tsunamis and tidal waves

still on the weird dreams. this time, me and her were together in a town by the sea. the place seemed familiar, but it was different somehow - it was a town that i know, over a rocky cliff, but shaped differently by the dream. that was not the weirdest thing on that dream though. i remember houses being build by the edge of the cliff, and a raging sea under a fierce storm, waves crashing violently on the shore. and then a particular wave rose from the ocean, one bigger and more powerful than any other. it smashed itself against the town with great violence, nearly destroying the unfinished buildings by the edge, and quicky flowing through the town in a wake of destruction. we ran into a house, and hastily climbed the steps to its first floor, where we were safe. time elapsed like in a movie, and we were out again in the streets, contemplating the destruction around us. reporters were arriving to cover the disaster, and were reporting it as a tsunami that washed away the shore. i corrected the reporters by saying that couldn't really be a tsunami, since there was no earthquake before, and the unusual high tide before the wave had no relation with earthquakes anyway. so it had to be a tidal wave, i argued, or eventually a rogue wave rising uncannily close to the shore. but they insisted on the tsunami theory; i suppose that was because they couldn't tell the difference between a tsunami and a tidal wave. which means that journalists in my dreams are as ignorant as they are in reality. go figure.