PeaceBang

Cordoba, Spain, Sunday

Hoy es Domingo! Y el lavandaria esta cerrado!
Today is Sunday! And the laundrymat is closed!

That´s the way it goes when you´re a stupid tourist who just walked about a mile along the river with her clothes all stuffed in a bag, chomping on a bocadillo (sandwich) and looking like a huge, bundled up dork, only to have to turn right around again and walk back the other way along the river, taking photos of the Mosque and looking like a huge, bundled up dork.

The women aren´t really pink complexioned here, which is why I am getting stared at by middle aged men and called ¨guapa.¨This is the explanation given by the cute little concierge of my hotel, who walked me part way to the laundry and bought me an orange juice. I thought ¨guapa¨might mean ¨funny, chubby tourist¨but it means handsome, only the feminine form. How nice.

Hi Again, PeaceBangers!
This internet cafe is very smoky and I have a slight cold, so let me just give you a few more highlights.

I went from Madrid to Seville and immediately felt like, oh no, I can find tons of drunken American college students in downtown Boston, as I can also find a bunch of rude waiters and shopkeepers. As for huge cathedrals, I´ve already seen many of the best. This place don´t feel so good to me. So I decided to tour the Alcazar (worth the overnight stay, will post photos when I get back) and get the hell out of Dodge. One thing you learn as a traveler is to trust your instincts. My instincts told me that I would find the Andalucian charm and Moorish/Jewish/Catholic spiritual and artistic convergence I sought in Cordoba, and here it is, along with all the charming people and architectural beauty you could ask for. So let´s strike Sevilla as a major disappointment, and move on.

Can we please start a food revolution in America and eat tapas all the time? Tapas is a brilliant thing. Imagine that you go to a great restaurant and they have two dozen delicious items on the menu and you can´t decide between them. So you say, ¨listen, how about give me a taste of these four things?¨ And they go and bring you four little dishes of wonderful items and you wind up paying about ten bucks for the whole thing, including a glass of wine. Sign me up for the Tapas Revolution!

I fell in love with a little boy at a tapas bar last night, who was busting out some MTV dance moves while his mama chatted at the bar and had a beer. He was about four years old and looked just like my brother did at that age, with curly locks and the most sparkling, naughty brown eyes, and an irrepresible expression on his punim.
We spoke the international language of Cracking Each Other Up with peek-a-boo and general flirtation for about a half an hour, and then I saw him in the bathroom. ¨My boyfriend!¨ said, in Spanish. He explained that he was waiting for his mama. ¨You´re a good boy,¨I said, in Spanish and then asked in English, ¨How did you learn all those hot dance moves?¨ He stared in awe. ¨You´re English!¨he said. ¨No, American,¨I said. ¨Like Madonna.¨

People are so lovely with their children here. They take them around as though they were just people, and there´s a wonderful family feeling. Spaniards are particularly good at strolling. It´s a whole art form called el paseo, and it´s a wonderfully stress free pasttime.