spain again

we drove from hossegor all the way to mundaka. Mundaka was flat and a little bit of a scary city. so we decided to drive on. we found a cute little town and cute little hotel run by the cutest little lady. we stayed right on the beach in baiko. we went for a swim and drank some beers at the local little bars. I exchanged an American dollar for a euro ,with a local who was heading to costa rica and said it was the closest she will have been to the USA. we made it back to our hotel, for the most expensive and least satisfying meal of our entire trip. I miss france's food. everything i order and laurie ordered in france was amazing. Spain has been not so good and i am not sure why.

we woke up checked out the surf and then drove onward west. we stopped and surfed a great spot called lineres. i stayed with the car, and met the locals but laurie surfed her heart out. she caught some great lefts at a rivermouth. the Spaniards would cheer her on. I talked with the life guards and drank coffee with a referee for the world surf circuit.

we stayed at a local camping and hotel spot that caused us to have one of the most uncomfortable events of our trip. we wanted to put our boards in our room, but this old man said we needed to put them in this market room. no one spoke english and our spanish was failing. we kept asking him if people came in this room and he had put our boards about five feet up on this little shelf. i could not stomach getting another ding, since my board has been beaten so bad already. we ended up sneaking the boards out of the room and up to our hotel room.
we then were accosted by him when sitting down to dinner in the bar. he grabbed my arm , and in my face was yelling at me and i said no thank you, no thank you, until i gave him a manimal look and said" no mas" "no me gusta "and gave him a little shove. i had to show the machismo. we then walked in the rain away from the bar to another to find dinner. the food at both places was yucky. we miss france. laurie ordered a hamburger and got a ham burger, she is sick of ham so this did not work.

in the morning we woke up early and jetted, we did not want to run into this old man, who we found out was the crazy dad of the owner of the hotel.

we checked out the spot we surfed the day before but it did not look very good , so we drove onward. the weather had turned for the bad and we decided to just make it to a city and hunker down for the night. we stayed in gijon at a hotel above a sideria. we walked around town trying to find a laundry place, since i was now out of all clothes. i had been asking laurie to do laundry since france. it was now 5 days later. we found out that it was a holiday and nothing would be opened. so we decided to just walk around. we have now figured out that spain has weird eating hours. you can eat from 11 am till around 4 then everything clothes till 9 pm. this does not work so well for laurie and i. we are always hungry and order just horribly. we decide to get dinner at our hotel and watch the game later that night. we ordered nicely for once. we had paella and salads. the world cup spain game was a blast, we watched it with big crowds, and to make the night better spain won. everyone was out in the streets. gijon parties and we only saw the beginning of it. we went to bed at 1 am. we thought that we must have woke up again, cause it was so loud out. but i looked at my clock it was now 2 am. then at 4 AM, still loud, it did not get quiet till 8 am. i went for a walk at 9 30 am and saw a club letting out. people looked worked over.

we had breakfast and went off on our way. we found a cute little town called Tapia to have lunch and surf in. the waves were big and friendly,hah, you just had to get over the drop. we surfed for a good while. three men yelled cuidado when laurie went for her first wave. we then drove on.

we found a great hotel in Cediera where we stayed for two nights. the hotel reccomended a seafood bar for dinner. we drove ten minutes to the little place. we had clams, octapus, mussles, long clams, small cockels which laurie loved, and gooseneck barnacles the speicialty of the region. the food was amazing. so fresh so clean, it was the best meal we have had in spain. to top it off the bar gave us a free bottle of wine for it being our honeymoon. we went home happy, got a great night sleep in, and went surfing in the morning at a famous place called Pantin.
the surf was big ofcourse and had some nasty rips. i was happy to make it out. i was cocky and did not put on my wetsuit at first. i hit the water took about 5 steps and ran back up to the car and put on my suit. it was cold. we had a great session. we then got some lunch and headed to another spot.
at Dos Ninos beach , i walked out to find barreling nasty fast waves. laurie encouraged me on, but i know my limits. this was like zuma with a BAD ATTITUDE . i watched from the beach. no longboarders out in the water for a reason. i watched laurie just get thrown into the waves and thrashed a few times. she was getting worked and loving it. she looked like a pro out there. i think all this surfing and reading of surf biographies has changed her style. she is no more laid back , but a charging thrasher.
we got back showered and went to dinner. it was ok, we missed the bar already from the night before.
in the morning we said our goodbyes to the hotel owners and made our way to Santiago. we hiked around the city, taking in all the sites. its a very beautiful city and the church, is stunning. we went to a few museums but really just had fun walking around. we watched the world cup game in a bar and then took to the streets again. i found a restaurant that served tripe. Laurie had clams, her new favorite food. we went to bed happy and with a great view of the old city.