Ah April

     I haven’t had a vacation in a long time.  I have been working every weekday and several weekends since we came back from our winter vacation and with all of those dang freshly squeezed orange juices at breakfast, I can’t even get in a sick day.  Everyone has had spring break but us, right?  But our break is tied to Easter and Easter is late this year and so we wait, and wait, and wait. 

     But who can complain, or get any sympathy if you do, when one turns the page of the calendar and sees two beautiful words on it:  Barcelona and Rome.  This is one of the glorious benefits of living in Tunis: We’ve got amazing neighbors.  The day after school lets out on April 16^th, we are catching a civil 1:00 PM flight to Barcelona.  We will be there, checked into our hotel, well before dinnertime, especially by Spanish customs, and we will have experienced no jet lag.  We will return exactly one week later, having lived the fabulous, gluttonous Spanish life for one week and still have a day to do our laundry before we return to work. 

     Our colleagues ask each other quite a lot now, where are you going for Spring Break?  Just talking about it helps us get by these last three weeks, like a car running on fumes in the tank.  When we say Barcelona, our friends know that that is a fairly inexpensive, local trip.  I have to put this in a broader perspective.  If we were living in Washington State and doing the sort of traveling we did as public school teachers=none, this could be a trip of a lifetime.  It is anyway; I have really high hopes. 

     Spain has put out some brilliant television advertising lately.  Have you seen it?  The commercial shows a healthy, hard working, double income family with about three children.  While the family is enjoying all of the wholesome goodness of the region, there is a series of comments all beginning with “I don’t need” and finishing with statements such as “to see the menu”, “to speak the language”, “to be an expert”, and finally ending with, “I need Spain”.  Well, I get it.  I cannot wait to get there and eat and observe and experience something new.  I NEED SPAIN… first, and then I need Rome.