Saturday! San Jose!! Showered, ate, grabbed last minute things and then Alex and I walked the two blocks to the API bus stop. :) Alex ended up going back to grab her 'adventure hat' since we were so early and live so close. Got on the bus, drove for about an hour and a half before Grace decided she had to go to the bathroom. Actually, that's not fair - she had been telling Eli for a while, but there was really nowhere for the bus to stop on the highway - there wasn't even really a shoulder. And I don't think it was understood how much of an emergency it was becoming... so we eventually pulled off at this little town where the bus tried to turn around in a little cul-de-sac, and couldn't. It had to sit there and honk long enough for the owner of an illegally parked vehicle to come and moved it OUT of the circle, so we had clearance. :)

Back on the road - we got to San Jose about 30 min later than expected, but it was ok. We followed the road along the coastline, which was really pretty. We also saw these giant greenhouses that covered acres of farmland we drove through! Apparently Sean looked at Google earth while in the states, and had been trying to figure out what they were... ;) In San Jose, we stayed in the "Hostel of the Seagulls", but it was really nice - more hotel than hostel. Amelia and I shared a room, so we dropped our stuff off and met the group back downstairs to walk to the secret virgin beach (30 min away). Along the way we stopped at one of the two supermarkets in town, and bought cookies, chips, water, etc to take with us. (To go along with the pear and sandwich we had brought from home - cucumber and ham.) Then the walk. We started out on the 'right foot' by Amanda, Chris and Ethan almost being left behind because they had gone across the street to buy sunscreen. Eli really does not wait for people... but they caught up. :) As we walked through town, then out of town, then into a dessert field, we started getting confused that Eli had taken a wrong turn. Especially when we entered a forest of giant Yucca cactus that were almost as large as us, with giant spires of flowers that were probably sometimes 20-30 feet tall! Very surreal. We finally emerged onto the beach, which was SANDY and beautiful! (Many European beaches are actually rocky, instead of sandy.) We spent the remainder of the day there.

At one point Alex, Ellen and Amelia decided to swim naked... in the true Spanish fashion (all beaches in Spain are topless, whether you choose to is up to you). I most definitely stayed clothed throughout the entire beach event. ;)

After that, a group of girls wanted to hike the mountain bordering the beach we were at. Including Alex, Jess, Emily, Amelia, Allison, and Kelsey. They hiked to the top, then down around the other side before coming back to where the rest of us were lounging in the sun, hoping nobody fell and hurt themselves while we couldn't see them. Poor Ethan was actually really concerned about it. That's another thing - Amelia and Ethan. She thinks he is fatherly and sweet - like an older brother. Everyone is pretty sure that is NOT how he views her (except her, of course). :)

Poor Sean ended up looking like a tomato by the time we were finished on the beach - he, Ethan and I were the second group to go back (after Eli and Alicia). We were pretty sure we knew how to get there, until we got to the last minute of the 30 minute walk... At which point we weren't sure which of three streets to take, and took every one in the process of looking for the hostel. It was of course, the last one we tried. :) We were each in different rooms, so the plan was to clean up and meet in Sean's room in 20 minutes to start looking for food. I was going to wear my pants again, but after putting them on over my wet swimsuit, that idea was... not a wise one. So I put on my striped dress instead... except that it was all tangled, and took me about 5 full minutes to fix... ugh. Sean ended up coming up to meet me, and Ethan was not dressed when he opened his door, so we went back downstairs to wait for him.

In Sean's room we watched CNN (in ENGLISH), and he told me of his shower disaster. :D Basically, his shower head doesn't securely attach to the wall, so when he turned the water on full, it shot off the wall, across the tub, onto the little ledge on the other side, where it then proceeded to soak the ENTIRE bathroom before Sean could grab it and confine the water stream. Haha! There was water EVERYWHERE. So when his roommate (Alex, of course) came back and was going to take a shower, Sean warned him of this unfortunate scenario. Alex laughs, and proceeds to try his luck. About halfway through we hear a shriek from the bathroom... Sean and I just look at each other and bust out laughing! Apparently the shower curtain collapsed when Alex bumped into it, and it falling startled him and caused MORE water to miss the designed shower drain at the base of the tub. I swear, my shower was not NEARLY so eventful...

We finally got tired of waiting for Ethan, and went back upstairs to discover that Amelia, Jacobo and Chris were all in there, ready to go. So we went to Paolino's, an Italian restaurant that Eli recommended because it wasn't too expensive. Turns out we were joined by Grace and Hannah, then by Eli and Alicia just after we ordered. Grace and I split a Pizza (Espanola), with jamon serrano, mozzarella cheese and tomato. Fantastic!! All the food there was really good (we shared)!! The poor waiter there was a young blond boy (we aren't sure if he was the owners son or not) who ran around trying to serve everyone - because most of the API group ended up there, along with a bunch of other people - while his (mother? boss?) yelled at him. :) Typical Italian woman... heh.

After dinner Sean, Chris and I took Amelia home, because during their hike up the mountain today she got stuck by a Yucca cactus - the barb went straight into her shin and hit bone. When Jacobo and Eli told her that the spines are poisonous, poor Amelia got really anxious! Until Eli told her it wasn't serious. :) But it was hurting her really bad, so we didn't stay out. The four of us hung out is Sean's room again, and just goofed around until Chris saw this HUGE spider in the sliding-door frame. It was like a young tarantula!! Apparently, Chris has arachnophobia. He LAUNCHED himself across the bed to the other side of the room, and proceeded to break into a sweat and shake for almost 20 minutes. Sean laughed until HE looked at the spider - at which point he screamed like a small child. Amelia and I were the ones who ran over to take pictures and check it out. ;)

Sean finally kicked us out around midnight, and Amelia and I went back to our room. We got to talk a little before going to bed (around 1 am), which was cool. Amelia and I haven't really talked one-on-one before, and we have a lot of similarities. ;)

Sunday. Another lazy day at the beach!! We got up in time for breakfast at the hostel (were meeting the guys downstairs by 9, but got there a little before) and ended up making bocadillos (sandwiches) from the breakfast spread - which we are definitely NOT supposed to do! ;) Sean and I stashed mine in my purse, which he had brought to breakfast to give back to me, since I'd left it in his room the night before. Chris shoved his in his sweatshirt pocket, and I'm not sure where Amelia put hers...

We moved out of the hostel and took everything with us to the beach. Instead of trekking to the virgin one, we stuck with the beach in town, and toasted ourselves there. The problem with that was this water was SO MUCH COLDER!! So I hardly went into the water at all, or just into my waist to cool off. I didn't burn though! Got great tan lines from my bikini, but they are brown vs white, no red involved!! :D

We stayed until 4 in the afternoon, breaking out the sandwiches we snatched and the donuts Amelia bought the day before. Then we had to catch the bus back to Granada to be back for dinner. We took a different way home, and the driver put a really scratched version of Sweet Home Alabama in for us to watch. I'm not sure if anyone really watched it - most of us plugged ourselves in to our music or slept. Poor Ethan and Amelia both got really car-sick, and weren't feeling well at all. Alex and I were a little anxious to go home because we didn't know if our host mom would be expecting us... or not... and how she would take it if she wasn't. But she was cool! We had fried eggs with leftover rice soup (which I just combined on my plate and ate together) for dinner, and then we just went to bed by 11. Both Alex and I were pretty tired.