It's the two year anniversary of the day I left Spain. I don't typically mark the days of trips I take so sacredly, but this trip was different. I was 19, at a place in my life where I knew I could go anywhere with it. I was at Point A, I feel like. On the road to Point B.
The memories of Spain are only the kind that absolutely warm the soul. I've never been able to remember a place in an all-encompassing way the way that I can with this one. The cold tile on my feet as I hurried through my morning duties after breakfast. The milk took a long time to get used to. Hah. At the beginning I only put enough in my cereal bowl to barely coat each piece of puffed wheat. And by the end... it's funny how things change.
The nighttime fights we engaged in, constant trips to the Mercadona for chocolate covered digestive cookies, chocolate covered walnuts, chocolate covered ham legs (...one of these three I made up..). We just walked and explored but more than that, we just were with one another. Just one small Spanish house with 31 large personalities that fit so perfectly.
We sat up on the terrace at night and watched the night sky. We sat up on the terrace during the day with all of the girls and soaked up the sun while we soaked up each other's pain and joy and all of it. We really lived together, you know?
And it's all love. From the first hellos at the Vancouver airport, to the mad dash at the Heathrow airport, to the mad dash to catch the Tram into Alicante, to the mad dash in McDonalds to escape the friendly locals. Man, we had a ball. We bawled. I bawled a lot, especially the last few days. I bawled in the public streets of Alicante one night. One night Michelle and I thought our plane was going to crash. It didn't. But the bowl I carried on my head crashed onto the floor one day, full of tomato sauce. I had my first taste of curry sauce while in Spain, strange as that is. I bowled my best game ever one night in Spain on a family group outing. We looked strange to the local girls, I know this because they always stared at us even though we tried to buy what we thought was "in fashion". Fashion malls, where I bought not one but two denim dresses which I have yet to see become cool in North America. Still waiting. Waiting to see what happens next with my beautiful family, who have shared a lifetime of memories with me in just a small piece of our lives.
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