Art thou bored? Snap into a flaka jaimie!

Wanted to just send the latest and greatest really quick...

1) Finally went and saw Madrid. What a great town! I loved it. Even though I was only there for one afternoon and evening, I am definitely planning to go back. Not on this trip, but definitely within the next couple years. It has a completely different feel than Barca that I'd really like to explore. I'll try to spend more time explaining it later.

2) Return date set, and it's really close: beginning of February. Three weeks! I've been here over three months now, it's amazing how quickly the time has flown past. Sad to be leaving but also content that it's the right time. The energies are pulling me home, to figure out the next great adventure. So I'll be seeing a lot of you soon...

3) Just wanted to say real quick that the flight from Madrid to Barcelona was the most beautiful one I've ever taken. I love those little short-hop flights; an hour or two on the plane, feel like you just sat down then it's time to disembark in a new place, etc. On the flight to Madrid I had an aisle seat so I couldn't admire the view, but the flight back I got a window and it was amazing. I just gazed out the window the whole time. Taking off out of foggy Madrid, bursting out into the sun above the clouds and the watching the clouds from above, a few mountain peaks cropping out in the distance and the tops of clouds looking a vast snowfield you could walk on...the clouds dispersing over Spanish countryside colors I've never seen before, like an enormous abstract-geometrical piece of art...coming in over Barca, seeing the port and Montjuic overlooking the water, feeling that familiar sense of being home that I'd only ever felt with Seattle before...banking way out over the Mediterranean, down into the airport, over old farmsteads and dilapidated barns...

AND I fulfilled a nearly lifelong dream of mine. When I was quite young, probably 11 or 12, I read about the fact that all rainbows are circular, but given the angle of the light as it is refracted through the water molecules, if you're on the ground the horizon always gets in the way and cuts the rainbow in half. So the only way you can see a full, 360 degree rainbow is to see it from above. Whenever I'm on a plane on a sunny day over clouds, I try to keep a lookout for one... and on the flight back from Madrid I saw TWO. The first one I wasn't even looking for; I was just admiring the view and caught it for about three seconds. It felt like a mirage, I wasn't even sure if it was just a trick of the plastic window I was peering through. But the second one, the one I was watching for, lasted about ten seconds and was much clearer. It was really quite lovely, and completely surreal. Mostly because I've been quietly hoping for the moment for 20 years.

So yeah, all in all the most beautiful plane ride I've ever taken.

And finally...

4) Glenn and Noreen are in town! My brother and sister-in-law, two of my favorite people in the world. They got in yesterday afternoon, I met them at the airport, we went and dropped off their stuff at the hotel and then just hung around their neighborhood for the evening. It was two tons of fun. They are staying in a place about a mile from my apartment, and really close to a lot of cool places (I'll keep track of everything we do and write up a description next week).

The highlights of the evening:

a) Figuring out how to say "we would like your finest food stuffed with your second finest food" in Spanish ("querríamos su más fino de alimento estar llenado con su alimento segundo más fino.")

b) The first running gag we've got is Glenn's pork obsession. That boy loves him some pork. So we go to a bar for a snack and a drink, and are picking out some tasty morsels... I order us potatas bravas, which are the local pub far standard (basically fried potatoes covered in a mayonnaise sauce)... and Glenn points at these truly disgusting looking little sausage things. He claims he thought "they were some kind of roll"... but Noreen and I know better. So he gets his plate of mess, and Noreen and I start digging into the potatoes... and Glenn looks at us, and then down at his sausage platter... and asks me, "so you're not going to have any of this?"

Let's get one thing straight here: I haven't been eating meat for about two months now. I went over this territory before; it's not a moral decision or anything, just haven't felt the urge. And I've told Glenn this on many occasions; "you guys have to come, really, but just know that I won't be participating in your porkfest." I made it really clear that I would try certain dishes with meat on those occasions we went out, or if it was really special or something... but not very much and certainly not some wiggly little fried sausage things. But here's the best part...

Noreen asks Glenn how they are. He pauses, chews thoughtfully (really giving it some thought), and says, "they're like really really good Slim Jims." So that was pretty funny. I termed them "Jaimie Delgados," but Noreen knew a Mexican slang term for "skinny": "flaka." So we figured that "flaka jaimies" was a far better phrase for Glenn's snack.