Barcelona

Columbus monument with the giant cable car in the background at the entrance to the pier.

Customs building or something. I thought it looked like the Haunted Mansion.

City view from the top of a big hill we climbed on our way to Olympic Park. It was a nice walk away from the tourist areas. We had a Coke at a picnic table here.

Olympic Park

We found a little league field and couldn't resist.

Art Museum (we didn't go in, they're all the same).

Every city in Europe has one of these but they all spell it different, Arc de Triomf.

Gaudi cathedral. It is huge. You can see it in the city picture above.

Apartment building known for its architecture.

Cool buildings along La Rambla (also saw it called Las Ramblas). This wasn't the highlight of our walk down La Ramble though, that was the completely naked, body painted/tattooed/pierced old dude (probably about 70) walking right through the crowd. Barcelona was nice and much cleaner than Cadiz. It was also a lot busier with people and traffic all over. The Metro (subway) was very clean and efficient. I think Chicago may have the ugliest and noisiest subway in the world. Well, Paris may be uglier with all the graffiti. For how clean and efficient the subway system is there, the airport is the complete opposite. They just have monitors mounted on the walls and let the lines of people go wherever, usually intermingling with other lines for other flights. That was just check-in. I thought I was at a Euro soccer game when I got to the security mob. There was no line just a mob of people trying to get to the end of the rope where a "line" actually forms. And when people tried to go around the mob to see what was going on the mob would turn on them and start yelling and whistling. It was mayhem. It was like going through a toll on the tollway at rush hour and trying to get back into a lane. After a couple delayed and scary Aer Lingus flights I was back home safely. Ireland was everything I had imagined. I think there was fog, rain, and sun in the two hours I sat on the plane at the gate waiting to take off. It was a great trip and would recommend to anyone who has 2 weeks and a couple grand to kill. The boat comes back in mid-August and I'm sure there are rooms still available since ours wasn't full.

Gibraltar

Refined petroleum is their #1 export, even though the 3x1 mile peninsula has no oil. There was lots of freighters in the bay and pollution in the air. You can see the yellow on the horizon and it stunk a little too. That is Spain behind the boats.

Prudential logo.

Matt just monkeying around with the wild apes on top of the Rock.

A nice picture after we made the 1300 foot ascent by foot. Most of the lazy cruisers took cabs or the cable car up.

Africa across the strait.

The city of Gibraltar at the foot of the mountain. The airstrip on the right separates UK and Spain. And there is actually a public road that crosses the airstrip.

Nice pic on our hike up.

Old wall of the city on the south end of downtown.

It was nice to get to a clean, English speaking port. It was a little over-crowded in the city center where there was tons of shopping. There was also tons of new high-rise condos going up on the north end of the city near the pier. It seems like a place that a lot of rich Britons(?) go when they want to get away from there shitty weather. I guess it could be a decent vacation spot since I believe it has a beach on the back side of the mountain. I mailed a postcard from here and my parents just got it last Friday so it took about 2 weeks. Things were more expensive here than the other two ports. But most retail locations accepted Gibraltar pounds, English Pounds, and Euros. I guess they just wanna get paid.

Anyone watch the Sopranos finale last night. Not the blood bath everyone was expecting but after some thought I like the way they ended it. You're never going to make a finale that everyone likes. I won't say anything else in case someone plans to watch it still.

Cadiz, Spain

I pronounce it Cadese but the locals say Cadeeth. They don’t know the difference between s and th? The boat docked right up close to town so we didn’t have much of a walk from the boat to the city center. We saw a nice monument right when we crossed the street. We were also quick to note that the Spanish are not big on picking up after their dogs because there was shit all over the sidewalks. We followed the waterfront all the way around the peninsula city. They had two forts on the perimeter of the city facing the Atlantic. We had to walk about a half mile out to one of the forts which was closed when we got out there. Then we checked out this massive old, golden domed church in town. When we went in we saw nets suspended from the ceiling to catch falling concrete from the ceiling (just like Wrigley). We didn’t stick around long inside. We tried to get lunch in the plaza but after 10 minutes without service we headed to the boat for free food. After an impromptu slam dunk contest on the 9.5’ rim on the boat’s basketball court we headed back to the city to find internet access for less than $.50 a minute. As we walked back through town we found that all the businesses were closing down for siesta. Do these people all think they’re 80 years old or what? Luckily the internet café/slot machine casino stayed open. After an hour there we walked back out to the beachfront and around town and back to the boat. By the way, Cadiz is where Boys II Men got off after giving the concert two nights before.

Also in more recent news, I don’t usually provide market commentary but today is the exception. This week 10-year Treasuries jumped by 20 basis points to about 5.15%. I’ve been telling anyone willing to listen lately that basically our economy, stock market, and soft landing in real estate is all due to the dirt cheap interest rates. All these private equity deals are done with leverage based on these cheap rates. My prediction is that if rates continue to rise there is going to be trouble. Now I have no idea what will cause them to rise but if they do, look out. If short rates also rise, that will obviously hasten the problem. I think real estate will crash if the 10 year goes over 6% with the sub-prime market problems showing up in the middle to higher income ranges. Once the ball gets rolling I think it will take a while to stop. And obviously, higher rates mean higher required returns in private equity which I’m sure are already getting harder to find with so many players now. Higher required returns and a slower economy and lower actual returns on investments will spell big trouble for a lot of these deals. I’m no economist but I have hunch. One thing that could increase rates would be China choosing to buy bonds in Europe instead of the US because at the end of the day the Chinese are as responsible for our low interest rates as anyone. But rates could stay low indefinitely and we will stay in this “Goldilocks” situation where everything is “just right.” Let’s see what happens.

Canary Islands

These pictures were taken from the boat the morning we docked at Santa Cruz on the Canary Island of Tenerife after 6 straight days at sea. I didn't take my camera on the island so these are all the pictures I have until my brother gets back. We took a bus tour that morning nearly to the top of Mt. Teide, which is the main volcano on the island. We actually drove through the clouds on the way up. I think we reached about 8000 feet. The ground looked like the surface of Mars up there. There was a cable car near our stop that took passengers to about 500 feet short of the summit. We didn't have a chance to ride it but neither Matt or myself are big on cable cars. The air was definitely a little thinner up there. The real excitement came on the bus ride down the mountain. Our driver was some old dude who apparently wanted to get home. We were flying around curves with a cliff just a feet or two off the road. I'm sure the 2 foot rail would have kept our tour bus from plummeting a hundred feet. There was a lady who was afraid to get back on the bus for the ride down because she thought the ride up was so scary (and it was). Luckily we survived to tell about it.

In the afternoon we walked around the city. It was abandoned because we were there on a Sunday but the giant city pool was open so we got to check out some attractive topless sunbathers. Most of the buildings were pretty old and the city was really that nice overall. Based on the architecture, it looked like a hot tourist destination in the 50s. There were a couple of modern twin 40-story towers that were pretty cool. On the bus we did drive past the site of the world's worst airplane crash which involved a runaway collision of two commercial jets. Not a bad location but there are better spots.

Castaway Cay

Some people pronounced it "key" some "kay". Either way, it is Disney's private island in the Bahamas and it was our first stop after our first night at sea. For those of you who have not been on a Caribbean cruise before, pretty much every cruise line has its own private island in the Bahamas. This island was nicer than I remember Norweigen's island. From the boat to the adult beach was about a 1.5 mile walk but they also had a shuttle that went from the boat to the little downtown to the adult beach. All the food on the island is included and you can rent kayaks (which we did), snorkel, scuba, and parasailing. They also had volleyball, basketball, and other sports. As you can see from the picture they had either the Black Pearl or the Flying Dutchman out in the bay. They even had a little post office on the island. And there aren't even any permanant residents. Matt whipped me in schuffle board and we wore ourselves out on the dual kayak.

The other picture on the top is me showing off the bling I received for winning the boats Yahtzee tournament. I think I scored about 350 in the first round and 272 in the second. I'm deadly with the dice. Have a good week.