midlife crisis...not!

“BIDET” IN FRENCH IS “JACA” IN SPANISH!

April 1, 2008 to April 30, 2008

~I logged Lauren and/or Meagan’s 15 text messages to me during their travels:

1 i love you (September 23/07, Edinburgh, Lauren)
2 its laur. I bought a phone (Edinburgh, Lauren)
3 sounds cool! im in Scotland trying to find work..its amazing here. You should come visit! I want to work for a hostel as wel to pay for accommodation i love you (Edinburgh, Lauren)
4 hey i’m okay! i got ur msgs..in edin now, gave out resume today but tricky w.out visa. thx 4 calling! love you, laur xoxo (Edinburgh, Lauren)
5 can you call me? i need advice..i think I have 3 jobs but no visa! going on pub crawl thurs! how are you? luv laur xox (Edinburgh, Lauren)
6 hey! did you change my pin # for my bank? i can’t access my $..it says someone changed it?! Ahh help! xox laur (Edinburgh, Lauren)
7 hey thx 4 the offer but i’m fine. bank works now so all is good! hows spain? luv laur xox (Edinburgh, Lauren)
8 sorry i just got back in can u try again? (Edinburgh, Lauren)
9 hi guys im in zaragoza and catching a bus 2 jaca @ 730 cant wait 2 get there! (December 13/07, Zaragoza, Meagan)
10 Hola guapa! guess which loco backpackers r en route 2 jaca! see u late 2nite or early 2morrow can u leave a key? – ur kids :-) (January 21/08, Sevilla, Meagan and Lauren)
11 Hola! next bus out of zara is @ 0530 so we will see you in the morning :-) (January 21/08, Zaragoza, Meagan and Lauren)
12 Hola dana! we’re alive but just barely. rough night! made friends avec a banos. good thing i had lo! sry we didn’t call! love (January 1/08, Barcelona, Meagan and Lauren)
13 Hola otha’ motha’! we’re in seville @ samay hostel. let us know where 2 pick u up on friday!! cant wait morocco here we come! (February 28/08, Sevilla, Meagan and Lauren)
14 Coming! (February 29/08, Sevilla, Meagan and Lauren)
15 Bad traffic be there soon! about 10 minutes…can u wait near temp parking? (March 18/08, Paris, Meagan and Nick)

~It takes time to get to know the “right-for-you” people in a new place! I really do like Spaniards! And I love Jaca…and no, I haven’t fallen in love or anything so foolish. It’s just that small communities, even 10,000 people small, (a record big in my recent history of small towns) especially being a foreigner, and especially one like me…it takes people time to adjust and accept and invite you into their true lives, beneath the superficial. Especially when they know, inevitably, you are going to leave. It’s not my first encounter as a small town fly-through.

~Spent an afternoon and evening in a Spanish pueblo of maybe 70 people, all older than me I suspect, in the only bar of Laures playing cards. Now although this may not sound so extraordinary to the common Jose, imagine you and your friend are the only women in said bar, and you alone are the sole non-really-Spanish speaker, and the locals start to pack in as, I imagine, word of mouth is a popular sport in such a rural community. And the foreign game they are trying to teach you, in Spanish, is also played with foreign Spanish cards, which don’t even look anything like I’ve ever met, and there’s an awful lot of drinks being bought, thus consumed…well, I’m glad I had a camera, and I probably could have had a lot of boyfriends of the retirement age had I been wanting. And I haven’t laughed so much in one place since I arrived in Spain! And I think they had their entertainment quota for the decade!

~I know what it is most about a parcel from Canada which I truly like…reading ingredients, tags, labels in English! English is just so foreign here!

~Thanks Jen! For $7.90 pair of airmailed underwear plus the cost of the underwear! They’re featured front and centre hanging on my living room wall! But never fear, I will wear them periodically, possibly on the outside of my clothing, ‘cause they really are special! (On the front Jen has written, “The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live!” And on the rear-end side she has added, “And in the END, it’s not the years in your life that count, it’s the LIFE in your YEARS!”)

~And also thanks for the “Wacky” “Rocks”. I placed them in my bathroom where eventually everyone ends up at some point. In all my years of rock collecting, never have I looked down and spied a rock with words on it…you are amazing! I must mention, Carb and Gas were awfully disappointed, after they noticed the Parcel notification slip lying at our front door, they did notice the absence of Temptation cat treats within the package! Their birthdays were in January-ish,…as both were strays, it’s a random guess! (Hint)

~You know when a new town is beginning to feel like home when you start taking shortcuts…and you can leave the map at home with confidence.

~While Gas is my Zen master, Carb is of the higher-maintenance variety of spirituality!

~God, I miss the days in the land of yards…and grass and trees etc…where the cats could go outside and shit in other people’s gardens! Small apartment, big smells!

~I’ve reached that place in life where I’ve decided I look better with clothes on!

~Turkish laundry lady shrank jeans in dastardly dryer, 8 months of stretching capris into full length-ers down the drain!

~Probably the highlight of my month was my FACELIFT, of the unintentional type and certainly free! Went snowshoeing at a 2,300 m altitude for a day…a very sunny day, with only one too-late application of sunscreen. I am reminded of the Turkish Bath peeling process, only this ain’t dirt, this be flesh! As I have never really burned before, it has been a really curious experience watching my face fall off!

Well, I’ll be off to Latvia now! Hope they speak English, Spanish or French there!
Hasta mayo, muchos besos, dana xoxo