The Beach

I WAS EXPECTING Italy to be warm and sunny throughout my stay here, but it’s been consistently cool and rainy. When I noticed that the weather seemed to be clearing up, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to go to the beach, so instead of going with the group to Venice on Monday, I decided to get a group of girls together to go to Fano.

The bus we had to take to Fano was way different than the public buses in New York. This bus was much more like a coach bus than a public bus in the US. It had large, cushioned seats upholstered with itchy fabric with nauseating neon patterns. Every seat, with its own moveable armrest, reclined. Each seat also had its own air conditioning vent with personal controls. I was pleased by the comfortable travel accommodations.

When we finally got to the beach, the sand was covered with rows upon rows of orange and yellow umbrellas. As we walked closer to the water, we realized that there wasn’t actually any sand. Instead of sand there were smooth rocks. Since the rocks looked so smooth I assumed they wouldn’t hurt my feet so when we got off the boardwalk I immediately took my flip-flops off. And immediately put them back on. The rocks were indeed smooth, but they were so many different shapes and sizes that the surface wasn’t flat at all.

After I tanned long enough to sweat I decided to swim in the clear but chilly water. It took me a while to get used to but once I finally went under it was extremely refreshing. I swam out to deeper water and noticed that the ground was no longer rocks, but something that looked like sand. I was afraid to go under and touch the “sand” because it could have been quick sand and I didn’t want to drown, so I safely hovered above the ground.

When I got out of the water I put on my ipod and lay down on my stomach. I was shocked and mildly amused when two little boys, about seven years old, poured water on me from a juice box. Katrina and I played with them a little bit but they got too into it so we made them stop. We didn’t want our electronics to be inundated with water.

Hopefully I will finish my web site in time to go back to the rocky beach next week.

-Alex Cirillo