Excursions and running

I´m really proud of myself for keeping up with this so well. Though I´m having a lot of trouble with entry titles.

This past weekend we had our first group excursion to Las Alpujarras, Almuñecar, and Nerja. It was really, really nice. Like we had it made. A beachfront hotel with a pool, a balcony in every room, access to the roof. Unfortunately, I don´t think I spoke one word of Spanish beyond "no gracias" to the immigrants selling bracelets on the beach. I felt guilty which is why I´m super stoked that I´m having an intercambio with a Spanish girl named Mariana! Yay. Got the e-mail today.

Last night Sarah and I went on an incredible run. I think I have a lot of problems exercising until I have one incredible exercise, and then I´m good to go. For example, I never enjoyed yoga until Suz led a standing session for Mon, Rina, and I on a wooden plank outlooking a lake in the middle of the Gamboa rainforest in Panama. Now I just always think about that experience and love yoga. I think that´s what last night´s run was. Maybe I´ll like running now.

Basically, Sarah tried to lead me to the San Nicolas outlook point but we got lost, which was great, because we ended up weaving through all these little streets we didn´t know. We finally made it to the outlook point at the perfect time, with the sky streaked in pink, a glow on the entire city, clear enough to see snow sprinkled on the top of La Sierra Nevada. The weather was cool and fresh and perfect and when we ran back it was getting dark, meaning that people were coming out, so we could dodge walkers to the beat of whatever song was on our ipods while constantly having another café or cute shop or group of strangely dressed tweenies to ogle. It was just awesome. And it definitely felt great after our 4 hour siesta, which came after our hour long bus ride nap, which came after our day of sleeping on the beach. You get the point.

At one of the bars in Almuñecar, a cover band was playing a huge variety of classic songs like Beatles, Pink Floyd, whatever, but the singer had NO discernable accent while singing. It was fascinating. That didn´t have to do with anything.

I feel like I have a lot of cultural commentary I´ve been thinking about as of late but I can´t think of it right now. Maybe I´ll update later.

Abrazos