Friday night, we got on the bus. (actually about half the people drove, which I may do next year). The ride down is always a lot of fun though. I managed to get a few quotes into my "unofficial" quotes list
The best one was probably "You should eat more fat. You don't make a very good pillow."Saturday afternoon we arrived in Panama City Beach, at the Edgewater resort. We got our t-shirts, got registered, and got all the stuff we needed, and got our rooms. For anyone who has ever been to the Edgewater, you know that there are three towers and a bunch of villa condos. Unfortunately all the Purdue people got spread out pretty well. Some of us were in the towers (we had a nice view!) and some were in the villas. There were two girls I had planned to room with, and there were supposed to be at least six people in a room. So I was hoping for some really good roommates. I got some awesome roommates. None of them were really girly (I have a hard time getting along with girly girls), and we're all really good friends now
. In the evening a bunch of us (about 40 I estimate) went to a Japanese grill. The food there was amazing, and it was a lot of fun too. Next year if I go to PCB again I'll definitely go back. I think it's a tradition for us to go.Sunday we didn't do a whole lot. We went out on the beach and handed out some water and just met people on the beach.
Monday we went out pretty much all afternoon to about the toughest part of the beach, behind Club La Vela. There were a lot of drunk people there, string bikinis, everything. Pretty scary stuff. But we went around and took surveys with people, talked to them, and they were surprisingly open to what we had to say. And in the evening we got to make spaghetti for a "creative date" with some of the guys we were with. I pretty much cooked all the spaghetti, and other people handled the salad, cutting the bread, and making brownies. It was a lot of fun... so Monday was awesome.
Tuesday we did about the same thing as Monday (minusthe creative date), but later in the afternoon we set up some tug o' war. I am pretty good at tug o' war. So I played a fair bit... pretty much until the top of my left foot had been scraped between peoples' feet and the sand so much it was bleeding. But my side won most of the time. Even when it was about 20 girls against about football players. Well, we might not have won if they weren't drunk... but still... and my foot still is pretty scabbed up, but it's healing. For the next couple days it was pretty painful to walk in the salty Gulf of Mexico though. Winning tug o' war against football players was worth it though. Our evening conference session was separate men's and women's time. Strangely enough they were not the standard men's and women's time, but as far as women's time, it was really good. And then we had a thunderstorm. Around 10 pm one of my male friends (who is also friends with another one of my roommates (err probably all of them now)) stopped by our room and stayed around until about 2 am. We all had some really great conversations. Could have lasted longer but around 2 am the average girl tends to get really goofy and giggly... but it was really worthwhile, for me and definitely for one of my other friends.
Wednesday it was pouring in the morning. I had also lost my voice. We did manage to get out in the afternoon... pretty much nobody was out though, since it was pretty cold out and threatening rain. We weren't behind La Vela either, we went west. So we sat down and made a sand couch. Turned out pretty nice. Hard to stop erosion from happening though... So our effort has surely been washed away by now. Even with a few pieces of driftwood as "rebar"
In the evening we had a little concert and then watched The Incredibles. Good movie... I enjoyed it a lot. They played the trailer for the next Star Wars movie over the credits so I didn't get to check something though. It seemed like one of the minor characters had the same voice as the guy in Princess Bride who always says "inconcievable"... If anyone knows, tell me! (the character was Mr. Incredible's boss at the insurance company, Mr. Huph)Thursday we went out again to the beach and didn't really get to talk to many people. There was a Thousand Dollar Shot set up to get people to gather around where we were, but the weather wasn't very nice. We were walking down the beach along the water and one of my flip-flops fell off and was carried into the Gulf. Well, I was in jeans because of the weather, and I chased my shoe because I need it here at school to shower. It came closer with the next wave and I managed to catch it. But my jeans were soaked, and they're still wet and sandy from it. So I'm sitting in Indiana in shorts... Thurday we also had a pretty special speaker by the name of Joel Rosenberg. He's the author of two popular books - The Last Jihad and The Last Days. It was pretty interesting to hear from him. I think I will recommend his books to my dad
. And anyone else who enjoys that sort of book... as far as I can tell, if you like stuff like Tom Clancy... you'd probably like these books. We had another creative date too. The guys cooked us breakfast for dinner. One of our girls apparently enjoyed it well enough to challenge one of the guys to a pancake eating contest the next morning. Which I cooked the pancakes for. She won, eating seven and a half HUGE pancakes (we estimate that was the equivalent of about 18 "normal" pancakes) That earned us a lunch provided by the guys... PB&J sandwiches and apples... it was sort of like the creative date that never ends. Thursday night there was also a party in one of the rooms... but we left pretty soon because it looked like it was going to be busted for noise violations. So we went back and hung out in my room (roommates and about three guys) and had some ice cream instead. It was probably more fun than the party anyway 
Friday was our free day. So we just went to the beach and had fun. Some memorable things were swimming the Gulf and trying body surfing.. well, the one wave I caught smashed me into the part of the shore where the most seashells happened to be and I had welts on my arms and legs for a couple hours from that... but it was fun until I hit the shells. At one point I lost my sunglasses in the water too, and amazingly one of the girls I was with found them. Some of the guys we were with were making a sculpture out of sand. They weren't sure what it would be, but it was a volcano until it caved in. That sparked an interesting conversation.
My friend: so what are people up to?
Me: well, those guys over there are making something in the sand and right now it's a volcano.
My friend: I see
Me: yeah, better watch out, it could erupt any time.
My friend: If I had my water gun here now, when you said that I would just whip it out and start squirting people.
At that, I found the squirt gun I had in my pocket, hoped that it had enough water in it, drew it out, and squirted him twice.
My friend: You're learning my evil ways. I thought only my trusty sidekick was doing that.
Me: Muahahahahaha!
Later that day, the same friend asked me a silly question, since he knows that I am a Trekkie: What do you think, is it better here, or on Risa?
(Risa is a planet in Star Trek where many people take their vacations)
Me: ha! Well I wouldn't know because I've never been to Risa and I doubt that I ever will...
My friend: I don't know what's sadder, that I made the joke or that you got it right off the bat.
Then Friday night we finished off most of the food. Another friend came up and hung out with us. I think he was avoiding his own room, where they were trying to get rid of the extra hot dogs. They had accidentally ended up with 60 hot dogs between the six of them. This friend said he had already eaten his share of hot dogs (10 or 12)... so I don't blame him. He brought up half a gallon of orange juice too, which I would gladly have helped out with if it weren't for the fact that I gave up juice for Lent (earlier in the week I ate some canned pinapple and had the our the juice down the drain. That was sad)
We got on the bus at 8 Friday night and I slept almost all the way back. I was exhausted from the week, plus not feeling very good. My nose is still really stuffy, and my neck is stiff from sleeping on the bus. Hope you enjoyed the story of my trip!
-SL
