So my friends and I decided to take a nice day trip to a town less than an hour away called Con Con, known for their sand dunes. The bus ride cost the equivalent of about 75 cents each way and we rented sandboards upon arrival for about $2 for an hour. It was incredible. The view was breath-taking, and sand boarding is crazy fun. Plus, you get a workout going up and down the dune. I was really surprised with myself with my hidden sand boarding talent; I don’t snow board or anything, but I was pretty good at it on sand. But more on the view:
The dune we were on was very steep and very tall, and when we got to the top, we could see everything. When we looked back we were facing the hills and mountains behind smoky smears of high top clouds and mists of the rain that had just passed that morning. When we turned around, however, a large open greeting came to us from the sea with its majestic blue. The ocean looks so different here…it feels like I should be in a movie or something with its seeming perfection. The sun was straight to the right of us, slowly making its way down to kiss the sea (because let’s be real, who wouldn’t want to kiss this sea?) and sealions were barking down by the rocks near the bottom of this dune calling out for us to come visit (which we did eventually). It was more of a place than I had ever thought or anticipated.

Don’t worry, the rest of this will not be fluffy fifty-cent-novelist style. Afterwards, we were looking for a place to eat, and settled on a nice place called Dely…something. Turns out, they didn’t have a card machine or change for cash, so we had to all deal with exactly the bills we had, and luckily it worked out nicely including tip.
Cultural note: always bring sufficient bills and coins with you for that day.

Yesterday was my busiest day. I had a class at 820am but I also wanted to jog beforehand (I had a random burst of energy I guess). So at 5am I got myself up and was out jogging by 530. However, it being still winter here, it was also still dark, and typically people don’t get don’t partying until about 5am…so I thought jogging up the hill would be my safest bet because it’s farther from the main street and the bars. So there I was jogging and then I notice 2 decently large looking in the distance. You can bet that I booked it the other way. I settled on walking down some impressively (& painfully) steep stairs only to look back, curse myself for what I had just set it in head to do, and ran back up (well…ran most of it).
Moral of the story: don’t run alone, especially if you’re a girl & especially in the dark.

It’s raining right now, so it’s cold and all I want to do is snuggle in bed…but I have a class at 1400/2pm…my only class of the day. Poor me.

Everything is so relaxed here… Enjoying every moment while it lasts.