On Egin!

That's "cheers" in the Basque language.

We've been in San Sebastian, Spain since Thursday. During our flight, we figured out that it's our ninth trip to Spain.

We kind of expected it to be a good trip, but it has totally exceeded our expectations. San Sebastian is a really, REALLY nice place to spend a long weekend, and we hope to return again in the not-too-distant future.

What have we done so far?

We hired a local guide named Iñaki who showed us around San Sebastian. He told us about the history, but (more importantly) he also brought us around to many of his favorite pintxos (the Basque word for tapas) bars where we proceeded to gladly sample all of the best San Sebastian has to offer.

Hey...don't worry. We've also eaten some good sit-down meals too. We ate at Mugaritz on Thursday night, and Arzak (five Michelin stars between them) last night. We even had our picture taken with (and touched) Elena Arzak. Both she and her father were incredibly nice.

"We're not worthy! WE'RE NOT WORTHY!!!!"

On Friday, we took a day-trip to Bilbao. Exactly 1 hour 10 minutes by bus from San Sebastian, Bilbao is famous for the Frank Gehry designed Guggenheim Museum. I slapped on the SPF-15, and we walked around Bilbao for hours. While at the museum, Jo Ann was chased by a man-eating spider, and I was engulfed by some man-made fog. However, we both lived to tell the tale.

We'll be heading back to Basel tomorrow afternoon. I've taken a bunch of photos, and I'll post a link to them all after we're back home again...counting our calories.