Beach Bums 2.10.11

"Gooood Morningggg, ICMS!"

"Morning, Tony!"

It was almost 9am, which meant that the "mandatory" Surf Safety course was about to get a start. All international students were required to attend. So, once again, I wasn't much for doing the whole 'surf' thing. But when was I ever going to have this opportunity again?!  And to be honest... there really isn't a better place to try. So I threw my suit on because we were going IN the beautiful, blue-bottle infested waters at Manly Beach.



The good little Americans that attended Surf Safety course (not me).

 Just before 9, I receive a call from Sarah... She talked to the instructors and asked if she had to go. They said 'no'. And since she didn't feel like getting wet, she was calling it a beach day instead. Okayyyy, twisted my arm. Yes, I will lay on the beach like a diva. No surf safety course. Just a golden brown tan for this girl!

Although a little part of me was bummed I didn't at least try surfing, I wasn't too terribly bummed because the people that did go, got all kinds of battle scars - The jellyfish were out and fierce.

Nearly all of them got stung at least once; some twice. They leave a "rubber band snap" type of look. Molly described it as an instant sting then a really bad sunburn type feel (she was one of the lucky ones that got it twice). Thank gosh the pain goes away within the day.

Obviously, a stressful morning of napping on the beach earns a solid lunch... so we strolled through a couple shops on the Corso and made our way back to enjoy the gourmet menu from the ICMS Marketplace kitchen.

The afternoon slid by and before we knew it dinner was upon us. So once again, a big group of us gathered and ate in the courtyard.  We all agreed... It was time for an adventure. Sarah, Megan, Audrey, and I all decided we were going to go on an adventure walk. We left campus and had no destination in mind... we wanted to just get lost and find something cool.

Adventure, it was!! A creepy Jurassic Park-type adventure. We walked and winded and kept going towards signs with arrows pointing... well, we weren't sure where.

After following the trail and going through the woods for what I consider to be "too long", we came across a magical, hidden beach. Actually, it is a well known beach - just for being so far back. But we "discovered" Collin's Beach:

When we got there, the sun was starting to set - and the creepiness kicked in. After making it to the beach, about 30 seconds after we got there, these 3 guys randomly appeared from the woods.
We actually got to the beach at perfect timing - just in time for an incredible sunset. So us being the girls that we are took too many pictures.
"Crazy appearing guys" nicely offered to take a picture of all of us in front of the sunset (which was very kind of them...) and we waited and waited and he finally said the picture turned out great! (Later to find out... he never took a picture of us. Word?)  Then we were getting ready to head back to campus and they told us about a "short-cut" that nobody knew about. Ummm... no thanks. We'll take the main way. The kicker? They asked if we minded if they skinny dipped. We barely gave them an answer - we were too busy bolting back towards the woods to get outta there!!!

It was now dark. Walking through the woods. On a little path. With wicked spiders everywhere. We made it back to the street and a random car slowly drove by very obviously staring at us. We just kept walking... a little faster at this point. The trail we were on was a Jurassic Park type of trail. The trees kinda caved in on you.

The trail looked like this: Without the vehicular mobile and it was dark out.

Just to add icing to the cake, the birds here sound like very sick sheep (I'll describe in more detail later).
We started that walk as a slow stroll; and it ended up being a very brisk walk, nearly run. Go figure... our adventure walk turned in to an exercise routine.
We finally made it back to our rustic castle on the hill. And to be honest, I think this was the first time I felt relief seeing this place.

It was all kind of surreal... Just moved into a castle. And just encountered a scene from a horror movie.
Is this real life?