Leaving Spain tomorrow.

I’ll deeply miss:

– beautiful views

– slow mornings and intense evenings

– walking 10+ km each day

– absence of terrible heat. Normal human summer weather and not the atrocious 8-month-long heatwave where I live

– carrots that taste as they should and not as if they were a relative of plastic

– sweet cherries at €2.30 a kilo. Not a pound. A kilo! It’s $5.99 a pound where I live.

– real ice-cream

– good coffee

– low prices

– sociable people

– books I want to buy

– no insects

– stylish old ladies

– architecture

– indescribably beautiful manicures for €14

– anchovies that are not only edible but actually enjoyable

– ease of buying very comfortable footwear that doesn’t make one look like an elderly duck

I will not miss:

– the perennial “our kitchen is closed and won’t open until 8 pm”

– everything reeking of smoke

– high salt intake

– scarcity of public toilets

– the suspicion that somebody vomited rainbow and Palestinian flags everywhere

– unattainability of eggs cooked overeasy. Or any eggs that aren’t scrambled into cardboard state or poured into scary “potato tortillas”

– shelf milk. I did try it and Lord have mercy

– absence of kids’ menus

– inability to straighten my hair and having to go everywhere with an out-of-control Jewfro

– laundry problems

– sadness and emptiness of malls

– ugly windmills destroying the landscape

– inability to buy a book for Klara

– terrible salads that seem utterly unconnected to the amazing produce

– old men walking around holding hands with very young black boys

– extremely emotional cab drivers

– no Uber except in Madrid

– no Ukrainian flags anywhere

– terrible little Chinese stores on every corner

– being deprived of soup