it was time for some eatingzzzz. Well, much to our dismay, the bus station bakery was closed. So we called the manager, asked for her permission to bake croissants for ourselves, and proceeded to do so (as you can see on the right).
The other possible explanation is that the pictures on the right are from breakfast the following morning :)
After breakfast, we did more sight-seeing, which included finding a cozy little shop that sold tea and coffee. Tyson, you would've loved this place.
Oh, yeah, that big arch building is a bank (just to confirm my previous assertions about Santander's economy).
We had a little extra time on our hands, so we bought spray paint and went to town.
The University of Cantabria. See that zig-zaggy-lookin' path right by the road? From where we stood, we couldn't figure out whether it was all at a constant lope and just zig-zagged, or if it was flat-sloped-flat-sloped-flat. What do you think? We found out when we got down, but I'm not gonna tell you :)
And then we made one final beach visit! Great weather, huh? Well, it lasted for fifteen minutes, and then the rain broke out again. Wooo. Partay.
Hahaha, well that's a wrap for our trip up to Bilbao, San Sebastián, and Santander. I've definitely enjoyed reminiscing about this trip, so I hope you've enjoyed reading about it!
Until next time! Tsa luego!
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