Spanish and Surfing in San Sebastian
Wednesday, 11th March 2009
Language holidays provide a fun and informal learning environment and can be coupled with fantastic activities, such as surfing. Cactus' Alex Wolfson tells us about the beautiful Basque getaway of San Sebastian and the vast array of attractions that it holds.
Something all the students agreed on, at around 1 am in a Costa Rican bar right at the end of my Spanish and Surfing course with Cactus in Jaco Beach, was that we had to all meet up again. All of us - me, Danielle, Andy, Christine, Jessica and Jon. We clinked bottles of Imperial beer and agreed we must get together somewhere in Europe during the summer.
Fast forward 6 months and I think I did pretty well to get Jon and Danielle over to San Sebastian in September, the very best month of the year for surfing. They were taking Spanish courses in San Sebastian of 8 and 4 weeks respectively but I didn’t have time for a course. With San Sebastian just a short hop away for me I found a cheap flight, booked a hostel and headed over for a long weekend.
If you asked me, “would you do a city break for a long weekend again” I’d give you a definitive no as the answer. Despite the two hour flight to Biarritz it took me around 8 hours (pretty much day 1 of my holiday) to get there and coming back was a similar story. With only a few days there, the day of rain we got made a huge difference and with such a short time, a traveller like me who prefers to see fewer places well than whistle stop tours is always going to come away thinking about what they didn’t do.
However, if you asked me “would you go back to San Sebastian” you’d get a resounding yes. Everything about it made me jealous of Jon and Danielle taking languages courses in San Sebastian – this Basque jewel of a city. What’s that? Basque? How do you learn Spanish there then? Well, Basque is the second language there and everyone has Spanish as their first language – though the people are fiercely proud of their Basque roots. I found it much easier there to practice my Spanish with locals who are a lot friendlier than those in Madrid! Several happy evenings were spent sampling delicious Pintxos, drinking beer and cider and taking and laughing with friends Jon had made over there. The city itself is beautiful, with a lovely old town, golden sanded beaches and a backdrop of the snow-capped Pyrenees. It’s also such a great size! Big enough to have a lively nightlife and vibrant culture, and small enough to be friendly and to find your way around. But best of all was the surfing! What amazing surf. A wonderful rivermouth break and a big open space leaving enough room for everyone. Jon and I had both been good surfers in Jaco, but he’d had weeks of practice every day here and he put me to shame – and he had a hangover! I still caught a few powerful, clean waves but he was almost managing to get barreled. With a little more time, I’m sure I could have given him a run for his money…probably…
My visit was almost over as soon as it began and all I’d done was walk around town, surf, eat some pintxos, go to some bars, done a bit of shopping and spoken some Spanish in San Sebastian when it was time to say goodbye.
Of course, it was great to catch up with my surf buddies from my Spanish and Surfing course, and great to see them learning Spanish in San Sebastian, but it really felt like such a rushed trip. When you go to this great city, take a little more time out to really connect with it – and then a few days of rain where you can take cover for a few hours in a pintxo bar and not feel like you’re wasting your surf trip.
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Tags: spanish, culture, learning, languages, language, course, surfing
Posted by Laura Harrison under Experience Cultures,
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