Whirlwind Weekend (pictures later)

So this past weekend´s pre-paid AIFS trip was a friday-morning-to-sunday-night trip from Granada to Gibraltar to Sevilla to Cordoba to Granada. I don´t feel like going to Google maps and finding out how many miles that is, but trust me, it´s several. When you´re not riding a slightly-too-small bus for hours at a time, you´re strolling briskly along behind a well-rested tourguide who´s very nice but frustrated that you are so tired.
Don´t get me wrong, I enjoyed the weekend. Three very cool places that I would have been angry to have missed. If Mother Nature made a Best Of record, the Rock of Gibraltar would be the hard-to-find track that made you drop 15 bucks for the CD even though you already have a copy of everything else on the compilation. Seriously, it´s incredible. And the rock apes are very, very cute, especially when they hump each other on top of your tour bus.
I think the Ludicrous Speed of the tour was part of what got me sick in Sevilla. Friday night, after arriving from Gibraltar to our hotel in the city, I went to dinner with a few people and found I had developed a profound cough worthy of the Marlborough man. The next day I felt mostly fine, although still cough-y, as we wound our way through various tourist attractions in the city (very cool, more later w/ pictures). That night, after making a fucking delicious and completely improvised chicken stirfry with some friends in the hotel, I started feeling feverish, my cough started carrying stuff up, and my throat felt like it was made of pumice. After watching the exhilirating end of the Barcelona-Real Madrid match (Leo Messi, my personal favorite futbolista & Argentine, completed his hat trick in the final minute to tie the game and save a point for Barça, who was a man down and had been screwed by a lousy PK call in the first half), I was positive I had a fever, and decided to play it safe and not go out drinking. Trust me, it hurt, but it was the right decision.
Anyway-- I didn´t sleep for more than an hour straight the whole night, getting up constantly to spit foul-looking stuff into the sink, finally coughing so violently that my body quit and went to purge mode even though my stomach felt fine (bye-bye delicious, hand-made stirfry). Definitely high fever by this point. Trying to remind myself that you´re supposed to bundle up and sweat these things out. Trying not to get up and use all the spanish curses I´ve learned on the cabrones clapping and singing on the street outside our hotel WHERE THERE WERE NO GODDAMN BARS to facilitate such assholery. Trying to keep my up-and-down, bathroom-to-bed movements to minimum. Trying to keep my coughing below 50 decibels so as not to wake Eddie. What I´m getting at here, it was a miserable night. Except for the Messi hat trick, which was pretty freakin sweet.
Anyway-- I feel a hell of a lot better now. When we got back on Sunday night Sebi was very sweet and made me about a gallon and a half of mint tea before sending me to bed early. The next day I went to AIFS´s doctor, who gave me 4 separate prescriptions, which have me feeling near human again, although I sound like a zombie when I talk to people.


More on Leo Messi (youtube him, or google video search him....there´s good reason some people are heavily pushing the ´next Diego Maradona´ mantle onto this guy). As a kid, he received hormone treatments for dwarfism. Heavily scouted by the best teams in Argentina, but was bought by FC Barcelona when he was roughly 16, I believe. Started for Barcelona´s B side, and averaged over 1 goal per game. As a 17 year old, he made his first start for FC Barcelona in the Spanish Primera Liga, one of the best national soccer leagues in the world. Wears number 19 (I swear that´s not why I like him so much, but yeah, it helps) He is currently 19 years old. Nineteen. One-Nine. And he´s marking hat tricks against Real keeper Iker Casillas, the starter for the Spanish national side and possibly the best at his position in the world (definitely in the top 3). And he´s making Adidas commercials where he comes off as very personable. And he´s charming in post-game interviews. And he´s saucy as HELL. A couple weeks ago, in a Liga game, an opposing player was jawing with him and resting his forehead aggresively on Messi´s while jawing. RESTING his head, not headbutting. After listening to his trashtalk for a few seconds, Messi grabs his forehead and falls to the ground. Result: red card for the other guy. After the game, asked about the obvious (and successful) dive: "Somos Argentinos, y nos conocemos." That is, ´We´re both Argentinians, and we know each other.´ Next question. This actually makes me like him more. Go ahead and hate the diving in soccer if you want to, I won´t quarrel. But in a sport that rewards things like that, why not abuse the system? Spirit of the Game is fine for Ultimate, where nobody´s making any money or facing harassment for failure, but professional Futbol is a billion-Euro industry, and gaming the system is as much of a problem there as in any other major sport. Maybe you find Soccer´s way of gaming the rules to be less honorable or less manly than cheap zone-blocking schemes in American football that are designed to take out defenders´ knees to create holes for RBs, or steroids in the MLB, or easily-drawn touch fouls in the NBA. I say, get the hell over it. And in a sport where teams openly celebrate when they succeed in drawing a bullshit penalty kick, why shouldn´t a player use a daytime emmy-worthy performance to get a man advantage when the referee isn´t quite paying attention? And if he´s going to do it, shouldn´t he be saucy in saying, essentially, ´dems the breaks´ in a post-game press conference? Love it. Love Leo Messi. Each of his celebrations on Saturday outdid the previous one. First goal he lifts up his jersey to reveal a t-shirt with ´Fuerza Tio´ handwritten on it, apparently encouragement for a sick uncle at home. Second goal he runs around screaming and looking generally stoked. Then, after receiving a pass in traffic he elects not to stick a through pass to one of two partially-covered teammates inside the 18. When the pressure´s one, winners want the ball. He beats two men just enough to get some daylight, putting himself at a very difficult angle to goal in the process, and absolutely rips a ball past Casillas to the far corner, leaving the Spanish national keeper face down on the grass, not getting up. Sprints around screaming even louder, his eyes almost literally aflame, like he never doubted he would score. Brilliant. Absolutely fucking brilliant.