Aright, so we got up pretty late. All of us except for my brother, who decided he needed to hit the waves at the insane hour of 8:30. Crazy, right? Us sane people got up late, and S didn't have to work until 7, so she got to come with us to the beach. And now we had two bikes. This naturally meant that D and I (not a nickname, actually me) had to pilot these granny bicycles, with my sis and S on the back.
The bikes in Europe have an interesting feature, which will become important in a moment. This feature is that they have no back wheel brake. Well, not for your hands, anyway. Instead, upon pedaling backwards a short bit, the brake kicks in, and I lurch forward. So, I was trying to avoid using this little feature. The back wheel was also flat. S was an old hat at this though, running a side and hopping on, and managing to maintain her balance amongst my swerving. I was actually doing quite well until we headed down this hill. D was ahead, and was slowing himself, but I basically had no safe break.
Upon realizing this, I suppose I must have let out some sort of garbled jungle call as I swerved around D, and off the path.
Signposts, dude.
They're like ninjas, jumping out of the bushes, and right in front of your bike, so you take a full frontal into them, and S flips off the back. There I am, standing, having had the barest sense to take the blow with my shoulder instead of my face, and then S just starts laughing. Lying on her back, our bags strewn about her, and she's guffawing.
I sort of chuckled myself. We sort of remounted and got back on track, and I finally learned that the back break depends on the pedaling force, which might have been nice to know before I made like Tarzan into an urban tree.
Anyways. We hit the beach soon after (too soon man), with S dismounting prior to the next, larger slope. My brother had retuned from his little excursion, having gotten another kite from a company called Slingshot, an appropriate name for what happened next. It was a windy day, and they gave my bro a 'larger' kite (14m) and a board. He went out to the water, and was maybe out there for, say, 15 minutes. Then a gust of wind took the kite, and him, out from the water. It then proceeded to drag him the next 200 meters along the beach, headfirst, his face literally digging in the sand as he tried to depower his kite.
Needless to say, it was mildly discouraging. He does take a lot of pride though, in saying that he did not once crash the kite. I just sort of chuckled to myself.
It truly was a day for mishap.
Instead of continuing with kite-watching, we headed for the seaside cafe, where we grabbed some gigantic cake and hot chocolate, and sat on the deck swapping stories. It was exquisite. We then got a trainer kite, and we all got to fly it about, doing figure eights in the sky and me very nearly missing a group of onlookers as I crashed the kite into the ground. It would drag you off your feet at times, with you stumbling to keep control. Great fun. Heading back into the city, it was now time for another first.
The European Sauna.
We first ate fish sandwiches at a street vendor, then went into the facility. I got a magnetic wristband, which allowed me to unlock and lock my locker by passing over it. Which is pretty sweet. Then we got changed, and headed into the first room: The wave pool. There was no chlorine in any of these, just salt for purification, completing the beach scene with a salty taste in my mouth as my brother and I jumped into the waves pushing across the pool surface. They carried us about, and we splashed around a bit before heading to the water slide.
Access to this monstrosity required an ascent up three stories of spiral, metal staircase. The tube itself twisted and spiraled downwards, and the water looked pretty fast. The collection of seven-year-olds lining up the stairs to enter also gave off an ominous look. D and my sis went first, together, and then it was me. The green light above the entrance flicked on, and I shoved off, sliding on my butt, and it was a little slower than I predicted. And I rounded the first bend. And then I stopped. In darkness. And I knew the green light would flick on in about 30 more seconds, so I scooted my butt along the tube as fast as I could, hurriedly shuffling my way down the tube, around the bend, into a waterfall, and towards the exit. Just as I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, I turned to see D riding down, going 'Noah? What the-?'. Then he slammed into me, and the two of us slid out onto the pool.
Apparently you're supposed to ride on your heels and elbows.
Who knew.
We went on to a couple other pools, and then it was on to the sauna. We went through two turn stiles, and then suddenly everyone was stripping to their skivvies. I followed birthday suit, and then we walked, towels wrapped to the main sauna, where the big event was about to start. You walk into a room full of old people, all naked and sweaty, and your friends are relieving themselves of their towels and sitting, and you start to question your entire basis of being here. You really do.
But I sat, and a dude came in, poured a peppermint mixture on the heated rocks in the middle of the room, waved his towel around to thoroughly douse us in burny mint, and started on the next, hotter concoction. We stayed for the full three rounds, after which I was pretty sure every pore on my body had drowned. Then the shower, and D and I strode into an ice pool. Another, calmer sauna, some chilling, another round on intense stuff (a citrus 'vitamin' mix this time), ice waterfall, chilling, intense (pure heat this time), and then we hung out on lounge chairs, watching the dunes far off and chatting. We left soon after, and went home to make pizza, S and I doing much better on the bike. We ate well, and watched Moonrise Kingdom (absolutely weird and adorable in equal measure). Then it was off to bed.
We woke up late the next morning, and got the apartment cleaned up. It was D and S's last time being there, as they'd be selling the place soon enough, and they said their goodbyes. We got the bags down to the car, wheeled the bikes into a storage area in the basement (nicely creepy, by the way), and then headed out. We dropped D off at his apartment, and then headed home. Nothing much else to say. We chilled, ate dinner, and were off to bed pretty quickly.
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