My Spanish work-and-travel journey is coming to an end. 🙂 It is a pity that I am not lucky with the weather. Of course, this is not a holiday, and most of the time here I work on my laptop. But I would like to go out more. Unfortunately, this year there has been an abnormal amount of rain. Sometimes it rains for several days without stopping. Even today was supposed to be a day without rain, but it's still raining.

When I asked my friend what the weather was like in her town at that time, she replied: ‘If it's sunny, we wear T-shirts, and if it's cloudy, we put on winter jackets.' And it's really true.For the entire week, dark clouds hung over Benicàssim, clinging to the mountain peaks surrounding the town. Between the rain showers, I occasionally ventured out for a walk to keep exploring the town.

Two of my colleagues moved to Spain when the war in Ukraine began. I had never met one of them in person, so my stay in Spain — especially so close to where they live — felt like the perfect opportunity to finally meet. Valencia, a large and beautiful city, sits roughly in the middle between our towns. We planned to meet there on past Sunday.

It’s been five days since I arrived at my friend’s place. The three of us share a cosy little two-storey house in the quiet seaside town of Benicàssim. In all this time, I’ve only ventured into town twice.The weekend was a blur of catching up on sleep, long seaside walks with my friend, and listening to her endless stories about everything I’ve missed over the past three years. She talked and talked, as if trying to squeeze every lost moment into our time together.

Kyiv - ValenciaShe has been asking me to come to Spain to visit her for a long time. She is a former colleague and friend of mine who fled the war in February 2022. It took me 3 years to accept the fact that she was so far away and might not come back. And now I am going to see her.

Hello there!Today, I'm thinking back to that beautiful sunny day in November, when my husband and I last went out for the weekend. A day when we walked without rushing and enjoyed the peace.The beginning of this story is here: Fall in Pushcha-Vodytsia. Part 1: Chasing the tramFall in Pushcha-Vodytsia. Part 2