Santander, Spain

After over 8 months living in Spain, it started to wear on me that I had yet to travel anywhere(without counting my 5 day trip back to the States the end of October). I had always been talking about travelling with another teacher, Nikki. So one week, I was sitting in the teacher’s lounge and looked at her and said, “Dude, we are booking the cheapest flight we can find for one of the following weekends!” She enthusiastically laughed and said “Alright, let’s do it!” We met up that Sunday after lunch and went to her place to search airlines. The cheapest flights around Europe can be found on easyjet.com, ryanair.com or vueling.com. During January, most of these sites had great offers as most people didn’t travel right after the holidays. We discussed where both of us had already travelled in the past because we both wanted to go someplace new. Furthermore, we didn’t want to spend a ridiculous amount of money. From another teacher’s idea, I suggested arriving to our destination early on a Saturday, sightseeing and shopping all day, having a long dinner and partying all night. After all that, then we would head straight to the airport for the earliest flight back to Madrid. My reasoning was, hey- we’re young and energetic; then we don’t have to spend money on a hostel. Nikki was skeptically feeling my optimism and agreed to the idea. As we looked, we finally decided on Santander in Northern Spain. We felt that other European cities would require more time and money than we had. Plus, Santander isn’t really a hot tourist destination. So if our plans of doing a 24 hours trip bombed terribly, then we wouldn’t feel like it was a complete waste. Santander looked nice enough but not that fantastic that we would ever feel like going again. With our minds made up, we booked the trip for 2 weeks later.

We told all our friends and family about what we had dubbed “Our Grand Aventura.” No one else shared our optimism and told us we had to be certifiably insane to go 24 hours straight. We shrugged off their comments as the anticipation grew for our trip. Luckily, Nikki’s roommate was from Santander so she made us a list of things we had to see. We did a little research online for maps and transportation. By Friday, we were all smiles for the next morning. However, Nikki didn’t get done with classes till after 9pm on Fridays. Afterwards she still needed to run home, eat dinner and shower. Because our flight left at 7am, we agreed that it would be easier for her to sleep at my place as we would have to wake up at 4:00 and public transportation didn’t start that early. One of our administrators, Cat told me about this bus service that picked you up at your door anytime to take you to the airport for a lot cheaper than a regular taxi. So we had our pick-up a 4:30. Well, Nikki didn’t get to my place till after midnight. Not exactly the way you want to start off a 24 hour ‘aventura’. 4 o’clock came ever so quickly but we got up with a jump. Nothing was stopping us now!

We arrived in Santander by 8 in the morning. We caught the city bus to the city-center as we laughed with a wide-eyed anticipation. Dawn had yet to arrive and none of the coffee shops were open just yet. Nikki and I didn’t waste a second. We immediately found the main street and hit the main Cathedral first. Next, was a cute little fish market that had just been set up by the vendors. After that was the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall). In less than an hour we had already marked 3 things off our list. Daylight had finally arrived so we decided it was time for our first coffee and some breakfast. We asked some people where we could find the tourist office and set off to get an actual city map. Right away we were met by a morning rain shower as we found the tourist office didn’t open till 10. We walked around the ‘jardines’ and near the docks, umbrellas in hand, as we waited.

10 o’clock arrived and we got all the information we needed for the day. We decided the best approach would be to start from left to right. So we back tracked a little to hit some of the things we had missed. We stopped at every interesting church, house, market and monument in the center of Santander. We stopped a little after noon for another coffee and little snack. Then we decided to reward our high-spirits with a little shopping. When we had reached the furthest left point of the city, we walked back towards the center to find lunch. Well, we found this neat little indoor market/ bakery where we bought this absolutely AMAZING cheese. We bought a huge chunk and later some bread which more than made a great lunch for us. Nikki and I had made it back to the center and sat in one of the main plazas to watch the locals and plan the next part of our trip. After our little ‘descanso’, we went to a few more sites and then continued to the right side of the city which was planned to be the best part: the beaches. We walked leisurely along the bay watching the boats sail by. Finally at around 4pm we made it to the Peninsula de la Magdalena. We knew after about 10 minutes of walking next to the sea that this trip was well worth anything we would go through in the next 12 hours that followed. Our spirits still soaring and fatigue still being kept at bay, we skipped along the beaches collecting shells, posing for photos and sat in amazement of the absolute beauty of this city.

The beaches slowly turned into lush green grasses as we followed the upward trails towards the Summer Palace built on the impressive cliffs of the sea. Being a weekend in Spain, all the large tourist attractions closed their doors to the public by 2 in the afternoon. But Nikki and I weren’t disappointed in the least as our eyes had plenty to fixate on. Following the trails around the peninsula we saw old armada ships and an outdoor zoo whose only inhabitants left during the cold winter were walruses and penguins. We continued until we found ourselves on the other side of the peninsula and dusk finally approaching the coast. We ventured into the darkness onto El Paseo de Reina Victoria where the most luxurious houses in Santander can be found. Previously, we had stopped to buy some postcards from the cutest little vendor and asked him for a ‘native’ place to sample some delicious Santanderian cuisine. With his recommendations in hand, we took off to find us dinner. Unfortunately, the vendor’s favorite restaurant was closed for vacations (a very typical reason in Spain as most entrepreneurs take vacations whenever the mood strikes them). So we found another local pub to have a quick ‘cana’ and some rabas (fried octopus pieces). We walked around some more looking for our next destination as the first real signs fatigue reared their ugly head. Not really interested in waiting for a table, we stopped at a little Mexican restaurant we had come across earlier in the day. Nikki and I shared a plate of loaded nachos as we reviewed the last 16 hours and other typical girl talk.

After a heavy dinner, tire pains really hit us hard. We found a few local bars to sit back in as we shared a bottle of vodka and coffees. A fabulous mixture! Haha. The weather itself was quite pleasant (ranging from probably 15 degrees C/ 50 degrees F) but being outside for going on 18 hours, Nikki and I just couldn’t seem to retain any body heat. Feeling our breaking point approaching, we kept our fingers crossed that the bus station would keep its doors open throughout the night so we could find a corner to snuggle next to and take a nap until our bus arrived 5 hours later. No such luck. So we sat huddled together outside the station, cursing those walking around in light jackets as we sat shivering in our coats, gloves, hats and scarves. When I hit my point of no return, I pleaded Nikki for us to walk around and perhaps find some café still open at 3 am where I could regain feeling in the fingers. All we found was an indoor ATM that gave us an opportunity to get out of the wind and sit comfortably for awhile. Feeling a bit better, the two of us gathered our strength and took one last stroll of the city trying to remember those ‘this is going to be SO worth it’ feelings we had just hours before.

Finally around 5 am we went back to the station that finally opened their doors where we waited in silence/ half asleep for our bus to take us to the airport. Once there, we each found a bench and set our alarm for a 45 minute cat-nap until it was boarding time. At this point, thoughts of looking ridiculous to other travelers were the last things on our mind. As we took our seats on the plane, neither of us spoke a word as we both were asleep before the flight attendants could even start their safety speeches. In no time, we were back in Madrid utterly aghast at what we had just ‘accomplished’. We sat on the metro, too tired to speak until we just turned, looked at each other and let out a small chuckle as we both shook our heads in disbelief. “Well that was interesting!” Nikki said as we parted ways to our different metro lines. I smiled as we said goodbye and went straight home to the comfort of my bed where I stayed until I had to go to work the next morning. Nikki and I saw each other later the next day as one of our colleagues came to us and asked jokingly how our trip had been. We looked at each other with devious smiles and both said, “It really was an Aventura!”