TEFLees in Spain

I love to travel.

I love airports.

I love layovers and stewardesses and suitcases and new stamps in my passport.  I love duty-free vodka and packaged sandwiches and earphones that only work on planes because they have two prongy things.

I enjoy making friends with the beautiful Danish men who may sit next to me and giving directions to confused people and pulling pretend-looking money from ATMs.  I like watching people hug and cry and yell in foreign languages and making up stories about them in my head.

Most of all, I appreciate the stage of transition.  I thrive in-between.  I relish being missing-in-action — not being in a particular place or with certain people or with any responsibilities.  Maybe traveling is special to me because I can’t — and I’m not expected to — accomplish much more than arriving at point B.   This is almost mandatory space to reflect and anticipate.  Cushion.  Buffer.

Time to think about my life and my plans and my friends and my TEFLees.  Time to think back on all that has changed — and all that has stayed the same — since my last introspective airport terminal appointment.  Time to appreciate how lucky I am to be on the way to my destination or on the way from my origin.  Time to hide in a hole with gobs of other people just like me.

That’s life in Spain to me.  The big standstill transition where I am allowed to relax, spend too much money, meet strangers, and think.  Life in Madrid is my layover that gives me time off the record to enjoy the journey.