update # 2

Date: Monday

2 June, 1997

09:56:33 (PDT)

Subject: update

numero dos:

MADRID

RTW Travels

Sending this from Madrid. Since Valencia, we've spent 3 days in a little hill town near Madrid called Cuenca. Then we took an overnight train to Lisboa. (Yes, Henry, there are Lisboans in Lisboa). Late nights, fun bars, great porto, drove to Fatima, guay castillos (cool castles). Then to Lagos, on the south coast, to chill away from the big city.

Sample day : wake around 10, go have coffee and pastry while watching other people read the paper (we don't get to since we can't read Portuguese), walk 30 minutes to the beach, sit in the sun, get in the water, try to watch seminaked women without them seeing you, go to bar and drink beer, go back to sun, get in the water, go back to bar and drink beer (you get the idea). Walk back to town, shower, go to the bar, eat, sleep.

Repeat for 7 days. (Yes Craig, we are unwinding.)

Now in Madrid. Rode hi-speed train from Sevilla to Madrid at 200kph. Que guay! Spent 4 hours in the Prado Museum - Goya, Velazquez, El Greco, Rubens (who spent a lot of time checking out women on the beach in Lagos, I think). Also saw mucho Picassos at the Reina Sofia. ML is floating.

We met up with Bill Ward from Tracy Locke who is traveling for 6 months in Europe and hung with him in Lisboa, then again in Lagos. Nice to get to speak English to someone (and be understood). Met Gina Jordan (another friend from Dallas) in Madrid last night and kept her out too late drinking in an Irish bar. She's here to study Spanish for 4 weeks. Bumped into 4 girls from Australia on the streets of Madrid that Bill had met in Lagos. Small world after all. (But I wouldn't want to paint it.)