Re-Entry Thought #5

Fall here comes early. Or where did my summer go? Or why are people asking me how my summer was? Isn't it still summer?

Yesterday I sat in on a meeting with the staff I will be working with this fall. At one point we were asked to answer the question, "How was your summer? Highs and lows..." What? My summer? Don't I have a month left? It is only early August, right? Oh, yes, August marks the fall in the states... It's Europe that has August as their vacation month, NOT the US.

I got back to the US early July and haven't really stopped since I got back. I haven't slept in the same house for more than a bit more than a week yet. I haven't yet gotten all my luggage and I definitely have neither had a vacation nor gotten settled yet. I will get settled, but this year there wasn't much time for my birthday and there definitely hasn't yet been time to catch my breathe. I'll be fine, but no I didn't really have a summer. Summer in Spain begins in mid-July and ends the end of September, here it begins in May and ends in early August. So, I got back here "early," meaning early July, but it's early August and I'm gearing up for my vacation, which would generally be in early September. Yes, there is some logic to my crazy emotions even if I definitely feel out of place and a little confused, many times for no seemingly logical reason. Ah, the joys of re-entry. And this doesn't even begin to address the fact that I keep on forgetting meals because it the timing is off, but that's another subject for another day.

Paris, here I come! I'm not quite sure why but I've been wanting to go to Paris all winter long and now am! A friend just happens to have to work there and so I decide to drop by for a couple days. A few days later I met a girl who lives south of Paris with her family and we decide to meet up one day there to hang out and I also realized a good, good friend and her husband just moved there this past monday, so Paris here I come!

dreams of vacation...

I'm looking forward to a bit of vacation, a bit of disconnecting and escaping. I love my life and I love my job and where I live and all, but it would be good to escape a bit, to get away for a bit, to disconnect.

So I started to dream of vacation options (and while these may seem super exotic, since I live in Spain, it is not quite as far-fetched as it might seem). Here's what I came up with... The only problem is that I have vacation in August, with the rest of Europe, so prices are in the high season, which means it's going to take a bit more for it to be cost effective.

Greece - I'd love to go to Meteora and some of the places my family went when they spent 3 weeks in Greece and I was with them for just the last week. I'd love to go to Athens and just hang out, go to Meteora and some of the north, and go to Crete to hike the Gorge that I didn't quite make it to, oh and go to some beach wherever, maybe on some island, but a beautiful quiet beach. The main problem here is tickets are a bit pricier than I'd hoped.

Italy - somewhere in the northern coast, Cinque Terre or somewhere else beautiful, or some island. Somewhere new, but relaxing and somewhat secluded.

A Spanish Island - any of them, but again something tranquila, probably not Ibiza which is crazy and party central.

Or maybe southern Portugal, which is beautiful, a bit more secluded and quiet (at least when I last went 10 years ago in the spring). I could actually drive here which would make the cost cheaper. Hmmm... this might be what I do. Just have to look into alojamiento and some details and someone to go with me.

And, just for your curiosity, if money wasn't an issue, I probably would still pick one of the ones above, but I might also add something more like Israel or in the middle east (I've never been to either of them), or something around Thailand (again I've never been there), Egypt, Tunisia, Japan, etc., It's not the vacation I'm looking for right now, but India, Japan, Thailand, a more adventure vacation also sounds appealing, but for another time. :-)