Good day. Weather is beyond gorgeous and everyone's in good spirits because it's Friday.Yesterday visited Santillana del Mar. It's an ancient Roman town that's home to a very historic monastery and some very ancient cave drawings. The town was very cool, very linear stone-paved streets made for fun pictures. The bad part was it was *ruined* by the tourism industry. Every shop was a gift shop or an only-slightly-better shop for local baked goods, cheeses, etc.Tomorrow's a day trip to Bilbao, another Basque city and home to the Guggenheim. Should be very cool, but I'm hoping to get something out of it given my stupiditiy when it comes to art. Why aren't there equally cool music museums? We're visiting another town to kill time before the museum and word is it'll involve beaches. Good, because with under 3 weeks to go I'm still lacking a tan.Let's talk about shopping. The frequent stories of going to various markets daily are semi-true. Most people buy foodstuffs 2-3 times a week and bread every day. There are frequent supermarkets and people use them for general stuff that doesn't depend *that* much on quality, like snacks or lemons. Stuff that isn't essential usually comes from specialist shops, but that's quickly changing.Today was my first run to El Corte Ingles [The English Court]. Imagine a structure the size of The Parks or Barton Creek Mall. Now make it 5 or so stories tall and fill it up with *one* store that sells *everything*. They sell stuff that Wal-Mart doesn't. They are all up in this bitch. Grocery store, food court, department store (on a scale of 1 to upscale, closer to upscale), car shop, clothes, hardcare, yardware, sporting goods, electronics, games, I mean these guys will sell you *anything*. I spent an hour and a half just exploring. To make maters even more complex, the same building houses a different retain chain in the exact same fashion, with an almost identical logo. So when you guy stuff from the common central atrium you have no idea which store to pay. I couldn't get a beach towel for that exact reason. I didn't even get to go in that second store (Hipercor) because I carried my backpack. Huge. Freakin'. Store. Who thought an American would say that?Europe, I would say, has a major problem. I've seen it like a plague here in Spain and I pray it hasn't spread like one.It's the mullet. No, I'm not kidding.It's the fad among soccer players here, from ages about 10-20. They're very small mullets, as most of the guys have really short hair, but man, it looks beyond awful. That small problem aside, I'm having good days here. Had a good experience in the computer lab today talking with friends from home. I miss everyone a bit, but it'll be really great to visit everyone (or have them visit me) once I get home.