To conclude a long trip, I sometimes puzzle over the final blog post. What's a good visual summary that evokes the location? We've been here in Spain for about two months - in good weather and bad, in good times and in bad, in health and in sickness.
I decided that the final image should include the nation's iconic animal - the land of the bull! The quartet above was most obliging in posing.
Goodbye Spain, thanks for the wonderful memories and sights along the way. I look forward soon to sleeping in my quiet bed, in quiet Manomet, in a land where I can speak the language. Travel is a strange and magical and unpleasant and wonderful thing all at once.
Each time I travel I am struck by what a strange thing it is that people all over the world speak different tongues. It is amazing that there isn't even more strife in the world with the challenges and nuance of communication and miscommunication.
Not being a linguist, I must rely on others and my few wits, and pointing, and smiling, and hoping for the kindness of strangers. When I am home and pass a stranger, lost, confused, non-English speaking, I try to stop and help. Maybe I'm not much help but, the kindness and the gesture can make an incalculable difference in someone's journey along their road as a visitor in a strange land. I want to return the thousand kindnesses others have shown me.
So, in case you are wondering, maybe there is a fence between me and these four bulls - and maybe there isn't - I'm not telling but, let's just say I can still move pretty fast for an old guy...........Addios! Spain!
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