May 21, 2025
When in Spain… As we strolled through the streets of Pamplona at 11am, after a much-welcomed slow start to our Saturday morning, the beverages were flowing through the streets in this beautiful town in northern Spain’s Basque country. I mean beverages of the alcohol variety by the way, not the caffeine fix we were purposefully strolling for. After a fabulous coffee and veggie bagel at Compañia Café, we continued our meanders around Old Town, returning to the main square around 2pm…to debauchery. The alleyway bars were overflowing with people, clustered around small tables, windowsills, and throughout the streets in general, laughing and chatting with drinks and pixtos (plates of tapas) in hand. At first pondering if there was a festival or holiday we didn’t know about, we realised it was moreso just the Spanish way it seemed. Celebrate life with friends, sharing good food and beverages (un Vermut por favor!), making every day seem like a party! Not sure I could handle the daily drinks and seafood on toast selections, but it was a great reminder of how essential friendship, socialising, and celebrating the every day is for optimal wellbeing.
After checking a few streets’ worth of bars ensuring we picked one with the best-looking tiny food selection, we settled upon one of the rowdier corner places. As we emerged with our plates of little Spanish omelettes, anchovies on toast, and who knows what else, luck greeted us with an empty table to settle on! Actually, we had many a windowsill on offer as well looking around. Turns out there is no stuffing about with siesta time! It appeared come about 3pm everyone empties the streets, assumingly to go nap off day drinking and enjoy a tapas slumber. Basically, Christmas day living every day…eat, drink, sleep, repeat! Luckily by this point we’d learned in much of Spain dinner is near impossible to procure anytime before 7:30 or 8pm, so we stuffed ourselves on cute little Spanish dishes to tide us over and enjoyed our final evening here.
The following day, we headed to San Sebastian, a coastal dream, to continue holiday mode with coffees, pastries, pixtos, and a beverage or two. As we perused some local shops, avoiding the chilling wind, we got chatting with one of the salesfolk in this funky shop slinging great coffee and fun, unisex, locally made and printed gear (shout out Colors Coffee by Sakona!). We were captured by some shirts sporting ‘Txikiteros Club’ labels, depicting an image of a group of sharply-dressed older gentleman holding small glasses and seemingly enjoying life. He informed us the local approach was, upon retiring, said gentlemen meet up with their friends in the morning and enjoy a small glass of wine, toasting the day. That’s our kind of club! Though maybe we kick it off pre-retirement (and sorry lads but not just a boys’ club).
For someone who didn’t drink until late into her 20s, and even now still hardly do, I can appreciate this approach to life may on the surface seem unappealing to some (I plan to return to my routine 8pm bedtime after this trip for one!). However, what’s been clear across our experiences, witnessing many a ‘party-goer’ have water, soda, or an espresso in hand instead of alcohol, that it isn’t about the drinking, unlike in some places we’ve been. Instead, the clear focus is connection, spending time with others and enjoying the moment for what it is: once in a lifetime. Whether you toast to the everyday experience of life with water or wine, what matters is the toast. We don’t need to be holding out for ‘the big moment’ or ‘special occasion’, these are in front of us every day if we just slow down enough to notice. While we are very much going to appreciate the cozy sweatshirt and almond cakes we got in San Sebastian, what’s going to stick more is the time just wandering, embracing the every day, and what we spent together on experiences, not things. Gracias for the reminder Spain, es la vida for sure.
Salt + Soul Adventures 