I grew up in Alicante. Snow was something that happened to others. Now, you could drive to higher land, couple of hours away, and have a first-hand experience but, still: snow was a mythical phenomenon. Something we would never see on our Mediterranean shores.
Yes, I grew up by the sea. Soothing, old and wise Mediterranean. I never saw my way to school covered in white. I never imagined seeing snowflakes from my window. African sand is in my genes. Siberian snow? That was so far away. Not even as a kid did I dream it could happen.
And here we are the day after. The day after my social media feeds were full with pictures and videos of friends and family playing with snow… from those very same Mediterranean beaches. Guardamar, Torrevieja, Denia.
It feels surreal. Like walking in a parallel universe where my two lives have collided. I got emotional just watching their clips, their pictures. Murcia, Campoamor. Their comments: fun, great, magic. Their struggle: cold, wet, not driving thank you very much. Their disbelief -and respect?- when I confirmed that we do lead a normal life by -10C and weekly snowfall.
I would not like to taint my current emotions with a climate change discussion so, I’ll leave that part up to you. I will simply continue scrolling through their posts, my eyes in the distance, finding my landmarks in a complete and extraordinary new colour and texture. The very same colour and texture that became my daily landscape many years ago.
I can say that it has happened: on warm summer days Loviisa has had temperatures that reminded me of Alicante.
Now I’ll be able to say that it happened: one time, one winter day back in 2017, Alicante had the same colour and texture, just for few minutes, than Loviisa.
[Originally published on Fb page]