Today I am laying around like I am finally on vacation. I'm not sure I am actually entitled to such a luxury just yet but I am currently taking it without the faintest hint of guilt. It's not as though I did all that much yesterday either but, what can I say, things are winding down here.
Last night I arrived back to the top of the hill from my nightly before-dinner swim in the biopool and Adrien informed me that there would be a change of plans for the evening. This shaped up to be a surprise PIZZA PARTY (!) for my second to last night, using the old bread oven, plus a huge campfire, and the truly beautiful Dutch family playing music for everyone. David and Ju bought assorted toppings, assorted pizza sizes. At one point David hands me a glass of vino verde and a huge bowl of delicious Portuguese olives just for me, and trust me when I say that no greater gift has ever been given. Over the course of the evening we talked and talked and sang and sat around and made our way through the entirety of a box of white wine and at least half of the red. There were songs in every language, the brothers played guitar and drums, I stayed up later than I have since the Santo Antonio Festival, and I had the presence of mind to look around in the moment thinking how I couldn't have dreamt a better closure to this time I have spent here.
Today: massive reorganization. Just when I have the art of whatever I packed for this journey down to a horribly boring science of bare essentials, I must reconfigure all in preparation for the week long festival Ju and I are headed to in the morning. Basically the last thing I want to be doing today. But it will get done, like it always does. And there are still a few hours left for my usual routines and likely one last trip into town for our traditional circuit of old man bars, peanuts, and mini beers. For now the warm fuzziness of last night it still lingering into the late afternoon and between now and then: a nap.
