welcome to ibiza, bienvenido a ibiza

or eivissa as they spell it in catalan... yeah, i didnt really know it was a part of that country either... anywho, i digres... sorry for the delay from those who have been anxiously awaitin my post from this lovely, er, relaxin location... internet points aren't the easiest to find and kinda a drag on the wallet... but for those of you that have missed me have no fear, joey d is here... p.s. beautiful sunset to the right... i know, you wish you were here too...

so the first night we were in ibiza, we headed down the boardwalk for a bite to eat (to get joe's pizza), and on the way back i thought it looked like a nice sunset, so i wanted the photographic evidence of it. while i was sizin up the picture, young mister jason decided to include himself in the picture. to his unfortunate wishes, the breeze picked up right as i took the photo and it appears as if he's posin for the next abercrombie magazine... after reviewin it, he requested that i not put this on the web... sorry jay, some things you just gotta share with other people :) personally, i think this should be your new facebook pic, but that's just me...

to help redeem jay's hardass image so that he might be able to walk into class this fall with his head held high, we took the obligatory "pointin back at the camera" photo before we headed out the first night... but the thing to look at is not the fingers pointin back at you, but the rogueshly unkempt hair and beard of the guy on the right... if this keeps up, i don't know how long customs is gonna detain me at dtw... personally, i wouldn't let this kid in my country - would you???

here's a nice pic of the island fortress of ibiza (yea, i know that term is usually saved for madagascar whilst playin Risk, but i had to borrow it)... overlookin the marina and a great view of the mediterranean sea... speakin of the mediterranean sea, i had decided on thursday (our last day there) that i needed to go swimmin in the sea... what's a visit to a mediterranean island if you don't go in the sea???? so i walked out to the beach, stepped over this 3" wide strip of black dirt near the shoreline and waded out to waist deep before duckin my head in. shortly after emergin, i noticed a small area of water that seemed to be shining back at me. upon further investigation, i noticed that it was floatin on top of the water almost like oil does... then i had one of those flashback sequences you see in movies: jay and i commented how it smelled like gas on the shoreline after dinner last night, no lounge chairs on the beach at 11am, 3" of dark black dirt near the shoreline, no one else in the water, about 50yards of beachfront cordoned off a half mile down from me, camera crews gettin ready to set up on the boardwalk on our way home last night... oh shoot, that can't be good. i went back to the hotel pool area and mentioned my observations to a few english speakin guests as well. accordin to these lovely and intelligent ladies, an oil tanker had spilled in the sea last night near our hotel... wonderful, i had apparently just bathed in oil...

if i can run with bulls, i can bathe in crude oil... (and yes, jay and i have to be careful of that sayin, cause sooner or later one of us is gonna come up with "if i can run with bulls, i can swallow white hot charcoal" or somethin like that) but don't worry, i was able to get the oil off my feat by saturday night.....

Livin it up in the Hotel Zaragoza

so ill keep this short as im at a place where i cant post pics and most of them are only funny to my parents and sister... but i got into zaragoza (a town of about a million people where i went to middle school) last night from pamplona. ill warn you now, this post will prolly make more sense to rico, kath and lynn - but you can keep readin if you like...

got in last night and met up susana and luis at ricardos house... theyre all doin fine, so are their kids... he had invited me over to take somethin - id go with the chairs too mom, theyre the only things you can carry out of there easily ;)... anyway, we sat down and had a few glasses of patxaràn (of course, it was from carcar - or cochecoche as bea calls it)... after they spent the obligatory 30min givin me crap for not stayin at one of their places, we got into real conversations... turns out z-town is hostin some sort of world exposition (whereas the one in sevilla 1992 was universal, this is just international - dont know what that means, but thats what i was told) next summer... rico/kath, youre gonna get harassed about goin to that all year... just be prepared. apparently the expo focuses on water consumption or preservation or somethin... anyway, turns out esperanza is a camp counselor at some summer camp in ohio - susana doesnt quite know the city, but its the place bea went a few years ago.

walked around the city durin the day on monday, its changed quite a bit in the last 15 years... a lot of construction, a lot of new stuff (including no less than 4 irish pubs- yea, i dont get it either... theres neither any sort of irish contingent or mass of english speakers, but nonetheless theres irish pubs). el pilar looks the same, hasnt changed much in 300 years, dont know why it would change in 15. snuck into the old subdivision (still got some tricks up my sleeve) but couldnt get into bloque 5 - turns out someone finally fixed that broken door in bloque 6. (ill get you guys pics later, i just dont have that capability at this place)... the city really looks nice, gearin up well for the tourism that comes with the expo next year.

met up with two friends from middle school for a beer and things to pick at (slices of meat and cheese). marcos and emi are doin well. both got real jobs too. movin into new apartments in the new barrios that zaragoza is sproutin up (monte canal).. besides that this city isnt all that exciting, but i knew that goin in. this stop was moreso to see friends than to tourism...

if anyone DIDNT know this was where i was eatin lunch, apparently doesn't know me well enough...

apparently zaragoza-ins (???) have somethin against lance armstrong (grrrrrrrrrr)

here's a look at one of the 4 irish pubs in this city...

when in rome...

so we´ve decided that with the time schedule here, you can´t really count anything as an actual day. there are just periods of awakedness sandwiched by power naps. pretty much da vinci´s theory on optimizing human efficiency all over again. but anyway, during one of our periods of awakedness on saturday (i think, but in all honesty i have no concept of days right now) we ventured off to fufill one of my running subplots of eatin pizza in every city. the directions we were given from the daughter of our ¨house mom¨ conchi were ¨take this road here for a very long time.¨ so after walkin for about 2 miles, we found the pizza place she had told us about. unfortunately the owners are european and have gone on vaction from july 6th to august 10. apparently it´s currently past july 6th, so the shop is closed. we weren´t quite sure what to do next, and in moments like these you have to look somewhere else for help. lucky for us there was a monastery across the street. so we decided to ask the monk in this picture. i mean, he couldn´t lie to us - could he? he´s an honor bound person of God. and although he didn´t lie to us, per se, he wasn´t quite as forthcoming with the information we were after as we would have liked. across the street, however, there was a kind soul that was able to help us out. we thanked them for their generousity and were on our way.

after bein with us for a few days now (again, this is an approximation) j.reis hasn´t been quite as loquacious as one would have expected. well, during our return to home base we found out why. apparently he didn´t have the adequate tools to express himself sufficiently. glad we got that one cleared up.







it´s a little known fact that while the romans were here around the begining of time.... sorry, A.D.D. set in. anywho, i´m sure you´ve all heard the saying ¨what happens in vegas, stays in vegas¨, well that was the original tagline for the pamplona tourist office of the roman empire. this is a pic of jay and i in our bed for the weekend, notice how that if we lay shoulder to shoulder we don´t quite fit on the bed as well as we would have liked. and you can´t see it from this angle, but my feet are actually very close to touching the wall at the moment. apparently people in spain are either really really small, or this bed regularly provides shelter for midgets - er, small people...

so the final period of awakedness that we´d all enjoy together was upon us. we decided that a good before/after pic was needed (reference pic from last post with me and the girls)... we were all channeling our inner bull. this would be the last time we donned these lovely outfits this year (and possibly the rest of our lives) and we wanted to document it thoroughly. the whole night was comprised of the decision process on whether or not each individual was going to actually perform the well bally-hooed local tradition.

after waitin up all night throwing this debate back and forth between our heads (collectively and individually, although if you ask me some people had their mind made up when they bought the plane tickets down here), j.reis and i decided that we couldn´t pass up a such an opportunity when we had already traveled 99% of the way. we had done our homework, read up beforehand, seen the run the previous time it had occured (i would say the previous day, but i´m not 100% sure which day it was) and decided that it was a well calculated risk. only 22 people have died since 1920. we liked our chances. anyway, they use bottle rockets to signal when the first bull has left, when the last bull has left and when all the bulls have arrived in the bull ring. we ran into a colleague of mine from our sao paolo office durin the anticipation of the first rocket, the effervescent rafael hernandez was ready for his first run as well.

so after waiting for 90min outside the second turn, we were told that we had to clear out of the way. the very nice police officer was brandishing a 3ft pain stick in his right hand that i had seen operated very efficiently the prior mornin on some non-compliant spectators. so i kindly asked him how to enter the run and quickly followed his instructions. j.reis and i made it all the way to the beginnin in the 20min or so they had left us to traverse this very densely occupied territory. after pushin, pullin and jumpin our way around people we finaly made it to the starting line (and by starting line, i mean 100 yards up the route so as to provide us with sufficient headstart from the bulls). so after a fake first rocket and the ensuing chaos of whether or not we should be running, another rocket came blistering through the sky and we were off. talk about an adreniline rush. everyone´s runnin with the heads turned around so they can see the bulls. i didn´t like this strategy cause i didn´t really feel like fallin down and gettin trampled. so i watched the faces of the people runnin in front of me. and i watched, and i watched, and when i could see the whites in their eyes i knew it was time to jump onto the fence that borders the route and get out of the way of the bulls. fortunately for me, as soon as i got on the large fence and turned around i saw 8 bulls run right past me. (you can breathe again mom)

so we took off and followed them into the ring. to officially document this, i decided to take a pic from inside the bull ring (on the main floor). and as common for the weekend, someone jumped in the back of my pic. oh well, it´s par for the course. after that pic there was a little confusion when the last remainin bull entered the ring well behind the others (really confused us, by the by). anywho, i decided to jump the barrier and get to safety. bein a sittin duck for a 3000 pound animal with a headstart didn´t quite fit my theme of ¨calculated risk¨. good thing i got up and out, cause this last pic was the scene a few moments after i cleared the wall and turned back.

well, my train for z-town leaves in about an hour so i´m off for now. not sure if i´ll get internet over there or not, but we´ll see. there might also be a cameo appearance in the next entry from marcos, susana, luis, paula, bea, teresa and richard (as his children call him. see rico, you´re not the only one whose kids call by their name)...