Mis Experiencias en el Extranjero: We Love Sundays @ the Beach!

During my first full weekend here in sunny Spain, I went to the beach! Every Sunday, a touring company here in Sevilla called We Love Spain hosts outings to the beach, so a few friends and I signed up to tag along Sunday, September 11. (Just as a side note, I felt somewhat guilty spending the 10th anniversary of 9/11 at a beach, but I seriously felt so far removed from the whole memorial since there is not 24/7 media coverage of everything here in Spain.) This weekend's beach outing was to Huelva, a Spanish coastal city on the Atlantic Ocean! The beach town near Huelva that we ended up visiting was called Punta Umbría. The total price of the trip was 20€ (or around $28) so it was pretty decent since it included round-trip coach bus transportation, a bocadillo for lunch, free sangria and beer, and access to such beach things as frisbees, which I would otherwise not have at my disposal!

We departed Sevilla at 10am, arrived in Punta Umbría around 11am and headed to the sand! It was a really nice beach and a really beautiful day! I went walking along the shore collecting seashells (and there were SO many seashells), I played frisbee and beach ball, and went swimming in the ocean for the FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE! It was so much fun! The waves were huge, so it was fun jumping around in them. The only downside was how salty it was! BLECH! Though the wave that crashed up my nose did seem to work like a neti pot and temporarily alleviate my congestion from my cold!

And, what would a day at the beach be without caring for the intoxicated? Much less entertaining, I suppose. There was one 40 year old woman in our group who may have indulged in the free sangria and beer a bit too much (and somehow managed to acquire a bottle of tequila). Needless to say, she was in bad shape. In hopes of sobering her up, my friends and I tried to take her on a walk (or a stumble) to get ice cream, which just made a mess of her face. She wound up falling over in the sand, and after I picked her up, she went to the bathrooms and demanded my other friends give her a shower. An hour or so later, she woke up from her coma, left her vomit-stained towel, and went straight to the water. I followed her, expecting she'd drown herself otherwise. Before I could even get to her, she fell over and was just sitting in the ocean with waves crashing into her face. So a couple of us had to lift her out of the ocean while some others got the We Love Spain staff to take care of her since she was becoming a handful! So she definitely made the day interesting!

Sunday at the beach was great fun and I look forward to more beach days in the future :] ...but hopefully with less sunburn!