a good read

a good friend of mine gave me the book "The Best American Travel Writing" (i believe the 2005 edition) a few years ago and i have slowly been flipping through it but now that i have more time on my hands i have been able to read more and more. i love the stories in this book and i came across one in particular that i really loved; "Leap Year" by Mark Jenksins. i love this story because 1) it is about a family who moved from the US to Salobreña, Spain which happens to be 10 minutes away from me so i am familiar with the places and things he talks about and 2) because it is well-written and has some really great quotes. i thought i would share my favorite one with "the world" because i happen to know many people who can appreciate it.
enjoy.

Many go [abroad] for the same reasons we travel: to experience the unfamiliar ... to witness customs that we can hardly imagine ... yet moving abroad is more profound than traveling. It goes beyond curiosity to commitment. If to travel is to be a stone skipping lightly over the water, to move abroad is to stop and allow yourself to sink into an alien world, gulping to breathe a different language. Moving abroad is full immersion in a strange country, being forced to make a new life there, using little more than whatever wit, wisdom, openheartedness, and evenhandedness you carry inside you...

if you want to read the full story, its from Outside magazine and here is the link:
http://outside.away.com/outside/features/200401/200401_hardway_1.html