Chapman goes to Valencia

Hi friends!

I love this blog. Selena, I love your genius.

All is well in Spain. I am here for a week with my mom, grandmother, older sister and younger brother before traveling on to France to meet Monty. We have spent the last few days in Valencia, moving at a snail´s pace as my grandmother takes tiny steps down the streets and stops to comment on everything from Catalan architecture to bird poo. But the trip has been amazing because my grandmother lived in Valencia for four years under Franco, after the Spanish Civil War. (She was born here, fled to Mexico when she was three, returned after the war when she was 12, and then moved back to Mexico for good when she was 16.) She keeps surfacing all these incredible stories and memories that I´ve never heard before. A few examples: Today we went swimming in the Mediterranean and she told us that, when she was 13, she almost drowned at the very same beach because she accidentally stepped into a crater in the ocean where a bomb had dropped during the war. Or we visited the park where she used to go on Sundays with her sister to walk, and she was awed because she saw a couple holding hands -- something totally forbidden under Franco. When we went to Valencia´s mercado central, she told me that the first time that she returned to Spain after Franco fell, all she wanted to do was go to markets because she was so excited by the abundance of food that Spain now had.

So it´s a real trip traveling with my little Spanish grandmother. Also, today we went to a zoo and saw a bunch of monkeys getting it on. When I asked my grandmother what she thought about that, she said, ¨Well, that male monkey didn´t take very long. That female monkey should turn around and tell him, `hey mister, not so fast!´¨. Words of the wise.

There is so much I could write but I should get to sleeping. I have stayed distracted enough not to dwell on our graduation. Even so, I catch myself thinking about Chapman at down times -- before I fall asleep, when I´m walking alone, etc. I had a terrible time sleeping the first nights after I left Amherst -- and we all know that something must be up if Destry can´t fall asleep. I heart you from Spain.