Les Papillons

The multitudes of white flecks drift down, fluttering in eddies that alight upon the brilliant emerald grass and fuchsia flowers. -- “I’m dreaming…”-- The palm trees are misted with pearls… -- “…of a white…” – and looking into the sky, college students extend their arms passionately, reaching for those infinite flitting figures, like children with expectant tongues stuck out towards the heavens. – “…Christmas.” We may not have lit-up trees and mistletoe, but ours is the finest butterfly snow that Senegal has ever seen.

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Forget the gym! I have sand dunes! And oh, how much joy can be contained in one mountainous heap of sand! I race up them, feeling my feet sink deep into the orangey powder and knowing that for every three steps forward I sink two steps back. Atop my sand castle, I grin, overlooking a vast landscape of golden swells and furrows and, steeply below me, the neat row of squat tents that compose our humble abodes for the coming night. And now for the real adrenaline rush: 1…2…3! And there I go whishhhing and bounding down that slope with a spray of sand at my heels and the late-afternoon glow on my face. Do that three times in a row, transporting cameras up and down on each occasion, and suddenly you know your calf muscles and abs much more intimately than you ever did before! But don’t wear yourself out too much now; you’ll need those ab muscles when you perch yourself upon a camel -- overlooking the desert at sunset. Yum! Life has seldomly been so sweet, and the stars are yet to come.

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My last week in flash format:

Distractableness.
Photo-editing procrastination.
Booking flights craziness.
DESERT!!!
Buckle down baby;
its time to pump out those
final essays – in French.

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My timeline:

Dec 20 – flight to Portugal
- a week traveling down the coast with Allison and her friend Dorothy.
-“I’ll be home for Christmas, if only in my dreams!”
Dec 28 – hop a flight to Madrid
-New Years in Madrid, surrounded by museums, cathedrals, and culture.
-Dorothy flies home
Early January – visit friends in Alicante and climb with Allison and my old climbing buddy Ricardo!!
-climb with another friend in Cartagena. Wheee!! So much climbing!
-revisit my favorite city: Granada. Ah, Alhambra, how glad I’ll be to wonder at your hispanomuslim architecture once again!
Jan 10 – Allison flies out from Sevilla and I head south.
Mid-Jan – Morocco! Think burber villages, the Casablanca Mosque, Roman ruins, Fez, and the Atlas mountains! Yeah’ya!
Jan 23 – go back up north to catch my flight out of Sevilla, Spain.

And then…home sweet home!