The day I flashed 100 people.

One year ago (nearly to the day), I was on the other side of the world with 2 of my closest friends. Oddly enough, the rainy, cold weather I am currently experiencing here is very similar to the weather we were experiencing there. While one would expect the African coast to be warm, I can say that it definitely was not warm, and actually bordered on being cold. Nevertheless, my friends and I decided to visit the beach.
Thinking back, it seems ridiculous that we didn't give up on the whole idea sooner.

1) We drove by said 'beach' 3 times before we were convinced that it was a place to swim, or that even allowed people;

2) There was no parking, rather an extended area on the shoulder of the road;

3) Walking down a hill with a topographic relief of maybe 3 feet... I tripped on something in the sand and literally fell flat on my face. There was no 'trip recovery' that could have even occurred. It was almost like time jumped ahead 2 seconds, and all of a sudden I was sprawled out in the sand. Upon searching for whatever it was that tripped me, I came to the conclusion that it was an invisible wire placed strategically to trip unaware tourists (this might make sense if I was a cartoon, or in some sort of Disney flick.... and it might be believable if my friends hadn't walked in the exact same path just seconds before...).

4) The first thing we saw on the beach were 2 signs warning us of sharks. Ahem.

5) There were no changing rooms/bathrooms (or anything of the sort), no trees/bushes/sand piles that we could hide behind to change. We opted to change into our swimsuits right there in the open..... IN FRONT OF COMMUTER TRAIN TRACKS. Granted, I don't think anyone knew that there were tracks there, or that a train would be rounding the corner at approximately the same time my towel fell from my waist and my top had gotten tangled in my hair/arms/neck area, allowing me to flash an entire train. While I may have tricked myself into believing that no one saw, I am pretty sure someone did... I know this because soon after, the train honked (presumably in approval) followed by the hysterical laughing of my friends (thanks guys).

6) I watched my friend dip her toes into the water and decide against going any further. Now, I, no novice at swimming in natural bodies of water, decided to jump right in. Well. Needless to say kids, it was cold. Colder than you would expect the AFRICAN coast to be. We lasted approximately 2.7 minutes in the water.

7) Now wet, cold, bruised, and a little embarrassed.... we sat on the beach shivering while one of my friends, B, made us sandwiches. Now, despite the sand which accompanied them, they were arguably the best sandwiches we had ever had. A bird (some sort of hybrid between a pelican and a seagull) apparently thought the same thing, and attempted to scare us away..... it was sort of creepy.

8) A local walked past us while walking her dog and gave us a look that was some combination of confused/worried/intrigued/impressed/scared. This was presumably because no sane person goes swimming at the beach at this time of year/at all.

Soon after, we retired to our gorgeous honeymoon-esqe apartment/guest house we had been staying at and consumed a ridiculous amount of alcohol. Good times.

It is one of my most favourite days.

#9 I wanted to be a marine biologist between the ages of 9-12. Mostly because of the YTV show Flipper and because I had a crush on the marine biologists 14 year old son. True story.