Life´s a Beach

¡Lo siento, amigos! I´ve been without internet access for the past few days here in the city of Alicante. ¡Que lastima! Eric and I had to locate an internet cafe today to reconnect with the world. We found one close to our pension, but when I saw the "must be 18 or older" sign on the front door and noticed there were a lot of suspicous-looking booths, I decided to walk my dogs over to another internet cafe where everyone´s out in the open typing.

Let me quickly backtrack to a few days ago where I abruptly left off. At that time, we were scrambling to get out the door to catch a bus from Granada to Alicante. When we arrived at the bus station, we figured we´d be able to grab a bus rather quickly since 7 go out daily. But what we didn´t calculate was that most of them leave later in the day. We missed the 10:00 o´clock bus, and the next one was scheduled for 15:45, giving us a 5 hour wait. We didn´t feel like walking very far, since our packs were weighted down with all the extra food (potatoes, sandwiches, water, eggs) that we had accumulated from the previous hostel. I felt like a pack animal lugging around all that extra ballast on my back. So to pass the time, we wandered over to some nearby grocery stores. They had an ALDI in Granada, which was the same as the ALDI stores you find in Chicago. I told Eric that this was where all the poor people shopped at. But then I suddenly realized that, hey, I was now part of the poor people, too. Crap. So we wandered around ALDI, and against conventional wisdom, we picked up two bottles of cheap sangria to weigh down our packs some more. But for 1 € sangria, how could you not buy it?

We then went over to this store called Alcampo, which is a combination supermarket and superstore. It felt similar to a Sam´s Club/Wal-Mart. It was nuts walking into it. All the employees were zipping around on roller skates. You could buy almost anything there, but it contained a lot of cheap products that you don´t really need. I felt that I was in a casino, because I couldn´t find the exit to get out of the store, so I just went through the self-checkout line, was scolded by an employee, then had to wander around the store a few more minutes to finally find another checkout line to flee out of quickly before someone noticed.

Our bus ride to Alicante took 7 hours total because the driver kept stopping at smaller towns along the way. We finally pulled into Alicante at 22:30, lugged our packs over to Pension Versalles where we were staying, and were greeted by an older gentleman named Miguel running the place. This guy is a total hoot. He reminds me of the Spanish version of Sean Connery, mixed together with a little bit of Ernest Hemingway. Pension Versalles is a run-down hotel and feels a little seedy, but there´s a courtyard patio area that makes it all worthwhile. It has a vine-covered terrace under which you can drink, read, eat, drink, talk, and drink with all the other guests. We´ve met two Swedish girls (how come all the Swede´s are beautiful?), two German girls (they´re constantly drinking and smoking), a couple from Spain, and an American. Plus there´s this little terrier dog that Sean Connery here owns that comes up to you and wants to play fetch all the time with rocks. If you´re familiar with the Tintin comics, this dog looks just like Tintin´s sidekick dog. It is such a cool dog...I wish I could stuff him in my backpack and take him home with me.

There´s also a kitchen at the pension equipped with just a fridge and a portable stove. For the past 3 days, Eric and I have been in hog-heaven because we can finally cook for ourselves again. We´ve been making the greasiest American breakfasts each morning: hash brown potatoes, eggs, sausage, toast, juice, yogurt, and bananas. For dinners, it´s been spaghetti with vegetables and buttered bread. I´m finally getting some food back into me here in Alicante. For the past few weeks, I felt like I was starving and scraping by to survive. Now, my stomach´s full and I´m living happy again.

Coming to Alicante was a great idea. It´s like having a vacation from the vacation. We just wake up, have a great breakfast, then walk over to the beach to lay in the sun and jump in the Mediterranean waters. The ocean here is pretty salty, so you´ve got to keep your eyes closed or it burns. When we first got to the beach, everything seemed relatively normal. But then I suddenly realized, "Hey, that woman isn´t wearing a top." I had totally forgotten that a lot of the Spanish beaches are topless. At first, it´s a little titilating, especially if you´re an American guy not used to seeing this sort of thing. But then you start seeing some women who SHOULDN´T be going without a top, and then it´s not so appealing anymore. Spanish beaches are actually more conservative than I had expected...probably only 5-10 percent of the women decide to show their stuff. And after awhile, you realize that it´s really not such a big deal anymore.

Right now in Alicante, they´re celebrating the Festival for St. Joan, so we get to end every day with a midnight fireworks show on the beach. It´s like being at Disney World.