The past few days I've been focusing on my class (pseudo-midterm tonight), my column and making travel plans. A bunch of us have signed up to go to Carnaval de Cádiz next weekend. The fiesta is a week long but we're just going for Saturday night (literally -- the bus leaves at 9pm and brings us back at 5am). Carmen is helping me find a costume.

Morocco, Italy and Madrid are in the works. I'm not a big fan of Madrid (ha, look at me), but there's a fancy Georgetown event going on there the weekend of my birthday, so it could be good. Morocco is what I'm most excited about, but there are about one million different student travel packages, so it's hard to get a group of people to agree on one. They warn us about traveling so much that we miss out on getting to know our host city, but it would be stupid to not take advantage of the cheap flights here. And I'm pretty sure I'll have time to get to know Sevilla by July.

I had some rolls of film developed today. For some reason, most of my color prints don't come out -- we never shot color in photo, so I probably just don't know what I'm doing, but I assumed the principles were the same as black and white. Anyway, the black and white prints came out really well, so I'll post some once they're scanned. I also sent in my absentee ballot today for the New York democratic primary. I waited in a half-hour line at the post office just to feel somewhat assured that my vote would make it to White Plains. Godspeed, little ballot.

Oh, also there was a mini-crisis this afternoon when I got back from some errands and realized the water heater had been leaking for hours and the utility room was starting to flood. I had to call Carmen and I just felt helpless, considering I'm completely unfamiliar with water heaters and I barely had the vocabulary to explain what was happening. It didn't help that she enlisted her incredibly sweet parents to come over and help me out. "Good thing you were here. Now get back to studying!" - Mama Sánchez (who has a Juanes ring tone).

Anyway, yesterday my class visited Casa de Pilatos. It was probably my favorite class trip so far. It's this unbelievable mansion that mimics the Islamic-meets-Gothic style of the Alcázar. It's been in the possession of ridiculously wealthy Spanish nobility since the 16th century (part of it is still lived in, but that's obviously not open to the public). I didn't really catch why it's called the House of Pilate -- something to do with the original owner's pilgrimage from Pontius Pilate's house to Golgotha (Calvary). He instituted stations of the cross beginning at the mansion, so now Semana Santa processions begin there. My camera died halfway through the tour, but here are some photos.









I have to do a little more studying now. The test is on modernization (and why it took so long in Spain), the Civil War, Franco's regime, the fascist Falange, etc. It actually sounds kind of interesting when I put it in list form, but do not be fooled. Hasta luego.