Especially at this age, most of us feel our years going by far too quickly. Like watching a wiggly newborn infant develop and seemingly suddenly start crawling overnight, dividing one’s life into 3-month segments makes awareness of the rapid passage of time raw and absolute. It has been three months since we began this segment of our travels, and now our time in Spain is coming to an end.
Living by the sea has been a dream come true for me. I will always remember opening the blinds each morning and looking out over the great Mediterranean—sometimes so gray that the horizon disappeared; and some days so blue it looked like the Caribbean. And as I look back, we made good use of our time here. We visited nearby towns not using cars but traveling by bus and train, went on adventursome hikes, took side trips to see the sprintime tulips in Amsterdam and to revisit the lovely city of Barcelona. Plus, we had guests! Perhaps having visitors was the best part. While our girls usually visit us at least once or twice a year, Valerie is the first of our friends to take us up on our invitations to join us. Spending a week with Valerie was amazing . . . she is a great travel partner who is welcome to join us any time. Then, having Shea and Lara visit us was the best! Lara fit in with us like family, and as it is every time we get to be with Shea, we laughed until we cried, threw one another under the bus recalling old stories, and simply loved being in each other’s company. We did our best to show Shea and Lara our favorite parts of Costa del Sol, maybe even more than they bargained for, but their visit just could not have been better. Thinking of Shea this very minute, my eyes get misty. But then I admit, it happens almost every time I think of either of our sweet daughters; we love them so.
Still nowhere near fluent, our Spanish has improved over the past three months. We are very good at ordering food, asking questions, buying tickets, and admiring children and dogs. Outside those simple conversations, we are still novice Spanish speakers. Thank goodness for Google Translate.
My terrace garden is flourishing. The tomato plants have clusters of glistening green cherry tomatoes. I check them every day to see if they will grant me just one ripe one before we say goodbye but that probably won’t happen. My pots of basil, however, are lush and leafy. Made with grocery store tomatoes sweetened with sea salt, fresh mozzarella, Spanish olive oil, and just-snipped basil leaves from my pots on the terrace, we had Caprese salad on toasted bread yesterday for lunch. As Stan’s brother, Jeff, used to say, it was larruping good.
We are spending our last few days here in the Chilches community using up our bus passes to Malaga, walking its beautiful streets, visiting a couple of museums, and having a last few meals of tapas and cervezas. We are also taking care of business, getting haircuts, planning, packing, and cleaning.
On next Tuesday the second segment of this nine-month adventure begins. This one is sure to be a learning experience with certain uncertain outcomes. All we know right now is that the city is modern, and our apartment looks quite nice with room for guests–hint, hint! The roads between cities are terrible, the weather this time of year is mild and humid, food choices are limited, and Spanish is the predominant language. I don’t care. As long as I am with Stan Weeks, I can live anywhere.
Come with us to Asuncion, Paraguay. I think many stories are waiting for us there.
A sample of the photographic art collection entitled Maria, the Woman, by Peruvian born, Maria Acha-Kutscher, displayed at free museum at La Malagueta Plaza de Toros (Malaga Bullring)
