4 bedrooms

There are three major cities between SJPP and Santiago, we had planned to have a rest day in each. Leon is near the end of the Meseta, which means the mountains and the last push into Santiago are coming.  In fact, we could see those mountains in the distance, standing tall taunting us.  “Yeah, so you think you are gonna make it?  You got to get over us first”. 

We have also been traveling for more than a month, and homesickness was beginning to show its signs.  Any cross-cultural experience, no matter how spectacular, can take its toll.  Those magical crusty baguettes suddenly become “ahhh... more bread...it hurts the top of my mouth... I just want a taco already.”   Remember, just cause they speak Spanish, doesn’t mean they are Mexican.  I would do anything for some chips and queso right about now.  And the amazing cultural experience of a sleepy town during siesta becomes, “Seriously!  The pharmacy is closed AGAIN at 2:00 in the afternoon”.  You can love a country, and still feel like you need a cup of ranch dressing.  

You can also love your family and still want to leave every last one of them if they sit on your bed before they shower one more time.   So in Leon, instead of an AirBnB with an amazing cultural view, we found one that faced a blank wall BUT had four bedrooms.  Four separate bedrooms!  The hands-down best thing about this experience is how much time we have together.  The hands-down worst thing about this experience is how much time we have together.  Turns out when Claire runs out of questions to ask, she will start telling you about entire episodes of Phineus and Ferb.  This is no one's favorite quality about her.  Charlotte and Jake are introverts who have had exactly 0 hours of alone time this month, believe me, you can tell.  They stopped hiding this fact a month ago.  I love to feel like I’m traveling authentically, so I give away my phone but then borrow Jake’s phone exactly 326 times a day.  I’m a joy to travel with.  Living abroad doesn’t mean you are living a vacation.  It just means you are living in a different place, with all your same “stuff” from home.  Only here you are also without your normal support systems and it is in Spanish.  I’m crabby before coffee at home, I’m crabby before café con leche aqui.  

So a day, without running around looking at cathedrals and bulls and culture was needed prior to our own personal international incident.  I had my own space and I thought I had made it, then Jake found a Burger King that DELIVERED and I remembered why I brought him to Spain, although he still needed to stay in his room.   We all made our orders, grabbed our devices, and went our separate ways for the day.  The only real interaction we had with each other, was Jake and I had a good old American fight about who was gonna have to answer the door for the delivery guy.  It was the perfect fight, just like we have at home.  When it got late we then ordered too much Chinese food, we will blame the “too much” on the metric system.   One of our favorite things to do internationally is order Chinese food.  It tastes like home but is different in every country, according to the local ingredients.  Spanish Chinese food is glorious, my best guess is that it’s the oils they use, at any rate the “too much” became just enough.  We are ready again, ready to crush the last 300km, but it sure felt great to act American for a day.