It was probably not the best idea ever to bring an 8-year-old American child on a European walking holiday. We manage 10-12 km a day but then she gets tired and wants to go home.
On the positive side, San Sebastián is peppered with playgrounds. There’s a playground every couple of blocks.
Also, we saw a Palestinian flag on a Catholic church, which is one of the most ludicrous things I have seen on this trip. What else can possibly be in the running? you’ll ask. Well, today the waves are big and the tide has started to come in. Everybody who wants to swim and not surf is relegated by the lifeguards to the smallest stretch of the beach next to enormous green boulders. An older gentleman planted himself in that spot, stripped naked and strutted around. Every once in a while, he’d wrap himself in a towel, then strip off again, and so on. A resigned elderly wife picked up the towel whenever the old dude dropped it.
These aren’t homeless people. These are very well-groomed, well-heeled tourists. Their eccentricity isn’t completely out of place but one doesn’t necessarily want that around one’s child.
Clarissa's Blog 
With our daughter, on visits to her grandparents which involved walking 3km down a steep hill and back again to get to the boardwalk, we used to call it “going for a carry”
Fortunately we are built along amazonian lines, and she is more normal-to-small sized, so it was fine. We got a spot work out, and she got a break from all the walking around.
Now if we walked downhill to the other side of town, with the big playground with the nearly-life-sized wooden pirate ship, well. She had more energy than a bundle of jack russell terriers at a squirrel party.
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“an 8-year-old American child”
How is she dealing with Europe in general? And the language? Didn’t she used to hate Spanish?
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She’s ignoring Spanish speakers very effectively. 🙂
One thing that charmed her completely are the pigeons. N and I grew up with pigeons, and we didn’t realize she’s only seen them on TV. The absolute delight she experienced watching and feeding the pigeons was mega cute.
She hasn’t accepted any Spanish food, though. We even had to go to McDonald’s once because she hated everything else.
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“charmed her completely are the pigeons”
aka dirty rat birds…
The city birds I like are magpies (sroki) which are among the most intelligent birds and very, very strange. Once I learned to pay attention to them they are always up to stuff and generally hilarious.
They don’t really like to approach people, even for food, but such weirdos….
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Don’t want to think about that guy’s sunburn. 🤮
Was this a work trip you extended into a family holiday? Can’t imagine going to Madrid at start of horny British holiday season w/ 2 people who have food sensitivities, one of whom is a child w/ a 19:30 bedtime, otherwise.
Little surprised she wouldn’t try any Iberico ham so far and went for McDonald’s. Was it familiar enough she didn’t balk and unprocessed enough it didn’t bother her? Was N even able to eat it?
[At the airport I saw the ham store, and was like (“Dude) have the ham for lunch!” (Dude) had Starbucks. Alas.]
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I’m giving talks every other day. Once, twice a day. And the conference I’m here to attend hasn’t even started yet. So there’s work. But it’s very restful, too, because San Sebastián is such a boutique little place.
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(observing with keen interest, waiting for the day we can take our own kids to the places we went before they were born…)
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