Day 9-We are in Marbella, "Beautiful Sea", on the Costa del Sol, "The Sun Coast." Playground of Europe’s young and the rich and famous alike. We find a nice room on a cobbled sidestreet. It is early afternoon so there is still time to go to the beach. This is my first Mediterranean beach. I am very excited. Hanging out on Mediterranean beaches is not something Joe-averages from Chicago like me do. There are beautiful topless European women everywhere. I am a jetsetter.

I get sunburned. I am naturally dark-complexioned, but the Mediterranean sun is too much even for me. We find a pharmacy and learn the word for sunburn in Spanish is "quemadura de sol." We walk along the boardwalk for awhile before retiring to our room. We are both beat. More excitement will have to wait for another night. I lay in bed writing postcards for awhile, but Hugo is so beat, he passes out fully clothed on top of his sheets.

Day 10-I have tossed and turned in my sleep and my bed is a mess. Hugo’s bed is still perfectly made. We wonder what the maid will think of this. Two men, sharing a room, only one bed obviously used. We briefly consider messing up the other bed, for appearance’s sake. In the end, we decide to leave it.

Its another day for the beach. This time I go in the water. It is cold, and the bottom is pebbly, but I am swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. The waves lift me up and down, and I just float, enjoying the sensation.

At night, having been told nothing much happens in Marbella, we drive back up the road to Puerto Banu. According the the woman at the desk of our hotel, Harrison Ford was there last week. Sean Connery is a frequent visitor as well.

We park the car and walk along the boardwalk with the throngs of people. I see very few Spanish people among them. The harbor is fill of giant yachts based in faraway Caribbean ports. Expensive cars slowly make their way down the street through the crowds. I want to press my face against the tinted glass and try to see who’s inside, but the cars are attended by intimidating men who are clearing the way, and who wouldn’t probably not think such a thing was funny. We walk along the docks. Most of the boats probably have twice the square footage and cost 10 more than my parents house. We stand for awhile watching the shadows move on the other side of the portals, the black tied waiters carrying trays of entree’s and glasses of wine, and the occasional rich person standing along the railing watching the commoners clamouring along the waterfront.

Most of the restaurants and bars opening to the streets are empty, but it is still early, around 10pm. Attractive young people stand on the corners handing out fliers for clubs. We take one, find the place, and go inside. The music is loud and throbbing, the air is smokey and the lights are dim. We sidle up to the bar and shouts our orders. We stand for awhile and scope the scene. The dance floor is sparsely populated. Most of the people don’t look over 20. Neither Hugo or I are unselfconscious enough to get out there and dance.

We try a couple more places, but all appear to be havens for British youths from Gibraltar. We can’t seem to find where the grown-ups hang out. Defeated, we head back to our hotel.

Day 11-Enough fun in the sun. We are in the car again and heading for Granada. The way is rugged and the landscape blasted away. The road twists and turns through deep cuts in the red stone.

Granada is only a short stop, to see the Alhambra, the last holdout of the Moors in Spain. It is situated on top of a hill above the town. The walls are red, hence the name. Aqueducts were built to channel snowmelt here from the mountains far away, and rarely as we walk around are we far from the sound of flowing water. There are lush gardens, and fountains spouting from walls into cisterns where you can splash your face to relieve the intense heat of the sun. We go into the main palace, and a large courtyard, whose walls are lined with beautiful frescoes. We walk down a lush forest path, and marvel at the abundance of green amidst all the parched red and brown. Gypsy women try to get our attention with calls of "Hey Guapos", and attempt to hand us small flowers with a promise to tell our fortunes. We climb a touret, and from the top, we can see over all of Granada, far away to the snowcapped mountains, and the dark caves in the nearby cliffs where many gypsies still make their homes.

As I said, Granada was only a short stop. Our friend in Madrid has obtained for us tickets to a soccer game that night, so we blast back across Spain to make the 8pm starting time. Real Madrid is the cities club team, and regularly challenges for the European Cup. We get our tickets and walk around outside the stadium. We see a large crowd of people standing outside one of the gates. I guess that it must be the players entrance. A pathway is roped off. Young girls dressed like flight attendants mill about. As the players show up, one of these young ladies will approach and greet him. It appears they are attendants assigned to take care of the needs of each player.

We go inside and find our seats. They are along one of the endlines, to the right of the goal, about 15 rows back. The game is sloppily played. A man behind us keeps yelling at one of the players on Real Madrid, an English room, calling him a "conejo." I turn to Hugo and wonder why he keeps calling the guy a rabbit, because he doesn’t look that fast to me. In fact, he is playing very poorly. Hugo laughs and tells me I am not listening closely. What the man is saying is "conyejo", which in Spanish is a vulgar term for a part of the female anatomy. So I have learned a new word in Spanish. The game ends in 1-1 tie.

Afterwards, we meet Daniel. There is a large festival in a suburb of Madrid. It is in the middle of a large field next to a shopping mall. There is a stage, and an open space lined along its fringes with beer tents. We run into some people Daniel knows, and they discuss the just ended semester at university. We are introduced, but none of them speaks English any better than I speak Spanish. There are thousand of people here. They want to know our impressions of Spain. I comment on the fact that there are thousands of people here drinking and having a good time, but almost no visible police presence. This would not be so in the United States, I tell them. It is refreshing. Marijuana is smoked openly. "Thees ees a teepical spanish song," one of them says with derisive humor when the band launches into one number. The phrase becomes a joke amongst us. "Teepical spanish song" we look at each other and say for the rest of the night.

There are no portolets that I can see. The thing to do apparently is to walk off some distance to the outskirts of the field, drop trow, and take care of business.

It is raining lightly on and off, so we gather under the awnings of one of the beer tents. People come and go. We talk more with Daniel’s friends about the United States. They want to know about New York. Neither Hugo or I have been to New York, so we do not have much to tell. I start to lose myself in the voices and music and alcohol buzz. As with the festival we attended our first night in Madrid, everything becomes and pleasatn whirl of lights and noise. Page 6