Biarritz

Saturday, September 4, 2010 at the butt-crack of dawn, I got up to catch a train to Biarritz (a beach town on the France-Spain border).

We got there and caught a bus to the center of town and just kind of wandered until we figured out what direction our hotel was.  The hotel was unimpressive and small, but I seriously didn’t care because it wasn’t expensive and it was a place to sleep and change in between all the fun.

After checking into our hotel, we explored the town a bit and got lunch at a Basque restaurant (Biarritz is Basque country).  The meals were fine, but the Basque cake was especially good.

Biarritz is known as a big surfing beach… when we got to the beach, the waves were so huge that none of us not-so-fabulous surfers dared to surf.  So we went to just swim or whatever. Unfortunately, the swimming zone was ridiculously small and there were like 200 people in the zone.  Little kids were running into me left and right! We were scared to body surf because we would run into/ kill people/ ourselves. I was actually scared of going under the water for fear of someone being on top of me so that I couldn’t get up.  Nevertheless, the water was AMAZING!!!

The beach was so great. I actually fell asleep on the sand for the first time ever. Then we played Frisbee on the beach, like the Americans that we are.

We went back to our hotel to change for a night out.  We got dinner at an Italian restaurant (which is oddly common in our group) and then met up with other Californians who were in Biarritz that weekend.  We went to their hotel and people pregamed… then we began the hunt for a hoppin’ bar.  While searching, we got these coupons to get a free drinks at a bar… needless to say, we decided to go to that bar.

We thought that we could choose our drinks, but the bartender just gave everyone Sex on the Beach cocktails that most of us could’ve sworn did not have any alcohol in it.  The DJ in the bar could tell we were Americans so he decided to play American music. So of course the American girls all started dancing… we pretty much got the party started at that bar.  Throughout the night more people came and girls started talking to guys and blah blah blah… Overall, it was a fun night. And, I had my first cocktail… fancy that.

Sunday, we got coffee at a café and pastries from the farmers market.  Then we went back to the farmers market and bought strawberries and probably the most legit Basque cake ever.  We went to this place that overlooks the beach and ate cake and strawberries (one of the greatest decisions we could’ve made that day).

We couldn’t stand not getting in the water on more time so we ran onto the beach, changed into out bathing suits (on the beach… we are in France, people are topless on the beach), and ran into the water for 30 glorious minutes.  There were less people in the water and the waves were smaller so it was great.  After, we quickly changed back into our clothes and ran to the bus stop to catch the bus to the train station.  We took the train home and chilled out the rest of the night.