I wonder if winter is always this mild in this part of Spain. You may not see the sun very often, but temperatures in the afternoon are usually in the 50's. This is in January. And Matt told me right now I'm as far north as Maine. I find this difficult to believe, though I know Cairo was about even with Atlanta, so it could be true.

Either way, today was yet another day that I walked around comfortably in a long-sleeve t-shirt and fleece vest. I could've worn shorts, but would have looked rather weird. If this is how the weather is all winter, and the summers are as beautiful as I imagine, I may have to move here.

"It's 7:52 pm and he's going at it with abandon."
Just a quick aside that somebody here loves their friggin' church bells. Not just on the hour and not just a few dings. It seems that whenever the spirit moves this guy he grabs the rope and rings for five to ten minutes... just a block or so from my hotel. Right now it's 7:52 pm and he's going at it with abandon. When this first happened yesterday I thought it was some kind of emergency signal. A tornado or bomber squadron was approaching, I thought, and stopped just short of running into the street.

Lacking any fascinating travel stories to relate, I'll tell you that over the weekend I ate an entire Pizza Hut Stuffed Crust pizza. Only here they call it a "Pizza Rolling." I even speak a little Spanish and I don't get that one... except that gerunds seem to work very differently in languages other than English. Anyway, I'd been reading an entry from Terry at TerrysTrek.com about being back at home and eating pizza. I had to have one.

"Less famous than Lichtenstein..."
I'm back in Pamplona... retracing Matt's and my trip through Spain's north. I'll be here till around Wednesday or so, when I hope to head north for Andorra and do a day of skiing. Andorra, if you don't know, is another of those tiny countries Europe seems to enjoy creating. Less famous than Lichtenstein, Andorra is hidden away in the Pyrenees.

I'd always thought of Andorra as kind of a mini-Switzerland. Remote, rich and expensive. But I think I was wrong. The guidebooks call it a shopping mall for Spain and France. I guess they can buy stuff duty-free and take it home. Andorra is also home to some of the cheapest skiing in Europe. The have good mountains and lift tickets that are cheaper than at home... even at today's lousy exchange rate.

But skiing's not a whole lot of fun by yourself. I imagine I'll only do a day and move on. I have some friends in Germany that wanna go skiing in Switzerland so I'll hold out for that to do any serious skiing.

"Now they've upped the ante again."
Oh, and I just noticed a lovely story from Brazil. Maybe you've already seen this. Remember how I had to pay $135 for my visa for a week in Brazil? Now they've upped the ante again. Apparantly somebody got all red in the face over the US decision to fingerprint foreign visitors and decided Brazil would fingerprint all Americans. How childish.

I don't know enough about the security situation to say if it's really necessary for us to be fingerprinting. It does seem a bit odd to be getting prints from the Dutch and Belgian and British tourists coming to the US, though with recent event it's not implausible that it serves a purpose.

"Do you really think they're processing these things?"
But fingerprinting Americans coming to Brazil? What's going on? Unless you figure somebody's gonna bomb the immigration office over paying $135 for their visa, what could possibly be the need? You know the fingerprints are going straight into the trash anyway. Do you really think they're processing these things? The Brazil tourism people need to get a muzzle on whoever's behind all this before people stop going to Brazil.