A story of perseverance and raw plumbing talent.

(A quick note: this story may be boring, but there will be a fun reward at the end! I promise!!)

There are times in life when you are faced with big, important issues that are completely unmanageable and make you want to curl in a ball and cry.  This was NOT one of those times.  However, in the heat of the moment it certainly felt like one of them.  I had recently been noticing that a lot of things were going down my kitchen sink that should not have been, but the water was still running fine so I thought little more about it.

Yet today, the winds changed for the worst.  I went to wash my dishes, a fair attempt to clean up before my flatmate comes home, when all of a sudden the water was not only not draining, but actually coming up the other side of the sink.  Uh oh.  Now as most of you know I have never lived by myself and have therefore never encountered a problem of such magnitude!  At this point, I was very panicky: the water was not going down, was coming up through the other side and showed no sign of draining at all.  I of course had no plunger and no way of procuring one quickly.  The only option left was to attempt to take apart, what appeared to me to be a super complicated sink system with no plumbing knowledge whatsoever.

Let me just say, pipes under a sink hold a significant amount of water in them, even when the sink is not running!  I did my very best to be prepared to receive all of it but man that water comes quickly and very sneakily.  Anyway to make a long and boring (yet victorious) story short, after taking every single pipe apart and cleaning out the disgusting amount of gunk and build up, I successfully reassembled it (twice) and the sink now drains superbly!  Feel free to be impressed with my incredible skills in both plumbing and endurance.  There were no tears of panic or frustration!

And now for the promised reward!  I finally have some group pictures from Cudillero to share with you :)

Our group: Lindsey, Me, Shani, and Aubrey at a cafe in Cudillero

Our feet in the middle of a big star

Shani and I at the top of the tower (the highest point in Cudillero, remember the other picture?)

Lindsey, Aubrey, Shani, and Me at our picnic lunch spot overlooking the harbor.