Week 2: San Sebastian - My Body’s Full of Salt Water and Cider
Wellllcommeee back fellow blog readers! Tuning into this week’s recap of San Sebastian we will be covering the following: chucking balls against a wall, getting swallowed by surf waves, revisiting the good ol’ Michigan fall season (cider), celebrating a grad party, and art! I know you have all been long-awaiting this week’s blog, so let’s get into it.
Academics This was the last week of our courses before we start our research next week. We talked a lot about data collection and analysis, as well as literature review and how to write a research paper. I actually enjoyed the research assignment they gave us, as I was able to do a deeper literature dive into topics that I do research on in my Neuromuscular Lab back at Michigan. Overall this whole course experience was really enjoyable, and I learned a lot more about how impactful research can be for different parts of the world. As I talked about in my last blog with the Mubil facility, catering research towards a specific region was what I was really interested in learning more about, and I was glad to see it being applied here.
This is a picture of the Tecnun cafeteria food that we received while taking courses here! It is a two course meal, with bread and yogurt as well.
Transportation and Housing
Okay time to talk about the nitty gritty details of the housing situation and how I even get around! To begin, we are situated in a dormitory-like living situation called “La Livensa Living Studios” where a lot of Tecnun students live off campus. These Living Studios are also open to the general public, sort of like a hotel situation, where people can stay for just a couple of nights, rather than a semester like us. Our rooms came with a full bed, desk, kitchen, and own bathroom (yeah it’s really nice). It’s like your own private suite, and I really enjoy that it is close to a couple of smaller grocery stores and restaurants as well. The walk to the main Tecnun campus is a little less than 15 minutes, and the only bad thing about this location is that it is a 40 minute bus ride from the Miramon campus, where I will be conducting my research. Livensa is also like a 20 minute bus ride from the beach, and a 15 minute bus ride or 20 minute walk to “Super Amara”, a large grocery store here in San Sebastian where I do my shopping. Overall, I have nothing to complain about for this location, and it is evident that bus transportation and walking is a big part of the culture here in San Sebastian in order to get around the smaller city.
Side Quests
Starting off this week strong, I had to make sure that I didn’t spend my money every night eating out, so I decided to go to the grocery store and get some groceries. It’s honestly like your typical grocery store, but what stood out to me the most was that there was a fresh orange juice squeezer! You could literally squeeze your own fresh orange juice, and I thought that was pretty cool.
On Wednesday, I thought we were going to watch a Basque pelota match being played, but instead was excited to find out WE would be playing the match ourselves! We got a tour of the main Basque pelota facility, and then it was free time from there. They taught us about the different kinds of balls and playing styles, where you can either hit the ball with your hand, a basket, or a wooden bat. They first made us try to throw the ball from one end of the court to the other, to really put into perspective how long the court was. Only a couple of people were able to do it, and then we were split into groups to practice both hitting the ball with our hand and the basket. I was actually able to get my serve to be quite good! I just struggled a lot with returning the ball for the second hit. It was so fun to play. I had wished that I played it at an earlier age, I would be sooooo good at it now.
I’m all fitted up here for Basque pelota! The La Chistera (basket) is curved in a way that allows the Basque pelota ball to enter from one end by my hand, and exit from the other end.
The University of Michigan students with the Penn State students playing Basque pelota.
So I knew that surfing was going to be hard, but I didn’t know that also included getting filled with so much salt water that my eyes, throat, and ears would burn. Honestly, a 1000000/10 experience and would do it again! On a serious note, I never thought I’d have the opportunity to surf on a coastal city in Spain EVER, so this was definitely an amazing experience. I tried to prepare with a YouTube video, but I don’t think any additional content could have saved me. I just thought that I’d be SLIGHTLY better considering I skate back home, and have decent balance. I was only able to stand on the board for like 0.0001 seconds, but honestly I am impressed I even got up to begin with. There was one wave that came in that completely wiped me out, and after a mouthful of salt water, I decided I would try to surf again at some point on calmer waves. People make it look soooo easy, but when you’re zipping down at a rapid speed on top of the water, all you can think is “don’t fall off. don’t fall off. don’t fall off.”
A picture of a bunch of really good surfers.
After surfing, the countdown began for when we would be going to the cider house at Txinparta, where we had the Basque experience of getting cider straight from the barrel. We learned the traditional way of receiving the cider, which is starting from the bottom, and swooping the cup up towards the top. This wasn’t the best part of the experience though, because the food was absolutely AMAZING. Like genuinely best meat ever even if it did still look alive (it was super super red). We ended that night with clubbing at the beach club again, where we celebrated the Tecnun graduates and hung out with our peer mentors, ending our second week at San Sebastian. At the club, we met another group of people from the United States that were speaking English, but it turned out that they actually attended Tecnun last semester. It was nice to see that people from all over the world were coming to this University to learn, and nice to talk about how their experience has been living in San Sebastian.
Naythan and I received the cider from the cider house in the traditional Basque way (picture by Ninjin Dashpurev).
Really really really raw steak (it was delicious) at the cider house.
To make the most of our weekend before research began, we also decided to take a day trip to Bilbao where we saw the Guggenheim museum! Going into it, I didn’t know what to expect as I was going in blind, but there was so much to do and see, and they even had some interactive elements for people that may not enjoy just looking at art. I don’t want to spoil toooo much about what it had, so I’m going to keep relatively quiet on its contents for you to find out. Since we went on a Sunday, a lot of the shops were still closed, and there wasn’t the best weather for doing much, but I can say that they had really good food and pastries here for only 3-7 euros. Total steal, highly recommend coming here, but overall San Sebastian has my heart more, just because I tend to gravitate towards smaller cities. (hence why I chose Michigan and Ann Arbor)
Next week we start our respective research projects, and I am actually so excited to begin, especially considering that my research coordinator reached out to me about an additional project, due to my skill set at my lab back in Michigan. I am doing research with NMR machines, but now also with neuromuscular activity. More updates to come with this! Anyways, that’s all from me for now! Thank you for tuning into my second week recap of San Sebastian!
My friends and I were lazy and did not want to cook dinner so we got Pintxos at La Vina instead! (they have the BEST Basque cheesecake, which you can see in the photo above)
I love a good sunset, and here at San Sebastian there are no shortages of them, especially on the beach.
Friends and I celebrated Pintxo Pote on Thursday part TWO!
An outside view of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain.