Inception

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Geo: 50.0924, 8.68195

Dear Spain,

I was a fool. I beg for your forgiveness. My indiscretions with Croatia and Montenegro were only fleeting moments of fancy, where I was caught in a whirlwind of desire and emotion. They both meant nothing to me; deep down, I only thought of you while I was with them. I am a horrible pig, that will forever live with the guilt and the shame of cheating on you ... I hope that you can find a way to forgive me, with the boundless love that only you can offer.

My life had been dark and empty without you and once again, your beautiful light has illuminated my heart and soul, filling my memory with beautiful moments that will forever be cherished. You, and you alone, are the only one for me.

Perdóname mi amor ... serás en mi corazón para toda la eternidad, y espero que me quedaré en tuyo también,

Patricio

Spain ... how is that you so easily reduce me to nothing more than a cheese ball?

If you've seen the movie Inception, you know that the movie's characters carried around a token - an object that served as a test to determine whether they were dreaming, or in the waking world. The idea is that it's a personal object, so only that person can know the weight and feel of it, and thus cannot be deceived and unknowingly be stuck in someone else's dream. Just by holding it in their hand, they can tell what is real and what isn't.

Well ... L'il Buddha has been my token for this trip. I've been to so many incredible places and seen so many stunning sights on this trip, it's been such a blur ... at times, it seems like one big, beautiful dream. L'il Buddha has always been at my side, and has served as proof that it all has been real.

But sadly, the time has come to awaken from this beautiful dream ... goodbye Spain ... goodbye Julia ... sigh ... she's so cute - when I told her that it was time for me to leave, she told me "No! You're not allowed!" I said that the next time I returned, I might not be coming all the way from Canada, that perhaps I'll be coming from somewhere in Spain, if I ever do end up making the move here. As I left, I also reminded her to find me a Spanish wife for the next time I return 😊

The way I see it, Spain keeps giving me reasons to return - such as when I was waiting at the stop to get to the bus station. If you could somehow mix Nelly Furtado and Jordana Brewster, you would have the Miss Spain who was also waiting for the bus. How is something like that even possible??? If there is one thing that Spain has taught me over the years, it's that things like that are ALWAYS possible here.

I'm a man desperately clinging to my last few moments in Spain, so this morning's pre-flight activities included doing some traditional Spanish activities - such as having another cafe con leche, and chocolate con churros. I still don't understand why, but in Santander they like to grill their croissants on the plancha grill, kinda ruining them. Not feeling so hot after eating that, the greasy churros and heavy chocolate made me feel positively ill.



But what made me feel like throwing up was having to step onto that plane - though I still have one night left in Frankfurt before flying home the following day, I'm treating it as more of a long layover before going home, so leaving Spain is effectively the end of the trip. BOOOOOOOO!!! The flight to Frankfurt was an interesting experience, being my first time aboard a Ryanair flight. They pride themselves on having the best on-time performance of any airline in Europe, and you can see how everything they do is geared towards this.

Flying from smaller airports where there are few flights, and therefore few delays waiting for other flights to takeoff/land, is a big one. The cattle call-style seating that gives people a sense of urgency, so they quickly rush on board and grab a spot without dilly-dallying is another. They even have you stand waiting in a lineup for boarding, a good 20-25 minutes before anybody actually sets foot on the plane, so that attendants can check everybody's tickets before the plane is even ready for boarding.

One thing that stood out was the lack of seat-back pockets - perhaps this is for quicker clean-up and turnaround between flights, since there is no place to put things or stuff garbage that later needs to be removed. But where do you keep the barf bags? Do they charge you for it? Ryanair is famous for charging for every little extra, after all. But where does it stop? In event of an emergency, do they charge you for the life vest or the breathing masks? Want oxygen to flow through the mask? More money! Is there a coin slot you pop money into to keep the oxygen going?

But hey - whatever the formula is, it obviously works for Ryanair and though they charge for all extras, you can't beat the prices. Our flight also actually arrived 15 minutes early, so they must be doing something right. The bad thing about today's flight is that we flew into the Frankfurt Hahn airport, which was only renamed that as a marketing gimmick for discount airlines that fly there - the airport is one hour and 45 minutes by bus to Frankfurt, which is as long as the flight from Santander.

I had planned to fly home from London, but later decided to fly home Frankfurt, despite this costing a bit more. The reasons for this were twofold - the first was that I thought I'd be able to visit Emilie here before leaving. But unfortunately, it turned out that she was leaving for India just before I arrived - boooooo!!! The second reason was that the London flight departed on Saturday instead of Sunday, so flying from Frankfurt gave me an extra day in Spain. How could I say no to that?

Late Night You-Tubing Moment: At its best, traveling is like living the most beautiful dream. At its worst ... it's still pretty damn good. One of my favourite songs of all time (it's quite the long list) is Staind's So Far Away. Some of the lyrics perfectly encapsulate the ideal travel experience "And these are my dreams/That I'd never lived before", "These are my words/That I've never said before/I think I'm doin' okay/And this is the smile/I've never shown before"

And the way the song ends - "I'm so afraid of waking/Please don't shake me/Afraid of waking/Please don't shake me" - if travel really is all just a beautiful dream, it's one you don't want to wake up from. It's funny that the dreams you've never lived before, the words you've never said before, and the smile you've never shown before ... are usually found when all that you know is so far away ...

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