So what do you do? What is your major gonna be? Do you have a job planned out after college?

Ever since we were old enough to have more profound career ideas than being a mermaid, it seems as if everyone you meet asks these kind of questions. Especially when you hit freshman year of high school, the mindset is you need to find a job and you need to figure out your whole life and career as soon as possible. Not only is there so much pressure and stress placed on young minds that don’t have everything figured out yet, many teens are rushed into making choices they don’t necessarily know enough about. And it continues into adulthood, everything revolves around your job, you have to work and work and work and make money and then when you go home you have to send 50 emails and answer long chats with your boss and stress about the company, etc. for many Americans. And for some people this is life and they are happy, but for the Basque Country that has been our home for the past week, it is not quite the same.

Today we had the pleasure of speaking with Marti Buckley, an opportunistic young woman who moved from America all the way to the lovely San Sebastián. Marti happened to study abroad in Pamplona and after coming back a few years later, never happened to return to the United States. After only a week here it really is hard to not fall in love with the mountainous background overlooking crystal blue water and beaches full of people. But of course you’re going to love anywhere with a beach and a pretty view if you’re on vacation, we had to find out if living in San Sebastián is really all it seems. And so we sat in a nice park right on the water with historical buildings contrasting freshly trimmed grass and sprinkling fountains and we listened. Not just to Marti Buckley adventures but the buzz of anyone and everyone walking around. Everywhere you look people are walking by, either taking their dog for a stroll or chatting with friends or a loved one. You can’t help but feel the lack of urgency and absence of loneliness. Just sitting in a park you see how social and alive the city is on a random Monday afternoon. Marti explained to us how there is no thoughts about your job when you leave, work is separate than your life and you really get that anywhere you go here. The lack of stress and rush really builds such a social atmosphere which, coming from talking to someone who lives and works here, is really crucial to having a life that doesn’t revolve around your job. In San Sebastián you work to live, but your life is not your job. When you get home you don’t answer emails and chart information, you disconnect. Life is about socializing, good food, and family. I can’t imagine anyone here crowds around a tv at home every single afternoon or lies in bed and scrolls on tik tok or Instagram, it seems as if everyone who lives here is out and about, catching up with friends over a pinxto and a drink, walking around with family and especially dogs, or just meeting new people at a bar. Of course a tourist is gonna say this place is relaxed and full of excitement, but we had the opportunity to chat with locals such as Marti and live in and explore areas that are not necessarily tourist run and it truly had an atmosphere of always being surrounded by two things: good food, and different people.

Now the most important and exciting part, the food. Of course the assigned reading for a trip to one of the food capitols of the world had to be a cookbook. Now Marti Buckley put in some serious work to make these cookbooks and it was very impressive to learn how in depth and sometimes dirty she got to make these dishes. The basque take pride in their food, as it is one of the biggest cultural aspects of the people. Marti even explained how she’s been invited to big festivals revolving solely around beans and more. The culture surrounding food in San Sebastián is huge. If you are between any events such as work or waiting on a friend for dinner, you’re gonna hop over to a pinxto bar and laugh over a small bite that is either incredibly flavorful yet seemingly so simple, or the most complex culinary experience you’ve had placed on top of a piece of bread. The dishes here have stories, there is pride in the food they make at every bar, and Marti told us how she experimented with every recipe to find the most complex meals. She spoke with every generation that cooked this meal and practiced in her own kitchen to really do the history justice to each dish. Whether washing out intestines are walking into basements splattered with blood from various animals, Marti went everywhere and did everything to bring the world the first accurate cookbook that brings the basque dishes to life from your own home. Of course meals here are not just a meal, it’s an experience and you have to enjoy each plate with friends or loved ones and many many stories full of laughing and talking for hours. There is no rushing of waiters to stop yapping and hogging a table, there is more disappointment if you don’t finish a dish and relaxed bites where you marvel at how good the food is and then move on to the next conversation. The dishes I see in Marti’s books have genuine memories behind each one. As a foodie myself, some of the most fun I’ve had is going out to get dinner with my classmates and having one of the best meals of my life on a casual Tuesday. Sometimes we make plans based on what delicious new food we are going to try that day. For one I can not shut up about Papperino’s gelato, but that’s another story. There is no possible way to try every pinxto in Marti’s book but every time you try one it is fantastic.

It is difficult to explain an ordinary day in San Sebastián because we got the best luck possible for our timing. This week is semana grande, a week in which every day is packed full of festivities, some more modern and some very traditional. Every single day there are events happening around the city everywhere. Today, the weather was terrible. Rainy and miserable, and yet the streets were packed full of children in pop up trampoline parks and little street markets. We have the pleasure of not having cars here, not much of a pleasure when we have to go uphill to our hotel every day, but it genuinely is a blessing to get to walk or bike everywhere as you are constantly immersed in the activities and you get to see everything happening around you, some very peculiar sights included during semana grande. Today we turned a corner to see these huge figures of Basque characters parading down the street packed full of people. We never would have seen this if not for the bikes and how walkable the city is. Every night there is people flooding the streets everywhere you look to watch the grand firework competitions and live music can be heard in the distance. There is just such a sense of culture and connectedness around San Sebastián like we talked about with Marti.

I think the ultimate lesson I took away from Marti was that you shouldn’t give up on an idea no matter how crazy it might be. Marti really loved her time in Basque Country on a study abroad and even though she was just starting a family and everyone said it was a bad idea to go abroad again in San Sebastián for a year, she took the chance and ran with it. And now she lives a life full of incredible food and a strong sense of community to raise her kids. To bring it back to the beginning, life in San Sebastián is one not about how much you work and that agenda of moving fast and not appreciating the beauty of people. Life in San Sebastián is one of hard work, but also the appreciation of leisure and happiness, two generally separate things. Life here is about getting some good food with great company and never in a rush. You take it one bar at a time and chat away for hours, maybe pick up a new friend or two, and you continue the journey. The best part of life is enjoying your company, and in my opinion, enjoying your food, and you can find both of these everywhere you go here in the lovely San Sebastián.