Hola, I have returned

Yesterday evening O and I returned from a week in wonderful Spain. I'm not sure which country I love more, Spain or Italy. We've been fortunate to have visited both this year. Spain though has tapas, a language I studied for 4 years, and a touch less machoism than Italy, I think. This trip, in going to Madrid and the Basque region in the north, we finally saw more of Spain than just Barcelona. And there is so much more to see in the country. I want to go back already.

Madrid was hot, as we expected, about 35 C (95 F) every day, but it was the first time I'd experienced a dry heat like that. You feel like a heavy wool blanket is wrapped around you, but you don't instantly get sweaty and sticky. It was quite pleasant. But you really do start dragging in the afternoon. We fell into the Spanish rhythm of sleeping in the hot part of the day and not eating dinner til 10. What a life.

After about 2 1/2 days in Madrid, we flew to San Sebastian to see an older cousin of mine who lives near San Sebastian with his wife and 6-year-old daughter. I hadn't seen them since their daughter was a baby. I was a bit nervous about staying with people I hadn't seen in so long (especially since I find travelling with others difficult sometimes) and I wondered what their daughter was like now, plus I hoped O liked them and that they liked him, but in the end it all went fine. Ok, the 6-year-old could be a bit of a pain at times, but when we went out sightseeing, it was just O, me, and my cousin, so we weren't suffering from kid overload by the end of our stay.

Since they have a car (you kind of need to have one where they live), we got to see so much of the region, though there was so much more to see. We actually spent a fair bit of time on the French side of the Basque area, going as far north as Biarritz. The town my cousin lives in, Hondarribia, shares its bay with the French town of Hendaye, separated by a river that feeds into the bay, so you are across the border in minutes by car. The area has a much more temperate climate than most people associate with Spain, which meant we got rained on a couple of times, but it also means it is much more green. Add some hills and the ocean and you can't help but want to move there.

I'll write a fuller story eventually, but I wanted to post a bit for now. Maybe I should take up the habit of blogging during a vacation, it would make things a lot easier on me...