Blast Off

so here i am attempting to start up a blog of my own. after reading nates i figure theres no better way to stay in touch with y´all. god knows i cant be writing emails to all of you, i have enough trouble answering my cell phone on a regular basis.
i will try to make it as entertaining as possible and not bore you with mundane occurances, but i dont know, the thought of nate, naked, getting massaged by two men is a tough act to follow, it makes everything seem mundane. i will certainly do my best. i will try to make everything as truthful as possible, with a little dramatic interpretation, just to enhance my own memory of it all.

so me and silvio arrived in sunny southern spain last thursday after a rather long 13 hour voyage. my first order of duty upon arrival was upgrading our cable package so that i now get every single soccer game on the planet basically. its rather absurd, on any given moment on the weekend there is a game on like 5 different channels. Arsenal on one, Chelsea on the other, Barca, Real Madrid, everything. i ffear it might spend alot of time watching tv. oh well.

after watching games all day saturday, i went out for my first night on the town. let me tell you, for those of us from the united states where an all nighter is a rare occurence, if you want to come party out here, you need to train beforehand. i left the house around 11 only to go to a friends house where we played playstation for an hour or two, as if it were a lazy sunday morning. only then did they deem it late enough to get in gear. we, being me and 7 other people, went to a concert that started at midnight. we got there around 1, but we didnt go in, no not yet, instead we lounged outsidefor another few hours drinking litros (a liter of beer, roughtly 1€), since it was so expensive inside. after sufficient inherbriating and chit chat, we actually went to the concernt around 4 am, which is appartently when the headline band was supposed to come out. negative, they did not come out until 445, and didnt finish playing until 6 am, a remarkable occurence for me coming from ithaca, where the wildest bars close at 1 am. needless to say, i was not propared for that kind of partying, it may take me a while to build up that kind of stamina. at that point i insisted on going home, much to the dismay of my collegues, who insisted on getting a few more litros and going to some park or plaza to chillout. i am sad to admit that i had to punk out and get some sleep, in preparation for the three day trip to the beach planned for the next day.

the following day i needless to say awoke rather late. around 5 pm i was scooped up by my friend richard, and his visiting collegue from germany christophe. we spent the first night at richards house (he also has a house in granada) in la alpujarra, which is a region in the sierra nevada a bit south of granada. the mountian air of la alpujarra was quite refereshing and i was glad to be in the country and get a good nights sleep. i awoke before everyone with my usual outpour of mucus from my facial orifices and stiff back, nothing a little stretching and some mountain pose wouldnt cure. it was quite a treat to enjoy that early morning in such a beautiful landscape. the alpujarra is divided into three sections: baja, media and alta, meaning lower middle and high. the higher you go, the more water their is and the more green it is. and coming from the lush northeastern united states, a little green is a welcome sight in a region characterized for being arid.

so we set off for the beaches of almeria, the only mediterranean coast in spain that is relatively undeveloped, and it is only 2 hours from granada on the high way. the region of almeria is basically a desert so the plan was that we would go to a beach that richard knew of and sleep in hammocks among the eucalptus trees that grew on the beach. being that it only rains about 4 days a year in almeria we figured we´d be in good shape. needless to say the beach and the region itself is spectacular. the sand is dark and soft, yet it doesnt get as hot as other dark beaches ive been to. in other words, you dont have to sprint from one shady spot to the next as ive had to do at most dark beaches. we arrived monday afternoon, just in time to buy some food, and head over to a beach near the one we were going to sleep at. the water was truly delicious with a light blue color and a warm temperature, it reminded me of my year in playa del carmen. it was my first real visit to the mediteranean and i must say, it lived up to the hype. the water is clean and refreshing and the flora and fauna flourishes among the rocky coves that lined the shore. as sunset approached we went to out home for the next couple days and hung the hammocks, layed out a blanket and sat down for dinner, which consisted of bread, cheese, ham, tomatoes, rum, and coke. darkness hit us before we could start eating, and we realized how ill prepared we were, not a single flashlight, typical guys, what can i say. we were only saved by the utility knife shanes parents wisely gave me which i forgot to take out of my backpack and the small, yet bright flash light that it carried. oh divine providence, with out that little flashlight we would have been in serious trouble. so we finished eating and turned to the liter of rum we had brought, we sat down by the water and richard broke out the guitar. he is quite good at the flamenco guitar and it is quite and experience to hear him. we all sat around and took turns singing (yes, even i sang. must be the rum) while me and christophe took turns whaling on our thighs to the beat. i must interject here to say a bit more about the water. we went into the sea at night only to discover that it was alive with photoplankton and every movement you made in the water made them light up all around you. it was truly one of the most special things i have ever seen. we were in the water for at least half an hour, despite the sharp drop in night time temperatures.

it turns out that even a remote beach does not escape spains vibrant night life. after dark several parties came out to camp on the beach and by the timed we had finished off our bottle of rum we were being passed another bottle around a raging bonfire that someone had started up. by 230 in the morning i was quite drunk and i deemed it was better to go to my hammock then to pass out on the beach. i slept quite soundly until what seemed like silvio in my bedroom trying to create a strobe light effect with my ceiling light, and for those of you who missed my metaphor, it was thundering like a muda, coupled with a few droplets of rain. before long we saw all the people we were chilling with, making their way to the parking lot, but we decided, upon my insistence of course, that it might not rain too hard and we should rough it out. we stayed this course for about 45 sleepless minutes until the wind started howling by us, and we realized that we better run for it. the minute we got out of the hamocks the gods started pissing all over us, we didnt have time to set up camp in anyway and by the time we got to the car, we and all our belongings were soaked to the bone. and so we sat in the car, freezing for about 3 hours while we enjoyed 25% of almerias rainey days. and it was quite a rain indeed, it can onyl be described as torrential. the rain finally stoped and i ran back to the campsite to get our wet belongings, food included, so we could have some breakfast to try to battle the combined hangover/lack of sleep. sure enought the sun didnt come out all morning and it rained two more times, so all the dry clothes we changed into were positively soaked. things were not looking good, we were cold as hell and all of our shit was soaked. the good news is a learned a few life lessons. first: im no meteorologist; second (not the first time ive learned this): better safe than sorry. thankfully the sun came up in the afternoon and we were able to dry our stuff and take a pleasant nap in the hammocks, although i think i caught a bit of a cold. the second night elapsed much like the first, minus the rum, and we built a shelter in case it rained again. this is true until we tried to go to sleep because it was FREEZING. i had all my clothes on, under my blanket, but i still woke up at least 7 times throughout the night only to find that the sun had not risen yet, when in finally did we slept a little more soundly, still with all of our clothes on. and then it was hot as hell, and i was so glad to be swaying in my hammock among the shady eucaliptus, i felt like a koala bear. that afternoon(wednesday) we headed back to granada and to the many conforts of civilization.

sorry if the first entry is a bit long, im sure they get more succinct with time, i hope you all enjoy my adventures as much as i do.