WP_008199
This tree is my new favourite tree in the whole entire world. After the one that has a rock in it at the canyon in Yellowstone, of course.

After some more time spent getting lost and spending some time wandering along strange paths, I found my bike and made it back to the hostel.

Later, I set out to find a place to have dinner. As I’m the queen of indecisiveness when it comes to inconsequential decisions, this was quite a challenge, and I spent another hour wandering the streets, sticking my head into various menus outside and observing all the people enjoying the warm November evening.

The place I eventually chose had pumpkin ravioli which was definitely one of the best dinner decisions I could have made. Unfortunately, I probably picked a place that was too packed, and ended up seated between two couples who weren’t interested in small talk. The food was worth it nonetheless.

WP_008202WP_008203

I later went to a friend’s house where I got to speak to two friendly guys who only spoke Spanish about Iran and Dubai as well as the theory of linguistic relativity (la teoria de la relatividad linguistica), my favourite topic. It was quite fun switching back and forth between English and Spanish and I surprised myself by how much I understood when they were speaking slowly. My speaking may not have made any grammatical sense, but at least I was able to convey ideas. I also got to try Nocilla, which is like Spanish Nutella.
We later ended up at an Irish pub–it seems that my entire trip was spent at Irish pubs!–where I had the brilliant idea of watching the sunrise at the beach. My lovely German friend had the even better idea of staying up all night to watch it. Our Spanish friend added to the idea although he wasn’t coming by suggesting we buy sangria, and it was a done deal.
Around 3AM, my friend and I set off, borrowing blankets from the hostel, and walked the 40 or so minutes to the beach. There, we went for a quick swim (which was his idea, not mine, but I of course have no self-control when it comes to water.) Despite the initial shock to my system, it was unbelievably peaceful and gorgeous to float under the stars from the edge of the city lights. After, we bunkered down to wait for the sunrise.
We had, of course, picked probably the coldest day in November possible–there was a chilling wind all night long, and when we left in the morning, we saw many motorcycles overturned on the street, and one glass door/window that had been shattered. OF course, neither of us had thought to check the weather either, so we mostly got a bunch of clouds with a few pretty rays of sun poking through. Despite the sun’s lack of cooperation, it was a night well spent.

WP_008208
You can kind of see the line of pink… kind of… sort of… almost…

WP_008210
There was enough time once we returned to the hostel to run out to one of the many bakeries serving freshly baked goodies for breakfast and, in my case, plane food, before I had to get on the bus to the airport and back to the real world.

WP_008212
Flying into Dubai–the little golden thing is the moon, of which I will one day get a good photo!