continuing onward... woke up quite early on sunday morning for another delicious breakfast with the fam. we were in for a real treat because we got to watch Nick Lachey perform on the Oxygen network while we dined, haha. silly moroccans. saying our farewells and heading outside, we met up with the group and piled into the van for our four hour ride into the Rif mountains. there we were to have lunch with a family and talk about life there, etc. on the way there i considered using the bathroom, but then reevaluated my decision. after all, it had only [View Full Entry]

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After 4 days of not showering, braving turkish toilets, and eating every meal with my right hand, I have to say that my time in Morocco was an absolutely incredible and mind-blowing experience. after an underwhelming thanksgiving dinner (it lacked such essential elements as sweet potatoes and green beans) i ran back to my place to shower and change as well as do a quick chat with the fam on skype. got my 10:30 overnight bus to Algeciras, a port city in the south of Spain, and had a miserable night's sleep crammed into a seat seemingly made for gnomes. a [View Full Entry]

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day two began with the both of us awakening to what sounded like water dripping from the ceiling onto the floor at the edge of our beds. sure enough, there was indeed water coming from the ceiling. as it turned out, the person above us had let the water in the shower overflow, hence it proceeded to seep through the floor and into our room. we could've changed rooms, but whatever, it really wasn't that big of a mess, and they made the people stop showering in that bathroom upstairs... anyway, besides that quasi-trauma, our day started out once again with [View Full Entry]

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Glorious Lisbon, for whatever reason, seems to have gotten the shaft by tourists visiting western europe. Considering its incredible landscape, history, architecture, people, cuisine, and language, its really a shame that its visited with such less frequency than other cities. I can honestly say that Lisbon is my new favorite city in Western Europe, beating out the big guys like Paris, London, and Madrid. Unless Rome and Florence totally enchant me next month, Lisbon is going to reign supreme... Being that this past week we had Thursday off, much of Spain goes on little trips for the long w [View Full Entry]

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We also went to Toledo a couple weeks ago. I thought I'd squeeze this in now since I'll shortly be updating about my INCREDIBLE weekend in Lisbon, Portugal... So yea, Toledo was...pretty lame. We went for a day trip and had a tour guide that basically talked our ears off the whole time. She was young and nice but I really just hate going on organized tours. I don't care how nice you are. The city has a lot of history as the old capital of Spain, so I mean yea, it was pretty. El Greco also spent a lot of [View Full Entry]

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well well well, i finally have pics from October´s excursion to Córdoba and Granada, both in Andalucía, Spain´s southern semi-autonomous community. it wasn´t my first time to Córdoba since it was part of the family itinerary in March of ´04. nonetheless, it was cool to be back. the famous Mezquita (mosque) turned Cathedral was awesome as usual-i think islamic architecture is gorgeous. the Catholic church certainly effed it up when they converted it. Córdoba has served as both the capital of an islamic emirate as well as caliphate during the time of the great Islamic Kingdoms, so there´s de [View Full Entry]

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so yea, i have a huge headache and don't really feel like writing a lot, but at least there's some pictures for you all to see. its funny how as i type this i keep wanting to start typing certain things in spanish, which in reality is awesome and means that i'm going to speak 'de la puta madre' - that is to say, awesomely. so we went to saint sebastian and it was immediately apparent that we were going to like that city the best. getting off to bus we basically followed a sign that said 'centro' and, as luck [View Full Entry]

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so to continue... we made our way to el pais vasco, an autonomous community in northeast on the border with france. the basque people have their own separate history, culture, and even language that can't be related to any other language spoken on the planet. many basques want complete autonomy from spain (as an autonomous community they have many rights, but are still part of spain), the most extreme case of which can be seen in the terrorist group ETA. bilbao, our first stop, is essentially the industrial center of el pais vasco, but over the past 10-20 years it has [View Full Entry]

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so yea, last week, since we had no classes or anything, me and four of my friends planned a little trip up north to the cities of santander (in the autonomous community cantabria) and then to bilbao and san sebastián (páis vasco- basque country). it was tons of fun and pretty cheap for all that we saw and did... so our train to santander left here at 4:30 on a tuesday afternoon and was set to arrive at 10:30. it was a nice train and seeing as we brought our friend don simon (a brand of box wine), the ride was [View Full Entry]

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well its been awhile since ive updated this, namely because of having my camera stolen some weeks ago at 5am in a plaza and hence no photos. the only other real trama has been my getting punched in the face two nights ago at a bar by this asshole drunk. other than that, spain is better than ever, especially now that i have a legit schedule and am friends with all the spanish kids in my residencia. anyway, for this update i´m going to pretend im still at the bullfight i went to the weekend before last. it was...interesting. i can´t [View Full Entry]

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