We lived in Spain for three years. I would have to say my stay there is without question one of my more memorable adventures. The people I met living there are some the nicest people I have met anywhere. Many of them had no money or wealth compared to us, but were willing to give you their goat or share their meal with you even when they couldn't afford to. I will always remember them fondly and wonder to this day if they are doing well.
I believed I mentioned in an earlier post that we had no television the whole time we lived in Spain. We missed some important events back home in the United States while overseas: Dr. Martin Luther King's and Robert Kennedy's assassinations, the Moon landing and the anti-war protests. We were living in this little bubble that was outside the events happening in the States.
So, when we did come back home in 1971 it felt weird. When you get back, your parents go through customs so they put the children in this big room with a television. Oh my God....that's a TV, I almost forgot what they looked like. I remember this like it was yesterday, my first reunion with TV was with a McDonalds commercial. I remember thinking this United States is a very strange place. It really is a hard thing to try to explain. Let's put it this way, when people from other countries don't quite understand the United States I'm totally empathic to that feeling. It's like visiting some place where you used to live or went to school. It looks familiar but it doesn't feel like you belong there. It was like we stayed still in time and the rest of world went ahead without us. Feeling like an alien passed after a few weeks. It was amazing how it is possible to feel like a stranger in your own land.
I have decided to move on, this will be my last post on living in Spain. Next stop....California.
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