Adiós, Barcelona

We left Barcelona almost two weeks ago and have been itinerant since then, traveling around northeastern Spain and a bit into France. In future posts I'll tell you more about where we've been and what we've done. It's been mostly good, some fantastic, but at this point we are all tired of living out of suitcases and a tiny rental car. Our flight back to the U.S. is tomorrow and we are looking forward to it. Well, I hate flying, but I am looking forward to the time after the flight when we will be in one stable location again (if you consider the U.S. stable...). 

Leaving Barcelona was rough. For one thing, it was a lot of work. We rented through AirBnB and we weren't responsible for a thorough cleaning, but because we had been there for five months and it felt like home I wanted to to leave it in decent shape. So on top of figuring out how to cram all of our stuff plus some new purchases back into suitcases, I did a fair amount of deep cleaning during our few days. It was not excessively heavy work, but Barcelona was getting uncomfortably warm by the end of June (and we did not have A/C), so it was pretty tiring. 

However, the much harder part was emotional. I loved living in Barcelona. Even though it was sort of fake, temporary living, and we were stuck at home--completely at home--for over two months, I loved it. Not all of it, obviously. Some parts were horrible and scary and stressful and took us to the edge of what we felt capable of. And we didn't get to do the traveling that we wanted to. But despite it all we still got to have the experience of living in a totally new place, a new continent, with a new language (two new languages!). Each morning I woke up in a sunny, bright apartment with a beautiful view out my bedroom window. I didn't have to get the kids up for school, or make lunches, or decide what uncomfortable work-appropriate clothes to wear, or haul myself to campus. I got to work from home (not ideal, but it sort of worked), read a ton, watch some TV, spend time with the kids (also not always ideal, but it sort of worked), discover and play around with new recipes, and take a Spanish class. And during the two months when we were not stuck at home, we had such easy access to the most incredible luxuries that I do not have in my tiny, rural-suburban neighborhood at home (yes, I'm talking about sidewalks). 

So, leaving all of that was difficult. Add to that, obviously, that the U.S. is not doing well. Every day the news gets worse. The coronavirus situation in Spain is not perfect, and there are isolated areas back in lockdown, but overall the virus is fairly well-controlled in Spain, as well as in much of Europe. In contrast, I read about the numbers in the U.S. and it is simply horrifying. I didn't think that DE was doing all that badly, but NY, NJ, and now PA have placed DE on their quarantine lists. I think it's because of hotspots in the beach communities, but it's a small state and everyone is affected. (In contrast, we drove from Spain to France to Andorra, back to France, and back to Spain without even slowing the car down at any border.) From what I hear from my friends in the U.S. life has been pretty stressful. I'm trying not to worry because there's nothing I can do about it, but I do wonder about what this means for school in the fall, visiting friends and family, getting out of the house, etc. Here in Spain the quarantine has been strict, and we don't have friends or family around, so we haven't had to face many questions of whether our planned or desired activities are safe or not. But when we get back we'll have to start thinking again about the safeness of various social events. Unless we go back on full lockdown and then no problem! We're good at that. So, there are a lot of unknowns as we head back. We know both work and school will be nothing like what we last experienced before our trip. But we are happy to be coming home to our local friends and, of course, our pets, who we hear have been well cared for (read: got fat) while we were gone. To be clear, that last part refers specifically to the pets, not the friends. 😸

My computer is about to die and I'd like to pack it up so I will close by saying that one thing I am excited about is the motion I start to see in the right direction toward racial equity. There is so far to go and I know whatever happens won't be enough and there are plenty of strong opponents (like our president!). But it does seem like some changes are starting to occur and it gives me hope. 

Well, adiós for now! The next post will come from Hockessin, DE.