TOPLESS BEACHES: NOT AS COOL AS ONE WOULD HOPE

                I had noticed the day before that if I walked down tranny hooker alley and took a right on the corner of Rape and Stab that there was a Starbucks.  That’s right. Good old American Starbucks.  Now to anyone who is poo pooing me right now, let me tell you that I have had a ton of good and pretentious espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, and French press coffee to boot.  Sometimes you just want to go get a quad venti cappuccino and face fuck yourself with it.  Try walking into any European coffee shop and tell them you want a cappuccino with four shots of espresso in it.  First of all, they won’t even have a big enough cup to put it in.  Secondly, they will immediately think you are a total douche bag (which is pretty much the case).  Marco gave me grief one time for ordering my coffee with dinner as opposed to afterwards for the love of god!  Only at Starbucks is this order totally acceptable and not (openly at least) frowned upon. 

                After my caffeine fix Marco picked us up and we all left for Estepona.  It’s a beautiful town right on the Mediterranean where many German and English people retire to.  I noticed lot of beautiful hillside condos overlooking giant golf courses on the way in.  It’s the first time that any of us have seen the Mediterranean and we actually got pretty excited about it.  This tour stop is as close as we will be to Africa and I was hoping to go see the rock of Gibraltar, but Marco says it’s too far. I’ll have to settle for hanging out on the beautiful beach instead.

                The venue was an over the top American style rock and roll bar named Louie Louie.  It had paintings of cartoonish looking hot rods all over the front of it.  The drivers all looked like various takes on a skinny Guy Fieri and the passengers were either other rockers playing guitars or big boobied ladies straight off a Big Johnson t shirt.  It was small, but had lots of character and was completely out of place in this resort town. It honestly would have fit in better in Myrtle Beach. 

                They fed us at a tapas bar right across the pedestrian-only street.  The first courses were potato salad and Russian salad.  I had never had Russian salad before.  It looked like potato salad, but was covered in roasted red and green peppers and had tuna in it too.  Then he brought out Paella! I was excited because not only was that the one thing I wanted to eat here, but I didn’t even have to pay for it.  It was really good.  I’m sure it would have been much better if I had it somewhere other than a tapas bar, but I can’t complain.  The next course was fried potatoes and pork chops.  We stuff ourselves and then went to the bars flat where bands stay.  It was a small apartment on top of the club that overlooked the pedestrian walk way and the tapas bar.  The exit was on the other side of the building and it opened right to their “boardwalk” and then onto the beach.  We couldn’t ask for better accommodations.

                The show was PACKED with lots of people! They sent shots to the stage, they were loud and drunk, and it reminded us of home.  There was even someone from Bristol there so we got to hear a southern accent for once.  As much fun as it was, I was really starting to feel bad so I went up to the flat.  I tried to fall asleep to the sounds of people hanging out in the street below, but I couldn’t.  It felt like a horse was sitting on my chest.  I just kept weezing and gurgling every time I tried to breathe.  I felt bad for the other guys because I was constantly coughing up a lung in the bathroom.  I think I finally fell asleep around five.

                I woke up still horribly sick.  Because it was so beautiful out I tried to go for a run on the beach.  After a half mile I gave up and turned around to walk back.  It was hot, I felt like shit, I couldn’t breath, and I had already seen way too many disgusting old women sunbathing topless in such a short distance.  We had seen some topless French sunbathers when we almost killed ourselves climbing over that dune, but this was different.  It was like a retirement community had broken out of their low security homes and were waiting for death on the beach or something.  I tried to go back to bed, but images of golf balls in tube socks haunted me.  When the rest of the guys woke up we went down to the beach and a couple of us got in the cold water.  I stuck my feet in which officially marks “swim in the Mediterranean” off of my bucket list. Score. We then packed up and got breakfast at the tapas place from the night before. I got octopus.  I’ve never had tentacles for breakfast so now I get to check two things off the bucket list in one day.  We say our goodbyes and leave for Orihuela.