Thursday

Today has been a day of hot desert-like driving through the south of Spain. Some part of me has a fondness for west Texas but I think I feel comfortable saying that this landscape hasn't had much to offer me. Sorry Spain. However, Bilbao, where we were last night, was so beautiful. Its a city of about 1 million that lays low, completely surrounded by lush hills and mountains.

I'm writing you now from our free hotel in Valencia. It's incomproable to the hostel we stayed at last night, which wasn't a bad place by any means. But aside from the fact that there seems to be some issue with the air conditioning , this place is quite classy. My leg is propped up on a marble top desk, adjacent to our flat screen tv, while a nice cool breeze is drifting out our window. We have about 10 minutes before we'll hop back in the van and head for the venue, which is supposedly only a few miles away. Our GPS has been a bit misleading today. Earlier, she showed us driving through desert lands, apparently on some road she'd never heard of. Luckily, Travis stuck with his instincts and drove down the mystery road until it matched back up with our directions from space. That was probably the easiest part of his frustrating drive. I don't currently have the patience to re-live the 20 minute venture we went on to find the hotel that was only 5 mintues away. Poor Trav.

I'm hoping the rest of the day becomes less strange. Lunch was had at a semi-deserted gas-station food restuarant that's akin to the lunches you had in your middle school cafeteria, except these are twice as deceptive--they actually look like they'll taste good. I suppose it really is all about presentation. Secondly, you think that, say, a plate of pasta can't be thaat expensive, until you realize that the paper sign which is in no way located NEAR the pasta, says 5.90 euro. geeze. oh, and don't want, oh, an apple with that. Because that's 1.80 euro. Someone called this highway robbery and that's about right. Somehow, I had fun there, in the strangeness of all of it. Maybe it was because I never expected Berry White to be playing in a food cafeteria in the middle of no where spain.

Ok! It's time for me to go. Cross your fingers that we all stay fairly healty. I've had some scratchy throat stuffy nose business going on and Rob's feeling sick. We're drinking lots of Ecunecia tea and Emergency. Someday we'll finish a tour without anyone getting sick! someday...Alright! Until next time my friends...

-aisha