Almeria - balcony view

Happy Canada Day! 

We left our apartment at 3am and the elevators were down (!), so we got lots of exercise carrying our suitcases and the bicycle down the 6 flights of stairs. On the plus side, I couldn't get too emotional about leaving the apartment and was just glad to get everything into the cab. Luckily, everything else went very smoothly and we were in Almeria by 8.15am! We are staying in our good friends' apartment here for a few days before we fly back to Canada. It's a lovely space with a beautiful balcony. We were pretty exhausted all day after our ridiculously early start, but we got groceries at Mercadona and had a very nice dinner on the balcony, watching the swallows and listening to the church bells.

Thanks for all of your kind comments and encouragement on my blip journal during the past few months, both here and on facebook! My plan is to keep it up for a few more days until we are back in Canada, and then hopefully to pick it up again on my next research leave. In the same way that the discipline of writing helps me to organize my thoughts and sharpen my arguments, the discipline of taking a photo every day has helped me to notice things that I might not have paid attention to, and to make the most of every day. Plus, it's been lovely way to stay in touch with people and to make new connections.