Date Written: June, 27 2002
Subject: Introduction

Well, here I begin on a mission to tell the tales of my second adventure to Spain. A trip that (like many of mine) was an idea that was initiated by a BS session between me and my great friend, Sunny...well, to be technical, that is actually, Dr. Sunny Mistry. Anyway, Sunny had planned a trip to Europe with two of his friends from college, Kalpesh and Parin. They had planned this trip for many years...they would all take a month and travel around Europe at the end of Med. School, just before starting their residencies. Anyway, one day in mid March of 2001, Sunny and I were talking about this trip as the planning was all being done and I mentioned that it would be cool if I could meet up with those guys in Spain. Well from there, I started to think, man that WOULD be cool. I would love to go back over there, plus it would be a huge help for them to have someone who can translate. So I started looking for a plane ticket. Wouldn't you know it, along came a great deal for a plane ticket that I couldn't pass up. I got a round trip ticket to Barcelona (through Paris) for $460. Very good. (although I would beat that a year later with a ticket to Sao Paulo for $408.15) So on April 11 at about 1:00 a.m. it became official...I was making the return pilgrimage to Spain. I couldn't believe it.
It took awhile, but we finally had set an itinerary for the trip. They were going to meet me in Barcelona on Friday, May 4 at a hostel that I had found on the web called Kabul. What a great place, but I'll get to that. From Barcelona we would be off to Granada and then on to Seville. From there we would head back to Madrid. Then I was going to go to Ciudad Real alone and visit some friends of Lyle's while everyone else made their trek to Paris. We would then meet in Paris for a night of partying and head to the airport to catch our flights back to the US (Sunny, Kalpesh, and I were all on the same flight) on Sunday, May 20.
This is amazing, but looking back, that is almost exactly how the plan went with the exception of a flip-flop of Seville and Granada. The trip rekindled my love for Spain, which to me still seems like a perfect place to live. The people, the lifestyle...it is like no other place I have been to. Hopefully, in these journals, I will be able to convey that feeling well enough that people get a sense of what it's like to travel in what, to me, so far, is the best country in the world.