¡Vamos a ESPAÑA!

We are going to visit my parents in Zamora, Spain. In 166 days, we (yes, all of us- not the cats or the chickens though) will be headed to Spain (¡VIVA ESPAÑA!) to relieve my homesickness and share my country with the boys, and to visit my parents. We think Jackson will be able to remember this visit better than his first (as he was only 2 months old) Oliver, well I don't think He'll remember, but it is possible I guess. We just got our tickets and now need to work on the passports and other documentation in order to head over. We will be there for 17 days!

The boys are very excited, they have been begging to go (even though they don;t have any idea of what they are talking about) for a long time. After we set a date, I made a chain, yes it is an eternally long chain but I made it because daily Oliver and Jackson would ask me: " Are we going to the Spain after naps?" So thus the calendar chain. Each day at breakfast the boys take turns riping off a loop.

We can all barely contain our excitement...but we will need to for 166 more days!

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???