leaving madrid

okay, today i am finally going to get out of madrid. i am mad at myself for not having left already to go somewhere in spain, or something, but let´s not dwell on the past everyone....JUST LET IT GO WOULD YOU!!!

i have been spending way too much time trying to get this trip organized. david finishes his exams this week, so this weekend he and two of his closest friends are going to meet me in budapest, hungary. it has been such a pain in the ass to try and plan this because pedro and alberto (david´s friends) didn´t even buy plane tickets until about five days ago. so we weren´t really sure if they were going to come at all, making it neigh impossible to line up hostel reservations, or any kind of plan as far as traveling goes. i really would rather go alone, or just with david, because with four people on three different schedules meant we had to have a pretty good idea of the how the whole trip was going to look before we left, well actually before i left....in about an hour from now. if i was alone, it would have been really easy to just go with the flow, and change plans if i wanted, but trying to reserve a hostel for four guys in the same room is much more difficult than for one dude rockin´it solo. also, i would rather spend more time in the cities than just a few days, but since david and his compadres cant really miss more than a week of school, and they wanted to hit the different cities, im kinda stuck. none-the-less in about five hours i should be arriving in venice, italy...the city of love...alone

travel itinerary (just so you know where to start looking if i disappear):

-12-14 venice, italy
-14-16 ljubljana, slovenia
-16-19 budapest, hungary (i will meet david on the 16th here, and pedro and alberto the 17th)
-19-23 vienna, austria (pedro and alberto will return to spain from vienna; david and i will go on to prague)
-23-26 prague, czech republic

on another note, today is my brother justin´s birthday (and abraham lincoln´s too) so i would like to wish a happy birthday to him, and maybe i can try to call him sometime later today, maybe. in writing this i feel like a moron because last week was my other brother justin´s birthday (that´s right there´s two of them), so if you happen to read this jp, happy late birthday, if you accept those... if not, then happy early birthday for next year. yesterday was david´s birthday, it was the third birthday of family members, or family-like members, since i´ve been here. and it was the first that actually seemed like it was celebrated to some extent. spain is different (said with a slight shake of the head...go on, try it).

i miss my family so much. i really miss my nieces and nephew and little bro, they are such a joy to me...i miss them...a lot :( much love to you all.

okay, i don´t know for sure if i will get to write while i am gone for the next few weeks, but if i don´t respond to you emails for a few days don´t panic, just stop, relax, breathe easy, and wait a a couple more days. most of the hostels we are staying at have free internet, so it really shouldn´t be an issue.

that is all, thank you.