Remenisces from Spain (by Khelsea)

I think I will miss walking when I get home. Walking to breakfast, walking to school, walking to church, even walking to the bathroom. Walking beaches. I may miss that the most. Swam in the Mediterranean today for possibly the last time. For a while. The waves were crashing and huge, there were our ever present sand fights and water wars. Jen and I took our customary beach stroll, talking, people watching. There are no words for how I will miss the Mediterranean. It has become a boon companion. I know what it feels like, what it smells like, and all too often what it tastes like. All too often.

I think I will miss trips to Carrefour when I get home. It feels odd to be thrilled to go to the grocery store once a week on Fridays. Buying my favorite crackers, and chocolates for snacks. We went to another supermarket when we were in Madrid. Somehow Carrefour feels like home. My home of supermarkets.

I think I will miss spontaneity when I get home. Staying up late standing on the roof with the "Alianza" in a thunderstorm. Or having parties in our hotel room in Madrid... Jen cooking apples, whacking together all the random snacks we had left from supermarket runs and putting them in plates made from scrapes of left over tin foil. Synchronized swimming, soccer and football games, singing after vespers and in the church, and climbing mountains when decent people are taking their Sabbath afternoon naps. Going to an heladeria, the beach, up to a mountain and managing to make it back to the dorm only a little after our 3 o'clock curfew. 3 in the morning. And then doing it all again a couple nights later.

I think I will miss people when I get home. People I laugh with. Stage mock karate battles with on the beach. Wander around to find the next open/free monument in whatever city we happen to be in people. People I stay up late laughing with, telling stories, singing songs. Or talk about Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Poe, Dante and Ellen G. White with. People who join parades and can sing jazz. People who force me to speak in Spanish and then laugh when my "necesitos" come out with an awful accent. People who I share my dreams with. People who walk around Valencia with the flowers I put in their hair. People who do cartwheels and laugh when I fall down the stairs. People who invite me to their houses and drive me home in their cars. Good sorts of people. All sorts of people.