The worst day of my life.

APRIL FOOLS!!
I actually had a pretty good first day of April. I shall tell you about it.
Woke up at 7:30am on Saturday morning extremely tired and cranky after an unsatisfying night of sleep. It's weird, I've been having nightmares lately which has greatly disrupted my ability to sleep well through the night. Made toast, got ready, and Stacey and I were out the door by 8:30. We walked to Plaza de Cuba to meet up with Katie and Melissa to walk to the bus station together. It was extremely cloudy and pretty cold out which was quite disheartening, but Spanish weather tends to be strange and we planned on it clearing up later. I mean, we were going to the beach for the day, so the sun had better come out...I mean, that's what the weather report said would happen. We got to the Plaza at 8:45 and Stacey kept going and walked to the internet cafe by the bus station in hopes that it would be open at 9 and she could purchase a flight to Paris (she's supposed to leave on Wednesday, eek). So I sat in the Plaza by myself passing the time by people watching and playing with baby slugs. Melissa and Katie arrived on time and we began walking towards the bus station. It was so foggy that when we crossed the bridge we couldn't even see the river! Oy. We found Stacey, no luck with the internet, and we walked the rest of the way to the station to meet up with Courtney and Jessica to buy our bus tickets. We waited in line and bought our 6euro bus tickets for the 10am ride to Sanlucar, a beach town about 1.5 hours away. Despite the weather (we had hope) we were very excited because this was the first time in what seemed like ages that all six of us had hung out as a unit. Huuuurray! We boarded the bus a little before 10 and were off. We had some seating confusion because this bus had assigned seating (yeah, weird) but ultimately Stacey ended up seated behind the cutest little baby girl who just played the entire ride. Aw. The whole ride I listened to the entire Wicked soundtrack and rested my eyes (but didn't sleep)...I was so tired, and the dense weather was not helping. I finally opened my eyes to see the sun had come out and that we were in Sanlucar! Nice. Sanlucar is very small, quiet, and village-like. It's a definite beach house town that was pretty dead since it wasn't a good beach day nor a big vacation time. We got off the bus and bought tickets for our ride home. We could choose between the 2:15 and the 6:15, we chose 6:15 so as to tomar el sol (sunbathe) all day. We then walked towards the beach as the sun started to hide behind some clouds. Ugh. We stopped at some random bar where everyone used the washroom...luckily Stacey bought a Pepsi so we didn't feel as badly. We then walked onto the beach; it was breezy and kind of cold, but we had a mission, and we had hope. The beach was pretty, well, normal. Very sandy but pretty vacant. Turns out that although we were on the Atlantic Ocean, Sanlucar is actually positioned on a bay. To our left we saw about a thousand people wading in the water and looking downwards which seemed very strange. Jessica walked over there to investigate after we found a good spot to put our stuff down (there were a lot of dead fish and broken shells all over the place) and she found out that they were picking mariscos (shellfish). I guess that at low tide it's a very big thing to do there. Woohoo. We then laid out for a few hours with the intention to read and do homework, but that never happened since we were a) all so chatty because we hadn't all hung out in so long and b) the sun kept bobbing in and out of clouds so we kept having to switch from bikinis to sweatshirts periodically. At around 3 the sun had been gone for awhile and some of us were growing restless; so Stacey, Katie, Jessica, and I decided to take a walk and then grab some food and drink somewhere. We walked along the street next to the water where the town seemed completely dead except for the excessive amount of cat calls we received from men on motos and in cars. I swear, this town is so quiet and dead I bet that these guys have never seen 20-something females walking around in their lives. Seriously, the men in Sanlucar are a million times worse than in Sevilla, it was really getting on my nerves. But it happened so much that we finally got used to it. We figured out while walking that this was a beach house kind of town for the Spanish people with money. Because the town was just so quiet, but there were these pretty substantial estates (for Spain's standards) right on the water. Also, we stood out a lot, hence the cat calls. Unlike Cadiz or Marbella, this beach town is not a vacation/getaway spot for foreigners...this is a beach town getaway for Spaniards. I bet many of the residents have barely seen Americans, let alone encountered them. Crazy. We walked for awhile and finally settled on the corner bar near the ocean that we had used earlier for their bathroom before hitting the beach: Bar el horreo. We got some tapas: I had two montaditos (mini sandwiches), one smoked tuna, the other some kind of meat (their menu was tiny so I picked whatever looked the most normal) and a small tapa portion of grilled octopus. It was alright, nothing special, but it was cheap and hit the spot. Then the sun came out pretty strongly so we hurried back to the beach. We all laid out for a couple more hours, still alternating between sweatshirts and bikinis until about 4:45 when the sun had gone away completely. We bundled up, packed up, and did some walking. Courtney and Melissa were hungry and wanted ice cream cones from McDonalds, and since we saw a sign pointing us towards a McD's we were on our way. I've never gotten whistled/yelled/hollered at more in my life. We walked for awhile along the streets unable to find the McDonald's. We found a bunch of bodegas (winerys) and barrels lining the streets advertising many different wines. I think it's because we were near Jerez, the big wining town of Andalucia. We gave up on McDonalds when we came upon a sign pointing towards a Burger King...well, not really pointing but more like giving a street corner. So we asked some people where to go, some didn't even know what McDonalds nor Burger King were. Some cute old lady pointed us in a direction. We didn't find anything, but we came upon this really huge ice cream parlor with a big cow statue out front and a huge menu. So we settled. It was huge and amazing, and the ice cream flavors looked to die for. It took me forever to choose, but I finally settled on coconut ice cream in a small cone. We all then sat in the little plaza adjacent to the parlor and ate our ice cream. It was amazing. This was the first time in a very long time that I had eaten ice cream, and what more appropriate time than our first official day at the beach? And this ice cream was good...I hadn't yet experience true Spanish ice cream...it's more like real frozen custard. So creamy, and there were innumerable coconut flakes. Best coconut ice cream I had ever had; it was a religious experience and I was sad that I had such a small portion of it. But that's probably all for the best. The plaza was also packed...so that's where all of the people were! We saw little kids running around wearing jackets which made us feel like idiot Americans for going to the beach. Haha. We had a great time though and did get some good sun. Courtney and Melissa were sunburnt, I got sunburnt only on random areas where I didn't put any sunblock (e.g. my upper thighs, the backs of my knees), and everyone all in all got tan. So we had some success, I'd say. Then we lazily walked back to the bus station where we sat around for fifteen minutes until boarding our bus. We all were exhausted despite having been so lazy all day. Being out in the sun will do that to ya, I guess. We boarded at 6 and were off by 6:15. Most of us slept on the ride home, but I mostly just listened to my iPod and looked out the window...Spain is very interesting to watch, ya know. I dunno, I'm almost halfway through my program and I feel like I need to absorb every moment as much as possible. I love this country. We got back at around 7:40, said farewell to Jessica and Courtney as they walked back, and the four of us Remedios kids were on our way. We then left Stacey at the internet cafe where she (successfully) bought a ticket to Paris. Katie, Melissa, and I walked home. When I got back I took a much needed shower which made me pretty tired, but I was determined to go out (Melissa and I had made plans, everyone else wanted to stay in). Stacey decided not to eat at home because she had too much work to do before going to Paris Tuesday night, so dinner was just Maruja and me. It was pretty cute! Maruja was in really good spirits, making conversation (not much, but that's a lot for her, she's not too talkative even to our Spanish housemates), and helping me understand the news reports on TV. She also pointed out how I was "rosa" (pink). Hehe. She's cute. She has her temper moments, but she never holds grudges or gives us crap after that. She's a great host mother, I am happy. And our dinner was AWESOME. Because it was just the two of us we ate leftovers, and I love leftovers. We had a simple green salad, one of those lightly fried chicken filets (and she cooked them perfectly), one single little Yukon Gold-like potatoes, leftover marinated chicken off the bone (yum) and then, the best part: LEFTOVER EMPANADA FROM THE NIGHT BEFORE!! She had made an extra mini dish of it and it had been sitting in the pantry waiting to be eaten. That morning I saw it and it was tempting me, I just wanted to steal it. And Maruja and I got to split it for dinner! I was happier than happy, let me tell you. I told her how much I love that empanada; she then asked me if I liked that one or the bacalao one more. I told her that it was a hard decision, but I'd have to go with that one (the tuna one). A hard decision, indeed, but I just love the tuna one...I mean, it's got tomato AND tuna in it? Those are 2 of my favorite things. For dessert we got whole, large oranges for the first time in a long time, and they were so sweet. Perfect meal! While eating a news report came on this show that reminds me a lot of "60 Minutes" that really interested Maruja. She explained to me what was going on: there's this huge controversy in Marbella becaue they found stolen jewels and such hidden in city hall that could not in any way, shape, or form be covered up. So Marbella's experiencing a lot of verguenza (shame) cleaning up this whole mess they created. Crazy. After the satisfying dinner I came to the room and worked on posting more webshots and my blog (until my computer overheated and I lost my entire entry). Yeah, so I'm retyping it right now. No fun. Melissa ended up not calling which didn't really upset me, in fact, relieved me. She was pretty tired on the bus, and very sunburnt, so I'm not surprised she decided to stay in. I only told her to call if she felt like going out/found something to do. Here we only use our cell phones if necessary because they cost so much money, so we don't call people unless it's to make or break plans. If it's up in the air as to whether or not we'll go out, we'll only call if it's a yes and we need a place/time to meet up. So Melissa's not calling was nothing out of the ordinary. At 11:45 Stacey and I were spent and just decided to call it a night. I needed some sleep, big time.