new kinds of sun

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we begin today with a little story. our story is set in cadiz spain where we are as i write. but first lets go back about a week or so to cinque terre located on what is considered to be the italian rivierra. cinque terre is made up of 5 little towns on the coastline that can be visited by hiking or taking the train between each town. we set out to see all 5 in the morning but after seeing 3 we decided that as beautiful as they were, they did not compare to amalfi coast. i, in true stacey fashion, suggested we take advantage of the sun and beach and lay out for a while. so back to the first town we went and bought two swimsuits and towels. they were actually quite cheap. we first layed down in some loungers but were quickly quicked out and shown the beach we were allowed to lay out seeing as we were not any of these coastal hotels´ guests. finally laying down it was a little past 2 and i was slightly disappointed at how late it was. being from california you see, i know when are the best times to lay out and when the rays are at their height. but we decided to lay down anyway and tanned half an hour on each side. we were feeling quite crispy and reddened and left it at just about an hour and a half under the sun. so we walked around...blah blah blah and realized later that night and the next day that we got hardly any sun. we were quite disappointed and i was slightly proud with an attitude of "i told you so" since i was right about it not being worthwhile to lay out at that time.
now fast forward to yesterday.
spain is really where i have been aching to get to. the sun, the beaches, the bright colors, etc. so tony has so genersouly decided every day will be dedicated to laying out when the weather permits. naturally i wake up yesterday morning thrilled that i would be returning to my natural (that is tan) self. but as we lazily got ready and went outside, we were greeted by what i thought were ominous clouds. tony was sure that these were the kind of clouds that you could burn under, the kind i told him about a few days ago, but it wasn´t blue skies and sun and so i decided it was not worth it. we attempted to head to another town but missed the train by just 2 minutes. since it was a little past eleven and the next train to this town that was 2 hours away wasn´t until 1, we decided to make the best of this little spanish town on the coast. we began walking on the beach, looked at their ancient city castles and then....i felt it.....the intensity of clear blue skies sun rays. indeed it had cleared up. we headed back to get our towels and head to what the locals call their "new beach" with golden sand. (you´d be pleased to know father these golden sand beaches look awfully like ventura´s). so out go our towels and before you know it, where tummy up to the sun. there weren´t too many people around and it was around 2 again so figured it´d be a little bit of laying out, no sunscreen necessary and back to walk around. plus, somewhere way back there, i´m cherokee indian...i don´t burn. a lot like cinque terre. well, slowly more and more people began showing up as it got later. in fact, there were easily 3 times as many people an hour later then when we first got there. strange. so we do the usual time each side and flip, we splashed in the water as tony body surfed 2 foot waves, and were back tanning. as a side note - while we were in the water is was quite funny to watch tony put is hand print on his chest and see how white it was. only it was almost 4:30 and the sun was still high. extremely high ... and intense. tone decided to take shelter under a towel as i began convincing myself it was okay to leave even if the sun was still out and other people were still tanning. about 5 o´clock we called it a day and began walking back. and as we began to look at each other and ourselves, lifting up our shirts, staring at eachother´s faces we realized we were severely burned. oh yes folks. the sun here is not like the sun in ventura, cinque terre. here it burns high, it burns long, and it burns intense. and i learned cherokee indians can burn.
today is the day of aloe vera. we are very thankful that my two years of high school weren´t actually for nothing but were indeed for these days in spain. most people know not a word of english and we were desperate for something that soothed. thankfully we have an amazing room all to ourselves right downtown and have been eating pb&j sandwiches and spreading aloe vera. poor tone got it quite a bit worse then i and the aloe is almost half gone as we spread it from the arch of his foot to his eyelids. but already we´ve seen progress so that´s good.

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