December 15, 2003
We are in Valencia, Spain. Took about 24 hours to get here. We flew out of Sky Harbor at 7:50 PM on Friday night, slept in seat, got into Heathrow Airport in London at noon the next day. I finally understand where the movie Brazil came from. The narrow passageways of this claustrophobic airport are ridiculous, plus everyone bears left, and as an American, I automatically bear right and it was irritating, but not as irritating as the anti-American editorials. It´s funny: when they ignore American news it's somewhat bemusing, when they slam America it´s offensive.

Just had a native dish at a local restaurant, ´"Blackies", the Paella (rice based Valencian dish with rabbit and chicken, 51 Euros, about $61 American, no tip). Everyone still smokes here, and I mean everywhere, especially the women. A guy lit up a big cigar right next to us.

Last night we watched a Spanish movie Tesis (Thesis) an overwrought, but funny movie (the kids translated all the way through). Afterwards we were rewinding and the BBC was on and we heard that Saddam has been captured. Here's how it was trumpeted in the morning papers:Bush Atrapa a Sadam (Bush Traps Sadam). The amazing thing is that in Castillion Spanish, the US is styled as EU (Estados Unidos) and when it´s plural (The United States) it´s EE UU. Weird. The other weird thing about here is that all the prices are in commas, as in 7,25. When I bought a bottle of wine for that price I was worried it was $7,250.00 but that price is actually listed as $7.250,00. Maddening actually.

More later.

"Grasp at the shadow and lose the substance."
-Aesop