Heading to Italy

 August 29,2022

Our two weeks in Spain will come to an end tomorrow. We visited some beaches, hiked some mountain peaks, had a front-row view of the Tour de Spain, ate and visited family, a lot of family, a lot of eating. Enrique is one of 13 children. One brother lives in Truckee, the other 11 live in Spain. We visited with 9 of them, and none speak English. It’s been a great opportunity to practice and improve on my Spanish, but whenever we visited the nieces and nephews, who do speak English, I was happy to convert back to speaking English, to give my brain a rest.

Food is an important part of Spanish culture. We ate a small breakfast and around 2:00-3:00, we ate a huge lunch of soup, salad, main course, fruit, cheese and, of course, plenty of bread and wine. I could have been happy to just eat that one big meal a day, but around 9:00-9:30, a smaller dinner was served. And when food is served, you eat. I love Spanish food, but on this visit, eating has not been as enjoyable for me. I lost my sense of taste and smell two months ago when had Covid, and it has not returned yet.😟

Enrique grew up in a small village in a mountain range called Picos de Europa. The town, Colio, has about 30 stone houses, all of them over 100 years old, some over 200 years old. We stayed in Enrique’s family home which has 7 bedrooms (for the 13 kids), a small kitchen and one bathroom, which was put in when Enrique was around 14 years old. An outhouse before that. The original wooden floors are intact, but a little warped. The mountain peaks loom up over the town and the whole place feels magical. Time has no meaning there. We stay up late and sleep late. People stop by to visit unannounced and stay for an hour or two or more. For a touch of civilization, we visit the closest town of Potes, 5 miles away.

Now that my Spanish is improving and I’ve done all of this eating, we are ready to move on to our next adventure in Italy. Supposedly, Spanish and Italian are very close languages, but considering the difficulty people had understanding me in Spain, I don’t think my Spanish will help me much in Italy. And after sitting around and eating for two weeks, beginning our walk on September 1st, will probably feel quite painful.😂