July 18, 2008 (Friday)
The Lord’s Hand in my Life: Throwing the schedule out the door and being able to handle it.

It was such an amazing feeling to leisurely wake up this morning and say to myself “my friends and I are going to lay on the beach all day long without a care in the world.” I haven’t had feelings of relaxation for a long time. Although the trips I’ve been on this summer have been a lot of fun, they haven’t been relaxing. We pretty much just ran from place to place. I smiled as I daydreamed about the activities that would more than likely take place for the day. The wind will be blowing through my hair, the sun’s rays will bronze my skin and us girls will chat, laugh and eat ice cream. The perfect day.

I loved playing at the beach all day. There was no scheduled place we had to be at any certain time, which is definitely not the way my life usually runs. Normally everything is scheduled, but I have to admit I liked having the schedule thrown out the window for once.

We went to a different beach than the one we visited yesterday. It was extremely extremely crowded…we all decided that yesterday’s beach was more of a leisure/family beach and today’s was a party beach. It took us forever to find a place to sit, and when we finally did it was quite a ways away from the water. It was CRAZY! I’ve decided I’m not a huge fan of ridiculously crowded beaches.

When we first arrived I was a little shocked with how many topless girls in thongs and men in Speedos there were. I’ve never seen so many undressed people in my life, and it wasn’t even a nude beach. It was so weird. Girls were walking around with their tops off and chest hanging every which way. What was even stranger to me was that it wasn’t a big deal to anyone there. Everyone just walked around like normal. No one stared strangely at their revealing attire. Everywhere you looked was walking pornography. To be honest I don’t know why they would need pornography when they could get the real thing at the beach. Definitely a different culture to say the least. Not a big fan of seeing people naked that should NEVER be seen like that. We were all talking about the lack of clothes and we tried to figure out why it wasn’t a big deal to any of them. In a book we are reading about the Gypsies it talked about how Gypsies don’t view a women’s chest as a sexual thing, but as a tool for feeding their babies. Maybe that’s what Europeans think? I don’t know. The sad thing was that after a few hours the shock of seeing topless women was gone. I still didn’t like it in the least bit, but it made me wonder if people even think twice about the fact that they treat their bodies like an object - not like something that should be prized and respected. I was wearing a one piece swim suit and out of thousands of people at the beach I only saw one person the entire day that wore a one piece. In fact I noticed that the women who actually wore more modest clothing stood out more because EVERYONE was dressed so scantily. I bet everyone was looking at us like “what is wrong with you why do you have bathing suits on that cover up so much?” We may not have felt sexy, but we were modest and that was perfect for us.

After we laid out for a bit we saw this huge banana boat float that was being pulled by boats out far away from shore. Whitney S., Kenz and I decided that it looked like fun so we convinced everyone to go on it with us. It was a blast. We strapped on our helmets and life vests and climbed on. The best part was when the guy started explaining the instructions in Romanian. All of us looked at each other like “well I hope he’s not saying anything too important and if he is there isn’t anything we can do about it.”

With that said we started being pulled away far from shore. We were all giggling and bouncing up and down as we held on to the handle that was in front of us. Then I gazed out over the ocean – It was absolutely gorgeous. About halfway through we were sitting there enjoying the ride and all of a sudden the driver made a sharp turn and without any notice we all went tumbling into the water. All of our bodies fell on top of each other and became completely intermingled. When we arrived at the top for air all of us had been fallen on, kicked, or jabbed somewhere in our body from the sudden turn. Other riders didn’t seem as surprised as us about suddenly being flung into the sea – probably because they actually understood the directions. Nice.

For the next couple of hours Whitney S. and I read our book for class…then we went and grabbed a schwarma and some fruit for lunch…they equally tasted amazing. Soon after that Kenz and I got hot and jumped in the water. Throughout the afternoon we would jump in the freezing cold water periodically when we couldn’t stand the stark heat waves of the sun anymore. One time Kenz and I jumped in and we were standing in water up to our shoulders and chatting when all of a sudden a guy popped up next to us out of no where. He had big goggles on and wore a surprised look on his face. Then he quickly excused himself and did a graceful little dive from where he was standing in the water like a whale. We saw his large speedo bumb pop quickly into the air then disappear just as fast as it came. For some reason the situation was hilarious. Kenz and I laughed as hard as we could for at least five minutes. Oh the joys….

After we laid out for a while longer and got ice cream, Kenz and I decided to go buy a volleyball so all of us girls could play with it in the water. That ended up being a lot of fun, except I definitely bruised my heel in the process. We all got in a circle in the water and hit they ball around for a while. The game was ended once Whitney S. hit a lady directly on top of the head with the ball. Bad aim Whitney haha…bad aim.

Right before we left we got the most amazing donuts with white chocolate sauce drizzled on them. Whitney S. and I shared one and we were absolutely in heaven eating them – especially since we’ve been staying away from sweets during the week days. It made having them a million times better.

When we got home we all showered. That is except for my roommate Whitney S. Haha…she grew up on the beach, and she doesn’t see the need to shower while we are here because you just get up and go to the beach again. I understand her point, but I can’t stand the feeling of sand in my hair and bed. When she came out I was like “you don’t look showered?” She replied “I washed my armpits?” I just looked at her and smiled and laughed. Oh Whitney.

After most of us were showered we ate some bread with an interesting pork paste slathered on it. Then somehow once dinner was done we started listening to music and we ended up having a dance party/dance off. The first team was Whitney S., Kenz and I, and the second team was Mindy, Annie and Elyse. We had a dance off and boy did we have a lot of fun doing it. I like to think that we won…however, I’m sure they would like to refute that.

By the time we went to bed we were all feeling the affect of being out in the sun all day. I had a stark contrast of red and white which easily revealed what part of my body was and was not covered by my bathing suit. I even had little circles on my stomach sunburned because of the small circular patterns from my bathing suit…my rear was also burned enough that it hurt to sit down. I put sun screen on all day – I guess I should have started with a higher SPF. Oh well…I will be wearing clothes tomorrow.