First, God obviously didn´t like my taunting about the weather last week. We had actual rain twice this week, some clouds a few other times and I think it dropped below 60 two or three times to boot! So, maybe next time I will keep my mouth shut.

My little brother Ryan was visiting for the week and I decided to take a trip to Salamanca for a few days...

Didn´t start off too great. We arrive at the bus station and grab a cab to a random hostal. First one we go to is all full. Upon exiting the building, my brother goes to open the door. I wasn´t looking and all I hear is the clank of metal banging against the floor. I look over and see him holding the door handle and some small pieces of metal on the ground. We were locked in!!! I felt like Stallone in "Daylight". We tried re-attaching the damn thing, but it wasn´t happening. To make matters worse, the hostal lady came down. She was pissed and I think she felt like we did it on purpose. Though, for the life of me, I can´t understand why someone would break a door to lock themselves into a hostal that didn´t have a room for them. Thankfully, someone entered the building right around that time and after apologizing profusely, we scampered away.

Having my brother here was interesting because he knows no Spanish. So, I was translating for him. Using me as a translator is kind of like letting George Bush translate Dickens...you know things are being overlooked. It was even more exciting when we were out that night talking to some spanish women. Each sentence and response took like 2 minutes. She would say something, I would decipher it for myself, then tell my brother in English, one of us would usually make a sarcastic comment in English, then I translated one of our responses into Spanish. All in all, extremely smooth, just like Leon Phelps.

The next most difficult part of the week was fending off his urge to eat at every Pizza Hut or Burger King we saw. But, while in Salamanca we did get to see a Silent Religious Procession for Easter, Ryan sat down on the sidewalk with some little kids and watched a Spanish puppet show and we walked up and down the streets so many times, I can´t remember.

Mom - I got him to try Asparagus, Hummus, tuna and a few other new foods. He was going nowhere near Paella. Maybe next time...