I have so much to write but I am using the internet at what seems to be a public school program so it will be short, hopefully to be expanded up later. My last night in Sevilla proved to be a pretty wild one! I met 2 women at the hostel, one from Turkey and one from Denmark. The turkish woman is an interior designer and just wide open…definitely not modest! The Dane is a student studying Spanish intensely until December. We went for tapas and beers, and eventually met 3 geologists from somewhere in the north who are working on a dam project in Sevilla. They were out celebrating one of their birthdays (the youngest, who looked exactly like Ashton Kutcher and I totally wish I had a picture). We were hanging out in the street by the bar when the police came and almost gave everyone a ticket! I had thought it was OK to walk around with alcohol, but I found out its actually not allowed…sometimes. A grey issue, they say. So one of the geologists, Pedro, had just spent his August vacation hiking in Wyoming and did his best to convince me that the north of Spain is the prettiest (at least the greenest) and that I should visit there! He has a sister in college there, and we met up with some of her friends and ended up in a club until 6am. A side note on that is that her friends gave me tremendous amounts of crap for the Minutemen. They were laughing and pretending to shoot immigrants. I desperately tried to explain that it was only a few stupid old men but they were pretty skeptical. This is the first time I really been given a hard time, not personally, of course. I have many more thoughts on what Ive learned and observed here but they must wait.

I barely checked out of my hostel on time, feeling pretty rough! I got some, ummm, breakfast (eggs scrambled with shrimp and fish that looked like worms…it was actually really good), successfully rented my car and managed to drive out of Seville without incident. It is probably good I was hungover or I would have been much more nervous, as driving in Spanish cities is crazy! My car, a Ka, is so tiny that I have to use 5th gear at about 35mph. Which is good for the tiny roads in these towns. But the down side is at 120 kph (the speed limit on the highway), it struggles!

So I drove out of town, intending to go to the beach. But through a series of random decisions, I ended up in Los Corrales, a small olive growing town of 4-5000 in Andlucia. I stumbled upon a hotel that is just beautiful (http://www.turismoruralanareverte.com/Galeria.htm). It is owned by a famous singer (http://www.anareverte.com/inicio.htm) and the women working there took me out on the town. They are so fun and crazy – I love them! Most moved here for quality of life from other parts of Spain, plus one latina from Bolivia. Collectively, they know only a little english, but we got along just fine (with the help of my dictionario electronica and expanding vocabulary). We drank late into the night and danced…I was delighted to know that somewhere else in the world amigas dance and do theatrical Karaoke the radio after a few drinks!

They tried to teach me to dance flamenco (failure) and invited me to stay another day. So I did. Today I slept LATE, had my laundry done, had a delicious lunch with a few of them, took a nap, and now I am here. Later we will meet for tapas but it will be early night, we all promised. I plan to leave early-ish in the morning for the coast. To the left is a picture of my fabulous (25 euro/night) room. The biggest I’ll enjoy for a long while…

I cannot believe I have been here only a week (the apostrophe doesnt work the same so I’ll skip it sometimes) It seems like forever ago. I was worried about time passing too fast but the days are so rich that I dont think I will feel cheated! OK, time to give up the computer. ¡Hasta luego!