When is a man on holiday but not on holiday?

When is a man on holiday but not on holiday?


Who cares! Pass me another vino tinto! Such is life here in the holiday town at the holiday school with the holiday people. Life is condensed into disposable packages of two or three weeks. Once opened it must be consumed quickly and it is. Relationships form blossom and decay to be replaced by others. Perspectives transform from innocence to experience as the wine bottle is drained giving weeks the feeling of years and fortnights lifetimes. Already I have experienced the passing of old friends and the birth of new ones. I am as an immortal amongst the mayflies – but can immortals keep pace with the doomed?

The first chapter of my Spanish experience is about to come to a close – not such a bad thing for my liver at least. I have spent the last month being fiesta'd (its something that happens to you rather than by you) in a shared flat with other students, socialising with other students and their tourist friends, amongst a sea of tourists from all over the world. By Monday I will be in a new flat, living with locals, two weeks after that all the friends I have so far made (and one I made earlier) will have left and all that now is will no longer be. It's anything but boring.

Before the end of the beginning begins the start of the now. No I haven't been smoking weed (although you can here in the street and in the bars – and yet its not endemic and the sky hasn't fallen in....) but I am looking forward to three weeks off school and to do some exploring with Andrew (who is visiting from Oz). We will see wild places and places that are wild. No doubt there will be picture and so I will share them with you all, also tales, and some of those too will find their way to these pages. But just now I am contemplating tonight's coming adventures and wondering who I will be tomorrow, and with whom....