A year on

Outside a thick heat. Inside the air-conditioning is humming pleasantly. Half of Spain is on their way back home from holidays in the same conditions. When we were leaving, the operación salida was about to begin. Today, on the last Sunday of the summer holidays, operación retorno is under way. But we are already back. After three weeks of travelling from one person to another we reached the place we now call home.

A year ago in this heat we were watching the light athletics at the Olympics. This week we have been watching the light athletics at the World Championships in Berlin. A year ago we didn´t know where we would go after Madrid. We still don’t know, but maybe a little bit less. A year ago we couldn’t get our heads round the size of this city and the diversity of this country. Now we can, so we came to terms with the fact that we won’t manage to get to know them completely before we move on.

So not much has changed. And yet we have a strange feeling that we have learned something, found something out, that we know ourselves and each other better. We probably also have a better sense of time. Of the fact that our time in Spain is running out alongside unseen places, unmet people and unlearned areas of the language.

Just the heat still leaves us helpless, just like at the beginning.