Last week I took a day trip. The sun rises later in here because of a deal Franco made with Hitler during World War II, so at 8:10 when we met in the lobby, it was still dark. Most mornings I try to avoid looking out my window so I am not reminded of this. We walked to the bus stop and waited, I considered getting something at the café in the train station but resisted, knowing once I got off, a permitted snack would give me a boost for the rest of the morning. Bus ride took us in direction of Madrid, it's last stop being Segovia, a Romanesque cathedral and castle adorned town we visited a few weeks prior. I sat next to Harmon, "I don't know why people bother using these things" he said, motioning towards the foot rest most buses have under the seats in front of you, "Why would you want less room to stretch?". I laughed, Harmon is tall, maybe 6'3", of course he wouldn't know why people used them. Then I realized I didn't know either, why don't I want to stretch my legs? We made small talk until we got to the roundabout with the ugly plane statue fifteen minutes away from the residence hall, and the bus took us to Ávila. Ávila was nice, we walked from the bus stop and because it was only a little past 10 AM there, it was quiet as we walked to the town's center. Four of us got desserts for breakfast, something becoming more common, equally as guilt inducing a month into my time here. I stomached it though, and we went to walk the wall surrounding the town. The wall was used to protect the city from the Turks, it took nine years to build, I guessed it took ten. The wall is long, on it you can see most of the city and a large, long, convention hall. I watched waiters carry white tables and chairs through the floor to ceiling windows and people sip their coffees on the benches outside. After the bridge, we kept walking, I gave out cigarettes, we went to the Cathedral of Saint Theresa. We walked in, I walked down the aisle, did the sign of the cross and sat in the pew in the back. As I sat, looking at the alter, glancing at the ceiling, I watched old people file in, doing the sign of the cross, sitting in the pews in front of me. I stood, kept walking up the aisle, walked back to the candles, lit one and I prayed. The candles weren't real, I remember that the ones at my church at home are real. I haven't prayed in years, not even when my grandma died, don't remember what exactly I prayed for then but I did and then we left. It was sunny, we got lunch, I had some sort of battered meat and a beer, and I was a bit cranky, and we kept walking and then went on a trolley ride. We made the bus back home, and two German brothers sat behind me, one of them read, which made me wish I had turned my overhead light on sooner because I also wanted to read. One German boy is studying Nursing here for a year, he loves to work out and is a non-smoker, though throughout our bus ride I imagined otherwise. We got back to the residence and I put on too many shirts and had a gin and tonic, the tonic water has sugar in it here, I danced and got home too late and then my week started and abruptly stopped last night.
I wonder when I will stop feeling like I have to pray every time I step into a church here. These churches killed people! To think there was I time I though they hurt me most, now they mostly make me miss my mom