graduation goggles

We're on the cusp of spring. The winter clouds have dispersed to reveal that persistent Mediterranean sun, the storks have returned to their belfry nests, and the mountainside has begun sprouting its carpet of purple and yellow flowers. People walk down the streets dabbing their allergen-assaulted eyes, but not even the pollinated air can keep the heliophilic Spaniards from their plaza cervezas. They leap from bar to bar, chasing the afternoon sun as it slowly abandons the square.

Only eleven weeks left in Zafra. At the end of May we'll set out on the 50-hour journey to Madrid, Moscow, Bangkok, and finally Surat Thani, where we'll be moving into a big house with seven English teachers and enjoying the city life again. Surat's a bit bigger than Bloomington. It has fast food restaurants, shopping malls, and internet cafes. I can't help but laugh at the notion of leaving Europe to move to the modern world of the monsoon-plagued, pit-viper infested southern Thailand, but I guess leaving Zafra for most places in like stepping into the future.

I'll miss this little time capsule of a town, with its cold sunshine wine, its noisy, friendly, musical people, its ancient belltowers and terra cotta rooftops and cobblestone plazas. I'm excited to start something new, but as my time here winds down, I'm beginning to reflect on how wonderful this place has been for me. I'm a better person than I was before I threw away my law school apps and left my comfy Midwestern life, and I've got Zafra to thank for that.