San Sebastian

San Sebastian was the main focus of my trip and Saturday was supposed to be a full day a relaxation since that was the only day of my five days off in which I wasn't travelling. Unfortunately, it started raining at about 2 AM on Saturday morning and still hadn't fully stopped by the time I left on the train for Madrid on Sunday. It was mostly a drizzle, as compared to real rain, but it was enough (and with enough cloud cover) to turn it into a dreary day.

Besides the rain, San Sebastian was beautiful and would be a great place to go back to, as long as it didn't take so long to get there. My trip started on Wednesday when I left Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo and headed down to Skopje, Macedonia. I spent the night there and then flew out Thursday afternoon, first to Budapest, then on to Madrid. My flight was delayed a little bit, so I landed late in Madrid and didn't get to my hotel until just after midnight. Me being me, I checked in to the hotel and then headed right back out to find something to eat and drink. Friday I got up early and then made the hour trek by subway to the train station for my 6.5 hour ride to San Sebastian. I took a different train back on Sunday, so the return trip was only 5.5 hours, but still that was too long to spend on the train. My flight back from Madrid started at 8:30 Monday morning and what was supposed to be an hour and a half layover in Budapest turned into 3 and half hours. I really don't mind long layovers when I'm flying as long as I know about them before hand so I can be ready to find something to do with that time. I am not a fan of surprise layovers.

Lesson learned: If you only have 5 days of vacation time, do not spend 4 of those days travelling to and from wherever it is you're going.

Other than the getting to and getting from, I had a great time in all the places I stayed and plan on going back. But I'll be in Skopje (an hour and a half drive in bad traffic) sooner and more frequently than I'll be in San Sebastian.