Parents Love Coffee

Fresh-baked pastelitos + cafe con leche (con mas leche por Mama) = happy parents

Kids Love Ice Cream

Serena with a freso helado (strawberry).

Marlowe, demolishing a txocholate (chocolate).

World Cup Fever

Spain vs. Netherlands tonight. Our apartment overlooks an Irish pub called Molly Malone, and futbol (add the accent over the "u" por favor) fans have been filing in for a few hours already. This guy, draped in a Spanish flag, is heading out to incite fans to honk as they drive by.

Interestingly, we've been noticing so much Basque pride -- from signs and menus, which are always written in Euskara, the Basque language, first and Spanish second, rarely French or English, to a huge Basque national parade and rally last night that passed our apartment -- that we weren't sure if people would freely support Spain as it vies for the World Cup title.

Obviously, they do. I wonder if they'll loot and be crazy like in LA when the Lakers win or if the European sophistication that we've seen so far will override the soccer hooligan-ism...

Men of San Sebastian

This guy's taking care of business in the front, but partyin' in the back. The other one is the #1 entry in Marlowe's just-started list titled "Hairy Dudes in Speedo's" in her European journal... and already he's not the last.

Sparkling San Sebastian

This is what San Sebastian looked like to us within the first hour of arriving... Magnificent.

And if it's this pretty at 5:30 pm, then what will it be like to spend the entire day on the beach, under one of those blue-and-white striped canopies, with my feet in the brown sugar sand?

This is the crescent-shaped bay beach, Playa La Concha, that is a half-block from our apartment on Calle de San Martin (add the accent over the "i" for me, I'm too lazy to look it up, and say it like "San Mar-TEEN" for a little Basque flavor). It was gloriously sunny when we arrived yesterday afternoon and the sweet half-moon beach is bordered by two small mountains and a tiny island in the middle. There are swimming platforms several yards from the shore, so you can swim up and dive or slide down the water slide into the bay. The water is crystal clear and there's a promenade that you can stroll for the entire two miles around the bay, from Monte Igueldo to the aquarium (near the statue of Christ on the hill, which reminds us of the famous hilltop statue in Rio) in the Old Town.

If you're like our good friend Habanakane, you can enlarge the images and try to find nude sunbathers, sort of a "Where's Waldo?," the European version. Trust me, though, for every perky and natural non-enhanced tanned set of young girl's breasts, there are three pairs of droopy, saggy, leather-like boobs swinging from ladies older than your grandma. But it's all good. The thing is, it's normal. Raf and I noticed one really pretty 20-something Spanish girl who was topless and just walking along the beach with three friends (two guys and a bikini-clad girl), comparing the tan on her arms with the guy next to her, no weird sexual vibe at all. Just a girl walking topless on a public beach with friends, that's all. So far, we haven't seen any Botox or big silicone boobs or California blonde hair. I wonder if that's the main difference between Americans and Europeans: an acceptance of bodies as normal.

We'll see today... I may join the locals and do as they do, getting an all-over tan. If I'm real good, I'll talk Raf into a Speedo...

The Sunday Morning Crawl

Woke up too early and have been hanging around the apartment with the kids, figuring out jet lag. When we opened the balcony door, this is what we saw: a parade of young partiers making their way home after a Saturday night. Oh yeah, it's 7 am.

Marlowe to Raf: Are they just going home? When did they sleep?

Raf: They'll sleep on the beach today.

Toto, we're not in the Oaks anymore.

A 10-hour flight with kids, an "after" and "before" story

These were taken en route to Bilbao, Spain, the second leg of our European journey.

For comparison's sake, this was taken before... Before the limo ride from our house to LAX. Before the 2 and a half hour wait for our flight to Paris. Before I watched the first 20 minutes of "Nine" twice and then heard that the audio/video would be shut down for the entire flight. Before the lady next to me moved the arm rest out of the way and may as well have sat *on* me rather than next to me. Before yet another of my kids' iTouches came in fatal contact with water, its dreaded villain. Before our family's near meltdown at the currency exchange at Paris' Charles de Gaulle airport, due to no ice cream stands and the adversarial relationship that the French seem to have with both air conditioning and ice. Before I discovered the reason we hadn't gotten our luggage from the carousel was, heck, we were in the wrong place... no wonder everyone else was gone. Before we realized that it was a good thing I only packed two suitcases because apparently they don't rent Suburbans in Europe (their version is an Audi 4-door with manual transmission). Before we drove an hour through Spain and fell in love with the green countryside. Before we landed at our pretty apartment in San Sebastian, with views of the beautiful bay-like beach, saw a few topless sunbathers , an orange striped banana hammock, and a parade or rally for something or another. Before our kids insisted that we go back to the apartment at 9:30 at night to get bathing suits because the sun was still setting and the waves were warm and the lights illuminating the surrounding boardwalk came on and made the whole city appear to be magically bejeweled.

Basically, before we fell in love with San Sebastian and decided that yeah, we could do that 10-hour flight and 2-hour connection to Bilbao again, if it meant we could be here.