Well, today, I woke up to the world's loudest seagulls. They were legit cawing their way into my dreams, and everyone else's too. I didn't know seagulls sound like screaming children... or laughing people. Not sure which is more accurate. A blend of the two, I guess.
I went down for breakfast, where I had some pumpernickle toast with honey and some cereal (they had the really good cereal we had at Señora's house during the first week, and I guess I missed it). I got a cup of their coffee, but the hotel coffee was not a cortado and I did not like it. I'm getting picky with coffee... time to quit while there's still hope for me...
Then we departed for the surfin' beach. It was an hour away, but it was worth it. Pretty beach with nice waves.
We met our gorgeous surf instructors, who gave us our wetsuits. They were tight and looked expectedly bad on all of us. Then we lugged our surfboards down a painfully rocky path towards the beach... in the brutal wind from last night.
Once down at the bottom of the hill and on the beach, our instructors had us play sharks and minnows as a warm up, had us do some stretches, and told us how to properly lie down on our boards. Then they gave us a gentle shove into surfing.
Here is what I learned: Catching waves is easy. Getting your board to the place where you catch the wave is much, much much harder. The beach here is really pretty shallow for a good long while, so you can wade forever before the water actually goes above your waist. All this time, slogging through strong waves, you have a board that is large and unwieldy, a wind that makes it even more so, and clumsy newbie surfers to dodge because they sure as heck ain't dodgin' you.
Again, catching the wave is simple. You turn the board, you lie down, you wait. There. Done. Get off the board (also easy, if you get off on the correct side. The side where your tethered leg is nearest to the board, in my case, my left) and repeat the slog to the deeper end.After we got good and tired, probably forty minutes later, the instructors called us back in and taught us to stand! NOT EASY, dude. Dude, we'd worn ourselves out already, and now we had to use our exhausted core and arm muscles to push ourselves to our feet. haha. Some people managed to limp their way to their feet during their rides, but they promptly fell right off and banged themselves up. I did not stand, I got to my knees several times and one foot once, but I was so busy steering the board away from people that I couldn't focus on standing.
Anyway, when we were done and the instructors had thorougly amused themselves, we went back in, showered and removed the wetsuit. Duuuude, I'd never felt so sad. I couldn't take the stinking wetsuit off because my fingers couldn't grip anything. I'd been holding a board with pretty much just my fingers for a good two hours, and they were really protesting. Like sorry little noodles.
We got some chow at the surfer bar (I had a ham and cheese again because they're tasty and my only alternative was a burger) and we were on our way.
The bus ride was long, and I once again missed the border crossing. But I did look up once after getting used to Portugal and was stunned by how flat and brown Spain is. Portugal is all rolling hills and greens. Should one vacation to this part of Europe in the future, Portugal is probably better. Just my observation.
I had Spanish tortilla for dinner and I am actually really loving this stuff. Yummm We also went to a fruit market and I got a smoothie. It had apples, spinach, celery and ginger in it and was a lovely shade of green. I watched them grind the stuff up, and while their blender did not chop the spinach into über tiny creamy bits, I really have missed the stuff. Spinach, spinach, where art thou...
Tomorrow is a free day, so theoretically not a long post. See you then!!
0 comments:
Post a Comment