Katie went to Spain and all I got was photoshopped in

The following are a collection of photos in which I look as though I was photoshopped in. I swear I was there, I promise.

Me "at" the Plaza Mayor

Me "at" the Alhambra

Me "at" the fancy world fair building

Me "at" the Sevilla Cathedral

Me "outside" the Mezquita

A small interlude from Spain. Oil!

So I think we are in huge oil bubble. Oil is a good example of a boom-bust commodity. When it does well, it does really well. When it does bad, it does really bad. Example, the 70's boom was an 80's bust. Record highs in the late 70's resulted in record lows in 80's and 90's. So oil is booming now, but for how long? I'm not crazy, I think we're running out, but we're not running out tommorow. There have not been any steep decline in production, nor has there been any steep increases in consumption. The worst case scenario, I'm using the one provided by Matt Savinar, is that world production decreases by 2% and demand increases by 2%, so a 4% change year after year (this does have little to do with reality, as high prices have dropped demand). Bring on the chart.

So starting in 2000 at $35 a barrel, 4% would put us at around $50 a barrel today, not inflation adjusted. If you adjust for inflation, it's about $70 a barrel I think, well at least that's what the Saudi's would lead us to believe. Needless to say this looks like, oh, I don't know, the dot-com boom, the housing boom?

The current price of oil is totally dictated by speculation. It has nothing to do with supply or demand. It's just people driving up the price to drive up the price. Some day oil will be at that price, that day is not today. I can't say when the speculation will end. It will probably get worse before it gets better. Looking at the chart and using my brain makes me think probably in the next year there will be a fantastic correction in price that occurs when price is determined by speculation and not cold hard numbers.

Spain (Part III)

I kind of got the order messed up in the last entry, as we went to Cordoba after Sevilla, but we push forward anyway. The reason I even mention this is because the train stop at Cordoba is a short one, so we had to hurry like bunnies to catch the train. They guarantee the time these trains show up, and well some of the group we were traveling with think that this is like Hollywood and the train will wait for them, but it won't. This Train is capable of traveling at over 200mph. This is really the way to travel. I think we need a few of these around the country.

We got back to Madrid and we took the Metro to dinner and we had a run in with some pick pockets. The first was as I was walking into the restaurant, a man had his hand under an umbrella and through some shrubs and was trying to unzip my backpack. Luckily there was nothing to steal. The next attempt came while we headed back on the metro when a lady wedged herself between Katie and I. She proceeded to put a jacket over Katies purse. Katie was able to hand wrestle her so she couldn't get in her purse. At the same time another gentleman was going after Katie's mom's purse. Luckily nothing got stolen. I guess pick pockets in Spain just aren't that good. We were lucky I think too.

Finally on our last day we traveled to Segovia, which was the oldest city on our tour. Pictured here is an aqueduct that is about as old as jesus.

It was used for like 1800 years. They had some pretty cool romanesque churches, but that wasn't on the schedule.

Instead we went to the alcazar. Which is very impressive up on its rock, surrounded by a moat. This location was used by the Romans, Muslims, and the Catholics. It was always a favorite. I borrowed this picture as I have none other that show how verticle this baby is.

Inside there is this creepy mural of the coronation of queen Isabella. They have no eyes. I don't know why. I think it is to suck out your soul.

A picture of us out on the ledge. It is sheer cliff over the side. I can see why this place was a favorite of kings and queens. You'd feel pretty safe.

We then went to Escorial, which little known to me was a giant tomb. It was designed to be the ultimate monument to God, with all sorts of meaningful architectural designs. Mostly there were just a lot of dead bodies in very elaborate tombs.

Going home was the hardest part, poor Fernando ,our tour guide, looked so sad sending us off. Because of traveling west, I think we had a solid 24 hours of daylight. Everything was going according to plan until our stupid flight got cancelled in Denver. In reality we could have driven home faster than we could catch our flight. Ultimately though it is nice to be home. Only barely though.

Spain (Part dos)

So after we finally made it home after Morocco (our bus broke down on the way home), we got to sleep, headed out the next day to Cordoba. Here we went the Cathedral or Mezquita there. This place was pretty awesome. It is still considered the third largest Mosque in the world. It's so big that when the city was retaken from the Moors in the 1200's they just built a Catholic Cathredral in it. It's such a big place you can't even see the cathedral part in the picture! Seriously though, something like 5 different cultures added on to this building.

Oddly though the catholics seems to show off their immenseness by building these huge solid gold thingys to hold the spirit of Christ or something. I wasn't really paying attention as I was distracted by the shine.

We then headed down to Sevilla and an odd thing about this city is back in the early 1900's they decided to have a world fair, and well countries from around the world built pavillions. Take a look at this Spanish pavillion. It's HUGE. It's a really pretty building. I just find it odd that its original purpose was for tourist information.

Next we went to the Cathedral in Sevilla. It's a big one too, like the 3rd biggest in the world. It had two alters in it while we there. One of gold, and one of silver.

It is also home to one of Christopher Columbus's three graves.

Also a fun bit of info is that often when Catholic Churches where built instead of building a new bell tower often they would just convert a Spiral Minaret. This was the case at most of the Cathedrals we saw. This one had ramps to the top so that they could ride a horse to the top instead of walk.

I made Katie walk it in 10 minutes, all 90 meters, and she was not happy.

I was in Spain Bitches! (Part 1)

I'm finally back from spain and man, it was awesome. It's been a let down to come home and go to work and the dentist (my nerve ending playing the part of grass and his drill playing the part of a weed wacker).

I have a ton of stories to share, from gypsies to to castle and cathedrals. We start in Madrid and the Plaza Mayor. This is a rocking Plaza where they have concerts and dinner and street performer and during weekend a flea market. You can rent one of the rooms for cheap, because it's very loud.

This the palace in Madrid. We missed it because some big chinned royalty were getting married.

Madrid is a relatively young city for Europe only being founded like four or five hundred years ago. So this is one of the older building here.

This is the most visited museum in all of Spain. The Museum of Ham. They have pork legs, hooves, hair and all hanging, rotting, until they are just right and delicious. They love there ham. Seriously though, like 75% of our meals were ham and cheese bocadillos.

So for the first couple of days our tour guide warns us to be careful of gypsies, that they will steal your things, and try and decieve you. So we travel 3 hours to Granada to the hotel that is right out of the Shining and what does our tour guide suggest...that we go to the gypsy caves for sangria and flamenco. We load up onto the gypsy vans and they proceed to drive like 1000mph through narrow corridors to get us to their cave.

Yeah, that was exciting. Seriously though when we did go back to Madrid, we had quite a run with with some pick pockets. First at dinner, a man had his hand under an umbrella trying to get into my back pack, and then latter on the subway a lady put her coat over Katie's purse and tried to unzip it. Luckily they were quite unsuccesful.

After they finished dancing they took us of a walking tour and we headed over to a scenic view of the Alhambra also known as the Red Castle.

This is the place where Columbus first went to ask for money to sail to India. Spanish architecture was quite fun because the Muslims had controlled the country for seven hundred years, and when the Catholics came, they weren't keen to tear it down. They just added their stuff to it. So all the castle, cathedrals and palaces are a wonderful hodgepodge

After Granada we drove down to the Costa del Sol to swim in the Mediteranean. There were lots of naked boobies at the beach.

We then went to Morroco where we passed the rock of gibralter, and I rode a camel, bought a rug and ate lunch with a fire dancer.

Morroco was nothing short of amazing. It was like going back in time 100 years. It was something so different that anything that I was used, I would recommend it for everyone.