Leaving La Coruña

Leaving La Coruña

[I’ve fallen behind again in my blogging since I arrived in Granada. As it turns out, the house I’m living in does not have wireless so I need to go out to a café with my laptop in order to post an update…which is a little…arduous…but I’ll talk more about that once I’m caught up with all of my latest adventures.]

On August 28th, my wonderful visit to the north of Spain came to a close as Pablo, Pilar and I packed up and headed back to Madrid, leaving behind a wonderful family that I now consider a part of my own (and I think they feel the same). I’m going to miss so many things about my time there, such as….playing “pocha,” a Spanish card game, every afternoon with the family (and losing miserably every time)…being stared at every dinner as I ate my peach or nectarine with the skin intact (Spaniards apparently don’t like the texture of the skin)… skipping out on the beach or pool on colder days to get coffee and talking about books with Pilar instead…then sucking it up and jumping in the numbing-cold water to show that I’m not always a wimp… searching for the pet turtle in the grandparents’ garden with all of the grandkids…making friends with the grandkids by luring them in with my “cool” technology (aka Ipod and camera) – I even got little red-headed Alvaro hooked on “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” sung by IZ, even though he didn’t understand a single word…spending an entire day soaking wet in Santiago de Compostela (but that’s a typical day, so they tell me, so I got the “full experience”)…listening to Jesús tell stories about the history of Galicia and doing my best to understand, as he often forgot to speak slowly (“He forgets you’re not a native speaker,” they kept telling me)… sitting patiently as Maria Luisa informed me on all of the famous and royal people I should be familiar with in Europe via looking through the magazine, ¡Hola!, which I consider to be a ridiculous, close-up invasion of people’s privacy (“This is culture!” she explained…”You don’t understand anything!” her favorite phrase for me…but she meant well)…showing off my American side at a family gathering in the country where I demonstrated my shooting abilities and hit all five targets in a row…staying up late with Guille, Luís, Belen and their cousin Sabela to talk about silly things and learn Spanish swear words…being stuffed to the brim every day with wonderful dishes of seafood, refreshing glasses of clara, and freshly baked deserts, all made by Julia, the house cook… and then wrapping up every night after dinner with the whole family in the living room watching some American movie dubbed in Spanish…

Since then, it feels as if I have gone so far and am so removed from those memories… even though it has been only a little over a week since I gave them my farewell kisses. I truly believe they are those we often speak of who come into your life and, though you may never see them again, or at least for quite some time, they have left a lasting impression with you. I know that they hold a very dear place in my heart and that I will miss them in these coming months. But enough of the wallowing for now! As Pilar said to me in our final minutes before parting, “There’s no reason to be sad now! You still have so much to do! So many more adventures to be had!”
And so they continue…