Now I am waiting at the spot where the driver let me off — a stop made only for me, alone among everyone on our bus from San Sebastián to Pamplona in wanting to disembark here — for pickup by my next host family.

Locals are rubbernecking through their car windows as they pass me on this segment of highway that at this point doubles as village thoroughfare, addressing me in semi-comprehensible Spanish.

It would be so nice to take a lover here.

Anywhere, really.

Every place I go feels like it could be the setting of an indie film in which I show up there and entanglements ensue and we are all changed forever.