España 6/02/10 (part 4)

6/2 12:00pm
Left my first pen on the last plane. So it goes. Flying to Madrid from Frankfurt now.
The pat of German butter on my lunch tray says "82% Fett". Boba?
The water bottle that came with my meal speaks nine languages. I might speak two. They've got leather seats in this plane; it's like being in my car, but thousands of feet up, and thousands of miles away. Sleepy. Coffee in a tiny cup is my friend.

6/2 3:36pm
Starting a four hour bus ride to Leon. Cute little Spanish girl (maybe two and a half) saw a sign for the airport shuttle bus and said "chu-chu" to her mom. She was so happy, despite being tired. Vera jumped right in and helped out the girl's mom with her stroller and diaper bag. She's a great grandma.
It's hot here in Madrid; summer camp heat. All the Arrowhead campers know what I'm talking about. David Robles is cool already; a taller Ruben Videra. He's stickin' back in the city to pick up Henry Tolopilo for a conference some time in the coming week. We're riding in a huge van or a small tour bus; we each have our own double-seat bench. "Vogue" by Madonna was playing when we got in. Right now it's Bedingfield's "Unwritten". They drive on the right like in the States, and there are VWs and Sprinters everywhere. I think I’m gonna fit in.

6/2 4:36pm
An hour later. I must like writing, or at least "hearing" my own voice. Everyone but the driver is asleep. I keep wanting to text someone, anyone. Maybe Ed, maybe not. To share this awesomeness. To joke, to poke, provoke, invoke.
The rocks on the side of the road are jagged here; square, wrinked and kinked. Wind-powered generators on the hills and my shirt. Highway quiet and straight ahead. On my way. Speed limit changes every few thousand feet. What do I miss? Parallel lines, perpendicular ones, complex tangential ones?

6/2 8:08 pm
This place is great. This is the Europe that I thought only existed in romantic tales of Tolkien and... Melville? Hemmingway? The paint in my room (my OWN room? Are you kidding me?) is seafoam green; the doors across the street are faded blue. There are short railings around all the second story doors and BIRDS! Not rats with wings, but dive-bombing little swallows. A WWII motorcycle just passed. If I saw Jason Bourne run up the marble steps past me, I would think "this is how it's supposed to be".
There's a warm bleach smell to everything, like Hurricane Harbor, the scent of swimsuits, parties, and summer.
Maybe I'm lonely and lying to myself about what I should do. Can't believe I'm here. Both in life and body. I can't NOT hope. It's raining now; endless semi-vertical ellipses down the window. Slashes of splashes on glass.
I'm reading the third book in the "Hitchhikers" trilogy, "Life, the Universe, and Everything". It includes a scene where the main character(s) look up from the planet into a starless sky. I turned the light off, and tried to stare into the darkness of my room, only to discover that the ceiling was covered with glow-in-the-dark stars. It was magical, the kind of magic that you want to share. Exactly what I needed. I love this.