Pics of Petra were spectacular!

Great to keep up with you online. Sarah and I miss you guys and can’t wait for you to be back in Philly.

So… March 1999, I go to Seville to visit Sarah, who is studying abroad. Fly overnight, get bombed on the plane… I land looking like… I don’t know, I suppose somebody suspicious. Barely awake, jetlagged, drunk at what is about 10 am local time, I am trying to hold it together in the customs line. It must not have worked. I get pulled out by the Guradia Civil (who, incidentally, if you hadn’t seen their uniforms, look rather comical, like bad guys from an Indiana Jones movie). I speak some Spanish at this point, but not at interrogation speed. Rifling through my suitcase, he says ‘blah blah blah…’ I say ‘solament hablo un poquito, mas lente por favor’. He smiles, motions to his mouth and asks ‘toma drogas, si?’ This I understand. He thinks I’m a drug addict or a drug mule of some kind. ‘No, no drogas’ I reply. Unconvinced, he mutters and continues to rifle through my suitcase. Amidst my boxers, he finds my Centrum vitamins. ‘Aha! Drogas’ he says

I protest ‘No drogas. Vitaminas!’

He then opens the bottle, spills them out into his hand, and sniffs them. At this point I realize I will not be taking vitamins for the entirety of the trip.

He realizes the err of his assumptions and now tries to make a joke: “Vee-agra?” he asks, smiling. What can I say? ‘haha, si, viagra. Lo necesito. haha.’ He puts the pills from his hand back in the jar, closes the cap. I am free to enter Spain.