The Northern Coast and Madrid

Well, I´m in Madrid now which means that I have finished my whirlwind tour of the northern coast of Spain. My assessment of the various stops is that the North es de puta madre (the best), the south es la leche (the shit (which means "really cool" for the parents reading this)), y Madrid es de puta pena (the worst). Kind of a quick harsh assessment of Madrid after only having been here for less than 24 hours, but when I checked into my hostal last night at 1am I entered the room and saw a man, clearly high (corroborated by the haze of marijuana smoke in the air) pacing aimlessly around the room. Looking past him I noticed two other roommates curled up in their beds keeping a wary eye on this disturbing fellow. He introduced himself and asked me how much money I made and informed me of the, presently absent, Chilean roommate who had a veritable sword hidden under his pillow. Then, he started joking with the Bolivian (my other roommate) in Spanish about how he was going to rob me later. However, since I understood him I asked him whether he was serious. Taken slightly aback that I was able to converse in Spanish he said he was only joking. I should note that the Bolivian was actually a good guy who was as worried as I was about this crazy Ecuadorian fuck (he was just sort of smiling and nodding whenever the Ecuadorian guy said anything). This whack job then took off his shirt to prepare for bed and revealed a torso riddled with tatoos and scars; two scars literally about a foot long and an inch thick each across his back. I thought about showing him my scar on my hand from indoor soccer game and the one on my eyebrow from a party popper when I was a kid, but I was pretty sure he had me beat when I noticed a few, what looked to be, bullet hole wounds around the base of his rib cage so i decided not to bring it up. Then the guy decided that he would take off his pants and walk around in the towel provided by this shitty hostel because, he announced, he didn´t have any underwear. Then he lit up another joint and decided to watch the soccer game on tv. The rest of us decided that we´d try an go to bed, which had been the plan for the last hour, but everyone was intent on keeping their eyes on this guy until he was asleep. Eventually he passed out at which point our other Spanish roommate got up and, after verifying that he was indeed asleep, turned off the tv. I decided that I would find another hostel for tonight when I realized this morning that this guy from Ecuador is a guy that literally has nothing to lose; I don´t think he would rob me, but honestly, there´s no reason he shouldn´t.
So, that´s all said in good fun. The above was my only a uncomfortable experience during my stay; the very first time I have not felt 110% safe. In fact, in every city that I have visited, it is common for women to walk around alone at 3:00am through an alley system. I di not hear of a single co-student being mugged.

The north coast is incredibly beautiful. My stops were, Santiago de Compostela, Arenas de Cabrales (Picos de Europa), and San Sebastian. Santiago de Compostela is recognized for its cuisine which, indeed, was quite good. I ate a lot of pulpo (ocotopus) there. Arenas de Cabrales is a small pueblo in the Picos de Europa. For you climbing buffs you may already be aware that this limestone mountain range boasts the most vertical terrain in all of Europe, or so Barbara the Californian at the tourist office there told me. I stayed there for four days doing different hikes each day. This was the first hiking I´ve done in a limestone range and it´s really bizarre. Whereas in a regular moutain range there would be a lake in every drainage basin, here, every basinn is devoid of water because it seeps right into the rock. So finding water can be difficult. however, there is also a benefit to this unique geology and that is that you could drink directly from the water seeping out of the rock. Because the water is quickly absorbed it is away from animal and human bacteria and therefore giardia. Back to the hiking, every hike was a minimum altitude gain of 2000 feet, and one of them to the base of "El Naranjo de Bulnes" entailed a short drive to gain 3000 feet and a hike to gain another 4000f. Unfortunately I don´t have my adapter so I can´t add photos. San Sebastian was great. I literally only had 24 hours there, but it´s a great place to stay. In the northeast corner of the country on the Bay of Biscay, it wraps around its own little bay creating a nie fine sand beach with calm lapping waves. Regarding the cuisine, when Spain lauds their pinchas or tapas, this is the city they´re talking about. Though the tapas are free in Granada, they don't even compare to the elaborate and delicious antipastos that San Sebastian is renowned for.

Well, time to go, times up. See you in the states. Will

Ciudades Secretos

I spent the weekend in these cities in the mountains. They were incredible, the people were muy simpatico y siempre querian hablar. Es posible voy a volver este fin de por que hay muchos pueblos en este zona todavia no he visitado. Si yo fuera empezar una vida como un granjero problamente estaría aqui. En los dos dias pasaba aqui saqué 150 fotos. Estes solos son unos pocos. En Domingo caminé 30 kilometres y visité 5 pueblos. Cada vez paré en el solo bar en la ciudad para un cerveza y para hablar con los locales. Cuando fui alli no ví ninguna turista.

Salamanca y mis prediciones Harry Potter

I have arrived in Salamanca and, it's a little chilly here, only 60F; quite a change from the sauna that is Sevilla. It's September, I wear pants and a long sleeve shirt everyday. Probably not too different than Colorado weather. This school's really great. I've learned more in two days of classes here than I did in three weeks of classes in Sevilla. The subjunctive tense, in some cases, is beginning to make sense. All the students here are excited about speaking and learning Spanish and nobody wants to speak English. After classes yesterday I sat down with 5 other students and we spoke Spanish for two hours. My host family here is pretty nice, she is making the most of hosting students; that is she has made her three bedroom apartment into housing for six students and converted a closet into a room for me. She's nice and helps me with my conversational Spanish.

In my excitement at speaking all this Spanish I decided to re-pickup Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal. I have a rough idea of what's going on. And that is, the nacent stages of a vicious love triangle between Hermione, Ron, and Harry.

Here's my prediction, only being in part 3 of the series: Ron's going to fall for Hermione. Hermione' s going to fall for Harry. Harry's going to be busy staring at the scar on his forehead and discovering that he can talk to snakes and various other animals. Ron's going to be pissed (probably well into the "friend zone" by this time), Hermione's going to be frustrated, Harry's going to continue talking about Quidditch and Voldemort until their senior year. Then Ginny Weasley's going to start at the school they go to. As the naive freshman, she's going to get into some kind of trouble. Harry will save her by destroying Voldemort for the fifth or sixth time, and in the heat of the moment hook up with Ginny. Then, because Ron and Hermione are always there as well, Ron will confess his love, Hermione will say she had no idea, and then they'll hook up. Then J.K. Rowling will try and continue the series in much the same fashion as 90210 and Saved by the Bell and send them all, by pure coincidence, to the same university of wizardry where their adventures of becoming an adult will begin. Interest will have faded in the series by this time, so JK Rowling will have to reduce the content to the most basal concepts just to keep people's attention. Harry will try and keep the long distance relationship with Ginny, but will hook up with Hermione one night after drinking too much witch's brew. Then he'll break up with Ginny, hook up with Hermione for a while, and eventually realize that he's actually in love with Voldemort. Like all women in these series, Hermione will become addicted to drugs and eventually become a stripper. Ron will hang out with another crowd and eventually become a great wizard.

Well, that' s my theory. those of you are on book 8 or 9 can tell me whether I'm way off or not. I had some other things to mention but they involved photos and I don't have aUSB port on this computer so, unfortunately, this will be a entry without color. Bueno, me voy. Will

Romans and Coffee

Per a recommendation from my dad I took a brief visit to the city of Italica just a few kilometers north of Sevilla. It´s amazing that almost anywhere you go in Europe, or every place I´ve been, there are Roman ruins, their empire was massive. For scale, they were nearly as big as Starbucks.

In Sevilla and off to Aracena also a recount of Ronda

I am in Sevilla now and have been here for a little over a week now. My original plan was to go to Salamanca for 6 weeks, but for various reasons that didn´t work out. So here i am and it´s fun; I´m glad it worked out this way. However, I should backtrack a bit and give an account of my time in Ronda (the trip I took a couple of weeks ago).
Here you can see the bridge that divides the old part of Ronda from the new part.

The night we spent in Ronda we decided to hit up the bar scene as you can see below. You may notice that the tap looks awful close to the customers, as if maybe we could pull our own beers. In fact, it was that close, and we did. Actually every table had their own tap with a meter on top that displayed the number of liters drunk and how much we had spent. In the background you can see a scoreboard. The green bars mark how well each table is faring relative to the others. Yes, the concept is mindblowing. Could you imagine opening one of these bars on a college campus in the states!?! If it weren´t for the numerous deaths and lawsuits that would ensue you would probably be a millionaire in a week. Naturally Cody and I, decided to compete with every other table in the bar, including a table of 10 that just sat down next to us. We held on pretty well until that table went for the second round. We ended up leaving the bar in a strong second place and barely able to see straight.

The next day we headed to Malaga to see part of the Feria that was going on there which can be seen to the left.

That´s pretty much it for that trip.


Sevilla´s been fun. Here´s a picture of my roommate Yuan from Sweden making our nightly coffee brew that gets us going before we hit the bars and clubs. This fine concoction is made by buying the cheapest coffee in the supermarket, putting it in a filter, and pouring boiled water through it into a cup. Repeat the process until you have enough coffee for all those in your group. Dirk, from Germany, is another cool roommate of mine who apparently was not taught compound words when he learned English, so he sounds like a robot.

Last weekend I went to Aracena for a couple days which is a small mountain town an hour north of Sevilla. There was some cool stuff there. I went to the Ham museum. Ham´s really big here. I´ve eaten more Ham here than any other meat. They have ground pork here, not ground beef. The area of Aracena and particularly Jabodu (Jabogu, Jabudo?) believe they produce the best ham in the World. and it might be true. The ham was really good. But I´m not experienced in tasting ham, and as I mentioned earlier, I´m just happy when i get some food. I also saw some caves there and a castle. The area of Aracena would be a good place to spend a few days driving between all the different towns. You can learn a lot about ham and pigs and castles.

Where's the Beef?

Hey, if you´re really fat and you want to lose some weight you should come to Spain, they have no food here. For people like me it´s not so good, I think I´m nearly eligible for UNICEF proceeds. Actually I was thinking about UNICEF last night as I was walking around trying to find a single restaurant in this city where I could get a meal of some sustenance, and recalled that the back of the box would say something like "for just 5 cents you can feed a family for a week" and "for 25 cents you can buy the family a cow or a goat so they can supply themselves with milk for the rest of their lives." It should say, that if you´re going donate all of 25 cents then you really need to donate 50 because that first cow is going to be torn apart and eaten raw by the family that receives it. Maybe after that, if the neighbors don´t discover the newly acquired food source, you can consider milking the cow and maybe breeding the cow.

Finding food in Spain is nearly impossible. Sometimes I think, "boy, I´d really like a nice sandwhich that might hold me over til dinner" So I go to the meat shop and receive one slice of ham between two pieces of french bread. This is obviously not enough to hold me over so then I have to spend much dinero for a meal at a sit down restaurant where for 9€ I get three pieces of asparagus, a slice of ham, and a small wedge of potato pie. It all tastes very good, the ham and asparagus are some of the best I´ve ever had, but it´s hard to enjoy when immediately after finishing I´m looking for grubs and berries that might be edible. I tried eating some of the olives off the trees here. I don´t recommend that. I forgot my card for transferring photos onto the internet, so sorry. See ya. Will

Corrida de Toros

This entry graphically describes Una Corrida De Toros. A bullfight is probably everything you thought it would be, but if you care to know for sure read on.

In Malaga yesterday I went to a bullfight. I was not disgusted by it because, generally, the bull is held in great esteem. What is difficult to watch is when the matador doesn't make a clean kill on the first try. Unfortunately this night there were novice bullfighters and so I saw a couple unfortunate ends. In each corrida there there are six fights; six bulls and three matadors. The bull is truly an awesome beast and It´d be a good fight to see a lion and a spanish bull duke it out. Generally the fight is broken into four parts. The first is where the bull parades around the grounds and a few matador-like people come out and taunt him run at their muleta (cape) to show the speed and strength of the beast. Occasionally they had the courage to sidestep the bull's charge at the last second, but more often than not they waved the muleta and then behind the guardwalls as seen below (I don´t blame them):



Next comes the first bloodshed when the picadores come out. Don´t read further unless you´re interested in bullfighting and want to read the details. The picadors are the men on horse back that stab the bull in the neck with a lance type deal. All the wounds to the bull are in the gigantic neck muscle that can be seen in profile in the first picture. The picadors lance stabs about six inches deep into the bull. I became aware at this time that the bull is not the only casualty of the bull fight, often the horses don't make it either. Before the horses had padding, without fail the horse would die a gruesome death in the ring from wounds given by the bull. Despite heavy armor that now covers the side of the horse, on occasion the horse will die from internal bleeding. It seems that two picadors come out, but only one of them is used, whomever the bull selects first.



After the picadors come the three banderilleros. Each banderillero has a pair of barbed, colored banerillos (short spears) that they attempt to lodge in the bulls neck. Each banderillero gets one attempt to stick both their banerillos in; rarely were they successful with two. the photo below is the second banderillero taking a go:

Finally the matador comes out and does his show and after 15 minutes or so kills the bull by sticking his sword in between the shoulder blades right through to the heart. After the fight the bull is dragged out of the ring by a couple extravagantly ornamented horses

From what I´ve read in Hemingway´s treatise "Death in the Afternoon" and heard from professors at school, the matador is frequently trying to show his confidence and mastery over the bull. Often this includes a lot of strutting around, fighting the bull from his knees, turning your back on the bull, and always trying to make his chest as big as possible. While perhaps seeming acts of arrogance, the bullfighter has enormous respect for the animal.

Bueno, that´s a bullfight and I´ll write more later on the excursion to Ronda and Malaga in general.