Sunflowers

This vacation has been full of small blessings. 

Today we took the bus from Sevilla to Granada.  We arrived at the San Sebastian bus station in Seville at 3:30pm, paying our taxi, hefting our backpacks, and lining up at the ticket window.  Only to learn a minute later that there were no buses to Granada that left the San Sebastian station.  We needed to go to the Armas bus station on the other side of town.  Another taxi ride.  Another strapping on of our load.  And because there were no ticket agencies that advertised buses to Granada, we stepped to the information kiosk.  The woman working there informed us that we could take the Alsa Bus Lines and we could buy our tickets at window #1.  It was 3:50.  She said we'd better hurry if we wanted to catch the 4pm bus!

So we waited in line.  We were patient, even when a young man skipped in line in front of some other people and proceeded to hold up things for a while.  We arrived just before 4pm but the saleswoman informed us that we were too late.  We could buy tickets for the 5:15pm bus instead.  We relaxed with some water and chocolate bars, reading away the minutes in the busy bus depot.  There were a few nervous moments when we didn't see our bus in the terminal but it was there, advertising that it was coming from Cadiz and going to Almeria.  Sevilla and Granada were just two stops in between its initial and final destination.

We boarded the bus after loading our backpacks in the storage area.  (Loading our backpacks = awkwardly twisting out of the arm straps, making noises while lifting it again, bumping our head on the storage area door, tripping on the curb, regaining our composure and checking that no one was watching.)  On the bus, we realized that there were no two seats right next to each other.  We would have to sit apart for the three hour ride to Granada.  :(  Susan politely asked a woman to move her purse that she had put on the seat with the expressed purpose of not having anyone sit next to her, and I slid into a window seat two rows back next to a man who was indifferent to my presence.  I popped my headphone earbuds in my ears, turned on some music, and settled in for the ride.

PANICKY BREAKING AND STOPPING!!!  Our bus driver barely avoided causing a major collision on the freeway as everyone came to an immediate stop.  How close he came, we will never know, but the man next to me wasn´t going to take any chances.  He dug his seatbelt out of the cushions beneath him, grumbling something in Español and then found my seatbelt, in the international sign of, ¨With this driver behind the wheel, you'd better put your seatbelt on!¨  He fished out my seatbelt and handed it to me with some gestures and easily translated Spanish.  Susan turned around from two rows up to see if I was still in one piece and mouthed "Are you alright?"  I nodded with a grin and displayed the buckle, trying to visually represent what safety-minded seat companion was expressing to me.  She smiled a knowing smile and turned back around.

The tall red curtain had slid forward, covering the side window next to me.  I reached up and pulled it back, sliding it into a bunch just behind me.  Traffic started moving slowly ahead and the driver took a more cautious speed.  That's when I noticed the sunflower.

Now, I should mention that I love sunflowers.  The sunflower is most definitely my favorite flower, surpassing the playful snapdragon, the sensual calla lilly, and the sinister dandelion which causes my sister to sneeze.  Sunflowers are really magical the way that they turn to face the sun and I really think that they are beautiful.  They don't make the house smell too flowery and their seeds are delicious!  Yes, sunflowers are the best. Someone, riding on this bus on a journey many months before this day, had apparently agreed with me.  They had etched a beautiful outline of a sunflower into the glass of the window next to my seat.  Pulling the curtain back revealed the image, creating an interesting foreground to everything that was flying past on the left side.

 

Our bus sped past various fields, mostly olive trees with their gray-green leaves and cork oak with their awkward limbs stretched sideways.  There were open spaces filled with solar panels, collecting the sunshine and converting it into electricity.  There were kilometers upon kilometers of flowering bushes, all blurring by too quickly to be identified.  Occasionally there was a lone white house or a small village nestled into the folds of a small mountainside.  And sometimes, especially near the beginning of the journey, soon after the bus had narrowly avoided the accident, there were fields of sunflowers.