I can’t believe it’s already November. Not just because the time has gone by so fast but also because fall here is so different than it is in Massachusetts. The trees still have their leaves, and the leaves are green. A couple are falling but not very many. Some days it’s almost 70 degrees, I think it’s crazy that people are wrapped up in winter coats and crazier that when a gentle breeze blows I find myself wanting one too. Living here changes you, it really does. The heat of the summer is something that I haven’t forgotten. I feel like my tolerance for cold has gone way down. I can barely imagine snow now. 

It’s so strange how the weather has changed me physically. That my body has been adapting to my surroundings and this is something I can’t control. It wasn’t a decision I made, it just happened. A lot of the habits I have picked up here seem just as automatic to me, but in the beginning it wasn’t like that. When I had to switch to taking five minute showers, that was a difficult change. But it hardly ever rains here, there is a bad drought that’s lasted years and it is absolutely, needlessly wasteful to take a long shower. And at first I wondered why people don’t adhere to the same rule of short showering in the US. Now it’s obvious. In Spain it’s a matter of survival, the dangers of heat and drought are more real, more present. That’s why they do it. Which is a little bit disheartening because it means we’re only changing once it’s too late. But at least we can change, and that’s something to celebrate.