El Torreón

San Sebastian has been amazing! The hostel is by far the nicest, and probably biggest, one I’ve stayed in by far. It feels like it is super empty right now though and nobody really hangs out here. I decided I wanted to be social anyway, so I did some research and found an app called Couchsurfing - it’s primarily used for self explanatory reasons, but there is also a section for just finding other travellers to hang out with. I made a profile and found a group that was getting drinks in the city, I decided to just go for it and join them and ended up having an amazing time! There was a Venezuelan guy who moved here several years ago, a Dutch girl, and a girl who was also from the Chicago burbs but has lived in Paris for the last few years. The coincidences didn’t stop: she went to northwestern, and not only were we staying in the same hostel, but in the same dorm. Crazy! We had a blast and were out super late. Today I met up with the girls (the guy who lives here had work) to take a funicular up to one of the mountains, and we got some unreal views. This city is so, so beautiful and there are not many tourists at all. I’ve only found a couple of Americans at the hostel and only one out and about. Very little English is spoken, so I’m using Spanish a lot which is great. I’ve been really happy with how much I am able to converse with people casually in Spanish.Read more