The lost post - no, not Ireland or italy

THIS IS WHAT I STARTED TO WRITE ABOUT TWO WEEKS AGO WHEN I RETURNED TO BATH.

On Wednesday I caught a train from Seville to Malaga...a town on the Mediterranean coast. As I was laying out on the beach (that's right, tanning like girls do...minus the bikini) I looked over and saw a thermometer sign that said 29 degrees celcius (85 F). Within 3 or 4 hours I was back in England. It was cold and wet! The day before Lola invited me to Hugo's christening but the flights were too expensive so I told her unless I changed my mind about paying that much that I probably wouldn't be coming. I slept at a friend's house in London that night, took a train to school the next morning, then went home and did some homework. The whole I time was missing Spain a lot. The weather didn't bother me here until I went to Spain and got a reminder of what warmth is like. As soon as Ian got home from work we started talking about Spain and the christening and how it was too bad I wasn't going to be able make it. Then I decided that I didn't care. So, next week I'm going back to Spain to enjoy the sunshine, friends, and the food.

Before that, I spent about 9 days working on a little farm. This lady Angela I was staying with was a rad lady. She had good food, a nice room for me to stay in, and all the beer that I could want. The stone workers that worked for her would start at 8 take a break for breakfast and beer at 10 work til about 1 or 2, return at 3 then work til 5. In a day they drank about 12-14 beers. It was a great work culture I thought. One friend told me that if the spanish aren't offered beer when they work they won't work much. I built a chicken coup out of used materials, some removable screens for her window in the bug season, and did a bit of garden work. All in all I had a great time.

Almost every night I went down into town, about a kilometer away, to a bar called cafe jardin. The first night I went in there I met these English dudes. The thing about the European Union is that you can go to any member country and work, own property, whatever. So, one of them had come as a wwoofer (the organic farm thing I was doing) about 10 years ago and stayed, had a kid, bought property, and is just there now. For the rest of the week we all hung out almost every night after I was done working on Angela's place. I went to a rad hippie party with then and all kinds of other things. It was a blast.

On a monday I took a train to seville and got a hostel. I met up with Lola and her friend one night, then hung out with the kids (baby Hugo and Joseph) then went out again that last night I was there. I managed to arrive in Seville during Semana Santa (holy week -- the week before easter) in time to see the processions. Basically, there is one cathedral and tons of smaller churches. Each church has a float that represents some point in the biblical story of Jesus. These things are huge...many of them take 40 guys to carry them. They are accompanied by music, marchers that look like KKK members, and all sorts of other things depending on the church. They march from their church to the main cathedral and back. Often it's more than a 20 km walk which takes maybe 24 hours of so. It's nuts. Even if you're not a religious person you can't help but be a little moved by the art and ceremony of it.

From there I went to Malaga, the beach, and the bad weather of England -- as the story begins.

Below are pictures. I didn't feel like taking the time to add caption or give the narrative journey by pictures as I normally do. Go ahead and make up your own captions.

The first NINE are of ORgiva, the others are from Seville and MAlaga