This has been a challenging year in many ways. It started off with way too much funkiness at the duplex where I lived, so I decided to move out, and not knowing where I wanted to live, I moved to nowhere. I put most of my stuff in storage, a lot of it (too much) in my car, and spent the next four months either house sitting or staying with friends.

Ronda, Spain

All of this was my choice, but it’s not been easy, and I will forever be grateful to those who have been incredibly generous along the way — those who helped with the move itself (it’s harder to move to nowhere than one might think), the many who have offered me a place to stay, and the many more who have helped out in a thousand other ways.

Now I’m in Spain, and while my month-long stay here has been a great journey, it, too, has had its challenges. I’ve sliced up two fingers at this point, eluded a creepy Airbnb situation, endured a serious bout of food poisoning, and still to come, getting home in the middle of an air traffic controllers strike.

As with the move to nowhere, there have been many helping hands:

• An unexpected and much needed ride from a Camino de Santiago volunteer.
• The friends, acquaintances, and medical personnel who helped me get through four days of the runs and the first of the two sliced fingers.
• A cable car ride with a woman from Australia, which led to a wonderful conversation over lunch about the trials and tribulations of being a solo female traveler, a conversation that, in the end, left me feeling much less solo on the road.
• A chance meeting at a laundromat with a graduate of the South San Antonio Independent School District, once part of my beat at the Express-News. The South San alum is now a wedding photographer, so as we waited for the clean, rinse, spin and dry cycles to do their thing, we had a great time talking about photography, tapas, and SSAISD.

Barcelona, Spain

And then on Sunday, a mini contingent of guardian angels fell from the sky. The Prada family — Chema, his wife Inma, and their two children — are friends of friends who adopted me for the day. They gave me a driving tour of Madrid, fed me lunch, hung out all afternoon as if they had all the time in the world, took me on a guided walking tour back to my hotel, and made it very clear that if anything came up, anything at all, to give them a call.

I didn’t know the Pradas before Sunday, yet they treated me with incredible generosity. I would have been grateful under any circumstances, but nearing the end of a journey that has had its share of ups and downs, I was touched beyond belief to know that just down the road and across the river, there was a small group of people — just plain good people with nothing to gain or lose — who had my back.

Miles de gracias a la familia Prada!

Miles de gracias a todos who in the past few months have had my back!

Spain, here I come! I spent my junior year in Seville. It was the 1981-1982 school year. Felipe González was president, Spain’s entrance into NATO was a divisive issue, and soccer enthusiasts from around the globe descended on the Iberian Peninsula in the summer of ’82 for the World Cup.

It was the first time I’d been abroad, and afterward my life veered very far away from my southern, suburban roots. I marveled bug-eyed at everything from the food, to the language, to the joyous sense of celebration that was a constant in the streets — whether it was something on a grand scale, such as the Feria de Abril in Seville, or gatherings at corner bars where many stopped on their way to work for a daybreak shot of cognac.

I plan to go back this fall to see what Spain is like 31 years later. Much has happened in that time, both in my world and in theirs.