July 4 FREEEDOMZ

I wanted to buy a load of fireworks and go wild on the beaches of San Sebastian today. Unfortunately, I just can't quite wrap my mind around the fact that NOTHING IS EVER OPEN ON SUNDAYS over here, so I didn't plan ahead, and so we have no incendiary objects to light up our day. Nor did we wake up near early enough to make the trek all the way to northern Spain. And so we head off for Playa de Pyla, Europe's largest sand dune. I think the claim is a bit overambitious, like when a little roadside stand exclaim they have the world’s best boiled peanuts. But I’m excite for the beach nonetheless. As is Charlie- he dress up super French in all stripes.

We run. We jump. We watch neophyte wind gliders and silently wait for one of them to crash into a dune.

It starts to get cold, and we have a hell of a time getting out of the car park. The machine just keeps barking French at us and not raising the arm. After 25 minutes we figure it out and make our way to, well, we don’t know. We have nowhere to stay arranged. We are on the far West Coast of France where everything is expensive, plus, there’s no town nearby. We have no tent. But we cruise the forested strip and I convince everyone it’s going to be a nice night and that we can sleep outside. This type of thing is not Charlie’s cup of tea, and I can see his brain twitching about behind his eyes, trying to figure out the geometry that will allow his long, lanky body to sleep in the car.

Of course, this coastline is a tourist destination, so the campsite we find ourselves at is equipped with everything from a swimming pool to several restaurants. Charlie attempts to bury his fear of the outdoors in a steak dinner. Zach acts as his garcon to heighten the illusion.

The rest of us tromp of to cook potatoes on a dying fire. It’s kind of a failure, but it’s pretty funny to chew of smoke crusted slabs of starch. We end up down by the ocean with the rest of the band taking pulls from a bottle of vodka, their own way of dealing with the fact that they’re actually sleeping outside tonight. I love it, I’m laughing inside so hard. Am I cruel?

James announces that he saw a video on Youtube of a guy placing a bottle of wine in a shoe, and then banging it on a table until the cork popped out. He decides to bang a naked bottle of wine on the car tire, and when that doesn’t work, he places it in a boot and bangs it against a rock until a camp neighbor creepily pops out of the bushes to offer a corkscrew. How long that guy stood in the bushes watching James, I have no idea.

Charlie appears and recounts running into one of the camp security guards. The man was flustered with Charlie, because when we drove into the camp, I guess we were supposed to wait at the gate and pay. The man bellowed at him “Why did you leave me!”, to which of course, Charlie could only laugh.

And with that, I lay down under a pine tree as the band stumbles off with plans to hop the fence into the pool area and fall asleep in lounge chairs.