“Goodbye to you. Goodbye to everything that I knew.”

Relaxing in the lobby with a copy of El Pais that I procured from the sixth-floor preferred guests’ lounge, I glanced around at this typically eventful room, so often filled with wedding brides, international stars, and attentive hotel staff. At 7:35am Monday, lights were out, not a sign of human occupation save for the American hoping to catch an early breakfast before her flight home. First stirs came after 8am when an elevator dinged and delivered a man-and-woman couple I had passed on the sixth floor earlier that morning. Apparently they had been waiting for the expected breakfast hour before making the journey to the lower level. “No son listos servir desyuno todavía.” I hoped I got that right. The lady looked disappointed. “¿Usted sabe cuándo se abre?” I got excited: I knew all of those words. …And so polite. “No sé.” I knew that one from habitual student answers in Mrs. Vidal’s high school Spanish class. For a touch of legitimacy, I appended, “Las horas no se enumeran,” and motioned toward the board where such things usually occur. What followed was a swift-moving barrage of words that pelted my linguistic-pride. It was like watching shoreline pass while being shoved downstream by class-five rapids, able to distinguish only a few familiar objects—a branch here, a mound of dirt there, an alligator off to the side, “Madrid,” “true,” some conjugation of “to amuse”—none of which converged into any sort of helpful device for pulling me from the water. Throughout this verbal assault, the gentleman bore a friendly smile… like drowning on a sunny day. When hostilities ceased, the lady had the audacity to take a few shots herself. Then they both giggled. So did I; and why not? I figured we were probably just making fun of people in Madrid anyway. The feigned laughter went over well, and my new buddies wished me a good morning, laughed once more—no doubt shaking off remnants from the terribly funny joke we’d just shared—and got back in the elevator. I returned to my newspaper, picking apart the article word-by-word, gleaning additional meaning from photographs and headlines,

Ian met me for breakfast just before 8:30am; by this time, several hotel staff and guests had made appearances in the lobby, and the breakfast room had opened.

8:30am luggage pickup
9:00am hotel to airport transfer

With rain comes traffic, explained our driver, who managed to stall out once while in the circle around Puerto del Sol. From the location where he informed us that we were about five kilometers from the airport, it took around half-an-hour to arrive; such was the slowness of transit.

MAD to MIA 1205P-335P Business Class Iberia

With the flight from Madrid to Miami, we left Spain to our backs, filling time with reminiscences of Mudéjar architecture, Manchego cheese, the olive oil maker, the countryside as we glided along it in a train, a friendly Rondan shopkeeper, the 2am morning-on-the-town, the coach ride through Seville. We compared superlatives: What was your favorite city, favorite event, favorite Hotel, favorite food; to which place will you most likely return? The answers were (Ian’s then mine) Barcelona and Ronda, visiting The Prado and peering into Ronda’s gorge, a lot of them were really good and the shower in Le Meridien puts it at the top, Manchego cheese and one of us should order the flight meal with Manchego cheese; Barcelona and Ronda.

We combined photographs and ordered and labeled them, glad that we’d done it right away before forgetting where we were in this photo and what we were doing in that one.

MIA to TPA 625P-725P First Class American Airlines

Neither of us bothered to sleep on the flights home. Judi met us out of the monorail in the Tampa airport, from where we drove to Ian’s house, making a showing at the renowned first-stop for any United States citizen returning from abroad: Ian ordered a one-dollar double cheese-burger without ketchup from the drive-through. At the house, we found, to our relief, that no bottle of olive oil leaked and no clock suffered damage. We unpacked, checked emails and phone message, called nearest-and-dearest, and then put ourselves to bed, promising ourselves that tomorrow we would upload pictures and send them out to our tour group. The haze of sleep and anticipation of snuggling into familiar beds dripped over us. Mañana—we had learned from the Spanish—we’ll do it all mañana.

Palacio Real de Madrid, Museo Arqueológico Nacional, and a long night’s rest

Day 8
7:00am Breakfast. Tour ends.

We managed to get a table in the hotel restaurant at the Spanish peak almuerzo arrival time, 9:30am, when we saw a few stragglers from the tour gang catching breakfast or transfers to the airport. After breakfast, the doorman blew his whistle at a waiting taxicab and we rode the few minutes to Calle de Bailén.

For 8 €, a person can walk through the official home of Spain’s royal family, Palacio Real de Madrid (http://www.patrimonionacional.es). Upon entering each room, my chief thought was—each time, mind you—“this room is just too ridiculously gorgeous.” It’s no wonder the Royal family prefers to live outside the city and suffers the palace only for formal gatherings and receptions. On the other hand, their palace makes a marvelous museum, loaded with frescos, architecture, furniture, tapestries, sculptures, and other artworks by Spain’s greatest artists, including Stradivarius violins, Goya portraits, the Sacchetti structural design, a Sabatini staircase, and Tiepolo and Giaquinto frescos.

Adjacent to the Royal Palace are the Royal Armory (Armería Real) and Royal Pharmacy (Real Farmacia) which both contain exactly what you would expect.

With only two items left on our Madrid-to-do list, we set out by taxi to fulfill one of the items: visiting the Museo Arqueológico Nacional (http://www.man.es/), where admission was free this day (entrada gratuita) but, as Ian commented, the collections were less extensive then those in the Smithsonians.

When rain began, we changed our next destination from Calle Carretas at Puerta del Sol to Hotel Palace so I could grab raingear. Sleepiness kept me in the room while Ian dutifully braved the taxi rides in an excursion to tick off the final item on the to-do-list: shopping for dress shoes and a leather jacket. As it turns out, no tiendas are open on Sunday. Ian returned to the hotel with a little extra rainwater in his possession but no leather. For an alternate event, he visited the hotel workout room.

We wrapped fragiles, stuffed our clothes into the suitcases (someone’s was considerably more stuffed than the other’s), organized carry-ons, took final showers, and tucked ourselves in for this trip’s last night in Spain.

The Prado, a Madrid overview by bus, and a last supper with entertainment

Day 7
7:00am Breakfast
8:30am Walk across street to meet our guides in El Prado.

The alarm sounded at 7:45am; we were breakfasting by 8:05am and out the lobby door at 8:30am.

9:00am Begin walking tour of Madrid.

Today’s tour began with a queue to enter Museo Nacional del Prado (http://www.museoprado.es/). Our group was the first to arrive at the large, upper Goya Entrance, where we stood waiting for the museum to open at 9am and with our daypacks and coats prepped for the security check.

Guides Leticia and Rosanna gave us the one-hour-fifteen-minute go-over of a museum containing 3,000 pieces of picture artwork—many of them masterpieces—from the Spanish Royal Collection and painted by Spain’s most significant artists of all times. (That’s not to mention the 10,700 pieces in other art forms and the rest of the 8,600 picture works) Whizzing past many paintings that Ian recognized from art history class and cued me in on, our group paused for works by three royal court artists in the collection titled “Spanish Painting from1100 to 1850”:

Diego Velázquez’s

• “Los Borrachos” drunkards or “El Triunfo de Baco”,
• “Las Meninas” Maids of Honor or “The Family of Philip IV” with self-portrait and spatial depth,
• “La Rendición de Breda” surrender or the lances “Las Lanzas”,
• and royal family portraits of Philip IV and of Queen Isabella of Bourbon on horseback which both own age-revealing “Velázquez mistakes”;

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes’

• (in my opinion) “cartoon-like” but more reality-revealing “Charles IV and his Family”,
• "Saturn Devouring One of His Sons” of the Black Paintings circa 1820,
• "The 3rd of May 1808 in Madrid: The Executions on Principe Pio Hill” of the defenders of Madrid,
• and clothed “La Maja Vestida” and nude “La Maja Desnuda”;

and Domenicos Theotocopoulos or El Greco’s

• elongated bodies with ring and middle fingers touching in “La Crucifixión”
• and nobleman with his hand on his chest “El Caballero de la Mano en el Pecho” who gazes back at you even after you move.

The Prado turned out to be Ian’s favorite event of the trip… so far.

11:00am Begin bus tour of Madrid.

Taped to the window beside the bus door, the daily bus seat-rotation listed “Ippolito” in the seventh row on the driver’s side. We found our seat, filled out Tauck comment cards, and commenced with the final leg of the “Week in Spain” tour. Some stopping points of interest were the Royal Palace, shopping and dining scene Plaza Mayor (former bullfight square and execution place), and a statue venerating Miguel de Cervantes, complete with representations of Don Quixote and horse Rocinante, Sancho Panza and ass Rucio, and Aldonza Lorenzo as Dulcinea of El Toboso.

12:30am Tour ends. Afternoon is at your leisure.

We said goodbye to Luis, our trusty bus driver, for we would not be seeing him again. Ian napped while I read Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia through crunches sets and other exercises at the gym, where he joined me about an hour later and I left him about fifteen minutes after that, my eyes barely holding the lids open. After an awakening shower, I listened to some music until Ian returned and finished rinsing off. We walked to Plaza Santa Anna for octopus and cheese tapas outside restaurant Naturbier then returned to the hotel, admired the doorman’s top hat and bow tie, and went to our habitacion to dress for dinner.

7:00pm Farewell dinner in private banquet room.

Patios Cortes I and II were reserved for the Tauck farewell dinner. The open bar prepared us for dinner and surprise entertainment: “Tuna: Boleros y Pasodobles” singing group composed of two guitarists, a mandolin player (his instrument brought to Spain courtesy of the Moors in the early eighth century), and a jumpin’ tambourine man. We sang, we shouted, we held hands and swayed to songs like “Guantanamera” and “Cielito Lindo”. When the entertainers finished, I and some others offered patronage through their 12 € CD. After-dinner goodbyes stretched into after-dinner drinks at Plaza Santa Anna outside of Cerveceria, the first restaurant we found that managed to accommodate our sixteen-person party. Around 11:30pm, we left the table’s bill to Arnie, returned to divvy it up, and headed back to Hotel Palace for final final-goodbyes in the lobby, elevator, and fourth-floor hallway. I showered while a sleepy Ian made an attempt at emailing Karen after acquiring internet time from the hotel. He dropped off around 1am and I around 2am.

Catedral de Cordoba and La Mezquita; the Ave from Cordoba to Madrid

A very quick wake up and prep (less than ten minutes after the buzz of the 7am alarm) saw me of to the lobby for breakfast with Tom and Marielana; Ian joined us just moments later.

Day 6
7:00am Breakfast
7:15am Luggage pickup inside room; turn in keys at front desk.
8:00am Depart for Cordoba, approximately a two-hour drive.

Due to a later train boarding time this afternoon, the bus departure was pushed back to 8:30am. The tour group swapped stories and caught up with one another while in the lobby and on the bus. Karen narrated the two-hour’s travel to Córdova with history and descriptions of the regions we were leaving and entering.

10:30 Walking tour of Cordoba, including a visit to La Mezquita.

Rain fell outside Cabildo Catedral de Córdoba while our tour guides showed us, in two groups, through the columned hallways and tall rooms of this World Heritage Site and oldest cathedral in Spain.

On this location stood a Roman building that housed high-class citizens within its protective walls surrounding the courtyard. In the sixth century, Jews, who weren’t allowed to live inside the walls, moved in when the Visigoths tore down the structure and erected San Vincente basilica, which in turn went down when the region came under new management by the Moors, who began constructing Aljama Mosque in 785, reusing construction material from the basilica. Conquered Catholics got the boot while Jews migrated back to Antigua Mezquita, the Jewish Quarter just outside the city walls. During the following prosperous Muslim times of the Independent Emirate, Córdoba became the capital of the Al-Andalus region as well as a Western Caliphate cultural, social, and political venue whose mosque arguably surpassed Damascus’ in its consummate design achieved over three expansions. As such it might have drawn King Ferdinand III’s attention: coming under Spanish rule 1236, it was one of the earlier gotten cities in his re-conquest of the country. Keeping the elaborate construction in tact, Catholics consecrated the building and remodeled it, making additions to coincide with their symbology.

We opened umbrellas and pulled on our hoods to walk through the moderate rain that landed on the Mezquita, visiting an old and rather meagerly preserved Jewish temple.

12:00pm Free time to explore.

Explore we did, grabbing tapas lunch (including Ian’s order of Manchego cheese) from El Patio hotel’s restaurant and dipping in and out of shops in the Mezquita.

1:30pm Regroup at bathroom stop and walk to coach.
2:40pm High-speed train departs for Madrid. Lunch served on train in business class cabin.

Itinerary change: The train Ave (Bird) departed at 3:44pm, and we in it, with each of us carrying a 58,65 € (including 7% IVA) billete y reserva. The ride was smooth, the té de poleo menta was warm, and I slept the less than two hours train “flight” between the stations in Cordoba and Madrid, catching a few glimpses of scenery and staying awake long enough to receive desert brownies from three other people’s meals; two were delivered by Rich and one by Carlos, who thought I might “need the nutrition.” At our 5:30pm arrival, I awoke curled into my chair with Rich’s Spain travel book and Bicycling magazine in my hand.

4:30pm Arrive in Madrid. Evening is at your leisure.

Leisure I did, maxin’ and journaling in a Westin hotel bathrobe following a refreshing shower. Sharing an elevator with un politico español, Ian went to the lobby to call overseas to Karen. When we had first entered the hotel, the buzz was that Bruce Springsteen was staying here, which likely explained the front entrance’s modest crowd of fans, paparazzi, and escorts past which we had to navigate in order to reach the front door.

At half past ten, I left room 463 and then left Hotel Palace to grab some tapas and enjoy nighttime in the city. I also managed a half-hour walk on the treadmill in the hotel’s gimnasio and a shower, relieved to be free of laundry duty since I had enough fresh clothes to finish out the final days of the trip.

Ian encountered a friendly Frenchman in Plaza Santa Anna (world-famous tapas zone), sipped wine to accompany tapas and people-watching, and met una joven Texan who was walking across Spain while on break from teaching in England.

Lights out came around 1am.

Juderia, horse and cart ride through Sevilla, Catedral de Sevilla, and Real Alcazar

Ian was first up today; I lagged by about a quarter of an hour. By 8:30am, both of us were seated in the lobby restaurant, Ian with water absorbed into Fiber One and I with queso Manchego slices and a cup of té de poleo menta.

Day 5
7:00am Breakfast
9:00am Depart on coach for morning sightseeing in the harder-to-reach parts of Sevilla.

Grey morning clouds concealed the atmosphere’s typical Sevillian-blue, so named as a result of the influence that the region’s skies have exerted on many artists’ palettes. Our bus followed a bridge across Rio Guadalquivir and entered Isla Magica, the Island of Dreamers. Distinctive structures only slightly recalled the excitement of the 1992 Olympic events held in this capital of Andalucía. Time had given newer purposes to the buildings, and now they all held high-tech enterprises or were under renovation and slated to reopen as museums, science centers, and the like.

Puente del Alamillo brought us back across Rio Guadalquivir, and some tour members stepped outside to appreciate the design of this bridge created by an architect whose bridgework also appears in other notable locations (but not notable enough for me to remember those locations).

Why so many San Fernando statues in the city? Sevilla honors Fernando III as its patron due to his patronizing its cultural, religious, and education institutions and to his capturing it back from the Moors in 1248. Maybe a little conquering goes a long way; Pope Clement X canonized Fernando in 1671. Before and during Fernando III reign, Sevilla was a city of prominence. It was a capital, along with Marrakech, under the Muslim sultanate during its hold on southern Spain in the twelfth century. Earlier, Sevilla was the second city of the Roman Empire, next capital in line after Rome. Later, in 1503, Queen Isabella granted Sevilla harbor exclusive trading rights to the New World, making it the richest city in Spain.

Entering Macarena—with relation to the song, whose artists hail from Sevilla and sang about a woman who held this common local name—we passed a large statue of her, “La Esperanza de la Macarena” often referred to as Our Lady of Hope. In 1785, an earthquake shook the ground from Lisbon to Seville, devastating the lands (including the mountaintop village where we met Juan “the little, old olive oil maker”) right up to the outer limits of Seville, leaving intact the harbor city, which commemorated its salvation by rejoicing in the city’s “hope.”

Eight kilometers of wall, Las Murallas, surround the area; this perimeter was first constructed by Julius Caesar during his governance then destroyed by the Moors to be replaced with a stronger, taller wall; sightseers could see preserved portions of the original.

10:00am Group photo followed by walking tour to visit the world-famous Giralda Cathedral and picturesque streets of the former Jewish quarter of Santa Cruz.

At Plaza de América, we disembarked the bus, stepped into Glorieta de los Palomas, and avoided pigeons in Parque de María Luisa. Surrounded by Museo Arqueológico and Pabellón Real, we posed for a group picture, backdropped by Pabellón Mudejar, Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares (the building’s claim to fame was its appearance in Lawrence of Arabia as the British military headquarters in Cairo) and efficiently shot by a local high-society photographer.

Tauck group photograph lineup…
Back Row: Tour Director Karen Whitcomb, Ron Kaliebe, Harvey Chasen, Ian Ippolito, Raul Cardoso, Lou Kahn, Rosalva Zuniga, Kenneth Deutsch, Mark Gilbert, Karen Gilbert, Joe Giordano, David Aronson, Steve Keegan, Walter Garrett, Carlos Socarras, Arnold Kimmel, Roslyn Kimmel, Sally Garrett
Front Row: Student Director Annie Schley, Tom Finn, Marielena Finn, Carol Kaliebe, Marsha Chasen, Dawn Ippolito, Barbara Smyth, Ila Deutsch, Martha Aronson, Harriet Schultz, June Schultz, Isabel Socarras, Susan Lesser, Richard Lesser

Tour-guide Karen delivered a surprise horse-drawn ride through Plaza de España, past Casino de la Exposición Teatro Lope de Vega (which never actually operated as a casino), to the Plaza del Triunfo. Ian, Martha, David, and I shared a buggy while Annie sat shotgun and translated for us the driver’s tour descriptions. Like Fred Astaire and Cyd Chasrisse’s Central Park ride, our time in the open carriage was charming and relaxing until the unexpected merge into high-speed automobile traffic on Avenida de Isabella Catolica and San Fernando, turning the milieu into something of a Ben Hur chariot race.

Back on the pavement and avoiding gypsies bearing “gift” rosemary branches, we joined up with city tour guides America and Manuel, who highlighted some of the sights from where we stood: Real Alcazar (Arabic for “palace” or “fortified”), the oldest Royal Palace still in use and a demonstration of Christian-Islamic design fusion; Archivo de Indias (West Indies Archives) building; and Catedral de Sevilla, the world’s third largest.

We separated into two groups and followed the correct raised umbrella through the Juderia (old Jewish Quarter), known for high-quality ceramics and inspiring the stories of The Barber of Seville, Figaro, and Don Juan:

• Le Barbier de Séville in 1773 and Le Mariage de Figaro or La Folle Journée in 1778, stage comedies by French playwright Pierre Beaumarchais;
• Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s 1786 Italian opera buffa (comic opera) Le nozze di Figaro ossia la folle giornata (The Marriage of Figaro or the Crazy Day), a collaboration with librettist Lorenzo da Ponte;
• Don Juan in El burlador de Sevilla y convidado de piedra (The Playboy of Seville and Guest of Stone) by Tirso de Molina in the 1600s then
• Don Giovanni in the dramma giocoso (playful drama) by Mozart and da Ponte in 1787; and
• …many other adaptations.

We passed a former hospital for retired clergy Hospital de los Venerables and a street called Aqua against a Roman wall separating the Juderia from the aqueduct that, at the time, supplied water to Real Alcazar. The streets wound and curved and squeezed and often guided us right back to where we’d been.

Upon arriving where we had begun the walk, we entered a group queue in Plaza Virgen de los Reyes to enter Catedral de Sevilla, its striking minaret-turned-bell-tower looming above us. The tower, visible throughout this section of town and beyond, displayed archetypical Mudéjar design in three distinct sections: the lower portion consisted of the only preservation of the Mosque that originally occupied this location (King Ferdinand III the Catholic converted it to a church in 1248, the year of his re-conquest), the upper portion was a Catholic addition during Renaissance times, and it was topped with a spinning wind vane.

Inside the Cathedral, its grandiosity exemplified what an early presiding priest of the diocese once effused to his congregation, paraphrased “Let’s build a temple so big that the people who see it will think we’re crazy.” It contained the usual Main Chapel for seating royalty, pew section for nobility, enclosed Choir for clergy, and Popular Chapel for the commoners. The organ was, claro que si, monstrously tall and shiny, requiring 40 operators in its original years but only one in the contemporary. Unusual was the cathedral’s additional fifth nave, or aisle. Contestable was its claim to housing, along with those of the explorer’s son Diego, the remains of Christóbal Colón.

Un cuento del bandito: Face-on, one discerns large stitch scars above the head of the kneeling titular saint in Vision de San Antonio, a large painting hanging in the baptism room of Catedral de Sevilla. Nearly thwarted by the painting’s size, resourceful (or perhaps desperate) burglars cut out and hawked the portion of the painting containing Saint Anthony; it was later recovered in New York and returned to the Cathedral.

Afternoon is at your leisure.

Ian was… and I mean: hungry. We hid out from the rain under a covered sidewalk and ordered plates of Manchego cheese (quickly becoming a favored dish of Ian’s), olives, and prawn omelette. Thence, we parted ways, each with a city map in hand and plans to meet for la cena 7pm. Ian headed off to siesta while I to explore Alcazar, the Moorish fortress with extensive gardens redesigned in the Gothic palace-like fashion and now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

My 7 € ticket read, “Ayuntamiento de Sevilla / Patronato del Real Alcazar / Patio de Banderas, s/n – 41004 Sevilla”. Though I thoroughly enjoyed practicing my Castilian while inquiring my way through town and making purchases (y créame, necesité la práctica, as you can read), English-language audio guides were an oasis of tourism communication.

The tour begins in the Patio (Courtyard) del León…
Two afternoon bells signal the hours beneath the hoots of daylight owls. Occasional breeze carry gentle pigeon coos to float among the tall, living wood and tap off the enclosing stone fortifications. With concordant uniqueness, a disparate bird caw calls attention away from muted ambulance sirens outside the walls—an-other world of bustle and bluster, only meters away but seemingly unable to pervade the peaceable surrounds. Citrus scent diffuses outward from fruit-laden stems—too gently to tremble your sense, less than a tingle. Flap, drift: both bird-wing and wind make this motion such that I imagine wing invents wind when I hear, when I feel both’s vibrations swiffing through my hair and Doppler-ing my ears. Those birds—they ascend air columns behind fair-shaped [square-shaped] shrubs and sail toward wall stone, settling inside nooks or at palm trees, alighting upon pointed bark.
Then I enter the palace.

Mudéjar, Muslim-Christian-Jewish design symbiosis, dominated La Alcazar: for example, the Islamic architectural theme of water (reflecting pond, fountains, and flowing canals on the floor) and a Christian chapel and paintings of saints. Near the palace front, the dominating view in Patio de Montería (Hunting Courtyard) is the central palace wall with peak carved by Christian carpenters from Toledo, Arabic “None but Allah conquers” inscribed in Grenada style on the center, Gothic framing around the door, and a caption stating that Peter ordered its construction in 1492.

By 3:30pm, I had visited each palace room and concluded my stroll through the extensive gardens. For the nest two hours, I wandered—got lost, actually… literally—in the streets of Sevilla’s residential, commercial, and tourist districts. The Old Town was especially directionally bewildering to me, so I headed for the more easily navigable Paseos de Las Delicias y de Christóbal Colón along Rio Guadalquivir. When I arrived at the hotel, Ian was out—gallivanting, I have no doubt—so I picked up the clunky, metal key from the concierge, caught up on the goings-on of tourmates who were tooling around lobby, rode the elevator to my floor, pulled on the strangely-placed mid-door handle, jumped onto my bed, and broke out the computer for some R & R and journaling time while snacking on a 64% cacao bar (the one from Barcelona’s Museu de la Xocolata, the one I was to see to).

At 7pm, Ian found me in the room with an empty chocolate wrapper and a fair amount of lethargy. Ian joined Harvey, Marsha, Kenny, and Ila for dinner at an Italian restaurant within walking distance. Bizarrely, walking distance to the restaurant (during which travels the rain returned) was markedly shorter than the return, considering the circuitous course Ian ended up making. Meanwhile, back at the hotel… I dined on Luna and protein bars, a packet of fiber cookies from an earlier morning’s breakfast buffet, and warm fruit tea while journaling. Together again around 10:30pm, we wrapped our wares (clocks and olive oil bottles) in plastic leak protection and clothes padding, zipped our bags, and settled in for the night. Ian finshed pre-midnight and I after showering, when “:28” displayed on the television’s clock LEDs.

Ronda, El Vinculo and Juan, Sevilla, flamenco dance

7:55am clock alarm roused us from slumber. Ian tapped it off then lifted and replaced the telephone receiver to conclude the simultaneous, auxiliary wakeup call, restoring silence to the small, dark room. It was cozy, “isolated,” still, with the drapes drawn and the window sealed. Ian tilted the doorknob and inched open the balcony double doors, curious to discover what view awaited him beyond the opaque glass and in the expected early morning sunlight. Drllnnnn drllnn. Skwauk skwauk. Gray clouds hurled torrents of water into the gorge overlooked by Parador de Ronda; in the downpour, birds circled and squawked high above the river surging at canyon’s bottom. Ian closed the glass door, returning our room to silence and stillness. It was time to wake up.

Day 4
8:00am Breakfast.
8:30am Luggage pickup inside room; bring carry-on bags to the bus before walking on the tour.
9:00am Walking tour through the charming town of Ronda.

The clouds released their last sprinklings over the streets of New and Old Ronda, the two being separated by Rio Guadalevín and by 2500 years, with the New City boasting merely five hundred years and the Old three thousand. The river had carved an amazing canyon by the name of El Tajo. Connecting Rondas old and new was Puente Nuevo, a bridge that spanned El Tajo at one hundred twenty meters’ height.

Key West, Havana, Ronda—all three share a prideful common thread: Ernest Hemingway lived and wrote here. Parador de Ronda, in addition to frequently hosting Hemingway, is situated above the former location of the prison that made an appearance in For Whom the Bell Tolls and beside the gorge into which the book’s Franco soldiers tossed loyalists during Spain’s Civil War.

In Old Ronda, la calle tipica contains architecture Baroque, Gothic, Moorish, Catholic, classic, and modern… often all on the same street, sometimes many on one building, displaying gates, doors, towers, birdcages, and façades each of different styles from different times. One thing all buildings had in common was a shine telltale of yearly, compulsory whitewashings, making towns in this region gleam like sun-soaked snow in the autumn-green mountains of Andalucía.

Pépe—Rondan tour guide, acquaintance of famous visitors, and bullfight aficionado—led us through the streets and squares of Ronda and to the Real Maestranza de Caballería de Ronda, a five thousand-capacity (compared to Mexico’s twenty thousand) plaza de torros. A note of bullfighting interest: Bullrings are titled so in languages of many countries but not in Spain, the source of bullfighting; there they are called “bullsquares” because that’s what they used to be. Note number two: Bullfighters used to do a lot of running around the bull until Pedro Romero introduced the Spanish-flag-colored cape and dance-like style of enticing the bull to run around the torero; that is why bullfighting in Spanish is called corrida de toros, “running around bulls.” Note number three: Orson Welles used to be a slim, trim bullfighting up-and-comer; he was known as El Americanito.

11:00am Free time until lunch.

On the main street in Ronda, Ian picked up a tall lady-justice clock and a stout children clock for Judi and him.

12:30pm Lunch at Don Miguel, overlooking Ronda’s gorge.

Lightning and thunder lent their efforts to the rain as the intensity picked up. Luckily, the tour group sat high and dry in Don Miguel. Below us, the gorge river turned muddy brown due to runoff. New Bridge’s gutters spouted constant flows of water onto the grassy slopes and stone gorge walls, forming swift-flowing channels to the river eighty meters below.

After lunch, our tour bus wove a path through the slopes of Andalucía to a mountaintop village for a visit with hamming Juan (“the little, old, olive-oil maker,” as Karen the tour guide called him) at his El Vinculo, in his family for generations passed and hopefully generations to come. He spoke in a tossed salad Spanish, English, and animated audio-motion, which Annie translated to us. After he explained his olive oil making process, Juan fed us bread and olive oil, the latter of which Karen purchased a small bottle for each of us tourists. I walked out with four additional botellas pequeñas as non-trinket gifts for a lucky few back home, and Ian picked up a box of eight for the hard-working employees at Exhedra.

Next bus stop: Sevilla, gussied up from the 1992 summer Olympics, with a large main road and many hotels and “fast food” restaurants (fast food in style and quality of food but not in speed of service, Karen warned the bus passengers) to support its tourists and 1.3 million inhabitants. Luis the bus driver narrowly brought us collision-free through a sliver of a road and to the front of Meliá Colón (http://www.solmelia.com/), where Ian and I checked in to room 626, showered and prepped, separated our twin beds (as we had also needed do the night before), and went downstairs to join our group for a private flamenco dance showcasing a castanet-wielding couple and four zesty singers, two of whom strummed and banged their guitars while the other two clapped and shouted in rhythm.

8:00pm Private flamenco show at hotel followed by dinner downstairs at El Burladero Restaurant, famous in the world of bullfighters.

Below deck from the flamenco dance, Ian and I shared a dinner table with Steve and Joe, Carol and Ron, and June and Harriet then went for an 11pm walk in the skinny, curved streets surrounding the hotel. I shower-laundered my dirties then sat awake until 2:45am catching up on my journaling duties and then turned in while my clothes drip-dried in the bathroom.

Grenada flight, the Alhambra, and Ronda

Ian’s alarm sounded at 6:30am. We collected our belongings (including packages of Fiber One) and headed downstairs for breakfast.

Day 3
7:00am Breakfast in lobby restaurant. Have bags ready inside the room for pickup by bell-staff.

In the hotel lobby, after breakfast, I met Walter Garrett, husband of Sally and business school graduate from Corona, CA, and when I was tunneling through the bus aisle to hurry into my assigned seat, Martha Aronson introduced herself and her husband David from St. Louis, MO.

8:00am SHARP Depart for the airport to fly to Grenada.

As someone remarked, the tour group experienced a little thing called “hand-holding” as Karen directed our luggage, checked us in, and walked us to the departure gate. It all would have been quite stress-free except that partners kept misplacing their other halves and husbands kept waiting for wives who in turn were waiting for husbands in entirely different areas. But come wheels-up, everyone was in position.

BCN to GRX 1005A-1140A Iberia

The flight to Grenada took us out of Cataluna and into mountainous Andalucia, where rows of asparagus and birch trees filled the views from our airplane portholes. On the ground and in a bus, we motored past cave dwellers, horses, and prickly cacti bearing fruit.

12:00pm Lunch at La Ruta del Veleta.

Ian ordered chicken and I a vegetarian dish at a restaurant famous for serving royalty. We lunched with Joe, a pilot, and Steve from Connecticut.

1:45pm Approximate departure for the Alhambra.

The world contains an estimated fifteen million acres of olive trees; Spain alone claims over four million of these. Due to Spain’s high quantity production and certain other countries’ disproportionate consumption, oil in the olives from the orchards that we passed would likely end up in a bottle labeled “Italian Olive Oil.”

Alhambra, Arabic for “red,” described the rose tinted color of the mountains of Andalucia. The history: Muslim Moors came en masse to Spain from Africa in 711, landing at Gibraltar and, over the next two years, conquered the Iberian peninsula or nearly the entire non-unified Spanish region (having never taking some of the northern regions) via the extensive Roman system of roads. In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella concluded the holy war to remove the Moors from Spain; the final battle was fought in Alhambra. Surviving Moors escaped into the mountains and set-up camp until Ferdinand and Isabella’s army herded the Moors into caves and burned them.

We toured inside the one and a half-mile wall that enclosed La Alhambra, home to approximately two thousand people and house of Palacio del Generalife (Arabic for “general life”) that contained the Paradise Garden, Palacios Nazaries, Alcazaba, and Palacio de Carlos V.

4:30pm Approximate departure for Ronda. Enjoy a scenic drive through Andalucia.
7:00pm Approximate arrival at historic Parador de Ronda, nestled in the heart of town.
8:30pm Dinner opens downstairs in Parador de Ronda. Suggested dress: no jeans or shorts.

Due to a post-8pm arrival, the night’s dinner dress code dropped a few notches, and group members arrived in varied degrees of formalness. Ian and I made appearances in off-the-bus clothing styles. The hotel lobby restaurant reserved four large tables for us, which we filled with gusto. To be more accurate, our table gusto-ly filled the entire restaurant with jollity. The full cast list for our table, going around the circle, was Carol Kaliebe, Ron Kaliebe, Harriet Schultz, David Aronson, Martha Aronson, Mark Gilbert, Karen Gilbert, June Schultz, Ian, and me. Plates of anchovies, deer, ox tail, risotto, cold soups, jamon, and day-old bread made the several rounds among us since no one seemed too timid to share or taste a little. The main event began when June brought out her Blackberry for the rest of us to, in turn, report to her sisters the neglectful treatment of their mother, who earlier in the day—while everyone else enjoyed Alhambra’s refreshing gardens—was abandoned to roll her own wheelchair down a platform and occupy a stone bench for two and a half hours, without money and companionship and with no access to a bathroom. Being responsible travelers and class-one world citizens, we dutifully reported the abuse to family members before finishing off the remainder of our table’s vino tinto.

Back in the room, after Ian called Judi, we hit the showers and the sack. It was around half past midnight.

Catedral de Barcelona, Montjuïc, and Sagrada Familia

People we met today: Madrid tour guides Joseph and Joanna and bus driver Luis; June Schultz from New York City and her mother Harriet Schultz from Jersey; Roslyn Kimmel of Ottawa, with whom I had the pleasure of first conversing while in line for the ladies’ room in the Holy Family.

Day 2
7:00am Breakfast begins in same dining room as dinner, Cent Onze.

El desayuno bar included varieties of prepared eggs, breads, yogurts, fruits, a daiquiri-type mini item, fresh juices, coffee, and (for me) peppermint and (for Ian) chamomile tea… and for Ian personally, Fiber One and water, having run out of soymilk after the morning’s first bowl.

8:30am SHARP! Depart from lobby for walking tour.

Moving off from our hotel in the Old Quarter, Joseph walked and talked us through a mostly empty La Boqueria, scarcely populated La Rambla, and closed antique shops along Plaça del Pi. Monday, you see, is slow starting in Spain.

Which of the globe’s destinations can claim the epithet Tourist Capital of the World? I think it’s Dubai, which has nothing to do with my point. But I did learn that Spain houses forty-six million citizens but averages fifty-two million visitors a year. That sounds like a lot to me. (Anyway, Dubai’s title is based on revenue to the emirate per hotel guest and not on number of tourists so, really, never mind the whole thing.)

Our tour stopped in the Barri Gòtic (Gothic Quarter) for a visit to Catedral de Barcelona in Plaça de la Seu. Overlooking Plaça Nova and one face of an architectural school, the cathedral was completed over a five hundred-year period, boasted unique octagonal towers, and informed architect Antoni Gaudi’s design of the Holy Family cathedral across town.

We met our bus and rode past the Picasso Museum and Barceloneta to Montjuïc, seafront “Jewish hill,” one of several locations into which Jews were driven to live. It served more celebratory tenures as site for the 1992 Olympic Center—plus Olympic diving and other events—and also site for Barcelona’s second hosting of the World’s Fair, this time in 1929. We stepped off the bus to be rewarded with beautiful views of Barcelona, its port, and the Mediterranean then re-boarded for drive-bys of the National Museum of Catalunyan Art and the Joan Miró Foundation, which housed this Barcelonan’s abstract, Modernist paintings and sculptures.

The Tauck bus delivered us to the Modern Quarter and Gaudi’s unfinished El Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, under construction since 1882. Gaudí—who designed the cathedral’s three-façade layout, intricate spires, and five hundred-foot high dome—was responsible for the architecture on only one side of building: the Nativity. In 1952, Catalan sculptor Josep M. Subirachs designed the opposing (in direction and indeed in style) wall: the Passion. The remaining outer surface (the Glory) had yet to be commissioned to anyone and was undergoing big-time construction. Originally seeded with money and land from local families, the current project was funded by entrance fees from tourists, who numbered around three million last year.

Our ride continued through L’Eixample (Catalan for extension) in the modern quarter, past Gaudi’s Pedrera House, and back to the hotel.

12:00pm Arrive back at the hotel. Afternoon and evening are at your leisure.

Ian power-napped while I tooled around the lobby, Ian had an Atkins bar while I a Luna, and then I took my snoozing turn while Ian visited the exercise gym and found himself a shaving razor.

Together again, Ian and I tore down Av. Portal de l’Angel cuisine-street on a pseudo tapas crawl (as Ian called it, a “fast-food crawl”) beginning with two double-cheese Mickey-D burgers (1,40 € each) for Ian and the bun for me, then onto una ensalada verde de Pans Co. para mi hermano y un griego (emparedado de queso y tomate) para mi, and finishing with 7,95 € buffet at Fresc Co (www.fresco.com) that included salad, olives, tomatoes, fruits, pastas, soup, pizzas, soft-serve ice cream, breads, coffee, soft drinks, and teas (we stuck to salad and pizza).

As it was our final night at Le Meridien, Ian settled hotel incidentals and we luggaged up our stuff. Harboring an aching heart, I parted with the huggable hotel bathrobe and set my eyes to the future, pushing aside feelings of friendliness that had so easily developed between us. Carry on, I told myself. Carry on.

Things we’d hoped to do in Barcelona but did not: find leather shoes for Ian, visit the Picasso museum, go antiquing, watch water dance in choreography with music and light at the Font Màgica on Montjuïc’s base, dine at the vegetarian cuisine restaurant L’Hortet, eat cuttlefish, and build a snowman.

Feasting our eyes on chocolate, exercising at the gym, and meeting the tour group

Woke up at 8am; laundry had dried. Holmes Place workout gym, with the motto “One Life—Live it well”, opened at 10am, and we were there with bells on, minus the bells but with gym shoes and a pair of day-passes picked up from the concierge. Confidentially chagrined by the low numbers carved into the free weights with which he was able to exercise, Ian chalked up the dramatic decrease in physical fitness to jet lag. But “Mary Jane” (that woman of childhood jollity) just laughed and laughed and laughed, because she knew that Europe marks its dumbbells in kilograms.

Having built up appetites, we found, on our several-block trek to the hotel, yet another delightful tapas restaurant, La Tramoia (Catalan for backstage in the sense of “behind-the-scenes intrigue”) on Rambla de Catalunya (www.grupcacheiro.com), where we sat at the bar, practiced ordering en español, and gobbled up some tummy-filling comida.

Back in the hotel, I used the lobby computer to check and reply to emails. Traveler tip: Symbols on Spain’s computer keyboards may appear different than labeled. ñçဿ

Ian took me to Museu de la Xocolata at Comerç 36: the doorman hadn’t heard of it, and the taxicab man thought the address was a joke. But we arrived, and the museum existed, and we went in: 3,30 € for each of us estudiantes. Cacao was used for currency—“it’s like money that grows on trees,” a museum projection-show explicated. The harvested bean used to be prepared bitter and spicy then was sagaciously sweetened by catholic clergy. Served hot, cold, as liquid, or as solid, chocolate pleases all who try it, no? Such was the sweet temptation that the church earnestly pondered whether consuming chocolate constituted the breaking of a fast. Later, while the U.S. was piddled with the formation of a democratic-republic nation, Barcelona momentously premiered the world’s first mechanized production of chocolate (1777). After savoring the smells and sights, we entered the gift shop, where morsels of sample cocoa-y tastiness melted into my taste buds. Ian picked up a chocolate gift for Karen and I a 90% cocoa bar for dad. And as the museum display informed us, even royalty knew that chocolate-giving was a sign of high affection and first-rate class. Somehow, I ended up with an additional bar of dark chocolate; I was fuzzy on how. It must have fallen off the back of a lorry. In any case, I figured I’d have to take care of it one way or another.

We walked to Parc de la Ciutadella nestled in the heart of the city and containing the Barcelona Zoo, saddened that we didn’t have enough time to see the animals. We did have time to practice my sign-reading, hold photo-shoots at La Cascada (an ornate triumphal arch over a fountain, designed—by Josep Fontsère and pupil Antoni Gaudí—loosely off of Rome’s Trevi Fountain), watch families play soccer on grass with posted no-walking-on notices, and rest in the high-bushed garden near the entrance to the Catalan Parliament building. Built in 1860 as a military complex and subsequently demolished and made home to 1888’s World’s Fair (or Exposición de Universal), the park contained sculptures, a lake, and orangery designed in the baroque fashion.

We walked to the hotel, elevator-ed to our floor, and let ourselves into our room, wherein a Tauck World Discovery (our tour company) envelope awaited us. It contained a more detailed itinerary than what Ian had received through post, a passport and personal information sheet to be completed and handed into tour director Karen (on the paperwork, I noted that soy una vegetariana), and the tour guest list, which stoked our excitement over meeting our fellow travelers that night. I showered myself plus my day’s laundry, and Ian and I prepped for a 6:15pm dinner at the cent111once restaurant in the hotel lobby.

Day 1
6:15pm Meet in restaurant for reception/dinner. Jacket suggested; a tie is not necessary.

Everyone received nametags, mingled at the open wine bar, and met Anne the student director. Tour director Karen Whitcomb informed us of local pickpocket trickery then invited everyone into the restaurant for an early (by Catalonian standards) 8pm dinner. We supped with Richard and Susan Lesser: podiatrist and office manager from New Jersey, parents of two, and movie fans. We also met Kenneth and Ila Deutsch of Chicago, he who attended Tampa’s USF and she who won the Friendliest Award for the evening. Isabel and Carlos Socarras of Coral Gables were, naturally, Dolphins fans and Buccaneers teasers. Then again, this wasn’t a season easy on fans of either. Undoubtedly credited to Ian's ancient Chinese secret (not to be publicized here), we managed to masquerade ourselves as the youngest couple on the tour.

Ian hit the sack around 10:30pm while I caught up on my trip log and called the night in just after 1am. Somewhere in the darkness, a phone was beginning to build up steam for a 7:30am wakeup blast to help us get underway for the first outing day of the tour.

“From Paris to Berlin and every disco I go in…” Barcelona historical museum and the aquarium

Ian roused me at 2am to shower and dress for a morning of tripping the light fantastic! In preparation, Ian chow-ed soymilk-saturated Fiber One from a bowl-shaped disposable piece of plastic which he saved from the clutches of an Airbus-340 wastebasket. In our dancing best, we trotted down to the lobby, where the night concierge attempted to get us into a posh but regretfully informed us that it was just too late and the queue was just too long.

Undaunted, we took to Las Ramblas. Cerveza sellers and mobs of pedestrians couldn’t deter us from stumbling upon a short waiting line into Jamboree at Plaça Reial. Here in Barcelona, night crawlers were not so rowdy compared to, say, late night college kids prowling Ibor City. We did encounter a bit of a hiccup when Ian realized that he had no forms of identification on hand. We trotted our dancing shoes back to the hotel and at 3:30am reappeared at the Jamboree doors with our driver’s licenses and 9 € apiece carga de la entrada.

Inside this jazz turf-by-day turned dance scene-by-night were a downstairs and an up; music rocked both venues, but the siren-call of the first floor’s 80s music, disco ball, and stage drew Ian from the safety of the basement into the perilous, rocky edges of the DJ’s headache-inducing strobe light. Still, we managed to dance it out until closing time at 5am, enjoying such favorites as I Like the Way You Move and I Want to Break Free. After reclaiming our possessions from the coat check (we were, by the way, completely overdressed for the tee shirt and jeans assembly), we strolled, in the fresh night air, south on La Rambla, where throngs of partiers were still making their ways to and from their places of amusement.

When we arrived there, the Maremagnum was closed, as denoted by a motionless, clear expanse of water across which during daylight hours stood a traversable bridge. Now it was up, leaving us to face our reflections at our feet and the gastronomic-entertainment giantess of the Maremagnum within swimming distance. Lacking bathing suits and chutzpah sufficient for diving into Barcelona’s port waters, we moved along, ultimately discovering the long way around. As a wise movie character once said, “We walk from here.” For that chore, I kicked off my heels and pattered alongside Ian’s stride, which was stunted by a left foot ache—an unhealed wound from an earlier battle in another country with a whole other pair of peculiarly rounded sneakers. We got the lay of the land and hobbled back mainland. To conclude our Maremagnum march, we enjoyed a waterside walk, sat on a bench under a gently clouded sky, and talked by the waterside.

By 8:00am, we were hotel-home, showered, and sleeping. 1pm woke us up (just in time for siesta, had we chosen so). Ian Skyped Corey, who, it turned out, was awake at 4am Pacific Coast Time, that weirdo. We headed out with only vague ideas of which museums we hoped to visit, stopped to enjoy a tapas lunch en el mostrador (at the counter) at cafeteria-pizzeria Estruch, and landed on the steps of a former Royal Palace courtyard beside Institut de Cultura: Museu D’Història de la Cuitat, Conjunt Monumental Plaça del Rei (Great Royal Palace), where a guitarist’s amplified tunes filled the space between the buildings and tourists’ change filled the guitarist’s collection case. This courtyard was likely the same in which Ferdinand and Isabella greeted Colón.

The museum’s gate opened at 3pm, pursuant to the two-hour midday break custom. We procured tickets, secured our bags in 0,25 € key lockers, picked up handheld audio tour devices that were programmed for the Catalan-impaired (English, I’m talking about), and were on our way. After we skimmed at a few displays on the old Roman way of life, an elevator dropped us down to an excavation site containing archaeological remains of old-time Barcelona—from those days when La Rambla street was la rambla (river), separated from the Cuitat Vella (Old City) by a large wall, when aqueducts wend beneath the streets and large metal gates kept one section of the city safe from another. Fact of the day: lime and urine were once used to clean laundry, proving that Romans overestimated the power of citrus to overcome the influence of human waste liquid. Let us do not as did the Romans.

Again we revisited the Harborfront, this time to patronize L’Aquárium. While my favorite swimmers, the jellyfish, scarcely made a showing and Ian preferred those cartilage-filled menaces of the ocean, sharks, the day’s show-stealing award went to a single Humboldt penguin who playfully struggled to swim downward against the buoyant forces created by his blubber.

Advancing an international inquiry into the homogeneity of carnivorous diets in the cross-cultural spectrum, Ian conducted in situ experimentation by feasting on a rubbery, flat, salty, aquarium cafeteria-retailed burger with a sour green tomato. That “meal” was followed up with a more fitting cena on the terrace of Mandongo, a higher-up floor restaurant at Maremagnum. Breezes on this the first even slightly chilly night on the Mediterranean ushered us back to the hotel for showers (I pulled double duty by bathing not only myself but also my quick-drying laundry) and early retirement around midnight, as we hoped to align ourselves with the local time for tomorrow evening’s tour kickoff.

Arrival in Barcelona: We would like to check in, please.

Ian and high-ceilinged architecture met for a photo-shoot at the Madrid Barajas Airport. For his interest in the thrilling world of airport terminal design I blame the influence of Sorina, who no doubt acquainted him with the name Richard Rogers, (I’m not embarrassed that I know this) winner of the prestigious Stirling Prize from the Royal Institute of British Architects for his work on this commuter building.

MAD to BCN 9A-1010A Business Class Iberia

Thomas the German taxi driver picked us up at the Barcelona airport and dropped us off at hotel Le Meridien, positioned on Barcelona’s happenin’ La Rambla street. He left us three pieces of advice: 1) Waste not our time buying popular merchandise in the likes of Mexican sombreros on La Rambla (“very Spanish” he teased) nor partaking of more than one outing there; Barcelona offers more than street mimes and backpackers. 2) The good food is at Mercat de Sant Josep but keep an eye on our wallets. 3) Beware motorcyclists when crossing the street; beware them when standing on the sidewalk.

Checkout time: 2pm. Our arrival time: pre-11am. With no availability at that time, Le Meridien informed us that we ought to inquire later about getting into our room. Locating the restrooms, we brushed teeth and changed clothing. Sleepless since Thursday morning, Ian and I ambled south along La Rambla, passing several sketch artists, a live-chicken and -turkey vendor, too many florists to conceivably earn livings in such a confined area of business competition, and shamefully unskilled street performers. Notably wretched among this last group were the statue mimes with monochromatic makeup and mismatching props… and one guy in a baby carriage with dummy’s legs jutting upside-down from behind him (I didn’t really understand that one). On the cabby’s advice, we walked La Boqueria (that is, Saint Joseph Market), taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of mounds of fresh fruit, dangling meats, octopi with suckers showing, layers of chocolate-covered everything, and standing-only sushi bars.

Tired and foot-draggin’, we ventured to the southern end of La Rambla, along the Barcelona Port. There in the Plaça Porta de la Pau, a monument to Christopher Columbus rose more than 200 feet above us. This Mirador de Colón sported eight lions of iron—some stretching forwards and some standing proudly—stationed around a circular base of stairs which surround brass bas-reliefs of eight tableaux of Columbus’ achievements. Above that stood a column with more images sculpted into each of its eight sides. Topping that was a 50m column with portrayals of the four continents (as were known in those days): Europe, Asia, Africa, and American. At the capstone, a crown and hemisphere laid the foundation for a 7.5m bronze statue flaunting Columbus with two eyes on and one hand pointed toward el mundo nuevo, perhaps predicting a Babe Ruth-ian homerun. An inscription at the base described the structure’s 1887 construction for the following year’s World’s Fair.

Moving compass south from the direction in which the statue-ed Columbus directed his attention, Ian and I encountered the Harborfront snuggled against a packed-house boat dock and a pedestrian drawbridge separating anchored ships from the peaceful beaches of Barcelonetta. The bridge led us to a foreigner-focused dining and entertainment complex overlooking the port waters, the Maremagnum (http://www.maremagnum.es/), complete with seemingly trademark-violating red Target® symbols and restaurants, shopping mall, cine, Imax, and creatively designed walkways interspersed with four-foot tall lumps of sidewalk and ship-related structures protruding into the air in double- or triple-file lines.

Much too tired to tarry on, we turned back to 111 Ramblas for a second hotel check-in attempt. It ended with an apology and a suggestion to call again please in maybe an hour.

Heading west on Pintor Fortuny (at whose intersection with La Rambla the hotel was located) in search of vegetarian cuisine, we ended up ordering tapas at a cigarette-smokers haven of a restaurant. We sat in the open doorway, and all was made right.

When 3pm rolled around, we rolled ourselves back into the hotel’s lobby. The reception supervisor offered us a key to a room not necessarily ours along with the choice between that one now and the one reserved for us at such time as it turned unoccupied and cleaned. Though the alternative room was cutely decorated with a red print comforter and matching framed wall image, it had preclusive problem: the room had only one of those attractive comforters. More to the point, there was only one bed. Perhaps I should have us listed as Mr. and Miss Ippolito to avoid such mishaps as may have been caused by Ms. We returned to the lobby, declined the substitute room, and sojourned on the couches. Five minutes later, Ian shook me on the shoulder to say that our room was ready and he’d already been up to it and back down.

Ode to Room 433
A shower like a rainforest’s industry
Bathrobes of heavy, warming, white-cottony cloth
Towels longer than I and thick enough to absorb Mediterranean Sea
Philips(R) flat screen, wide screen in my bedroom, in my bathroom; why in here?
Sink into mattress, snuggle under clean down comforter, bury head in parcels of fluff
Cutie fuzzy slippers and yum chocolate pillow treats

Ian solved a RAC issue (some loser user whose transactions transgressed) at a hotel internet connection fee of 18€-the day. Sleep won out over me around 6pm and Ian around 8pm.

Leave the United States: Tampa to Miami, east from there, and straight on ‘til morning

Finished a last-minute phone call with my Peace Corps recruiter then joined Ian while he squeezed in a final session of “Dance Dance Revolution Max II” in the guestroom. Judi met us at Ian’s at 10:30a, Ian and I packed the last of our travel items, and the three of us rode to the Tampa airport to make the 1:23pm American Airlines flight.

TPA to MIA 125P-225P First Class American Airlines

Miami International Airport’s Concourse E lounge offered refreshments, trail mix, and couches, which we forsook in search of a computer mic-headset and airplane power adapter, which we located at a Brookstones. At an exchange booth, I presented a fold of Traveler’s Checks, remnants of bygone Malaysian travels. At the 1.378130 conversion rate and less the 3.85% transaction fee, I walked away with far fewer Euros than the number of dollars with which I’d shown up.

MIA to MAD 505P-735A Business Class Iberia

Local time in Madrid is GMT +1. In college days, I received many a 4am phone call from my youngest brother, who must have sincerely believed post-midnight in San Francisco was the best time to ring me in Pennsylvania. Often after my groggy hellos, I was posed with the questions “Why are you still awake?” and “Shouldn’t you be resting for class?” Well, this could be my chance for payback if daily I utilized siesta to deliver to my brother high-priority data such as the local weather in Spain and what food Ian left on his plate at lunch. The kink was that the payback wouldn’t be single-fold: there’s Corey in CA who I would begin to payback for numerous sleepless exam mornings, and then there’s the phone carrier who I would also payback after using their overseas calling lines. International sibling razzing just isn’t worth it.

Trip preparations

Arrived in Tampa late after driving back from Floral City and passed two hours at the Dale Mabry Borders—coming away with four Spanish language and grammar books plus Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan by Hugh Thomas, A Vanished World: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Medieval Spain by Chris Lowry, George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, and a Joseph Conrad just for fun (Lord Jim)—before returning to Ian’s around 11p.