Dax, France

Where to go from Armagnac? It was an interesting dilemma. Sadly, getting to Barcelona or Madrid was nearly impossible. I was without a phone, and without a positive response from my friends of a friend in Madrid as to whether or not they were at home or if they had a place to stay. I tried to arrange some couch surfing and a van ride to barcelona to no avail. So what to do?

Step 1) Open up a big-ass map.
Step 2) Locate yourself
Step 3) Locate all the "resaonably close" places (athens is not reasonably close to gascony)
Step 4) Check Train/plane/bus schedules
Step 5) Go somewhere.

After this short amount of debate (in my head) the decision was clear.
San Sebastian, Spain is next up on my crazy euro tour.

How to I get there? Well, it turns out Dax, France has a car rental return and the train to San Sebastian is not far or expensive. Moreover, the train to San Sebastian runs nearly every 30 minutes. So down to Dax I go. I see that the next train leaves in a few minutes. Go to buy the tickets, success. Off to San Sebastian.

One small problem... The car rental return is not open. I forgot about that whole two hour lunch thing. So I go inquire about using my ticket for a later train. The guy says, no problem. I say excellent. But now I have to wait for several hours to return the car. Well, what should I do? Simple solution: Walk around Dax for a few hours.

What I found: Dax is a charming little town in southwest france. They love rugby and taking long lunch breaks. Beer, wine, and all manner of other french beverages are readily available. In addition, there are several beautiful little grocery stores selling fresh fruits, cheeses, and quality meats. Not realizing that the train was truly only 90 minutes to the border, a store got some business from me. I think the whole purchase was inspired by Jenlain Amber Biere de Garde. I FINALLY found my Biere de Garde. So off with my Biere de Garde, some camembert, some fresh greens, some bread, tomatoes, and some meat. Also had to buy a small knife. My total bill came to something like 15 euros. Not bad at all. The single sandwich + beer lunch at the local pub was about half that. So, I got to eat most of a loaf of bread and double the beer (not available at pub) etc. Had a nice lunch waiting on the car rental to reopen.

I decided I could live in Dax if a job became available. It's really close to Spain, really close to Armagnac, and on the ocean. Beautiful little town, in which life does not seem in any way rushed. My guess is that it's the sleepy little sister town to Bayonne or Biaritz which are just a little further down the coast toward spain.