It's been a while

Where to start...a synopsis maybe:

We went to Spain and it was great. I can't begin to describe what it was like to visit a place that had some history. For instance, we went into the room in the Alhambra where Columbus asked Isabel and Ferdinand for financial support for his westward voyage to the Indies. We saw his tomb. We saw their tombs. There were paintings galore: Picasso, Dali, Miro, Velasquez, El Greco, Murillo, Goya. There were many Cathedrals, of course. We saw Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, under construction for another 50 years or so, as well as his apartment buildings and Park Guell. There was a pickpocket too that we met the first day.

The motherfucker slipped his hand into Risajoy's bag and pulled out her wallet on the metro, between the airport and our first hotel. He only got $11 and she cancelled her credit/debit cards. That was July 11th. Then, a few days ago, everything from her wallet showed up back here, in Seattle, via registered mail from the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. No wallet, no $11, but all the contents. Someone was nice enough to send it over there after they found it in a trashcan or wherever...

Then there was NYC, my first visit. We stayed a block behind the American Museum of Natural History, which we visited. I tried to go to MoMa on a Tuesday (MoMa, I learned, is closed Tuesday). I had my eye on the met but my blistered feet thought otherwise. We saw a Broadway show: Spring Awakening; we strolled through the east village, the Columbia campus, saw John Lennon's aprtment building, went in the library and Grand Central Station. Saw the Chelsea Hotel, went in Macy's, saw the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building, up close. We walked out of the way to see Frank Gehry's new building for IAC and came across the High Line park-to-be (I happened to read about this recently in the book, The World Without Us). Went to The Strand (I got Saul Bellow's Herzog and a shirt drawn by Art Spiegelman). We took the subway out to Brooklyn to hang with two of Risa's grad school friends and their little daughter. They were super-cool, as was "the city."

What else?
Read some books: Augie March, Herzog, Kafka on the Shore, Atonement, Saturday.
In the middle of other books: Don Quixote, The World Without Us, A reader in Environmental Anthropology.
Saw a band: Wilco
Wrote and essay that will be published in the Seattle P-I soon!
Bought some tickets: Young Frankenstein, the musical.
Thinking of skipping a music festival: Bumbershoot
Excited about another festival, which I am attending: Austin City Limits
Found a bunch of Town Hall events that I want to attend: Rick Steves, Naomi Klein, Robert Reich
Signed up to take the LEED exam
Going to UW later this week to talk about a really interesting PhD program

So much action, right? Right. Unfortunately all this action required funds, which requires that I wake up in about 7 hours. Damn.