A French-filled day!

For about the third time this week, I woke up before 9am, which is a new record for me in my Spanish life! My friend, Esther, and I wanted to wake up early to head to France to buy some tickets to go to PARIS next weekend! Esther is from California and is working over here for two years, so we have become great friends! We made it to France by 11am, bought the tickets and had some time to kill before I had to head to work, so decided to explore.

The train station is in Hendaye - the French town directly across the river from Hondarribia, where I work. I have posted some photos of France from Hondarribia but had never really spent any time in the actual town I was taking pictures of! Well Esther and I wandered around until I remembered that you could take a boat shuttle from Hendaye to Hondarribia and so we set off to look for that! On the way, we stumbled into St. Vincent's church, a few clothes shops and a lot of French people! We stopped along the way to ask an old man if he knew the direction the boats. It's always a little struggle when you are in France because you don't know if they speak better Spanish or English, or either ha! This man spoke Spanish and gave us directions but it was obvious we still had no clue, soooo he told us he would walk us in the correct directon. In the end, he ended up walking us to a free bus, telling the bus driver where we wanted to go and sending us on our way. So nice!

We made it to the port and caught the boat for a mere 1.60€ and were floating across the Bidasoa River and in a few minutes were in Spain! Still is a little surreal to me that it's that easy to go between the two countries. In Hondarribia, we walked around, acting like tourists eventhough I spend half my life in the town ha. We stopped off and had an iced coffee and people-watched. My favorite people to watch are the old Basque men. They all dress like this - thier slacks, a cardigan and thier special Basque hats. Because they no longer work, they hang out all day in the streets or in bars. They sell the Basque hats in the tourist shops, and I am always tempted to buy one hahaha, but I guess it just wouldn't look the same on little old me.

After our coffee I had to head off to work - a lot of classes today, but crazy that it's winding down so quickly. Only a few more weeks and school is over! Next weekend is the Paris trip and I am SO excited to fit in one more voyage before I cross the pond to come home. You can expect great photos and stories when I get back, but until then, I think I will just work on soaking up the rays (with sun tan lotion - don't worry Grammy!) at the beach over the weekend, as the weather is supposed to be sunny! Let's hope it's true! I hope you all have fun weekends in the works as well!

Besos!

Amanda