The world works in mysterious ways

My mental alarm woke me up at 8:45 in my random bed in the random hostel room. It was raining. I could hear the girls next door getting ready to leave. Jessica, Melissa, and Katie all decided to take the 10:25 bus home while Stacey and I decided to stick around until the 4:00 bus so that we could hang around and explore Tarifa. I walked into the other room and realized that I was still a bit drunk and had a slowly developing headache. I immediately took some Advil and passed out in Melissa's bed, right below Stacey's. The girls left at around 9:45 and Stacey and I slept until about noon. We were a bit groggy from drinking and inclimate weather, but we had beaten our hangovers. We got ready, tidied the room, packed, and then hung out in the bar area waiting for the 1:00 shuttle to come and take us to town. We took some pics of the hostel and hung out on the couch. It was drizzly and gross out. What a shame. It was fun hanging out in the hostel a little bit; the blonde Italian guy spent a good 15 minutes trying to get a good photo of this huge snail he brought in from outside. That made me happy. Also the hostel's cat was lazing about and being super cute. We ran into the Brits; Will and Jill remembered us, but Steve and Al gave us baffled looks when we said hi to them. Yeah, they hadn't a clue who we were. We also ran into Paul, and he was awesomely friendly, and we actually shared the shuttle back to town. The driver was the Italian dude in the orange sweatshirt again and he played some awesome music once again. I like Italian alternative music! Once Stacey and I got off the shuttle it was raining, although not terribly. We walked up and down the main street, stopped in a couple stores while we could before siesta. Tarifa is a really awesome surfer town, it's awesome. I was so sad that we couldn't get to see it in its happening, surfer form. I hear that the beach at Tarifa is gorgeous, also. Oh well. We were hungry, so we soon found a Tex Mex restaurant which sounded quite good at the time. We both ordered quesadillas; Stacey got chicken and I got tuna with cheese, onion, and tomato. So good. And they had guacamole on top. Good deal. Then siesta came about, and we had time to kill, so we just went to a pasteleria and got coffee and pastreys and sat around chatting for awhile. How Spanish of us; the Spanish always sit in cafes forever drinking espresso and eating little pastries. I had a coconute rolled pastrey thing which wasn't bad. While there the greatest thing happened: I heard a Spanish version of "Piano Man" (yeah, in Spanish) covered by a woman! It was amaaaazing. I had to sit in silence for it. What an experience. "Piano Man" in Spanish...must find it. After about an hour we walked in the rain towards the bus station. We stopped at a little convenience store on the way so Stacey could buy some snacks for the bus. Then we got to the station, bought our tickets, and waited. The bus was 15 minutes late, and we were already 20 minutes early, so standing for that long and waiting was not fun...especially since there's not really a station, it's more like an outdoor stop. We ran into Will and Jill boarding their bus to Algecires, we wished them all the best and bid them farewell. Our bus came at 4:15 and we found seats on the crowded, stuffy, smelly (it smelled baaaad) bus. Everyone was just eager to get to Sevilla since Feria was starting Monday night. The bus ride was 4 hours, and it was pretty terrible. It was really dismal and rainy outside, and the guy sitting behind me had the worst B.O. of anyone I've ever encountered. Add that to the stuffiness of the bus, the smell of mildew (everyone had wet feet), and you've got an unhappy Lisa. I went in and out of sleeping but really did not succeed at it in the long run. Finally we got into Sevilla around 8, and just as we got off the bus it started to rain and thunder out. We were hungry for dinner, and since we had told Maruja that we wouldn't be home for dinner we decided to walk to Cien Montaditos for some cheap mini sandwiches. As we walked the sky turned an orangish-greyish color and the rain came down a bit harder. The sound of thunder began to occur immediately after flashes of lightening. This didn't look good. But thank god we decided not to walk all the way back to los Remedios because we'd be in big trouble. Finally, just as it started to rain pretty hard and thunder and lightening like crazy, we got to a very crowded Cien Montaditos. Everyone must have been dodging the rain and getting food and drink. We got some sandwiches and olives and went to town. I love Cien Montaditos, I'd say it's my favorite restaurant in Sevilla because it's cheap, easy, and never fails to please. While eating we could hear and sort of see how hard the rain was coming down. We spent about 45 minutes eating thinking that it would clear up, but it just kept getting worse. I had never seen a thunderstorm in Spain! It was kind of cool. Soon we got up because there's a pasteleria across the street that has the best palmera de huevo (Stacey's favorite Spanish pastrey) in town. We thought that we could quickly cross the street and bare the rain, but once we got to the window we saw how hard it was raining and storming. Then, suddenly, it began to hail! I can't believe it was hailing! This was so strange. Very unlike Spain. It was pretty neat, however, so I took some pictures. Soon this girl, who we had seen earlier talking to a group of two guys, taps Stacey on the shoulder and says, "Do I know you from somewhere? I'm sorry, but you look so familiar..." Stacey shrugged, not really sure. "Wait," the girl said, "Where are you from?" "Michigan," Stacey answered. "Where in Michigan...?" "Whitehall." "Okay, we went to high school together...Whitehall high school, right?" Whoa. That was weird. Stacey is from a pretty small town and an equally as small high school. This girl, Emily, goes to U. of Northern Colorado and is studying in Sevilla for the year. She graduated from Stacey's high school a year ahead of her. What a small world! I talked to the both of them for a bit until I heard, "Lisa...?" It was one of the guys that we had seen her talking to earlier. I turned around and it was Mike Feldman! We went to HPHS together, graduated the same year, and he also goes to Michigan. How strange! So, Emily and Mike were talking to each other (randomly, they just met at Cien Montaditos because both were dodging the rain) and they both just happened to run into Stacey and me, roommates, and both go to our respective high schools. How weird IS that???? I tell ya, the world works in mysterious ways. What a small world, indeed! Mike is here for a few days visiting a friend of his from Michigan who's studying with another program. He has also been studying in London for the semester. So weird, I can't believe it. We were all very much in disbelief about the whole situation. After talking for a good half an hour Mike and Eric decided to brave the rain (the hail had stopped) and go around the corner to Flaherty's for a pint. Stacey, Emily, and I remained and talked for awhile (Emily's really, really cool), and then Stacey and I decided that the rain had died down enough to cross the street. Let me tell you, crossing the street was a challenge--it was flooded! Nevertheless, we got there, and the place was packed with people trying to also dodge the rain. Stacey ordered her palmera and a water while I just ordered a water and we sat at the bar for awhile just chatting and describing our awe over the whole previous encounter. We felt Spanish again because hanging out at the bars at random cafeterias for a tapa at around 9pm is very customary...we were among the many Spanish businessmen in their suits and their goblets of beer. We were there for about an hour until the rain pretty much stopped. It was wet out, we were tired, so we decided to just take the bus back home (luckily there's a stop literally right in front of our apartment). It took us awhile to find where our bus stops because they have re-routed the buses and some traffic in the center of town. The new system, now that we know it, is much easier and more logical. The bus didn't come for a good ten minutes. We then rode back for 10 minutes, and walked back upstairs. We unpacked and went online and then decided to watch Braveheart because I think that Maruja had bought it and it was sitting out on the table. I've been wanting to see that movie forever, and we were in such a movie mood on a rainy day like that. However, we couldn't figure out how the DVD player worked. Actually, I think that it's broken because the sound plays, but no picture. I know that it's not a cord thing because the a/v cords all go through one big one on Maruja's system. So we were frustrated. Plus, we couldn't try to play it on our laptops because Spanish DVD's are formatted differently. So we knocked on Maruja's door and asked her. She said that she doesn't know how to work the player, that only Maria del Mar and Marta know. Damn. She expressed her sympathy, as well as her excitement to see us and asked a bit about Tarifa and Gibraltar. We chatted a bit, Maruja went to sleep, and we watched some Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock movie on TV while working online. My internet signal was weak in the living room so I went back to the bedroom. Stacey fell asleep in the living room, but came back an hour later and passed out; I followed suit. I was exhausted. What a weekend. What a random weekend. In fact, what a day! The storm, the random encounter, getting stranded in Cien Montaditos and then having the random encounter. I will never stop saying how the world truly works in mysterious ways.