Architecture and Helados

---

Hola from sunny Espana. We are currently in Seville on a balmy 37 degree day. Nice place but very hot.

Since our arrival in Spain we have seen architecture, old buildings, a lot of places that reminded me of Goulburn without the Big Merino and Jimmy Spithill getting his arse kicked in the Louis Vouiton Cup.

Barcelona is a great city with a real buzz about it. We did the city tour as we were too lazy to walk around and learned that Spaniards are proud (understatement of the year) of their architecture. They even went to the effort of naming the bloke who designed the logo for the bank that has its head offices in Barcelona.

We stayed right on the beach in Barcelona which was cool, however so was the weather at 21 degrees and the sand more closely resembled dirt than sand. So we decided to stay off the beach.

From Barcelona we headed down to Valencia for the Cup. The investment that has gone in just for a sailing regatta is mind blowing. The marina is about 3 km long with all sorts of buildings, bars and playgrounds along the way. 1200 official spectator boats went out to watch on the first day. I must say though the off water excitement far outweighs the racing itself.

It was interesting to watch the press conference at the end of each day, with Beasho representing team NZ, and Joey Newton having a bit to say for the Italians. The NZ tactician came up with the quote of the day after being asked some ridiculous question by one of the journalists "I don´t know, I just wind on the runners".

Valencia is also home to the Holy Grail as recognised by the Vatican. We took the self guided tour of the church where it is held and obviously jumped straight to the Grail. I would have though this would be a fairly significant item on which they would give a lot of commentary. After 5 minutes of talk about the architecture of the room we were in, we finally got a one liner saying "and at the back of the room you will see the Holy Challice which Christ used at the last supper". That was it!

So after leaving the hype of Valencia we have made it down to Seville. It is a very pretty town which pretty much follows the same pattern as the rest of Spain being party till sunrise everyday of the week, start work about 10, do a couple of half baked hours of work then have Siesta. They have definately implemented Fiji time over here.

Off to Granada tomorrow then to Morocco


Bye for now
CS

---