Traveling makes me feel that the world is not as divided as we think it is –
Dusk falls and the median of Passeig de Gràcia, a Fifth Avenue like road in Barcelona turns into blocks of open-air street cafes. Tents pop up strung with white light. Tables, portable wine racks, waiters appear and music plays. My husband and I, who are visiting Spain, feel incredibly drawn. We sit down and look at a menu. We order some tapas. It is a cool October night and we sip sweet white wine from big tumblers. Our orders arrive. The sliders with shoestring fries look delicious, so does the seafood bake. Our table neighbors look at our plates; a young woman from Hamburg with her family and a man from Amsterdam on a business trip. They want to know what we ordered. We offer them to try our food. They don’t recoil. They laugh and help themselves and we talk. About traveling and food – things that often turn us into a meeker version of Tony Bourdain.
People and food are the lyrical parts of traveling. You don’t need tickets and information-rich websites to savor that experience. You sit in the oddest place, eat things that look curious and leave the table with sensations that change your world sometimes. A stranger with beer breath gets up and offers me his stool in a jam-packed neighborhood café in Sevilla. Huge legs of Jamón, the famous Spanish ham, hang all around us. The waiter with golden locks wipes his sweat with a dishcloth, then wipes down the counter and offers me a plate of red pepper stuffed with spicy minced meat, lathered with chipotle sauce and I feel I never want to get off that stool.
We meet BNB hosts who are passionate about their city. The water of Madrid is the best in the world – they say with vigorous head-nodding. We choose to drink the tap water and love it. We walk into the Mercado San Miguel, a popular local market and find open stalls and an explosion of fresh food. Rows and rows of tapas – cuttlefish and honey, octopus and paprika, shrimp and avocado, salted sardines and hot sauce. I jostle with the crowd, elbow my way in and get some the bites. The seafood melts on my tongue. I stand in the open market, surrounded by olives, cheese, chocolates, fried fish and savor this mini food universe. I smell the air. I hear the din. The market swells with animated faces under the glow of yellow lamps. I feel lividly alive. I wish that market were a part of my real life.
We walk into Confiteria La Campana, a café that has been around since 1885 A landmark pasteleria in Seville. Dark brown coffee shots fall into our white cups followed by frothy milk. We choose a few pastries. My husband and I play the pastry game throughout the trip. We choose not knowing what it really is. The bakeries have a dizzying variety and no labels. And our non-existent Spanish skills don’t help. We luck out most of the times.
We enter La Mallorquina in Madrid and feel dazed by the sheer number of gorgeous pastries that glow on small white plates. A world of sugar and treats. Groups of older women sip caffe con leche and nibble chocolate Napolitanas between animated chatter. I look at their happy faces, beautiful silk scarves and bright red lipstick and imagine my mother sitting with them. She would have loved this place.
In Lisbon we frequent a neighborhood café. A quiet little place with puff pastry savories, plum cakes and tarts. I buy a chicken filled puff that looks like the ones I loved eating in my childhood. On Sunday mornings our entire family went to this famous tea room, rather a post-colonial institution, and ate chicken patties, rum balls and almond horns. I search, mostly in vain, for this favorite of mine anytime I am in Europe. I look at the puff on my plate lovingly, make a wish, take a bite, the creamy chicken filling spreads inside my mouth and I am transported to a Sunday when I was ten years old. And I think, all is not lost.
We point and attempt horrible Spanish in all the eateries. Everyone smiles and helps. The offer gorgeous food, sometimes with epithets like ‘home-made.’ We eat amazingly good seafood paella in a café in Barcelona, served by a waiter who asks me if I knew who was going to be the next American president.
Traveling makes me feel that the world is not as divided as we think it is. We overthink the boundaries. We make the mistake of thinking of politics and people as one. Statehood and governments change but people are fundamentally not so different. They laugh at incorrect grammar, offer help when you stare at a map for too long and water when you are thirsty. When a sudden shower erupts and we crowd under a blue awning of a button shop, an older gentleman tilts his umbrella a tiny bit towards me. I smile; he reddens up and looks away.
Even travelers are similar. We gawk at monuments and buildings with gargoyles clinging to the pediments. We take endless selfies. We throng into royal palaces to gasp at the splendor. We wait in line to catch a glimpse of a Stradivarius. We cannot get enough of the castles made by mad kings or mourning emperors. We seek history and connect with the people who made it.
Traveling to a destination is not what traveling is all about. Traveling is an adventure of the spirit, an experience. Jumping onto a train and getting down at a lonely station, surrounded by tall poplars and smelling of warm butter – is traveling too. We take a trolley ride in Lisbon and get off at the end of the route. We hear deep church bells and walk into an old cathedral not listed in Rick Steves. The honey glow of the nave and the ancient bejeweled altarpiece take my breath away. Jagged rays of sun light up the painted domed ceiling telling stories that are universal. We may all come from different places but Dust to Dust governs us all. I look at the people sitting in the pews. They don’t know me but I know their scars, their fights. I know the walls are only made of air.
I wish every one of you happy travels!