Spain Glorious Spain

Whew had it been a whole week already that we´ve been here? Rana and I have been hot footing it around Spain at an incredible pace. Last week we started in the Rioja Wine region where we visited one of my favorite wineries, Paternina. I loved it the lady there was so nice we bought 2 bottles of top quality wine for only a few euros. Thanks Europe for not overpricing wine.
Then we stayed at a nice super swank hostel. Totally decorated with Ikea furniture and full of angular modern appliances. Strange.
The next day we head through Bilbao. It was a pretty little city with a beautiful canal running through it and of course the wavey metallic beast of a the Guggenheim museum at it´s center. We ate some Spanish fast food and were back on the road again! This time our destination was Santander which is almost as north as you can go in Spain. It was quite beautiful there we met up with Rana´s friend Amador (which in Spainish means "the lover") and stayed with his family that night. We also participated in our first Botellon which is the fantastic Spanish tradition of getting a bunch of people in square and drinking lots of boose. Weee!
For the next few days we rocked across the northern coast, checking out beaches and enjoying the lush countryside. (sorry no pics I using a library computer here) Then we made our way down to Portugal until we stopped at university town called Coimbra. There we stayed at the coolest hostel. The guys running it were really cool. There were people from all over the world staying there. We barbecued late into the night and enjoyed their company. Then as we were winding down a guy came along named Wolfgang a loud Bavarian German. He was hilarious and regaled us with stories of mountain climbing and designing robots to help people ascend things.
The next day we headed to Lisbon where I accidentally parked the car on the trolley tracks and stop 8 trolley cars in two direction while we were looking for the hostel. Once I realised I was the problem I jumped in the car and sped away. The Portuguese simply yelled OLE! in excitement that the track was cleared. I thought I was a dead man.
At the Hostel we met some Spanish and Czech people and went out with them to a bar. There a very very drunk Portuguese lady started picking a fight with us and head butted the Czech girl. Really? What a weird night.
Then we headed to the south coast of spain to Tarifa! Tarifa is a surf town that resided on the southernmost tip of Spain. North to south in one week whew. We took a day trip over to Gibraltar and and had Glorious fish and chips for lunch! Then we climbed the famous rock in our flip flops. A mistake. At the top our feet really hurt and we thought we weren´t going to be able to get down so we headed over to the gondola that was ferrying people from the town below to the top. We snuck in the back way and took the gondala down with some turista. Yeah for the free ride. The next day in Tarifa we spent eating and watching the Feria, people riding horses around the city in traditional garb, women everywhere in flamenco dress,(damn I wish I could show you pictures.) That night we went to a concert on a football field of on of our favorite Spanish artists Chambao...Ok I have to get going they are closing the library...,more later from Sevilla.