Family Outing!: A Blessing or a Curse? Stay tuned to find out....

Yesterday, I went on a beach trip with my family! It was the whole family so aunt and uncle were there too (sans dad cause there's no space in the car). As fun as it was, it was equally exhausting. The beach my mom wanted to go to was fucking 4 and half hours away. We had to leave at 6 am. The first 3 hours were pretty easy since the drive was just a straight line with minor freeway changes with zero traffic, but the last hour was driving through a forest with twisting roads. It was one sharp turn after another. All the cars were going 20 mph MINIMUM! I got so dizzy halfway I had to pull off to the side just for a breather. Does it help to mention I was running on no sleep, too? It felt like I went through a hundred sharp twists and turns. One wrong turn or being just a little too heavy on the gas pedal could’ve flung the car over and tumbled down the hills. Being the only other person with a license, my mom helped take over the rest of the drive. Lucky bitch, she got the easy part that barely had any turns left, but I was still grateful.

When we started getting into town, the weather got colder (of course since the sea breeze is blowing in). The skies were cloudy and the winds were icy. There are many different types of beaches; one is the type that’s hot and sunny that’s made for swimming and surfing, another is the type that’s freezing cold by the cliff-side and only for the views, and the other is ones that are rocky, have cold but not unbearable waters and has lots of tide pools to explore. Ours was the third one.

We parked the car and started walking down to the beach. To get to the water, we had to slide down the rocks and sand, and it was a bit tragic, but I had to sacrifice my new sneakers to the brown, musty sand. I was the first one to make it down and start exploring. For a fat bitch like me, climbing and running around the edge of the water was enough to have me panting like a dog. I started sweating quickly. On the outside, I was wearing a huge sweater (since I heard that beach was very cold) and underneath, I had a swimsuit ready to go. Seeing how all the other beach-goers had puffer jackets on, it made me a bit embarrassed to be the only one in a bathing suit, so I suffered through the sweat. It was also at this point in time, I regretted leaving my claw clip in the car. Look, having long hair is great until it starts sticking all over your face and the wind is blowing it every other way. Not to mention, at one point in the summer, I gave it an egregious dye/bleaching job that killed my once perfectly healthy hair to a half orange-yellow clump of hay.

Anyways, not long after, I see my mom treading down with a bag in hand. Apparently, everyone else went back up to the car to switch their sneakers for sandals and my mom brought me mine since she saw how much fun I was having. I pulled over to the side and switched out my shoes. With a snap from the elastic of my sock, I saw a brown puff of sand flutter into the air. Now having sandals on, I came to regret my decision. The water was nice, yes, but now all the little rocks were stabbing my feet and getting entangled in my chubby piglets. There were lots of tide pools and I found tiny crabs hiding under some of the seaweed. Also, there were bunches of barnacles on the sea stacks, and this beach had more rocks/pebbles/gravel than sand.

My uncle had swooped my cousin into snapping a bunch of photos for him to send back to his friends from the motherland, and my mom had enlisted my aunt into helping her pick up some sea rocks to bring home as decoration for our garden. I took this opportunity to whip out my Polaroid and take photos of them. I also took a photo of a dead/rotting carcass of a seabird on the sand. A waste of film? Maybe.

We spent maybe 2 hours at the beach and decided to go for lunch. Everyone was really hungry since no one had any breakfast, and it was maybe 1 o’clock by now. On Yelp, we found a seemingly fine Mediterranean spot. I’ve only had Mediterranean food once before (maybe 6 years ago) and my mom wanted the other family members to try ‘exotic’ food. Although it looked good in photos, the outside of the restaurant looked…underwhelming. It was connected (literally there was no wall separating them) to a gas station and only had 3 simple tables. We still decided to give it a go anyways and ordered chicken tikka masala, chicken shawarma, falafels, samosas, and a jallab drink. It was actually really good! Unassuming on the outside, but a treasure within. My mom loved the chicken tikka masala with their (turmeric?) rice. It’s a bit similar to the taste of curry. I don’t like curry so much. I’ll eat it and think it’s good, but I never really ‘crave’ it. I really enjoyed the chicken shawarma with their rice and tzatziki sauce. The jallab drink was a bit sweet for me. The other people ate it well too. Even the picky aunt cleared her plate.

When we were driving home, my uncle wanted to sit up front to take a video of the windy roads in the mountains for his friend to see the “American roads”. Me and my mom were trying to find another road home to avoid the forest, but my uncle insisted, “Just take that road again so I can film it.” I wanted to karate kick him in the neck. Does he have any idea how scary the road was? Probably not, because that motherfucker isn’t the one driving. Everyone in the car was scared shitless, not knowing if they’ll even make it out safely. And motherfucker want to go there again? Just to take cool videos to brag to his stupid friends? Fucking whatever. My mom decided to take that road anyway since the other alternatives were backed up with traffic. She let me sleep in the back since I still hadn’t slept and took on those roads like a champ.

Not even 30 minutes in, I get awoken by loud Asian folk and EDM music. My uncle is blasting it through the car speakers as background music for his ‘cool videos’ through the winding forest. I wanna fucking throw him out. As my mom tries to lower the music so she can fucking concentrate on not flinging the car over, my uncle simultaneously turns it up for his COOL FUCKING VIDEO. After an hour of this, we get back into another town and pull over for a rest stop since everyone’s got a headache from his loud ass music and my mom is dizzy from the roads. My uncle, says he’s got enough filmed and lets me take my seat back upfront.

The rest of the ride was nice. We passed by a seriously beautiful lake that seemed to stretch on for miles. We were right along the coast, so on our left was the mountains and the right had the waters. The sun had peeked out from the clouds and shined on the waters, giving it an ethereal sparkle and shine. Just like a cartoon, fish would jump out and gleam in the sunlight as if it flew to the skies for just a second before diving back in.

TLDR: I went to the beach, ate Mediterranean food, and didn’t push my uncle over the cliff.