I was sitting outside the town hall on a Saturday afternoon in Valencia, during the winter in the middle of January.

Once we pass the New Year and the celebration of the Three Wise Men in Spain, winter skies in January leave a gloomy aftertaste. Gone is the anticipation of the Christmas holidays. Broken are many resolutions people draft on the arbitrary date of January 1^st. Returning to our routine sometimes feels like waking up from a hangover.

And on this overcast Saturday in January, I had said goodbye to someone at the train station hours before.