Farewells…

Somehow the weather makes us the farewells easier than they would normally be. Just like in Merida, where it started raining and being overcast during our last week and Kerala were we had monsoon-like rain the weather in Andalucia has started to good bad on us. Ironically it happened on the very same day Uli and Uli decided that this was definitely spring weather now and the bit of a cold spell we had had was over. Barely three hours later it started to rain. They really do need the rain here, really, but did it have to be this week, all week until Saturday, our last day here? Needless to say that I a) hate rain with a vengeance, especially when it is cold to boot, b) didn’t think it wise to bring any type of rain protection – umbrella, coat, hat, boots, anything - and c) the rain has turned all of Frigiliana into a riverbed. The water is gushing down the steep streets and steps like a mountain to Max’s delight how both likes stomping around the water and his newest English word: “puddle” which he thinks is hilariously funny. “look, Mama, I am stomping around a PUDDLE – hehehehehe!” Needless to say that Frigiliana doesn’t offer much entertainment on a rainy day, nor does Nerja or even Malaga as the usual options: Picasso Museum, other museums etc are out for obvious reasons - we love our son, truly, dearly, but he is in a bit of a destructive phase and covering the carpet with salt is one thing – an entirely different thing is throwing a “firecracker” at a Picasso painting – an act that could devastate our financial future. So we are talking walks around Frigiliana, are visiting the Internet Café or book store in Nerja, go “visit” the canons on the Balcon de Europa and throw rocks into the Mediterranean. We had hoped to take a trip to Cordoba this week but the weather there is no better than here and the idea of sitting around a hotel room in the rain is frankly even less enchanting then the idea to sit around a house in the rain. I checked the weather forecast from Barcelona to Tangiers and, guess what, even in Morocco it is raining right now – we’d have to go as far as Lisbon to get somewhat more decent weather – not sun, mind you, just a reduction from the 100% probability of precipitation to like 35%. Well, Mom told me that they had freezing temperatures in Konstanz so I guess I should be quite happy with the low 60s we got here.
I started the usual packing ordeal that has come to characterize the last week wherever we go. Basically we have too much stuff and it’s too heavy (those darn books) but it’s not so easy to get rid of stuff either. We’ll be traveling another three months and I don’t want to find myself without some options in the reading and dressing department. It doesn’t really help that both Sevilla and Cadiz each had several Zara stores which I just had to visit and, while there, buy a few things to get a bit of a break from the stuff I have been wearing for three months now. Then there is of course the international used book store in Nerja which overwhelmingly sells junk like Danielle Steel and those cheap thrillers for sale in every airport in the world but they also have a few gems, some of which – along with some cheap thrillers – we picked up the other day. Well, a whole bag full, really. No idea when I’ll next lay eyes on a book in a language I can actually read so better safe than sorry. It stands to reason that there are international bookstores in Florence but I am one of those nervous types who takes three books and five magazines on a weekend trip, just in case, and fears nothing – short of bad weather – more than being stuck somewhere, anywhere without an adequate supply of reading materials. So packing is going to be tricky but I am an old hand at it now and as long as I do the packing and Uli the schlepping it will be okay.
Our son, in his usual way, is majorly obsessed with everything that shoots at the moment. I had sort of felt smug and self-righteous about the fact that he never played with sticks pretending to be guns etc. thinking that we as parents had done an amazing job bringing up a peaceful, tool-loving little boy who couldn’t care less about destruction and the handy tools used to bring it about. Well that was before the firecrackers in Shiva’s honor in Kerala. Ever since it has all been about shooting, canons, guns, pistols, gun-powder, bullets and every possible derivative thereof - non-stop. Literally, he talks about shooting canons, crackers, and bullets 12 hours a day, non-stop in a constant flow of “and then you place the canon ball into the canon and use some powder and then you ignite it and the canon ball will shoot out.” “Mama, the policeman had a pistol on his right side and a Leatherman (knife) in the back.” “Mama!! Are you listening? I am telling you a story about pistols.” “The people in Nerja can’t shoot their canons anymore. Know why? Papa said they run out of gunpowder. They should go and by some more.”
“Papa, you have to give me some money and then I will shoot a firecracker for you. But first you have to walk around the temple over there.”
“Max, dear, that is an ice-cream parlor, not a temple, they don’t have temples in Spain.”
“But they have Iglesias! Can I shoot a canon in an iglesia?” - and on it goes, without a break, with hardly enough time to draw a breath. And I thought his geography obsession was bad – how I wish we could go back to naming capitals of small African countries for entertainment rather than discussing the advantages of black vs. red gunpowder. I am trying not to be too negative because I know from firsthand experience that that will back-fire, the more we discourage him the more obsessed he will become. So far reverse psychology hasn’t worked either, though. I guess we’ll just have to wait until this one burns out, pun intended, and we are off to the next thing, whatever that might be, short of wanting to construct a nuclear war head it can’t possibly be worse. I very much hope we can get him into school in Florence where he can share all his firecracker wisdom with the little Italian boys, they might find the subject as exciting as he does or maybe they turn him onto something else – medieval instruments of torture, maybe, or something innocent like the difference between a Ferrari and a Lamborghini .
Half of our sabbatical is almost over. I can’t believe it and will pretend for a little longer that it isn’t happening and that it will never end. Secretly I am thinking about the next one already, Prague, maybe, Albania sounds interesting and then going back to Laos and how about South Africa … I know I am dreaming but I am on vacation so I might as well.