Briefly...

Excellent news in Spain! ETA officially declared a ceasefire! ETA, if you are unaware, is the Basque seperatist group that was blowing up innocent Spaniards in a bid to gain independence from the Spanish government. They have become an extremely unpopular entity since the fall of Franco back in the 1970s as nobody could quite figure out why they thought terrorist acts would convince a democratic government to grant a people total autonomous rule. Back when Franco was in power and forced a culture of homogenity and repression, their struggle for independence was one shared by all the communities of Spain. Once the dictator died, and each of the autonomous communities were allowed to resume the practice and celebration of their respective cultures (like speaking their own languages for example), it seemed odd that ETA was resorting to terrorist tactics in an effort to gain further independence. Zapatero, the president of Spain, has said that negotiations are now a possibility since the ceasefire has been declared. Everybody wins, in other words... at least for now. This wonderful news has been blaring across the country all day, and there will surely be a great deal of celebrating everywhere this week. Spain is most certainly a safer place now.

In other news, got a few pics up from Madrid, but after doing some quality control and deleting of doubles, there really aren´t many at all (like maybe 12). The one´s I do have aren´t terribly good, but they are there for the viewing. Flickr link is to the right where they may be viewed.

Gave my presentation on Sevilla in History today and I would say I fairly killed it (that´s a good thing). The teacher told me she said it was really interesting and I had even taught her a few new things she hadn´t known. I´m pleased with this. I still have a midterm coming up, and two huge papers looming over the horizon. It´ll be tougher than ever to concentrate, however, as literally half of the time left I have in Spain is breaks. No joke, we have a TON of time off coming up, even though it is technically the busiest time of the semester for us. ¡Uf!

I suppose there is more to discuss, but I´ll have to get to it later, perhaps tomorrow, as I need to run for now.

Out.