Sitges

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So today is going to get a short entry because it was mostly a travel day. We did, however, do some important stuff today, #1 being finally having a real swim in the Mediterranean!

We started the day with a trek to the local “Chinese Store” (apparently a genre around here, as that’s what people called it everywhere) that had everything in the universe at decent prices, including adaptors for a fifth of what we had paid for them the night before : ( I nabbed some decent-looking long shorts, an “athletic” shirt and some sandals and was ready to take on the beach. We booked our tickets and headed out to Sitges, a town near Barcelona which we were told had good beaches. We weren’t disappointed. While the water was a bit cold, the beach was really clean and the sand went out as far as we could walk with a slope so gradual you were only up to your waist at 100 feet out. Even the water seemed less salty than most beaches.

We enjoyed the water for a good 90 minutes before heading out to lounge on the beach for a bit. Kevin and I used the time to make a lovely (hah) sand sculpture. It started as a hole, an attempt at a castle wall, which transformed into a mouth and eventually into a Shoop Da Woop-ish face complete with hands and such. Epic. It was then promptly destroyed/improved by a couple of little Spanish girls as we moved on. Also Epic.

We wandered the town for a bit, bought some cheesetastic souveniers nd then decided to get dinner. Our choices were somewhat limited as we happened to hit the siesta, but the place we ended up hitting was great. We each got a pizza and shared them as well as a large jug of awesome sangria. Salmon and feta, shrimp and prosciutto, and a “supreme”-ish pizza combined efforts to make a meal of awesome, giving us plenty of energy for the overnight sleeper train to Seville. That plus the gelato we had on the way to the station.

The train was small, but comfortable enough and the random Spanish guy we shared the room with was awesome. I also got to meet a group of 6 guys from UIUC who found me due to my computer broadcasting ad-hoc under the name “UIUCnet” while I was killing time with my laptop in the McDonald’s at the station. Small world!

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