I think I just ate my last ham croquette for a long time.

My feet are very sore. My back hurts. My lips are chapped. My tongue is kind of coated, and I’m dehydrated from drinking nothing but wine all day. (Poor me!)

And the ice cream I eat doesn’t help. (Double poor me!) Now that I’ve hit most of the restaurants and bars I wanted to see, I’ve been subbing in pistachio gelato for lunch and drinks. I think the ladies at Los Italianos are starting to recognize me. Fortunately, today I found out that in Spain, it’s a sign of affection, and even sexiness, when someone gives your belly fat a little squeeze.

I’m about to get on the midnight bus from Granada direct to the Madrid airport. As a guidebook author, I feel irresponsible for not having known about this bus in the first place. I’d just planned on taking the expensive, inconveniently timed train to Madrid, then shelling out for a hotel, then humping our luggage across the metro system to the airport in the morning.

Fortunately, the excellent woman whose house we were staying at tipped me off in time for me to cancel both train tickets and hotel.

I am no fan of buses, but if they save me more than $150 and dragging my luggage across a whole metropolis and two subway transfers, I can live with it. Plus, it’s the plush kind of bus like they have in Mexico. Beverly and I each have our own little one-seat row by the window–we are so primed for snoozing.

Did I mention I’m tired? Today I was walking around, checking on hotels (which I had to leave till the last minute, because they were all full last week), and I felt that glazed-over, totally jaded vibe descend. “This block looks just like those other blocks…and in fact just like every other kinda-crumbly Mediterranean city I’ve ever been in….,” I thought as I trudged. Beirut? Istanbul? Athens? I was no longer charmed by various funny signs and window displays. Everything looked dusty, the plants on the balconies were drooping, and the sidewalk texture even looked the same as every other random city.

My Spanish has totally deteriorated too, in anticipation of no longer being needed. How many hotel desk clerks looked at me perplexed today, as I stumbled through my, “Hi, I’m researching a guidebook and I’d like to see a room please, if you have one available, I mean, I’m assuming you do because it’s no longer Semana Santa, boy wasn’t that a crazy week…” shtick. It was working fine yesterday. Today: hopeless.

It reminded me of my last day in Morocco, on a trip nine years ago. I woke up that morning and could just no longer speak Arabic. I got Jim totally the wrong kind of ice cream after lunch, and no coffee. By evening, Jim was reduced to doing this weird pantomime of a bobble-headed toy to a street vendor and saying “El tigre?” in order to find the one he liked, because I couldn’t remember the word for “tiger.” (Alas, I never knew how to say “bobble-head” in Arabic.)

Oh, by the way: the apartment we’ve been staying in here in Granada used to be owned by the friendly neighborhood prostitute. I feel right at home, with my name and all.

Next time I post, I will have been ham-free for maybe 24 hours. I hope I don’t get the shakes.