¿Como se dice “sunburned”?

Along with the inevitable hoards of 18-to-22-year-olds, we elbowed our way onto one of the buses heading to a beach called Matalascañas. Thursday was Fiesta del Trabajo (Labor Day) and the closest beach from Sevilla is only an hour away. It’s a no-brainer. (The bus ride actually took two and a half hours that day.)

On the way to the beach, you get to see oleander and other pretties blooming along the road

Matalascañas is a crowded public beach on the Atlantic. But, if you walk up the beach for a while, the crowds disappear and you get to the edge of Doñana, a huge wildlife preserve (the biggest in Europe). Brad and I spent Fiesta del Trabajo with two other researchers from the archive. We took a walk up the beach with Elena and enjoyed the quiet near the wildlife preserve. We also saw several people digging in the sand at the edge of the water, and depositing tiny shells in bags and bottles. They were collecting coquinos – little clams that taste delicious cooked with lots of garlic and olive oil.

My sunburn? That didn’t happen until yesterday. We went back to Matalascañas with our German friends, Christina and Stefi (in their car). Since they’re German, they are professional beach-goers. Southern Spain is extremely popular with their kind – we actually ran into 5 of their German friends at the beach. The Atlantic I grew up going to is bath-water warm in the summer; the Atlantic in southern Spain is freezing all summer long. But, to Christina the water was refreshing and she went swimming throughout the day.

I have to go now . . . and treat my burns. Don’t worry, I’ve done this countless times.