on a fallit mourir

Today was the craziest day of my life. After a great goodbye with my coordinator, Alexia, we prepared to go exploring with an older volunteer who had offered to take out the "summer foreign volunteers" as they like to call us. I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Actually, to preface the story, the volunteer who took us out, Lucien, is a bit crazy. He is 78 and still quite a go-get'er. In the office next door, he was trying to put a vent cover back up, but mistakenly decided to put a lot of his weight on the fire extinguisher box, which then collapsed. Lucien somehow fell into the fall, got wedged upside down in between the bookcase and the wall, and as everyone just stared in shock, said, "everything is great, no worries!" I knew that was the start to a crazy day. . .
The second we got in the car, Olga started screaming because there was a spider the size of an ant in front of her. Sergio next to her took off his sandal and offered to "destroy it" (his words), and Sophia on the other side started screaming at Sergio not to kill it. We then got stuck going the wrong direction on the highway, and we knew that Lucien was going to take us for a ride.
First we headed to the cliffs where John and I had been earlier last week with my friends from Versailles. But this time we were in a beat up van that seemed like it shouldn't have worked, 7 young volunteers from Spain, Russia, France, Poland, and the USA, and a 78 year old man driving. The Routes des Cretes is a tiny winding street that takes you to the top of the highest cliffs in Europe, and we rode up that cliff at about 10 miles an hour, scared for our lives at every turn. But the view was so beautiful! I was in back next to Magda and Nuri. Nuri kept yelling to the driver, "It's so pretty! Thank you, Lucien! I love it!" trying to talk over Sergio in the middle who wouldn't stop talking to Olga, who just kept giggling with Sophia about the same things. Then John in the front seat who danced in the front seat listening to his Ipod. Magda was tired and tried to sleep, but the roads were awful and Lucien would slam on the breaks at any second; Magda would be thrown forward in her sleep, waking up to a nightmare. That happened at least 20 times. I meanwhile, was in back making jokes, but was mad because no one could understand them. But they were funny I swear.
We stopped along the cliffs about 6 times to see different views, then we headed to a 400 year old church with a view of some of the oldest earth in the world. It apparently has been submerged multiple times during ice ages but now shoots up out of the water like half of a mountain, while the other half just melted away. We headed down and got about 15 minutes of swimming in absolutly beautiful water.
We headed toward a tiny village in a crevice in the cliffs. Along the cliffs we saw two young boys who wanted to show us their cabin, so we climbed with them, only to be awkwardly led to their family in the middle of eating dinner. Nuria and I tried to make small talk to cover up the fact that we had been playing with their two sons, like ages 5 and 7. One of them was named Nathan. They even offered to come down to their cabin to have a drink with them! But we hopped back in the car and started up the hill, with Nathan on his bike with a huge grin as he followed us. Nuria, with tons of maternal instincts, almost cried and said she wanted to stay with the boy forever.
So many times we almost ran over the edge of a cliff or rolled backwards into bushes, etc. Lots of screaming, being jarred awake, and laughing the whole day. I can't even believe how beautiful the area is. It is unreal and impossible to explain.
Finally, we got to the restaurant! We were all so wasted and tired that we just laughed our way through dinner; I was hardly strong enough to cut my pizza. John also spilled a huge chunk of pizza in Olga's wine bottle. On the way home, Lucien the poor man had to listen to us sing songs in English really loud. I was chocked that these Europeans new the words to "I will survive," "My heart will go on," etc. It has been one of the scariest but funniest days of my summer. I am ready to go to bed!