Newport Beach, CA

July 16th, Thursday

This Day was supposed to be a  fun day, but turned out to be the worst one so far. Having said that, you have to know that I enjoyed it nonetheless.

   No one really wanted to go to the beach. Last time on the beach was super fun, but most of us struggled with the sand in our clothes for a week. But this was the itinerary, so we made the most of it. I got in my bathing suit in the hotel, and after a 20 minute drive to Newport Beach, everybody jumped into the water. It was kind of cold, but that wasn't our biggest problem. Just like at Myrtle Beach, the waves were horribly big. The first bigger one knocked me off my feet. At the second one however, 5 minutes into the fun, my foot got stuck in the sand, and the wave hit me hard. The same thing happened to me as in October in volleyball: my knee jumped out of its place, but the force of me falling popped it back in. Worst part was, I couldn't stand up, so the waves just kept hitting me. Finally Eduardo grabbed me amd helped me to shore. Walking hurt, but I knew it was gonna get better. My hair, mouth, nose, and swimming suit was full of sand. I must have looked horrible. 

  I limped to the shower facilty a hundred meters and washed the sand off. It turned out, that I wasn't the only one that had a bad experience with the ocean. Sarah had her face pushed in the sand by the waves, her face was full of scars.

  It took me an hour and a bag of ice to walk again. By then, I let my group go and explore the stores and restaurants on the beach. I joined Nike, Kika and Iiro for a little bit of shopping, but I only bought postcards. When I got back to the beach, I could walk much better than before. The drama of the day was, that Nick from Denmark hung out with another group today. I didn't worry about it much.

  I did however go back in the water. My middle name should be "Stubborn". We swam in between the waves to the ocean, where the waves didn't break yet. It was nice, swimming there.

  At 6, the bus picked us up. What was a 20 minute drive there was a 1,5 hours back because of traffic. Turns out, sitting down too much was not something that my knee liked, so it hurt again when I got off. But I'm tough as a viking, so I just iced it and moved on. I did laundry and ramen for dinner. I wanted to go to Downtown Disney, but I figured I'd see it the next day anyway. 

   So this is what this day turned out to be like. I have mixed feelings about it. At least now I can say, that I swam in the Pacific Ocean!! And that's pretty cool for me.