Sabrolena - Vamos a la playa!

This Saturday we had a free day, and being the adventurers we are, we weren't going to sit around on facebook all day! It was almost always the idea to go to one of the beaches on the coast of Spain, which are only about 1 hour away. It was nice, I didn't do any of the research, I just showed up when and where they said to for the bus, and paid what they said we'd have to, and we were on our way! We met at 10 am to take a bus that brought us to the main bus station, and from there we took a coach bus (only $12 round trip!!) to Sabrolena.


It's funny, no matter where you go, it seems that all coastal towns will have the same sort of feel to them. Tourist shops, ice cream places, cutesy restaurants, and lots of palm trees! And it was probably in the upper 60's the entire day, so with that very pleasant temperature and the sun beaming down on us, it felt like absolute Heaven to be there. After walking about 15 minutes from the bus stop, we arrived at the beach.


It seems that everyone has such beach instincts - once at the end of the boardwalk, we remove our shoes, and then have light conversation about the location to sit, and then organize the towels almost like a speechless tetris game where everything just fits perfectly into place. Already a great start to the day! For a while we just enjoyed being in the sun (the phrase to sunbathe is "tomar el sol," which means to take in the sun). We still had our jeans on, but I had taken off my leather jacket and cardigan and was laying there with my tank top!
After some time of sitting around, a couple of us decided to climb the cliff in the not so far distance. What an experience in just a half hour! The sights got better and better as you climbed up, and it felt fun and free to be climbing around like little monkeys.










After that, we headed back to our towels to relax more. By this time we had been there for about 2 hours, so it was roughly 2 pm. With the climbing, I was feeling actually pretty hot so I decided to go ahead and just sunbathe in my bathing suit! Although it was a tad chilly, I'm sure you can just imagine the feeling of the sun soaking your skin. Mmmmm. Then once the others were back from a restaurant (their host parents didn't give them lunch - as always I got a ham and cheese baguette thing with a banana and orange juice box. So more like a lightly adorned ham baguette and the rest), we decided to do what most of us really went there for: swimming in the Mediterranean Sea!!!! I'm in the orange bathing suit and to the far right (for the ones where it's us running in!)


The water of course was cold, it actually kind of took my breath away for a second because of the shock... but isn't that what true adventure feels like?? I think you're not doing it good enough if you're still comfortable. So of course we jump out after less than 5 seconds of idling, but then after a quick assessment of one of the girls' cameras, she realized that the person who took them took the pictures in some way that they didn't come out! So we figured, hey let's just run in again! Anything for the sake of a good picture. I was reasonable enough to not get my hair wet, so it doesn't look like we all jumped in, but believe me, it happened!!!


What's funny is that it was snowing that day, all while we were sitting on the beach and going into the water! Overall it was a really fun experience. What a great day at the playa!!!

ps- as of this blog entry, I added more "Sights Around Granada" pictures!