Vamos A La Playa!!

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I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Our celebration was actually really fun, very different from typical Thanksgiving, but enjoyable. I brought mashed potatos and Gladys brought a noodle salad. Her two friends came with us and Vanessa to the party. They even had a big turkey there! All of the food everyone brought was really good including the deserts. We all had to introduce our families on a microphone and it took forever because there were so many people there. After the presentations they turned on some salsa music and I danced with my friend Sarah who is super good at Salsa. My host sister, Vanessa, asked for reggaeton, THE popular music here, and we danced lots and lots. I couldn´t believe it was Thanksgiving and we were dancing like crazy people!! But it was lots of fun. We went home and I packed for the beach. I attempted to take a shower but there are always issues with that and that night there was a tiny drip of water so that was a challenge.... I got a nice surprise phone call from Evan to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving which was nice and then I got in a cab to pick up Sarah to go to the bus station. The four of us met there and got on the bus for Atacames. It was midnight and the driver turned on some crazy action movie really loud so it was kind of hard to sleep. Oh well, we slept eventually.

On Friday morning we arrived in Atacames, bought our return tickets for Sunday and we were immediatley bombarded by a huge crowd of guys that drove mototaxis. Instead of your good old taxi, they had these carts with bicycles or motorbikes that would drive people around. It was so funny. Every time we go somewhere we have yet another transportation adventure! It just gets better every time. So we took the mototaxi to another town nearby called Sua because it is more isolated and quiet. Atacames is very spring-breaky and we didn´t want that. We found a nice and cheap hotel right on the water so we stayed there and ate breakfast. We spent the entire day laying on the beach with our magazines and it was so relaxing. For lunch, I had ice cream. Perfect. At night we ate in the town and walked along the beach which was so beautiful. The water was so unbelievably warm and it makes me wish that the beach house had warm water like that!! The next day we did the same thing. We took a walk on the beach to collect seashells and we found some really good ones. But I stubbed my toe on something and it was bleeding so I was trying to hop around without getting sand in it. Oh well, just last night I performed surgery on myself to make sure it wasn´t infected. For lunch Nicole and I had a margarita... Oh my god it was so strong!!! I could barely drink it and I could feel it right away which was really funny for them. But it was totally worth it. While we were laying on the beach this guy kept coming by trying to sell us ice cream and when we would say no, he would just stand there with his cart and stare at us... I just put my towel over my head and ignored him. It´s a good skill to have. Hahahaha. Later that day Nicole and Sarah convinced me to go in this inflatable boat ride. Worst choice ever. We get in the raft, with lifejackets (yay!), and got towed behind a boat called The Bestia (The Beast). We started going and it was alright but then the Bestia would make waves and we would fly over them. It hurt so much!!! We were getting whipped around and my legs were getting scratched by the raft. I hated it! At one point I said to Sarah and Nicole that I wanted to get out but they said that it was pretty much impossible. I knew it but I just really didn´t enjoy the ride. It wasn´t like some thrilling experience like river rafting or zip-lining, it was just painful and I felt like I was going to snap my neck whilst choking on salt water. And funny enough, the ride was supposed to be 5 minutes and Nicole had asked for 10 before we got in. Luckily, the guy stopped after 5. That night, after dinner, somebody had great music blaring from their car on the patio of the hotel so I just sat outside and enjoyed it. The other three girls went into Atacames to go dancing but I did not want to deal with the guys so I stayed. They came back after a couple hours because there were creepy old guys hitting on them.

On Sunday morning we ate breakfast and went back to Atacames to take the bus home. The bus was really nice and I slept a lot. For the last couple hours though the bus driver put on an "action movie". Well, that action movie was The Seed of Chucky!!!! I could not believe it!! There were kids on the bus! Hahahaha. I have never seen any of the Chucky movies and I don´t think I ever want to after seeing this one. It was such an awful movie. It is like a horror comedy weird movie. Poor little kids on the bus! But no one said anything. We made it back home fine and I slept really well last night. The raft ride made us all sore. I did manage to get tan thought, but unfortunatley I burnt my lips and they were tingly yesterday. I have forced myself to wear chapstick, which I hate, but I know I need it. Today I just did a presentation in my spanish class about my thesis work with the Marshallese community in Washington. I think it went really well and everyone asked lots of questions. Now we are going to watch Maria Full of Grace in class. Thank you everyone for the Thanksgiving messages! Luckily, I will have made it back just in time for Christmas so I hope to wish everyone a Merry Christmas in person! Ciáo!

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