Fall on the Old Continent

Fall on the Old Continent

I have been to four countries in four days (if airports count because one of those foreign lands was a three hour layover in Frankfurt). I was on a European adventure and on my first day back at work I had to visit my colleagues in Ensenada, Mexico to finalize a land deal protecting two miles of pristine Baja shoreline. But back to the Euro adventure. It’s become an annual pilgrimage each fall. Two weeks on the north coast of Spain and a dip into Southern France for waves, food and drink.

After darting between my beloved surf sites (which I discovered for myself ten years ago while on a fifteen month academic excursion), a few soccer games, visits with old surf buds and former classmates, mountains of north coast stews, saturating rain storms and brutal North Atlantic winds, I floated home on a Lufthansa flight bound for Newark.

As we crossed the prime meridian and the European continent land fell into the vast Atlantic 30,000 feet below I reflected on the past two weeks – Hossegor tube rides, winding drives through verdant, misty Pyrenees mountain passes, copious cups of café, towering casks of Basque cider, dredging left hand river mouths. The bratwurst of a man next to me snoring on my shoulder, and my Melatonin induced haze, separated me further from the realities of the adventure that just transpired.

Soon it would feel as though they didn’t really happen. But they did and I have my photos and a bit of muffin top as to prove it. Adios, agur and au revoir.

– Zach Plopper