P and I slept in a bit today and then decided to have a relaxing day at the beach. It was overcast but we didn’t care. In fact Petra said it had been raining pretty hard before I got up (at the bright and early time of 1:15pm. Life is great).
We headed to a beach we haven’t been to and set up our stuff. Much to our liking the beach was pretty empty. We took a dip in the water and watched as a woman came over with presumably her two young grandchildren. They set up their stuff directly next to ours. As Petra observed, there’s an entire beach! Apparently there is no concept of personal space here. Then much to our shock and horror the younger of the two boys sat on Petra’s towel and took off his shoes, which he left next to her stuff. The grandma just watched.
Later on as I was tanning a lot of families decided to come to the beach. Of course they parked right next to us and their screaming children kicked sand (or rather pebbles as is the case on the beaches in our town) all over me, repeatedly, as they ran to and from the shore. Irritated, I moved. With their path now widened in my absence, they started bothering Petra, who moved by me. An hour later, we had to move yet again.
Seriously the beach isn’t that crowded and we aren’t in like the “best” spot or anything. Maybe as Americans we just have a different, bigger, concept of how personal space is defined. It kind of makes me want to put up a fence around my stuff with a sign that reads, “¡No me molestes!”
