Column A, Column B

I’ve been in Spain for 9 months.

Things I have missed:

• Family and friends
• A dryer (but only sometimes)
• Michigan beer
• Spicy food
• Customer service
• Central heating (but only for about two months)
• Fall & Spring foliage
• My gato

Things I haven’t missed:

• Driving
• Crappy weather
• Driving in crappy weather
• Expensive produce
• Expensive food & drink in general
• 2am cutoffs
• Coffee in to-go cups
• Sleep deprivation

140/365

Today we went to la Isla de Tabarca – the small (barely) inhabited island off the coast of Alicante. It is full of small sunny streets, stray cats, and unbelievably clear water. I want to come back with snorkeling gear.

134/365

My afternoon.

133/365

Of late, Saturday night has become the night to run around on the beach with a tripod. This week we had our cameras focused on the sea when we noticed another type of light that had appeared at our backs. (It made me think of the night market in Detroit.)

132/365

El Barrio de la Santa Cruz, with it’s narrow streets and brilliant colors.

Semana Santa

Elaborately braided palms on Domingo de Ramos

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when life in a new place just becomes life. For me the epiphany has occurred when I come back to Spain from trips other countries, and breathe a sigh of relief to be back home – because it feels suspiciously like home. Obviously I am still a guiri, and a thousand little contrasts show it (I haven’t found the unspoken but unanimously adhered to schedule for what date it’s okay to wear short sleeves or a skirt without tights, or just how sunny it can be out before you leave the house without a scarf.) In the streets waiters and strangers speak English at my American face. But the overwhelming feeling of otherness has faded. Routines have normalized. Several months ago I still was a little baffled when Spanish camareros brought a knife and fork with a croissant. Now if I order a croissant with my coffee and it doesn’t come with silverware, I feel a little affronted – what am I, a savage?

All the same, at the back of my mind I am aware of the contrasts, as I begin to pull together details for what my life will look like in the coming year. I already am aching at the thought of going home (although home has begun to waver and shift) and leaving behind little things here: the glint of the sea on my morning commute, the ability to sit down and drink a coffee slowly with coworkers in the middle of the school day.

And just as life in Spain feels normal, Semana Santa happens.

106/365

I had a brief tour of Naples today. There were many beautiful things – I loved the old streets and the looming doorways – but this was also noteworthy.

105/365

While staying with my former roommate at her house in Aversa, a suburb of Naples, we took a trip to nearby Caserta to the Reggia di Caserta, which the designer of Versailles built for the Bourbon kings of Naples. We walked the incredibly long garden pathway – mostly in the rain – and got a bit lost in the extensive English garden.

104/365

I visited the ruins of Pompeii on a grey and rainy day, where if I could avoid the few determined tour groups beneath bright bobbing umbrellas, I could wander by myself in silence, except for the sound of rain on my umbrella. Most of the buildings are empty and roofless, but some of the graceful houses are still intact, around green courtyards open to the rain. The frescoes were the most striking to me – old, old colors still bright and alive after so many years.

103/365

The main square in Pompei – the small modern town that is not to be confused with the ruined ancient town directly adjacent.

I took a peaceful and relatively comfortable train from Rome to Naples, and from there another train to Pompei that was neither peaceful nor comfortable. Packed in between a mass of humanity, I was shoved at a precarious angle over the back of a seat, in the midst of a group of Italian friends whose wild gesticulating was entirely stereotypical and very unfortunate since my face was right in the line of the passionate hand-flailing.

I got off the train at the other end of town from my hostel, as it was getting dark. I dragged my suitcase through cobblestone streets, guided by contradictory and varying directions (Go 1 kilometer and turn right. / You must promenade for about 4 kilometers and turn left. / No sé, mas o menos dos kilometers…) Along the way I was trailed by a pack of stray dogs and hit on approximately a thousand times. When I finally wandered my way to my destination, I was hailed by an older Italian gentlemen at a local bar’s patio, who happened to be the hostel’s friendly and talkative owner. At the hostel, I was handed over to the other staff member – another Italian yayo who, for lack of any common language, showed me to my huge empty dorm room via a series of grunts and pointed fingers.

In other words – welcome to the modern Pompei.