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Accidental Tourist

Accidental Tourist

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A novel that I still remember years after reading it is Anne Tyler’s The Accidental Tourist. The protagonist writes travel books for people who find themselves in a place they didn’t expect to be. Yesterday, I found myself in a similar position: stuck in Charlotte, North Carolina, for the night. 

I was not alone. Hundreds of stranded passengers lined up at the American Airlines kiosk, frantically searched for hotel rooms, a task made more difficult by the fact that Garth Brooks was performing and there were basically no rooms in town. 

Luckily, I snagged the last room available in a marginal motel in an outer burb,  found a taxi willing to take me there, and slept on a queen mattress rather than the airport floor. 

Which meant that today I was an accidental tourist in Matthews, North Carolina.  

Different Shores

Different Shores

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Yesterday, a trip to Virginia Beach for a wedding. On the way, a bridge and tunnel, with views across the Chesapeake Bay all the way to the Atlantic. 

It looked gray and cold, this ocean, although it was the same one I saw only a few weeks ago from the other side. 

There, I could look down on it from above, could see the shades of turquoise, navy and cerulean.  I could walk a trail up and down cliffs that hugged the coves.  I could see the flowering cactus up close. Here, I could sense the vast expanse, waves lapping all the way to the Old World.

The same sea, different shores. 

Heavy Metal

Heavy Metal

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As the world economy continues to slump, the dollar and euro have nearly reached parity. Although this may be good news for American travelers in Europe, it’s hardly a happy situation. It does make me think about the euro, though, and how I felt about it when I was over there. 

The smallest paper currency is, of course, the €5 note, which means that denominations smaller than that, including €1, are coins. 

I felt the weighty difference when I was traveling. Does it cause one to spend more or less? The former, I think, since one might be tempted to treat the €1 as a quarter.  But it is more honest. The dollar buys so little these days it may as well be a coin.

So it gave me pause, these differences in currency. Think how much heavier our pockets and purses would be if we were to adapt a similar model. But would it make more sense in the long run? I think so. 

Portugal’s Pastry

Portugal’s Pastry

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I’ve mentioned them before, the pasteis de nata, the national pastry of Portugal. After finishing the box of six purchased in the Lisbon airport, I began to dream of the dense, flaky pastry, the creamy custard filling. 

The dreams led to research, a recipe and a video tutorial. The process would take four hours with no guarantee of success. It involved multiple foldings of dough and applications of softened unsalted butter. I tried to imagine myself doing it and couldn’t quite conjure the picture.

But surely in a major metropolitan area, there should be a bakery that sells pasteis de nata. So I began searching for such a place. I found one in a faraway corner of the city, then another right in Reston. I met friends there Friday to sample the wares. Not bad for a stateside rip-off. 

Then yesterday, a neighbor who visited Portugal recently herself dropped off a packet of six pastries. She found them, of all places, in a Lidl store, a discount grocer that apparently has a bakery! Who knew? 

I haven’t yet tasted the delicacies, but they sure look like the real thing!

Thoughts on the Fourth

Thoughts on the Fourth

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On one of my first trips abroad, the passengers in the airplane burst into applause when we landed back in the U.S. It wasn’t a difficult landing or an especially long flight. But it was a less jaded age, and I, novice flyer, started clapping, too.

I had more mixed feelings re-entering the U.S. a week ago. While we were away there were more mass shootings, several disturbing Supreme Court rulings (one of which produced equally disturbing vandalism at my Catholic church last week), and explosive testimony about the actions of our former president. 

I love my country, but three weeks away from it was refreshing. I read no newspapers, watched no televised news. I took a break from our Weltschmerz, an Old World term that has become a surprisingly apt way to describe our not-so-new problems. 

Tyranny, inequality and intolerance have always been with us. Many came here in hopes of escaping them. But they are part of the human conditions, and they have followed us here. 

In my optimistic moments I still think the grand experiment that is the United States of America can weather these difficult, polarizing times. But it will take our efforts and our prayers and our sacrifice to do so. I hope we are up to the task. 

Walking the Line

Walking the Line

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The temptation, for me at any rate, is to say, this time last week, I was … exploring a palace, clambering up the ramparts in a castle, nibbling a delectable almond pastry in a tiny cafe.

Not the healthiest approach to re-entry. So I tell myself that vacations can’t go on forever, that I don’t live in a quaint European village, and that, in short, I should get on with it.

On the other hand, I see no harm in letting my mind drift to the narrow lanes of Barrio Santa Cruz in Seville and the lull that comes over them before the restaurants open for dinner at 7:00 or 7:30.  Or the view I would wake up to in Sintra, turrets and towers tucked in among the green. 

There’s a fine line between dissatisfaction and enlargement. And I’m trying to walk it right now.

The Concert

The Concert

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The crowd began to gather 30 minutes before the performance, a ragtag group of concert-goers, including students, friends of the musicians, and a few tourists thrown into the mix.  It was our last night in Portugal and we had been wondering how to spend it when I happened upon an announcement of a concert on the grounds of the Quinta da Regaleira, of spiral staircase fame. What fun it would be to return in the evening, just as the last light was slanting onto the twisted spires and tree trunks! 

That was before we arrived to find a black-clad musician (perhaps the cellist?) exclaiming to the guard on duty that, at least from what I could make out, something was missing at the venue. Forty-five minutes later, we were escorted through the grounds of the Quinta right up to the stage where the Damas de Sao Carlos, a 10-member all-female ensemble (plus a male harpsichordist) had taken the stage. The musicians came from Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Portugal. They had decked out their concert black with scarves of scarlet, blue and green. 

We had barely taken our seats when they launched into “Spring” from Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons.” How the music filled and animated that special space! How good it was to hear those familiar notes in that unfamiliar setting. And how strangely comforting: it reminded me that just as music transcends all languages, travel transcends all cultures. It draws us together. It makes us, however briefly, one. 

Old World

Old World

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On the way to the airport Sunday, the chatty cabdriver, Isabel, pointed out sights along the way. “Here is where the king would stop on his way to Sintra,” she said, pronouncing it “Seen trah.” It was a two-day trip so he needed an intermediary palace, she explained. And sure enough, there was a telltale spire amidst the trees and apartment blocks. 

“The past is so alive here,” I said, exclaiming over the beauty and the bounty of the place I was sad to be leaving. 

“But you are a young country,” she said, pronouncing it “young uh.” “We are old.”

I thought of her words as the plane touched the tarmac at Dulles Airport in the waning light of a midsummer evening. Everything was so green, and there was so much space. It was easy for a moment to see the potential of this continent, the feelings that must have greeted its discovery by Europeans. 

It’s easy to rhapsodize over the quaint lanes and cobblestones of Europe, to decry the fast food joints and 10-lane highways of the U.S. But it’s important to keep Isabel’s observation in mind. Portugal is the Old World. We are the New. 

Suitcase at Rest

Suitcase at Rest

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I’m a bit compulsive about unpacking. Usually within hours of arriving home I’ve emptied my suitcase and filled the laundry hamper. This trip was no exception. It’s not that I want to move on; it’s the opposite. I want to see what I’ve collected. 

On this trip there were ceramic tiles and carved olive wood. There were books and teas and a box of six pasteis de nata, the national pastry of Portugal, bought from a chaotic coffee counter in the Lisbon airport. 

But mostly, I return with memories, impressions, ideas. It was my first trip to the continent since 2010, and I’d forgotten how much I love the way Europeans live, the scale of their houses and streets, the pace of life that includes time for a coffee break, which, given the size of Portuguese coffee cups, doesn’t take long.  The way they live with less in one way (smaller cars, tighter spaces) but more in others (an appreciation for beauty and the
past).  

My suitcase is empty. My mind is full. 

Até Breve!

Até Breve!

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If I didn’t know better I’d say that Portugal is deliberately making it hard on us. For our last day here she dished out some of the most splendid weather we’ve had on this already blue-sky trip. Then she landed us here in Sintra, city of kings, although I’ll take some responsibility for that since I planned the itinerary. 

Finally, there were today’s attractions. Whereas yesterday’s visit to the Pena Palace was a bit like being herded into a cattle car, this afternoon’s tour of the National Palace was deliciously free of crowds. 

And in the morning—ah!—there was Quinta da Regaleira, a villa on grounds that include a mossy green spiral staircase that I’d seen in photos and which lived up to its photogenic reputation—though after walking down it with two millennials we met on the way there, I’d say it requires the bold approach of holding one’s cameras over the void to snag the perfect shot (see above for a less-than-perfect one).  

All that remains is a final evening, then packing up and leaving early tomorrow. Given that I’ve yet to master Portuguese I had to look up the best phrase to use when you don’t really want to say goodbye. I think “até breve” will do the trick. It means “see you soon.”