Good morning? night? afternoon?

  Seville, Andalusia, Spain and Canary Islands
Sunday, July 6, 2008

Hola!

According to my watch, it is now past midnight.  According to my body, it´s some other time.  To be expected, of course, but mixing in a full half day and night of walking around Sevilla after nearly 19 hours of travelling tends to screw one´s body up something wicked.

The trip itself wasn´t bad at all...the plane from Miami was delayed an hour, and the tvs didn´t work, and all the reading lights were broken as well...but past that, it was actually fine.  I´m a little pissed at American, though, because they broke one of the buckles on my (Nick´s) sleeping bag.  [Nick - I´ll be getting it fixed. Don´t cry.]

But I love Sevilla.  It reminds me, in fact, of Italy...but definitely has a different flavor to it.  I´ve tried, lamely, to pick up some Spanish from a book on tape and from Lisa, but I keep thinking in Italian, or worse, Japanese.  That definitely has not worked.

Our hotel here is in the Old Town / Historic town.  Tons of the roads here are too small for even the mini-cars here, and the locals call them ¨Kissing Lanes¨ given how close the buildings on either side come to each other. 

Kissing Lanes

  They are beautiful, though, and feel authentic in a way that reminds me of the back streets of the North End...times 10.  Compared to the touristy parts of so many other cities, Sevilla seems legit.  And as my main man Rick Steves says, Sevilla ¨doesn´t just have ambience - it IS ambience.¨

Unfortunately, I can´t get Lisa´s pictures off her camera right now...otherwise I´d be showing you a picture of our dinner...which included ¨fried weeds.¨ I have no idea what that means, but it tasted like seaweed tempura...it wasn´t bad, actually.  Unfortunately, they were out of their speciality - deep fried sardines - but I´m not too broken up about missing that.

OK - off to pop a sleeping pill in order to beat jet lag and then hit the sack. 
Hope everyone had a good Fourth!
p.s. ¨Into Thin Air¨ is a great read...halfway through it already!  (Thanks D-hizzle!)