Going home

In Sevilla, rumor has it that disgruntled cab drivers are destroying city bicycles. Cloud cover & a muggy cool front this morning have ameliorated the city’s incredible heat. Salmorejo, cherries, & snails are in season, the roses are dying off, & strawberries have become expensive again. This weekend is Spain’s memorial day (literally translated, “day of the armed forces”); in what is probably a telling cultural distinction (as far as what constitutes national pride), I haven’t seen a single Spanish national flag. Barça is the best football team in the world, polls show the PP with a 4-point lead over the PSOE in next Sunday’s European Union elections, and the Real Madrid football team is having its own leadership shakeup. Front page of this morning’s Sunday El País has Florentino Pérez saying, “El Real Madrid necessita una revolución.” 

My last day of school was this past Thursday, the room I rented in Jaén is empty, white & scrubbed clean, & everything I own is in suitcases. I’m told unofficially that my contract has been renewed for next year, but that I won’t know my placement until the end of June.

Traveling again, dislocated & floating. Back to the States on Tuesday via Sevilla, Barcelona, & Munich. That’s me up there – I’m two years old, it’s early 1989, I think I’ve just been dropped off at my grandparents’ house while my mother goes to the hospital to give birth to my sister. That kid – I think I know how he feels.

Lots to think about when I’m sitting still again. Expect some of it to appear here, at length, over the next month.