OF COURSE I WANT TO GO TO A TOPLESS BAR. OH, YOU SAID "TAPAS."

This weekend I booked a flight to Spain for 25 days in March. Although I was born in Naples, Italy (Navy brat), I have never traveled overseas since returning to the United States when I was one year old. I have three friends who are currently living in Spain that are generously helping me out with my itinerary. So far the itinerary looks something like this:

Madrid
Bilbao
Barcelona (with a one-day excursion to Figueres to see the Salvador Dali museum)
Valencia
Granada
Malaga
Morocco (A 2 hour boat ride to the tip of Africa from the South of Spain)
Seville
Cordoba
Back to Madrid

Traveling like this has always been a dream of mine. In fact, I've wanted to do this so badly that even though I've booked my flight I still feel like it might not happen - I've wanted to do this for SO long!

I can't imagine a better way to understand life than to travel the world. I am in awe of the history and progress of the world and so visiting a castle built in 1420 blows my mind. One of the reasons I chose to move to New York City was the old world feel of it all. Something simple like going to a fruit stand when you need fruit, or going to a butcher shop when you need meat was attractive to me for whatever reason. It was certainly different than going to a superstore for anything and everything.

I went to see the movie "Letters From Iwo Jima" this past weekend. I also rented the movies Judgement at Nuremberg and The Americanization of Emily. All three of these movies were very good and I recommend seeing each them. There was an overriding theme to these films - war, honor and humanity. One of the themes however, which is relevant to this post, is how we are essentially all the same...we are human. So although we have divided ourselves by skin color, religious beliefs, and bordered nationalism, the fact remains that under it all, we are human. I don't know if this would necessarily be the best thing for the world or not, I'm sure it would have it's downfalls, but what if our ultimate loyalty wasn't to our families or friends or religion or country? What if our ultimate loyalty was to humanity?

I suppose at its core, religion attempts to do this. It basically asks us to honor a higher power that reveres human life and humankind without exception. I want to emphasise "at its core" because I am very disappointed with what I believe is the corruption of religious values that has been hijacked by power mongers within the church. But I'll save that for another post...

The point being, I am going to travel to Europe and Africa for almost 4 weeks and I am so excited to witness the versatility of humanity and to gain a deeper appreciation of our history and life itself. I'm also extremely nervous to be doing this trip alone! I'm sure my stops in cities where I have friends will be a sight for sore eyes. None the less, I wish I was leaving tomorrow.