The color green

Have you ever had one of those experiences in which something is returned to you that you never even realized was missing? You immediately seize and cherish this "lost" thing and wonder how you ever lived without it, when only moments before you had been perfectly content without it.

This is what England and Scotland did to me with the color green. In general Andalucía is lacking in parks, grass, and plant life. That's not to say that there isn't the occasional rose garden (see my friend and fellow blogger's documentation as proof), but you would be hard pressed to find vast expanses of grass to run around or take a nap on. Great Britain definitely doesn't have that problem.

Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow

St. James Park, London

Mary and me in Holyrood Palace Gardens, Edinburgh

I spent many an afternoon strolling through a park, ice cream in hand, or stretched out on grass, Kindle in hand. But these countries' greenness is much more than just well manicured city parks. I took buses between London, Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Glasgow and had the opportunity to see their rolling green hillsides. They are every bit as beautiful as rumor has it, and even more so this time of year because the sheep, cows, and horses that roam them all have the most adorable babies. Fast moving buses, unfortunately, made them difficult to photograph well, but here are my best attempts.

In the words of my English flatmate, you can tell that things are meant to live here. You are truly surrounded by the color green, by plants and flowers, by life. I loved every minute I was there.

I've been noticing more and more that everywhere I go, I'm drawn to parks. My favorite part of New York City is Central Park. My favorite part of Madrid is El Retiro. London has enough acreage of parks to have kept me happy for a lifetime. As I consider my many choices where to live next year, the color green just might become a deciding factor.