On the highway

Yesterday I was in Granada to evaluate another study abroad program for APUNE (Asociación de Programas de Universidades Norteamericanas en España) and on the drive there I had a very strange experience. I was nearing the top of the climb where the Pedrizas is, when out of the blue I had the most vivid sensation of having my seven year old self take hold of my mind, and so all of a sudden I'm thinking, wow! this what it's like to drive a car. Cool! Someday I'm really going to do this... no wait, I AM driving a car! How bizarre is that? When I got to the Abades service area I stopped for a breakfast break and snapped myself back into a more time appropriate reality. (Actually, not an easy task, because whenever I stop at this service area, and it's the main one between Malaga and Granada, I feel like I'm a character in The Jetsons! [There was a photo, but the link went bad--it's a space age looking place.]) The evaluation, by the way, went well. Unfortunately, it was cold and rainy in Granada and I spent the entire day with wet feet. Oh, did it feel good to get back to sunny, warm Malaga and change into some dry socks! Made me think of Neruda's famous Ode to his socks, which ends like this (as translated by Margaret Sayers Peden):

Twice beautiful

is beauty

and what is good is doubly

good

when it is a case of two

woolen socks

in wintertime.