Don’t think twice (Colmenar Viejo)

”It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, if you don’t know by now.
It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, it don’t matter anyhow.
When the rooster crows at the break of dawn,
look at your window and I’ll be gone.
You’re the reason I’m travelling on,
but don’t think twice, it’s alright.

So long honey, baby where I’m bound I can not tell.
But goodbye is too good a word babe,
so I’ll just say fare thee well.”

Colmenar Viejo is a town located 40km north from Madrid, right where the mountains begins.
I lived here for 5 years before moving to Paris, last year.

As you have read in a previous post, my sister Marisa is now an au pair in Germany, which means that the eternal issue of sharing a room at home is over.
As a consequence, I get a whole huge room (with heating system!) just for myself and I sleep like a king/queen for probably too many hours. It feels good :).

First impressions on arrival? Everything is so clean and organized, and the shower is huge and warm! This is luxury.

Day 1.
My sister’s birthday, so she chooses, and her decision is to go to a spa. So this is the first day of my life that I go to a spa! There’s a pool with bubbles, a ‘dead sea’ to float, different jets, a turkish ‘bath’ (steambath at 40-50 °C), a sauna (at 91 °C! And of course an ice-cold shower right after…).
It’s awesome!

In the evening we eat an apple pie to celebrate my sister’s birthday; my parents are amazing in cooking! We miss Marisa in the whole picture but she’ll be here soon… though I’ll be gone by then!

Later on we watch as well part of the movie Human (I really recommend it if you haven’t seen it, it’s free on Youtube 😉 ).
I spend the next hours talking with my brother until 1:30am about so many different topics… Our midnight talks were always interesting :).

Day 2.
Today I focus on my blog since catching up is getting harder and harder, and I want to write the last post during the last day.
I take a bus to Tres Cantos, the one I used to take every day to go to highschool and to visit Bea.
Bea. She is my best friend and though I’m not going to tell her story, I can certainly say that she’s a wonderful person, one of those who spread light and love into this world. Meeting her again is like a sweet summer breeze.
I do one of my favourite things here around: singing on the bridge next to the fields. And with this sunset it just adds a plus to the feeling of freedom.

”The impossible only takes a little bit longer” is written on the bridge.

Day 3.
I start to feel bored. I keep working on my blog, I try to play videogames but it just won’t work, for some reason it doesn’t feel like fun anymore and I end up with a headache after 10 minutes, which makes me feel sad. Nintendo 64 was a childhood memory I like to bring to life when I visit my family. On the other hand, I realize that I haven’t missed the TV at all. I live without a TV in Paris and pretty much haven’t watched it now for over a year. When it’s on at other people’s houses, I find it’s not  contributing with anything. It’s actually just distracting. The good and the bad impressions come together, and in general, I find myself liking Spain and the town.
I’ve never really felt part of Spain, nor it being my Home. But the rejection to its lifestyle has backed down, and I look at it all with different eyes.
As if I had met a child in here, and every street reminded me of that child, in some sweet way I can’t explain.

At night I play board games with my family and I remind myself that I should go to the fields, my favourite place in Spain.

Day 4.
Every day is sunny here. It’s not too cold, around 8 ºC, and the weaher is just beautiful. I had forgotten about this blue sky day after day.
I’m definitely a summer person.
We spend the day preparing for Christmas, since my whole family is coming over.
In the afternoon I go to see the sunset to the fields ❤ .

Day 5.
Christmas day. I was looking forward to this moment.
Once a year my family gathers. My grumpy grandpa and his fit 91-years-old brother (the last two from 11 kids); my wise and lovely grandma; my aunt, uncle  and cousin from Tenerife (the Canary Islands); my aunt, uncle and 3 cousins from Ciudalcampo (around Madrid); and ouserlves. 16 people.
But this year is not the same than other years and I realize it’s impossible to catch up with everybody in one day, and we all change every year. Some of them are with the tablet or the phone all the time (and not necessarily teenagers), others only complain and try to install their opinion (someone told me: ”You are a good person but you are missing the touch”, which means that I’m not good enough because I’m not following the catholic religion), and most of the them just asked me for my plan for the future, because ”I need a plan and can’t live day by day”.
It all ended up in disappointment, and though I had some very nice conversations (I loved talking with my uncle in Bahasa Indonesia!) , my favourite moment of the day was sitting outside watching the mountains and the last light of the day fading slowly and beautifully.
I realize that that moment alone in the cold and the mountains was necessary to find my piece of peace and remember to breath.
You can’t enjoy if you’re not happy yourself.

I still love my family for who they are and I wish them all the best for whatever’s coming. Me too, I’ll change with the years.

Day 6.
Today is my favourite day of my stay in Colmenar Viejo.
I’m dying for going out in the nature and though it’s a town and I’m not in a big city, I want to be out there in the ‘real’ nature.
So we take the car and go to La Pedriza, located in the Guadarrama mountain range. I’ll let the pictures talk for themselves.

I climb up this rock! 😀

I’m pushing the rock up there…

In the afternoon, Bea comes over to cut my hair and visit the cats ;).

Minus is the king of the house…

…and Sora is a very shy cat who actually loves to be cuddled ;).

Day 7.
Today’s highlight: we go to a musical! I’ve always dreamt of being part of a musical, and every time I go to one I leave with shiny eyes.
Today, however there’s just one slight issue: nobody has checked what it’s about and I get very suprised by the topic: two drag queens and a transgender woman are hired to perform a drag show in Alice Springs (Australia), and to get there they have to cross the desert in their lavender bus and live a comedy of errors on their trip.
I wasn’t expecting guys in thongs, but I have fun anyways. I found it very interesting as well, since they tell how hard it is to be accepted in society as a drag queen/transgender.
I love the choreographies and the singers are very good!
I can’t help leaving a musical feeling inspired. Even the weirdest ones, I love them.

We are sitting in the second raw, and we can see the musicians playing under the stage. Amazing is not enough to decribe it. The man on the picture is the pianist and conductor, using a little camera to comunicate with the other musicians.

A cool guitar player 🙂

The three main characters, without wig.

Day 8.
In the morning I visit Lorena, my osteopath, who tells me that travelling has done me a lot of good. When leaving she says:
– I’ll see you next year, let’s see which trip you’ll tell me then! ;).
In the afternoon I go back to Tres Cantos to spend a few hours with Bea, and visit my grandparents in Colmenar Viejo.
My grandpa doesn’t even turn off the TV, since his life turns around it.
My grandma, who’s in a wheelchair, has arthrosis, a great memory and can’t do anything on her own anymore, sits with me and talks with me. She’s an amazing woman. Her body has failed her but with 89 years old, her mind is brilliant. She’s interested in ecology and politics, she doesn’t watch TV, she reads a lot (since she spends most of her days in bed waiting to die)… Every time I visit her, she inspires me, and her green eyes still shine in that very special way I will never forget.
When I tell her that I prefer going by bus or hitchhiking from one place to anotherrather than by plane, if I have the time, she answers me with a story.
– There where three aboriginal Indians who walked to their job every day. One day, a man organized a car and picked them up, so that they could save time. A while after having arrived to the work place, the man looks at the Indians, who are sitting down, and asks: ”Why are you not working?”. They answer: ”Our body has gotten here very quickly, but our souls don’t travel that fast. We can’t work if our souls haven’t arrived, so we are waiting for them.”
I am very grateful for having such an amazing grandma, even if she has spent the last years in her bed wishing to die. I am very happy I met her.

Day 9.
Today I leave. I’m writting this 4 hours before my bus leaves towards Paris.
It’s all been so short and yet long enough. I’ve never been away from my family for so long, and then leaving after a week visiting.
I have a family of my own now, a place I belong to. At least for now.
I don’t know what will happen, where my siblings will end up and when I’ll see them again. I might come back on a motorcycle next time and give my little sister a ride ;).

I am sad for the mother inside of my mother. A woman who has been working almost every day I’ve been here, and who wishes to be home more often. I wish I could make it better, but this is life. The birds leave the nest, and I am grateful I had such a great family around me for so many years.
I really appreciate the efforts, and mum, you are doing it the right way, I’m proud of you. I’m proud of you doubting about the world, I believe it’s the best way to learn. Remember the 3 lines!
(I used this technique last year: I can complain up to 3 times in one day, and every time I complain I draw a small line on my hand. When I have 3 I can’t complain anymore. I soon started to save up my lines for bigger things, thinking ”Oh, this is not that bad, I’m going to keep my line for a worse thing that’s really worth complaining”. In about 2 weeks I was not complaining at all.)

I leave what never was home, but realizing once again that home is not just where you lay your head, it’s not where you make your bed. Home is people.

Bea ❤