Suck It Poseidon, Sun's Out Gun's Out

As you know, our trip has had its ups and downs...so to totally relax and chill for a whole day, we decided to make a beach trip for one of our days here in Pisa, Italy. No stressing about trains, where we should go, no hiking all around towns look for tourist attractions, JUST CHILLIN. Woke up around 10 (slept like a champ) and headed for the market to get some food for the day. At this point, it's 95 degrees and Andrew and I are fiending to take our packs off and dive into the lovely Mediterranean. We grabbed some bread, meat and cheese from the local market (typical Andrew and James traveling meal), found the bus that would take us to the beach and we were set! Oh wait, this is Europe and backpackers like Andrew and I are never set, safe, or in the clear...naturally, it gets better.

We got to the beach entrance and started making our trek to find our spot for the day...we looked to our left and found about 200 empty lounge chairs on the beach, oh, did I mention they had umbrellas? SPECIAL...we took off our 605 pound backpacks and set-up shot. Little did we know, you had to pay to be there, about 20 euros, and 4 euros for each of us to just be on the beach! Highway robbery as Andrew would say. So we moved and set-up our own spot so things were good...got into our monkey line to put our sun screen on, you know, all those discovery channel shows where you see the mom and her kids sit one in front of the other and they pick and eat lice off each others head and back, thats how Andrew and I put our sunscreen on....IT'S TIME TO TAKE ON THE WAVES!

Being born and raised in California, you've grown up near or on a beach, and know what to do with or without a boogie board or surfboard...you body surf! we body surfed for about a total of 5 hours, with breaks in between. We were tackling, punching, head butting, and gettin rowdy in the waves, seriously, just what we needed. Every time we rode a wave or ducked under a big wave we would screamed at Poseidon to keep 'em coming. I think he heard us and got mad, so he sent a sea urchant, probably one of his little messengers to let me know it wasn't my ocean...

So I'm walking out of the water and I step on this thing and it sticks me with about 8 or 9 little stingers (I don't knwo what you call them) but who cares!!!! they freakin hurt!

Andrew: "Oh, dude are you ok?"

Me: "I don't know, I think I stepped on something sharp..."

Andrew: "Let me see, oh gosh, dude you got stung by a sea urchant!!!"

Me: "Is this bad? Is this bad?"

Things started to spin and go into slow motion, everyone's voice went into the deep slow motion tone....

Me: "Wait, wait, wait, is this bad?"


Andrew: "Ya dude, you got freakin stingers in your foot!"

Me: "You're crazy...I like you...but you're crazy"

I felt myself fall onto the sand and woke up about an hour later......surrounded by about 5 naked italian babes telling me I should move to Italy forever, I said sure....

Sorry, I could not resist using one of my favorite Old School scenes....No, what really happened was.....

"dude, you have to pee on it and then we can get them out"

"Bro, I'm not peeing on my foot with everyone watching...here take my toe nail clippers and try and get them out..."

I tell ya, if the whole MBA thing doesn't work out, Andrew might just want to follow his girlfriend to medical school, because you my friend have a future in on site surgeries! I'd be dead if it wasn't for this man....oh and suck it Poseidon!

Cali Boys: 1000 (for 9 stingers pulled out and 991 waves shredded today)
Poseidon: 0

Be putting the good vibes out for us to make it out of Italy, into Switzerland and through Germany back to Finland!!!