Obrigado

Hello all,
It's been two weeks since I've bogged, so now's the time. I'm currently in Raposeira, Portugal, a town of 700 people outside of Sagres. Its right on the Southwest tip of Portugal. Yesterday I visited beaches on both the South and West coasts of the country. I'm staying at a really cool surfer hostel, which is really relaxing compared to where I have been staying. Over the past two weeks I've been only in cities; after visiting Madrid and Cordoba I've been to Granada, Malaga, and Seville. It's been a awesome time. I've met a ton of people from all around the world and seen all kinds of different stuff. Here's some picture highlights.


This is the Alhambra in Granada. Its a huge palace first built by the Moors before 1000 and taken over and added to by Christians after that. Apparently its the most visited site in Spain; I had to book my tickets 4 days ahead. The palace itself was beautiful; there were huge gardens outside that reminded me of the palace in Aladdin. The inside was full of incredibly intricate carvings on all of the walls and ceilings. It was a pretty cool place, but it wasn't my favorite place of the trip.

This is a picture from my 2nd ever professional football game, Real Betis vs. Xerez in Seville. This game had a totally different feel from the Athletico game I went to in Madrid. Real Betis is a 2nd division team that supposedly has the 6th most fans in Spain. When I was there the stadium wasn't even close to full but the real fans were out in full force. If you look close at this picture you can see the remnants of green smoke from one of the many smoke bombs the hooligans set off. I of course bought the cheapest seats in the stadium and when I got to my seats I wasn't dissipointed. My section was right next to the visiting fans section. They were walled off from the rest of the stadium by big glass boards and rows of police surrounding their section. That didn't keep the Betis fans from screaming over the walls and cops the entire game. The most fun part of this to watch was the age range; fans from 5 to 80 were flipping each other off and screaming "hijo de puta". The game itself was also a success, Betis scored twice in the last 3 minuets and won.

And this is where I am now. The past couple days I've been hanging out at the beach watching the surfers. Someday I'll learn to do it, but for now I'm happy to take in the view.

Some more highlights without pictures have been the insane drive to the hosprings (mudpit) in Granada, the 3rd biggest cathedral in the world in Seville, the Picasso museum in Malaga, and some great nights out.

Tomorrow I'll take the bus to Lisbon for a week than to Porto. Thanks for reading!

SPAIN

I've made it through my first week and a half in Spain! It's been awesome. Here are some photos+captions. Check out the entire 1st week here http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=293034&id=612254364&l=8882d64665.


This was my on first night in Madrid. I met a Canadian guy staying in my hostel and we went out for some food, than decided to walk around for awhile after dinner. We were walking for 15 min. when this lady walked up beside us and started speaking to us in perfect English. We were a bit surprised and started talking to her while we walked. After about a half hour we learned that she takes the same walk from 10 to 2 every day she was in Madrid. She was really funny and we ended up walking with her till 2! She told us lots of stories but it was most interesting when she talked about the people of Spain. I noticed that the streets were full of people at 1:00 on a Monday, and I said that it would be awesome to live somewhere like that. She said that it really was not that good, the country is in bad shape because all people like to do is have fun... very interesting stuff.

This is a view from a side street in Toledo. I was planning on spending a couple days in Toledo, which is a half an hour train from Madrid, but I decided not to, instead going for a day. It was a pretty cool little city, with a huge Cathedral and one of the only 3 surviving Synagogues in Spain. The Cathedral rivals any that I've ever seen, with paintings by Greco and Raphel. I took this picture when I was lost and wondering around the city, I ended up in a dead end on top of a hill, with only the old guy standing there.


This is Stadium Vicente Calderon, home of Club Athletico Madrid football(soccer) team. They're my favorite team in Europe so I went on Sat. and bought the cheapest tickets for the game the next day. I went extra early and ended up walking around the stadium. I made it half way and couldn't go any further because the sidewalk was blocked by people and two barriers on the sidewalk, with mounted police around the huge crowd. I had no idea what was going on but I though I had better stay and find out. After about 10 min. of standing around, everyone started whistling (that's what football fans do instead of booing) and I looked down the street and saw the other team's bus. As it drove by I looked in the window and saw one of the players looking out. He seemed awestruck. Athletico Madrid is a pretty popular team with a ton of fans, while the team they were playing is pretty small. I can only imagine what was going through the players heads. Than a few min. later the Athletico bus came into sight. Immediately the chorus of ATHLEEEEEETIC! ATHLEEEETIC! began. It was an amazing way to start my European football experience. I went into the stadium and quickly found out that the the cheapest seats are also the ones they give the visiting fans. I was sitting with the drum section of opposing fans, which was pretty cool. During the game my vocabulary of Spanish curse words tripled also because Atheltico tied with the lesser team at 1-1.


This is a picture of the Mosque in Cordoba. It was built before 1000 AD. and was added to throughout the years, but once Cordoba was taken back by the Christians they build a huge Cathedral right in the center of it. It creates an amazing fusion of Islam and Christianity in one building; there was actually a Catholic service going on while I was visiting. That was one of the highlights of Cordoba, a medium sized city that felt really authentic.

Other highlights of my trip so far have been the Prado Museum, where I think I've found a new favorite artist (Velasquez), Jazz in Cordoba, and meeting new people from all over the world.