so here’s how it started: we got to tarifa and walked to the hostal after a little shopping. there was a couple fútbol fields out back and there were some kids playing there. maybe 7 or 8 of them. they waived for us to join but we declined being the nice temperate people that we are. so we went inside. and after sitting there for a little bit we realized we were idiots to not play with them. so we went down and played with them for probably 30 minutes or so. they made us look REALLY stupid on a couple occasions, but i think we also suprised them a couple other times. it felt good at least to take part in that.

next we headed back up to the room and realized we were hungry. so the girls gave us a list of stuff to get at the grocery store and we headed out. we must have been really into the “let’s be in spain” mood (which i’ll admit sometimes i lack) and we opted to eat at a local café and bring the food back later. “surf kebab” was the place of choice. how could we resist with such a pretty señorita behind the counter. the food was excellent. reminded me a lot of the tapas from Enebro in Toledo up north. i was pleased. so then we went to the store and frantically grabbed the food as it was closing, headed back, and tried to explain why we weren’t hungry.

after an hour or so of some tinto de verano and lord of the rings in spanish, brandon popped the question: “wanna go for a walk?” it was probably a little after 11 then. it was a good idea. we walked for probably 15 minutes through the streets before we happened upon a mysteriously enticing castle on a hill overlooking the straight of gibraltar. the first one is said castle by day and the second is from above via GoogleEarth (you know you can make it bigger by clicking by now, right?):

ok, so we stumbled upon it and were drawn to climb a wall and scale a muddy cliff to get up to it. we climbed up the northwest side where the front door is.

look how LOOMING THIS IS! and it’s just all alone on the top of this hill. no monument, no tour guides, nothing. it just sits here day after day.

then brandon found a way around the edge of the castle to the back side…and holy cow.

i should probably set the scene here on the back side a little better. our light sources were the moon and whenever we took flash photos…and the lighthouse light that flashed by us from about 500 yards north on an island. i’ll admit, i was scared the WHOLE time, scared of getting caught, or of a bum jumping out of a broken window, or just scared of the unknown that was all around us. it was then that we made the discovery that i will carry with my the rest of my life until i die. this:

if you look at the GoogleEarth image from above the castle, you will see a little dark spot just to the southwest of the castle proper. that dark spot and the picture above is a stairway down into the ground. and what you see in the image above at the bottom of that stairway is an OPEN DOOR. it was swinging in the wind and when i first saw it i almost lost all bodily control. no, we didn’t go down there. we had no light, and i couldn’t make myself! but i will find out what is behind that door someday. i will and i must go back! at this point it’s the greatest mystery of my life. what could be down there? just a locked door at the end of the passage? or an unguarded way inside the castle!? there was plenty of graffiti on the walls inside, those people had to get in somehow. so anyway…. moving on. this is a very haunting image of the castle on the descent from the hill:

i will continue the night of adventure in another post cause this is turning into a larger project than the papers i have to write for homework. as always, your comments are welcome! thanks for reading!

we were so close to morocco this weekend it was silly. however, the lovely ferries from tarifa decided they wanted to sit it out a day. that’s right, we didn’t make it. the ferries were all canceled on sunday. so that was a bummer. i don’t know if i’m going to try to go again either. but we’ll see. my companions for the weekend were the blacks: brandon, brittany, and brooke. i enjoyed them quite a bit. i had a great time running around tarifa with brandon on saturday night. i would say that thus far it was my best night in spain. here’s us on the way to tarifa from marbella, looking really hardcore….or trying.

unfortunately, it rained most of the trip, but that didn’t deter us from doing our fair share of sight seeing. this is the cathedral at night. we later went through it during the day. it’s 16th century neo-gothic.

tarifa is a nice little surf town on the southern-most tip of spain (and europe). there’s a really long beach on the west side that we only saw from the mountains above because it was too rainy to go anywhere during the day. but we headed out of there at 3:30 on sunday. we had some trouble on the way back in algeciras, where we were going to catch our buses to málaga and sevilla. but we all made it back ok. so that’s really good. i’m going to save the amazing night of adventure that brandon and i had for another post. it’s too good for right now.

and now i will do some homework. byes.

dear readers,

we at blogger.com regret to inform you that aaronwk’s account has been terminated effective immediately. the blog will be removed in 24 hours.
-staff

not a blogger? it’s easy to join!

actually, it’s not being terminated, i just haven’t posted on it all week. and won’t for probably a few more days because i’m off to morocco tomorrow! woo! the dark continent is about to get a little whiter. pasty-whiter. i’ll report back asap with photos though! have a good’n.

it was andrés’ birthday on friday. they actually celebrate those in foreign countries too! here’s what we did:

let’s revisit andrés’ perrenial coolness from the cádiz post:

and now i present exhibit B:

the dude is bad. i’m sure james dean is proud of him somewhere.

can’t have a birthday party without a little dancing. right? right.

i found this hat and we all revisited our cádiz disguises for a litte bit.

all he’s missing here is a fag. then he’d be don juan for sure. school is back in full swing this week. i should have some visitors at the end of the week. a friend and his little sister are coming to visit their other sister who is studying in málaga (100 miles or so southeast of me). so we’ll be hosting brandon and brooke black when they come to sevilla on thursday. should be fun. ok, later!

it was andrés’s birthday so we went into the city and had a good time there. there were seven of us. we first met in a plaza down near the cathedral and walked from there for about 20 minutes before we got to this bar where there was a group laying brazilian music. it was a pretty cool place. some of the others didn’t like it too much cause they weren’t playing dance music, but that didn’t really bother me. we only got there for the group’s last song, which was pretty enjoyable.

saw this church on the way to the bar. actually, we saw probably 4 or 5 but it got old wanting to take pictures of them all.

that is fabrício doing the chicken dance. no, not THAT chicken dance, the brazilian one.

we saw these guys in one of the plazas we passed through. they’re getting ready for semana santa in april – probably the largest religious festival in spain. the streets are filled with these man-powered tables that will carry statues and other sacred objects around.

r hrd r prttr grrd wrrkrnd. r drd r lrt rf hrmwrk hr rt thr drms. rnd rn frrdr r wrnt tr thr crtr rnd wrnt tr thrs rrllr rld hrsprtrl frm thr 15th crntrr. rt wrs crrl, hr r srm phrtrs rf rt.

i promise a normal english post later.

ok, awesome is not the right word. more like less exciting than the others have been. we had a day off school on tuesday so that was nice. and i have tomorrow (friday) off like usual so i’m going to go run around the city and see a lot of things i haven’t seen yet. not sure what exactly, but i’ll put up some pictures later. fabrício and cláudia (the brazilians) left for barcelona this weekend until monday so i’m here without a roommate. but, i do have lots of homework to do this weekend. i’ve got two tests to study for and two papers to write. so i’ll keep myself busy, don’t worry!

here’s what i’ll be doing most of the weekend when i’m not reading books or running around the city.

my night in cádiz was almost exactly like the first night i spent in pamplona two years ago at san fermin (running of the bulls). sadly, that night in pamplona (besides being one of the most memorable nights of my life) was one of the worst times i’ve ever had. thousands upon thousands of drunk people, me not wearing enough clothes, rain, and being outside all night. that was it. now, i will say that i did have much more fun in cádiz than i did sitting on a bench in pamplona for 6 hours. mostly because i got to meet TONS of people, and i got to spend time with my friends from south america. we started drinking around 5 PM. that was a little too early. but, all in all we (5 of us) plowed through 7 bottles of whiskey. i stopped after we finished the 3rd one. BUT, i did have a good time, and i think the people i met and time i spent with my friends will over shadow the poor weather in my memories of cádiz. i took 55 photos in the 24 hours we were there. ok, i’m going to reference the photo of cádiz from the previous post in these photos. all these photos are from the old city which is at the end (or head) of cádiz:

that’s me and the pacific. we are on that triangle point at the tip of the old city in this photo.

this is andrés, just about the baddest fairy god mother i know of. these photos in the park are just inland from where the first picture was taken. where you see the green foliage area.

that’s my roommate fabrício and reigning tree dead-lift champion of brazil.

this is our group! (l-r) cristian (ecuador), elizabeth (bolivia), cláudia (brazil), paula (ecuador), fabriício (brazil), andrés (ecuador), and me.

this is from the bell tower of the cádiz cathedral. this would be looking out to sea from…imagine the long part of cádiz is the neck. the cathedral is located on the “throat” area of this ambiguously confusing body analogy of an island.

this is the path that leads to that extension off of the island at the bottom of the photo of cádiz. or what i like to call the “alien extender mouth thingy” if we’re keeping with the anatomy trend. and cause it reminds me of Alien.

these girls were really cool. they’re from málaga, about as far away as sevilla is, but to the east. and i think the one next to me is the prettiest spanish girl i’ve met so far. dang.

these guys were hilarious. we spent the whole night here on the steps of the cathedral.

we spent most of the night (from 1-6 AM) with those four girls behind elizabeth who are in sevilla now and from mexico and south america. they were really fun.

and this is just a part of the mass that was surrounding the cathedral in the plaza. i took videos of the whole thing which i can show you all when i get back.

we caught our 9 AM bus back to sevilla and crashed like crazy people on our beds. i slept until about 6 tonight and have been doing laundry and homework since then. good weekend. comment!

there hasn’t been much this week. just some school time and homework time. i did start guitar lessons yesterday and am excited to learn to use my fingers to play the guitar instead of the pick i’m used to. first lessons are all finger exercises to learn the coordination that is necessary to pluck all the strings accurately. so i’m practicing that right now.

this weekend seven of us are going to cádiz for the carnival. cádiz is down on the southwest coast in this photo, just south of sevilla where i am. so it’s only like a 2 hour bus ride at most.

this is cádiz:

it’s a city about as old as anything, and was a major commercial port for the Phoenicians back in…oh say, 800 B.C. well, the carnival is legendary. it’s considerred the largest festival in europe by most, and costumes for all attendees are mandatory. now, what should i go as…

remember how i posted about an art exhibit i went to…oh like a week or two ago? well i went back and took some photos. seriously, the guy’s stuff was even better than i remembered. the theme was the individual man lost in the mass of globalized humanity, conformity of thought, etc. here’s a few samples:

those are just a few…a FEW of the paintings by José Pedro Robles. the exhibit is called “Silencios y Soledades” which, if you apply yourself, i’m sure you can tell what it means. anyway, i got to meet the man cause he was at the exhibit on saturday. he was super nice and i was really glad i got to meet him. i don’t know. it’s cool to meet people that make good things like that. and i’m sure they appreciate all the people that want to talk to them.

i went to mass on sunday which was really good. i’ll probably start going more often especially if more people start coming.