the wheels on the bus go round and round...and round...and round

kathleen and noelle are sleeping. clearly i am awake. quick recap of our humorous day. it was beautiful out so we took advantage of beach bumming. after roaming the city we took a 30 min. bus ride that costs next to nothing to what is supposed to be the best beach in valencia. we were there for quite some time. the ocean never fails to make me feel like a child and i love that. we were laughing so hard as we threw ourselves into the waves. then we took a nap on a sheet we "borrowed" from the hostel...all 3 of us laid in a row.

we ended up staying at the beach until 7 pm. the bus only runs by the stop once an hour and we were under the impression that was at 7:15 so we headed up to the stop at about 7:05. this will always remain a mystery but we either just missed a bus or it was running very late because we waited on the bench until 8:10 when the good ol' bus finally arrived. okay mind you at about 7:20 i needed to go pee but the public WC was locked for the evening. so i attempted to be an adult and hold out.

we take our seats in the back of the bus excited to finally be on the road and headed back towards town for dinner. slowly the crowd we initially board the bus with disperses and before we realize it we are the only remaining boardees from the original loading. yet we just sit there.

then we began to realize that the bus is roaming through some unfamiliar territory but hey, what are you gonna do so we patiently sit for some more time...and even more time after we hit a huge traffic jam on the already unfamiliar road. we have been on the bus now for 2 hours when noelle just bursts out laughing. what, i ask. well it turns out our beloved bus pulls up to the beach stop....are you serious? after two hours on this freakin bus and yes, we all have to pee now...it's back to where it started. we have no choice but to stay on because the beach is very far from our hostel and the bus is the only way to get back. but even that doesnt work out for us. for those of you who know me well, i tear up easily with a good laugh. well i had tears just streaming down my face. it was so fun to learn patience in this situation. there was nothing we could do so we just embraced the never ending bus ride with pure joy.

we finally made it back to the city around 10:30 anticipating an authentic valencian meal we had planned on all day. the first few places we went wernt serving food anymore so we ended up finding ourselves at a mcdonalds. i know i know who eats mcdonalds while in spain but you know what, it was the best mcdonalds the 3 of us have ever had!

our favorite bus characters:
1. a blonde a few seats up who randomly started belting out songs i cannot fully explain due to the fact that they were not in english. her voice wasnt half bad.

2. the bus driver who happened to be the same one who picked us up at the beginning of the trip...sheer determination was seen in the eyes of that bus driver. he did his job well.

3. a random mentally handicapped man who we observed for quite some time as he wondered about the bus from person to person shaking hands at all costs. he finally made his way towards the back and stole noelle's seat (she was chatting with our favorite bus driver) and poor noelle never got her seat back. he sat inbetween kathleen and i, held our hands, repeated the word "amigo" over and over and gave me a head massage. this was very fun.

tomorrow we leave for barcelona. we will miss valencia, it's a wonderful place to be.