spainsick

(these are photos taken by my dad, my mom and dad live in Zamora, Spain find out more at Jackson in Zamora)

I am spainsick. It is like the same feeling as being homesick, but it is more for an entire feel, rather than just a certain home or just one building. My homesickness encompasses a whole nation, the place where I grew up.


I thought the feelings would subside after the holidays, but really they haven't. Yesterday while going through one of our neglected-to-be-gone-through boxes in the garage I found a bottle of exquisite soap. It is the smell of Spain to me, I walked over to Jackson and Oliver and let them smell it. I said, "this is what Spain smells like".

I know all of Spain doesn't smell like that soap, actually it smells more like cigarette as far as I remember. I know this will sound crazy, but when I first came back for high school and college I would try to get downwind from people smoking, (at a distance) just to smell the smell. Now that I have been away from Spain for over 10 years I understand that that is not a pretty smell. Still though, whenever I walk by bus stops and someone is smoking I walk a bit further and then I breathe in. The smell is not always the same, it must be a certain brand or something. I haven't ever asked. Sometimes when I smell in, it is just a yuky cigarette, and then sometimes it is the key to unlocking the floodgates of spainland memories all over again. What can I say, I'll take the risk of a distance whiff every once in a while.

PS just to clarify, I have never smoked a cigarette in my life.

What about you, what smells make you homesick???