June 16--Friends

We’ve made it to around the 65k mark and MAN was it a fun day! Honestly, I was in kind of a bad mood along the hike today, so I jogged a decent amount of it.  I was walking by myself most of the day and just trekking through it, but it was nice and therapeutic to just walk off all the bad feelings. And it meant that the rest of the day, I was able to just have a good time.

 

One funny thing I did pass was this bar/albergue that just felt like the house of the witch in Hansel and Gretel. With the signs and the enticing offers, the almost impossibly blue and flourishing hydrangeas, it felt like it was trying to lure me in :D

Plus, because I had been angry walking most of the day, I got to our hotel super fast! Around 1 p.m., Isaac, Conner and I rolled up to the hotel and MAN was it nice. In terms of amenities and everything, it was pretty standard, but a few key features that made it stand out. 

1. The wifi was BUSSIN’ like for real, I have taken wifi for granted all my life, and just to have functional wifi for a second was so nice. 
2. They had a really great outdoor area with a picnic table perfectly under a tree, a little pond, and a HUGE outdoor open space. 
3. They had clotheslines in the back of the building that worked GREAT! Plus the bathroom was a decent size, they had good closet space--it was just a SOLID hotel. 

So, after taking a shower and washing my clothes, everyone else started showing up having finished their hikes, and a group of us went to Dia (the local grocery store – think like a teeny tiny version of Meijer – which in turn is a happier version of Walmart) to get stuff for a picnic lunch. Our original plan in general was to all get their ready-to-eat salads, but they were literally COMPLETELY SOLD OUT OF SALADS! It was seriously so sad, cause sometimes when you are in a foreign country, a good, regular salad hits the SPOT! So instead, we got sandwich supplies, cream cheese and crackers, various vegetables and snacks, chips etc. and for dessert and since it was Jacek’s birthday, we got an ice cream cake. Man that was a great lunch.  Like yeah, we had some tasty food, but it was just fun sitting around the table eating with each other and eating food that felt semi-American and homey. Eating the cake was an EXPERIENCE though. Before I continue, I should let you all know that Spain doesn’t use disposable utensils or plates. Literally every single bar, restaurant and café uses real plates, cups and cutlery for EVERYTHING. So of course, their main grocery store does not sell any utensils of any kind. So, we pull out this ice cream cake that is RAPIDLY melting and have nothing to cut it with. I run to the tent that is the dining area, find a set of silverware next to the sink in the back room (probably washed after someone’s lunch) and bring it back out. We use the knife to cut the cake, but then none of us has plates. The birthday boy used a piece of bread as both a transportation device to his mouth and a plate, I used the cap to my container of crackers, Emilee ripped off a piece of the box that was holding the cake, and we either ate it like a pizza or sparingly used the fork and knife that were left over. It was a sight to behold watching us all eat our ice cream cake with our improvised plates and utensils.

After a satisfying and just very friendly lunch, we all retired to our rooms to shower/wash clothes and most importantly… NAP! I did propose playing games around 6 o’clock and it was fun to have around seven people show up at different times to play games. Most of the time it is just Isaac, Tim and me playing, so it was fun to have several other people come. Plus it was just a beautiful afternoon – the sun doesn’t set till about 9 here, and it doesn’t get dark till about 10:45, so it was a great level of sunniness from like 6-7 where it wasn’t beating down, but it was the perfect temperature to sit outside with a slight breeze blowing.

After dinner, we had plans to celebrate Jacek’s birthday by getting ice cream and watching a movie, but we didn’t end up doing either! Instead, while waiting for everyone to get ready for ice cream, we decided we weren’t going to go and instead started messing around on the front lawn. As Orion pointed out, it is funny how often our group acts like a crowd of second graders. While Tim wacked things with a stick, Madeline was chasing a stray cat around, while several people discussed an animated children’s show while waiting to get ice cream :D It was great though, I love that our group is youthful and fun and we don’t take ourselves too seriously. The rest of the evening was spent running and rolling in the grass. There was stick sword fighting, leg wrestling, arm wrestling, etc. 

I think we are all getting to that point where we realize our time in Spain is coming to an end, and we are trying to spend as much time together as possible. I was really happy that we all just spent time outside together--it was so fun and relaxing and casual and comfortable, it was just great. It was one of those perfect nights you look back on and you can almost smell the grass, feel the setting sun on your face, and imagine you are back on that lawn laying in the cooling grass as the evening turns to night. I really do love these students I’ve gotten to know the past eight weeks--they are all just really great people.