ok, so i lied

Turns out i wasnt really sick.... apparently when that crackpot dr. told me that my sinuses aren´t friends with dry weather he wasn´t lying.... a couple good nights with benadryl later and a little ´steaming´time in the shower, and im good as new! I also forgot to mention that we went to a fun little town called Sintra, which has this amazing park that was built up by this random man who wanted to create this weird mythological representation on earth, and put in an initiation well like the knights templar had... it was good adventures, underground grottos and towers and fun. Also, we spent a night out in Lisbon listening to Fado music...its this usually female kinda plantive emotional music, really pretty, and it was free with our dinner! Except that then they came around to your table and asked you to buy their cds...and one of them was so cute, i kind of wanted to adopt her...and some how erin convinced me that it was imperative that i buy it...and it was. I can´t wait to listen!

Also, once i was feeling better i did get a pretty good look around sevilla...the cathedral is really nice, and i got to go up the tower(ramps up instead of stairs...interesting...still tires the legs) and saw a great view of the city, as well as some hotels with pools on the roof that i was jealous of. Also of interest that the quarter that all the tourists chill in because its the most historic and well preserved...a) barrio santa cruz :) b) the old jewish quarter... not quite sure what to make of that, but interesting all the same.

we grabbed a train to grenada yesterday afternoon, and in an amazing stroke of good luck, got there like 10 minutes before a train left. The train was comfy..and we may have ended up listening to top 40 on erin´s ipod and finishing the bottle of port(hey, it was a three hour train ride). Ironic note, southern spain looks a whole lot like southern california...not hard to see why the spanish felt at home. Also funny that erin was determined to see a bull fight, until i convinced her that they kill the bulls, even when they win...so we satisfied our love of animals seeing some fun lookin bulls roaming about on the hills during train ride :)

Last night we a) ran into a guy wearing a Nor Cal shirt, who turned out to be A) a little weird , B) living in santa cruz, and C) in some band named Egg Salad... b) i tried paella...i felt adventurous, i told erin it tasted a little like ocean on a plate, she told me that sounded like her worst nightmare on a plate, c) we met these dudes who turned out to be firefighters from Alameda County(bay area for those who don´t know), who bought us beers because we reminded them of their kids while exchanging funny stories, my favorite; chuck brought a roll of kennedy half dollars to ireland because he heard irish people love them...then forgot he had them, found them in barcelona and started using them to buy cheap beer off the sketch guys on La Rambla....when they looked at it and went ´que?´aka where is my euro... he´d go, oooh its cool, its a kennedy!!! and walk away before they figured out it was worth like 30 cents..... they were such 10 year olds in 50 year old bodies....

anyway today, we went to the alhambra....big moorish palace-fortress-gardens...we went suuuuper early because we hadn´t bought tickets in advance, but were among the first to go in at 8.30. it was nice because it wasnt too crowded and the school groups only got there as we were leaving 4 hours later. Its soooo crazy fun, the oldest palace is covered in carved wood, plaster and tiles... its like the prettiest mosque you´ve ever seen, then better because there are beautiful flower gardens, fountains(with genius ancient water systems) and vistas over the whole city.... im gonna go ahead and say ,the alhambra rules!

ok, i think that´s it for now, tomorrow we head to malaga, and thursday morning i start my epic journey home, its been a really great trip, i think erin and i are going to put together a little list of bests, worsts, funniest that i´ll post here and she´ll email out. That should be up tomorrow, or maybe thursday night... i´m glad you all came along for my trip, its that much more fun when you get to share.

See you soon!