SMART51

I am enjoying your trip report very much.
BUT
It seems that your report of the BA flight went missing

offerendum

The Food-presentation is stylish, it reminds me on Belcanto Lisbon.

macdonaldj2

I do apologize about that. Presented for you:

Juxtaposition -





After a shell shock of a BA “C” flight we landed in Lisbon around 11pm local time.

macdonaldj2

It's a ton of "negative space" being used. Wasn't used to much at Arzak however.

offerendum

Didn´t say it´s my favourite. Stylish is not everytime great... Belcanto for example was not on 2 star level in my eyes.

macdonaldj2

Yeah right, soon he said -

Where has the time gone? It's almost time for another trip. Well my wife and I have been playing let's switch jobs and worry about getting visas for while. I got caught up trying to look for remote work while still in Brazil, which eh, hasn't panned out yet. Sorry about leaving off, I knew I didn't finish the trip, don't worry. This is the last installment.

So, my plan for the day was to tour San Sebastian, I literally had nothing else planned other than dinner at Arzak in the evening. We found a nice spot and had some breakfast/brunch items.



After that I said we could walk around the city as we're nearing the end of our trip (my wife and I) we were tired. I mention my wife because this is where it goes off the rails. For months she was telling me that she did not want to be away from work for as long as we planned and was trying to get a flight back to Sao Paulo. No idea why someone wouldn't want to be in San Sebastian, but that's not me. Much arguing and arm-flailing later I would end storming off like a child and headed back for the AirBnB we had rented.

While there I decided to try and find flights back to GRU, which proved difficult. I found some Turkish flights departing that night from Madrid, but that wasn't going to happen, I searched, I really did attempt to get my wife home earlier, but the best I could do was a day earlier, which wasn't great, but it was something.

While I was laying in bed everyone came back, there was more yelling as is accustomed in my house growing up, where everyone told me that I was in the wrong, blah blah blah. I'm sure none of you care and you're just here for the pictures. ANYWAY...after everything was all said and done, we decided to go to France. Why? I don't know, I didn't want to sit around in that atmosphere all day. A route was planned, the car was er...retrieved and we were on our way.

The route would take us from San Sebastian into Saint-Jean-de-Luz, then onto Esplette, why? well I knew of the pepper and figured it came from there. We crossed the border back into Spain around Dantxarinea and then made our way back to San Sebastian for dinner.

First stop:
Ohhh, a french beach -


Look, just look at their excitment, feel it, live it, be IT.


Much driving later, we ended up in pepper town, it really is the home of the esplette pepper, we didn't get out of the car, we were running late so we drove on and WOW were we greeted by some amazing views.





I'm grateful for that as it seemed to calm everyone down. We made it back to San Sebastian in time for dinner at Arzak. I'll preface this as saying, I wasn't impressed with their service, I preferred Mugaritz more. I have the menu laying around somewhere if someone asks what something is, otherwise, pictures sans descriptions:

















Ok, this was squab and it was delicious.










Dinner Complete.

Headed back, went to bed, as we had another LONG day ahead of us, we (I) was driving us back to Madrid where my parents would overnight so they could catch and early flight to the US. While my wife and I went into Madrid to drop the car off and stay at The Westin for our final night. Lunch was a quick (5 hour) stop in Axpe at Asador Extebarri.

Departing views:





The drive was nothing thrilling, but lunch, that was something else (again I've got the menu if anyone needs to know what something is).

The views weren't bad either:


Lunch, this was LUNCH:




















I have a video of this dish, it was just as amazing as it looks.








Lunch was over, it was close to a 5 hour affair:


My recap, Mugaritz, Asador Extebarri, Arzak in that order, I would not return to Arzak.

We somehow managed to get back into the car and drive into Madrid where we had to say our goodbyes. My wife and I dropped my parents off and then the car. Checked into the hotel and then headed out for the evening, because what else do you do after eating a 5 hour lunch. Well, you drink and eat more.

Fábrica Maravillas - great beers


We had a few, and then started walking, I saw this window and it stopped me dead in my tracks:


After that we decided, why not go for some "Tex-Mex" in Madrid:


The next day we um, relaxed, a lot before heading to the airport, we had a ton of flying to do. MAD-IST-GRU, go the wrong way for 4 hours to fly 15 hours, you know, the regular flyertalk route. An unholy timed red-eye from MAD-IST where I was kind of left to roll around on the tarmac.

Aeromexico 787:


The flight was ok? It was slightly nicer than Intra-Europe C, but the time killed me, I think we landed somewhere on the wrong side of 5am. Whatever, IST has a great lounge.

Here is a picture from it:


On our way home. We got to ride in TC-JJJ again, which if you go back to my other trip report about being sick in Romania, it makes an appearance there:

Here is my picture from the last TR. As my imgur link contained a letter combination flagged by FT.






Oh good, we're back in GRU:




Overall it was a great trip, minus the arguments over the last few days. I'm sorry this took so long to wrap up, but it's finally done and I hope everyone enjoyed. Until the next trip.