What it Costs

America is obsessed with time. Obsessed with not “wasting” time. All over the world --in countries America likes to compare itself to in terms of GDP, 9th grade math scores, and life expectancy-- students take a gap year, a time between high school and “what next?”. They travel.

Of course there are financial limitations to this rite of passage but it occurs to me that even among the wealthier in America, those that likely could afford such a luxury, the gap year has never caught on.

You could argue that Americans don’t "gap year" because we don’t travel overseas but I could argue that travel doesn’t have to be international, especially in a county as large as the United States. Maybe we have it reversed and we don’t travel because we don’t do a "gap year".

Whatever the reasoning order I think that logic is wrong, I think the issue is time.

Americans don’t take that year because then we’ll be “behind”. Behind who or what I am uncertain, only that whatever or whoever it is chases Americans throughout our lives. It is the reason people don’t take vacations even when finances allow, the reason we don’t take time between jobs – god forbid we have a gap in our resumes.

I fight the increasing volume of this narrative in my head everyday. A year out of the conventional job market while I traveled the map gorging on food and meeting interesting people, I worry I'm behind.  If I am, does the “lost” time trump the past year?

Fourteen countries this year: Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Japan, Netherlands, Croatia, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, and Taiwan. A year of experiences. Was that really less valuable than a 9-5 that is really an 8-7?

I don’t think so.

I’m just ending my trip and beginning my job search. In a few weeks, maybe a few months, I'll begin to see if my decision to change up my life for a bit must be weighed not in the joy of the experience that I currently view it in, but instead in the context of loss...such a deficit-approach to living.

No matter what greets me on the other side of this year of living differently, I know that the “loss” Americans fear is double edged. The promotion, the job, the salary, are all potential losses...but I lost my dear friend Shoes, nine years ago. He was there one moment, laughing and drinking and making my life and the world a better place – and then...he wasn’t. Then he was gone. Medical school and studying and all the responsible things he’d done knocked off a motorbike taxi in the middle of Kampala.

Except he was in the middle of Kampala, Uganda; he’d traveled throughout India; he was living the life he wanted to live and not simply following the prescription counselors laid out before him. And so while I still grieve the loss of his unique brand of brilliant beauty in the world, I am also comforted that he hadn’t waited,  hadn't feared lagging behind...hadn’t waited to see or do or experience the world that was taken from him, that he was taken from, so suddenly.

This year has given me grace and laughter and perspective and friendship and challenges and tears and time and distance away from what is expected of me.

Back in America, searching for my "what next", I hope I remember what this year gave me instead of buying into the easy narrative of what it cost.

Kindness of Strangers

“I always depend on the kindness of strangers.”

I don’t but...oh how I benefit. I’d never thought before how the word is kindness, not niceness. Lots of people are nice. And I don’t mean to disparage nice. I am nice. But kindness...kindness is another thing altogether. Kindness is not an affectation for the comfort of self or others. Kindness offers something up of the person offering it. Niceness is smile, a head nod, a greeting, a "have a nice day".

The folks at my Taroko hotel hotel didn’t speak English. So when I clomped down the stairs, both my packs slung across my body, she smiled in the vague way I smile when I don’t understand what people are saying. A smile that says I am friendly and mean no harm but also I cannot participate in this conversation.

I typed out “how can I get to the train station" on Google Translate, and she graciously walked me out of the front door, onto the porch, and pointed across the street to the bus stop.

Google hadn’t mentioned a bus to me earlier when I tried to figure out directions on my own, and since it is Sunday I hadn’t questioned the omission, but now I wondered if this would be Google’s second failure on my trip.

I crossed the street near the crosswalk, early in the day and little traffic allowed me to stroll. I passed what appeared to be a storefront church before arriving at the covered bus stop. My eyes glossed over the signage mostly written in Chinese, the few English words not helpful in deciphering my transportation fate.

And then a minivan pulled up, a child of indecipherable age leaning out of the front window. He looked at me and away, a smile sneaking across his lips, a glance as familiar to me in my travels as tourist menus (although I try to avoid these). For a second I forgot I was in Taiwan and flashed back to South Africa and wondered if the Sunday transport was a khumbi (minivan taxi).

But no, the van was parking and an entire family disembarked: the father, driving; the mother, holding a two-month-old girl; the sheepishly smiling 13-years-old, holding his 7-years-old brother.

I smiled, my eyes trailing to the baby because- I do love a baby. And the mom smiled and headed toward me. “Hello,” she offered. I returned her greeting. And then the most universal of travel conversations unfolded. “Where are you from?” “Where are you going?” on their part, “How old are the kids?” on mine.

The Xicheng Taroko train station, she assured me, was a little too far to walk, but off to the side her husband busily looked up the bus schedule and assured me one was four minutes out. We posed, me mom and children, for the picture that is often requested (less often in Taiwan than in China but still more than other places) and they continued on their way...I suspect to the church I'd passed.

I looked curiously up the road, in the direction my bus should arrive and sure enough a bus ambled down the street. The 13-year-old motioned to his dad and his dad walked smiling toward the street, urging me out too. He waved the bus in, had a short conversation with the driver, and then assured me this was the right one.

The doors shut, and I was gone.

I don’t always depend on the kindness of strangers. I depend on technology, and research, my own wits, and blind luck...I don’t always depend on the kindness of strangers, but oh how I benefit just the same.

Culinary Kindreds

My people are greedy.

Well, ALL of my people aren’t greedy. Many of the people dearest to me couldn’t care less about food. But my culinary kindreds, those people love food, those people are greedy.

A few months ago when I traveled to Sicily I visited with old friends from the Bay. We spent a solid week eating. I don’t mean we ate, everyone eats, I mean most of our waking hours were dedicated to eating or the pursuit of food. It was, quite simply, a delight. Here were people that I didn’t have to give a reason for stopping to look at food because they would never question the validity of my appetite based on something as trivial as the fact that we’d just eaten moments ago. These are people who were happy to order a bevy of items to nosh on on our way to a meal because “you have to try this”.

My people are greedy, in the best, most enchanting way.

Hiking the nearest trail in

Taroko (a place where a little research might have served me well), slow and plodding as is my way anytime I'm headed uphill, I stopped for the gazillionth time, Breathing heavily, eyes grazing the green enveloping me, laughing uproariously to Thirst Aid Kit, and watched three men only a few moments apart, scale the stairs I was reluctant to revisit.

The fourth man smiled and greeted me with a hearty hello. He asked me if I was going up or down, and once he confirmed I was (in theory) heading in his direction, he urged me to join him.

“I’m tired and slow,” I waved him off with a sheepish smile. “So am I, it gives me an excuse to rest,” he laughed. And so I got to my feet and began the climb again. Three or seven steps, stop to breathe heavily, seven to 15 steps, stop to breathe heavily. 

In between my panting he peppered me with questions, local trivia, and his own story: how long am I traveling?,Taiwan has mountains 3000 meters – taller than the Rockies, he just returned from Houston. Another man joined our ascent, and we all continued, up and up and up.

At the end of one of the trails the other men I’d watch pass were gathered. One had continued on to the next trail, the others waited for the lagging part of their crew still somewhere below us, and vacillated between continuing uphill or climbing down in pursuit of lunch. Their crew, it turned out, is a Triathlon group. That day’s trail run would be followed by the next day’s 105 km bike ride.

On the surface, these are not my people.

Except...as my Forest Gump running ex taught me, folks who work out seriously have insatiable appetites. They have to, their metabolism burns everything off so quickly. That ex was a compact man, no body fat to be found. People would size him up at restaurants and shrink our orders, assuring us we had more than enough food. We never had enough food. He was, based on appetite and joy of eating, my people!

Triathletes are hungry too!

The group decided heading down was best – it was getting late and restaurants in the area close-- so we (because now I'd been absorbed a bit into the group) were headed for lunch.

After trying to scare me with descriptions of a possible lunch that would include stinky tofu (so much stinkier in Taiwan than how I remember it in China) and snake (I'm not easily scared by food) we headed to a local spot and I sat down with a barley drink and waited.

Plates started arriving on the Lazy Susan, 10 of us arranged around it. Rice, of course, an omelet-looking dish, chicken, beef, wild boar (a local specialty), squid (we are on the coast- so much of Taiwan is coast), fern, a local dish they described as Chinese chewing gum...then clam soup, large shrimp that would have brought joy to my mother’s heart if it weren’t for the heads still attached, a whole fish, more greens (water spinach maybe), another fish dish (when they showed me the picture of it immediately sent it to my dad because he was the only person I figured could give me the English name- and I was right!), another omelet, more rice, and fruit.

I smiled. I smiled so much.

One of the downsides to traveling alone is ordering. My appetite is substantial but even I have my limits. I can order a few things by myself but at some point it is just wasteful. But sitting there with this group (two more joined us eventually) of athletes, the question wasn’t “is this too much” rather, “is this enough?”.

Between the chewing and the conversations I couldn't understand, we exchanged pleasantries – they were intrigued with my travels this year and I couldn’t get over the fact that one woman had completed 51 marathons in the last five years. FIFTY ONE! She’s run more than 1,300 miles and that doesn’t include the training!

Travel and running aside, we continued to eat. And eat. And eat.

The plates slowly cleared. People picked off the remnants of their favorite dishes, The last man to arrive drank the last of the soup from the serving bowl. We divided up the check, paid, and parted ways.

And I was reminded...again...that my people are greedy. Long live greedy nation.

En Route: Taipei

No plan.

The view after the first leg: SFO

It occurred to me an hour into my flight. Hurtling through the sky swaddled in every layer of clothing I’d packed to ward against the cold I assumed I'd face on the plane, and still somehow inadequately equipped for despite my layers, it occurred to me that I had no plan.

I arranged this flight less than 12 hours before its scheduled departure, packed eight hours later, and at no point had I even paid attention to anything beyond the likelihood I’d make my connection in SFO.

So accustomed to the generosity of my cousin’s flight pass and my own whimsy, to eating the cookies while I bake them, it has only just now, 30,000 feet above the rest of the world, occurred to me that I don’t know where I'll stay in Taipei, or even how long I'll be there. A friend of a friend gave me suggestions, scrolling screens of foods and neighborhoods, national parks and lesser known cities, but aside from a list of tings I could do I have no real ideas about what I will do.

That realization doesn’t terrify me even as I feel a certain recklessness in it. Reckless not because I haven’t shown up to a place with no plan, this last year has mostly involved plan-less journeys into countries I've never visited, but reckless in some way I sense but cannot name.

Maybe it is the near routine of the last year, my new normal of not knowing what my days will look like. Maybe it is me settling into the liminal space between my chosen uncertainty that awaits me once 2019 counts itself into a new decade and my search for employment kicks into a more urgent gear.

Whatever the reason or rationale, the reality is me sitting in a freezing airplane cabin, blessed with three seats to myself to stretch out on and no idea where I might stay or how bustling Taipei will be at almost 9pm when I will be cleared through customs and released into a foreign city.

I haven’t even looked at pictures.

I imagine Taipei looks like Tokyo, a city I appreciate for its ease and abundance but dislike for its constant demands for my attention. Smaller, but as frenetic and thronged – and as safe. And if it is nothing like that? If it is nothing like that I will manage. I will manage and meld myself into whatever curves or angles the city offers and follow a path, or forge my own, for this final adventure of my year of living freely.

Loud Retreat

Everything is louder in a dorm room at 1:30 am when I am desperately trying to be quiet. The lock clicking open, the door of my storage space scraping, me pulling out the things that have spilled from my pack so I can repack them.

The idea was to pack then, in the not too wee hours of the morning so that when it was time for me to leave at 7am, I wouldn’t have to wake people up on the other end.

The best of intentions…

I could hear the woman below me stirring. I could feel the bed shake as she adjusted. I watched her light flicker on hastily and then darken again moments later. I projected meaning onto the flash- a visual sigh of irritation, a silent "screw you." 

I couldn’t blame her. A few days before I'd been roused by someone's alarm that they seemed too inept or uninterested to turn off. And in other dorms I've listened to people slam doors, carry on conversations, and flick on lights, as I tried to sleep.

Having just disturbed a room full of veritable strangers despite my best efforts, maybe the loud and decisive noise would have been best. Forget the slow motion tiptoeing, just grab what I need as quickly as possible- noise be damned. Quick and dirty, the packing version of a band-aid removal.

It was more than last minute packing. When I finally climbed the perilous ladder to my higher than average bunk and realized I needed to find a place to stay in my new destination, I dimmed my phone and hunkered down searching out a space to rest my body after the next day’s transit.

Success! I found a place only to realize I'd left my wallet with my credit card in the bag stowed under the bed below me. More scrambling down the ladder, more scraping doors, more shifting and flicking lights in the bed below me.

At last, settled for the night, staring at the time and calculating how few hours of sleep I'd get before I had to wake myself, and through proximity, my bunk-mates. The room finally silent, my bunk finally still, my adapter plunged from its socket so high up with a startling clatter amplified by the quiet of the room.

I climbed down again. Its retrieval made all the more awkward because it settled in the space by my bunk-mate's head.

Sigh.

I’d want to curse me out.

In the morning my packing required final touches. There were things I had needed the night before; hygiene, medication, night clothes, flip flops. All of those things had to be integrated into the travel bag. I grabbed everything and moved into the hallway where any noise I'd be making would be muffled through the doors. I brushed my teeth in a separate bathroom and prepared to leave.

Downstairs, I sat in the hostel for a few moments, checking and sometimes rechecking that I had everything (paranoid after my mishap in Japan) and then left my key in the little tray set aside for that purpose and listened to the door click quietly close behind me.

Soul Rest

The view I wanted to want.

The sun, hot and bright in a cloudless sky. The walls bleached white or whispering versions of brighter colors by light or salt and all I wanted was a bit of sun and the possible retreat of shade. Shade, the great gift in southern Portugal where the sun feels amazing until it doesn’t. Where the breeze is a better air conditioner than any environmentally degrading contraption human’s have created.

I sat on the roof of my hostel, a place designed for just such lounging. Bed/couches line the walls on the roof. Wrought iron tables and succulents and other plants coveting and receiving the sun. The only thing missing is a hammock. Short of that, the fig tree offering a smattering of shade based on the position of the sun and the clothes line waving a collection of colorful clothing items, flags in the wind.

I wanted to want to go to the beach.

I wanted to want to sit on the sand and when the heat overcame me go running with abandon into the frigid blue water.

I hadn’t expected the chill of the water. I expected a gentle cooling. A cooling that after a few moments recedes in the memory and is simply the temperature. I was expecting the water off the coast of Croatia. Water where I had to be brazen to submerge myself but once submerged, I could mock myself for all of the theatrics it took to get me in. But no, this water reminds me it is cold even once I've dunked myself, the huge waves splashing carelessly against my torso. It felt a bit like floating in a glass filledwith wayward ice cubes.

I wanted to want that. I wanted to want to gaze at the magnificent cliffs that are said to dot the shore here if you walk in the right direction.

What I actually did.

I wanted to want that.

But all I really wanted was to sit and read and lounge in the sun and eat and sleep.

I wanted to want to write. I'd been so diligent in the last weeks, writing in the morning before marching off into the streets of whatever city I'm in. but yesterday wasn’t that day. Yesterday wasn’t a day of doing any thing I “should” do. Yesterday was not a day where I could convince myself to be responsible or guilt myself into “proper” behavior.

That is the beauty and the challenge of traveling alone. The freedom to do just exactly what I want to to do. The absence of any judgment save my own.

I remember arriving in Cappadocia, Turkey and excitedly planning for a pre-dawn balloon ride over the strange and phallic rock formations that are famous in the region.

That was it. That was all I had planned for the day.

When I returned to my hotel only a short time after the sun had escaped the horizon and shone still gently on the city, I didn’t come up with any other plans. In that case, I didn’t even want to want to do anything else. I had my eye on a hammock and I had a book I was more than ready to pretend I'd be reading.

Yesterday was a day like that. A day where as I sit here trying to recount what I accomplished or what memorable thing I experienced, leaves me with my head cocked to the side and nothing of interest for anyone.

Except…

Except, I think there is a place for a day like yesterday. I think there is a place like a string of days like yesterday. Days where I am not doing anything. Not even wandering. Days where I am replenishing my stores in a different way. In a sloth-like way.

Lagos as the sun sets.

So yesterday was a day like that. It isn’t my first and it won’t be my last.

Sometimes it is health that demands such a day of rest. But that isn’t exactly the same thing. The body demanding its due...”pay unto Caesar what is Caesar's” and all of that. The body isn’t one to let debt accumulate for too long before demanding payment in some form. So spending a languishing day in bed when my body demands it isn’t the same as spending a languishing day in bed when my brain demands it...or my soul. Their demand is less tangible. Easier to ignore. Easy to talk myself out of but no less important on its impact and benefits. The calm. The creativity. The healing.

So, yesterday I lay about the hostel napping and reading and gazing out into the horizon of buildings and hills and ocean and sun.

And today...today I'll see what the soul demands. And as much as I'm able, I'll give it.

The sun, hot and bright in a cloudless sky. The walls bleached white or whispering versions of brighter colors by light or salt and all I wanted was a bit of sun and the possible retreat of shade. Shade, the great gift in southern Portugal where the sun feels amazing until it doesn’t. Where the breeze is a better air conditioner than any environmentally degrading contraption human’s have created.

I sat on the roof of my hostel, a place designed for just such a lounging. bed/couches line the walls on the roof. Wrought iron tables and succulents and other plants coveting and receiving the sun. the only thing missing is a hammock. Short of that, the fig tree offering a smattering of shade based on the position of the sun and the clothes line waving a collection of colorful clothing items, flags in the wind.

I wanted to want to go to the beach.

I wanted to want to sit on the sand and when the heat overcame me go running with abandon into the frigid blue water.

I hadn’t expected the chill of the water. I expected a gentle cooling. A cooling that after a few moments recedes in the memory and is simply the temperature. I was expecting the water off the coast of Croatia. Water where I had to be brazen to submerge myself but once submerged, I could mock myself for all of the theatrics it took to get me in. but no, this water reminds you it is cold even once I've dunked myself. The huge waves splashing carelessly against my torso. It felt a bit like floating in a glass with wayward ice cubes.

I wanted to want that. I wanted to want to gaze at the magnificent cliffs that are said to dot the shore here if you walk in the right direction.

I wanted to want that.

But all I really wanted was to sit and read and lounge in the sun and eat and sleep.

I wanted to want to write. I'd been so diligent in the last weeks, writing in the morning before marching off into the streets of whatever city I'm in. but yesterday wasn’t that day. Yesterday wasn’t a day of doing any thing I “should” do. Yesterday was not a day where I could convince myself to be responsible or guilt myself into “proper” behavior.

That is the beauty and the challenge of traveling alone. The freedom to do just exactly what I want to to do. The absence of any judgment save my own. I remember arriving in Cappadocia, Turkey and excitedly planning for a pre-dawn balloon ride over the strange and phallic rock formations that are famous in the region.

That was it.

That was all I had planned for the day. And when I returned to my hotel only a short time after the sun had escaped the horizon and shone still gently on the city, I didn’t come up with any other plans. In that case, I didn’t even want to want to do anything else. I had my eye on a hammock and I had a book I was more than ready to pretend I'd be reading.

Yesterday was a day like that. A day where as I sit here trying to recount what I accomplished or what memorable thing I experienced, leaves me with my head cocked to the side and nothing of interest for anyone.

Except…

Except, I think there is a place for a day like yesterday. I think there is a place like a string of days like yesterday. Days where I am not doing anything. Not even wandering. Days where I am replenishing my stores in a different way. In a sloth-like way.

My hostel roof...where I napped, wrote, and read

So yesterday was a day like that. It isn’t my first and it won’t be my last.

Sometimes it is health that demands such a day of rest. But that isn’t exactly the same thing. The body demanding its due...pay unto Caesar what is Caesar's and all of that. The body isn’t one to let debt accumulate for too long before demanding payment in some form. So spending a languishing day in bed when my body demands it isn’t the same as spending a languishing day in bed when my brain demands it...or my soul. Their demand is less tangible. Easier to ignore. Easy to talk myself out of.

But, yesterday I lay about the hostel napping and reading and gazing out into the horizon of buildings and hills and ocean and sun.

And each day I'll see what the soul demands. And as much as I'm able, I'll give it.

Question #2

When I sat down at the coffee shop and nibbled on an overly sweet coconut bun, I was focused solely on completing my writing. I have a not-quite-complete speculative fiction novel waiting for my attention, three other novel ideas that need outlining, a travel book in-process, and a neglected blog.

I planned (as much as I plan any part of travel I do alone) this trip around the world with three focuses: to eat...a lot, to restore myself after almost seven years of working in violence prevention, and to write. I’ve paid the requisite attention to the first two goals and precious little to the last. Intermittent blogging isn’t sufficient. I want something robust and complete. I'm tired of telling people I’ve “almost” finished a book, I want to be definitive- I've finished.

Travel in Europe has never interested me in the same way other places in the world have. There are foods I want to eat all of the things in Italy and Spain, try out the cuisine in Croatia and Montenegro, but the ruins of Greece didn’t awe me the way Egypt’s did, the cities of Portugal don’t mesmerize me the way Vietnam’s did.

The Asia half of my travel helped me focus on goals one and two for this trip, hot baths and massages, good tours and night markets; maybe Europe will help me to focus on goal three. Europe inspires me to sit still, gaze at beautiful water and varied people while nibbling on food as I type furiously.

And type I did, Rodrigo y Gabriela played lyriclessly in my ears, drowning out the bits of conversation and traffic sounds that both floated and roared by. I looked up and smiled when a woman asked permission to sit at the seat catty-corner to me and again when she left. So when a 70ish year old man did the same, I offered him the same smile and nod. And then I continued typing.

He munched on his toast, eating first around the crusts before devouring those as well. When the busboy came by and seemed to be fussing at me (he was speaking in Portuguese and I wasn’t following any of what he was saying) the older man across from me mimicked him affectionately as the busboy walked back into the restaurant, and then shook his head and smiled in my direction. A nonverbal “don’t worry about it.”

I bent my head back to my computer, music still playing in my ears, and the second question in Tim Ferris’s Five Minute Journal exercise made me pull out one of my earbuds. That morning’s answer to the question, “what would make today great?”, rung in my ears: a meaningful connection.

I took out the second earbud and leaned over to the gentleman across from me and asked if he spoke English. He did. I asked him about his day.

We chatted for a while. Me, mostly listening, straining to hear him through his Austrian accent and over the rush-hour traffic circling the roundabout behind us. He had a stroke recently and fired his doctor because the doctor told him he’d never walk again (he walks to physical therapy every day). He played hockey for eight years, married a model. His wife died six years ago; doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong and one day she told him, “hold me, I’m ready to go,” and she went.

He’d been in Portugal for more than 30 years, I’ve been here a week. We sat opposite each other and for a short moment we were connected.

Cool breeze floating in, I thanked him and I walked away, reminded that we all carry volumes; whole stories of love and loss and laughter. With earbuds in and averted gazes those stories are easy to miss.

Later, having scrounged around for dinner, I settled into my seat at the table of my hostel. A man walked over searching out a mug or glass to prepare his vervain tea. The usual traveler pleasantries exchanged, we somehow settled into conversation.

Trump led to Brexit led to Algeria. We talked about travel and family and heartbreak. We exchanged Whats App information and in the morning we chatted about our plans, we sat quietly beside each other, tending to our own worlds but still connected. And when it was time for me to leave, he offered to walk me. And he did, accompanying me all the way to the bus station, a walk and train ride away.

I’ve often thought about what could have made my day better (question five in the Five Minute Journal). I’ve lamented “if only” to some event. But I've never really expressed a specific idea about how to make my day the best. I've “hoped” or “dreamed” but the thinking there is more magical less within my control. But starting my day mindfully. Starting my day with an idea of what I want from it in specific terms – not “i want to be happy” but “what could I do that would make me happy” has adjusted my thinking.

What would make your day great today?

Lost in Lisbon

Europe must work for my affection. Whether it is some unconscious bias for its colonial past or more likely, a conscious one for its numerous sleights, I am not a fan of the “the civilized world.” few countries within its context have made my list of “must see” and even those that have (Italy and Greece) the visit is predicated less on what the country might offer (Vatican or Acropolis) and almost exclusively for the food I imagine they harbor.

After decades of dreaming of Egypt, when I finally visited I lingered over every

grain of sand and unfurling piece of history. Meanwhile, two hours at the Acropolis and I had spent my reserve of “awe” for the crumbling structure and was ready to move on.

Still, I planned for at least part of my yearlong sabbatical to include Europe. After the whirlwind that was me darting from city to city throughout southeast Asia, thirsty for everything she had to show me, I figured Europe, equipped with all of the history I am least interested in, would be a place I could sit quietly and write. 

So, I entered European borders with a bit of attitude and the expectation that if I were to fall in love here, if this were to be more than a glorified writer's camp, Europe was going to have to seduce me as no other place has been forced to seduce me.

Lisbon courted my affections with public transportation. Anyplace that links the city to the airport wins at least a begrudging nod from me. All the more so in Lisbon, the $2 ride diluting the damage a week of less frugal spending in Croatia inspired.

The sun bright, the language scrutable (with my elementary understanding of Spanish), I could feel myself relenting- succumbing slowly to Portugal’s charms.

Novelty (escalators on the streets connecting one block to another far above it) and historical predictability (statues of people on horses showcasing ancient ideals) weave the city into an interesting tapestry.

But the food?

In theory the food should be the thing that certifies Portugal in my heart. Portugal’s marauding citizens pillaged countries my heart gleefully embraces without wooing, for spices and culinary secrets. Portugal has Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and Macau in its colonial arsenal and their foods integrated into the tapestry of the place as it if has always been here.

Hangry, my search for food was fraught, as it usually is in my first days of a city. Still settling into a place, still getting my bearings, I knew what I didn’t want but less what I did. The tail-end of the holiday season means many Europeans are off on vacation, one place I'd read about was closed until September, another remained hidden somewhere between the certainty of my GPS and the winding multilayered streets of the city.

Exhausted, with less than an hour of sleep in the last 30 hours, I finally stumbled into a nondescript restaurant tucked in-between houses on a street that I thought led to my hostel (it did not). Desperate, I asked if I could have lunch and they nodded and settled me at a table with a couple finishing up their meal.

Scanning the menu, I was unimpressed but desperation forced my hand.

Cod. 

This is a coastal place, everyone says seafood is a winner here and cod is a local dish. Although this is sardine season, my hunger wouldn’t allow me to gamble on the tasted of grilled sardines just yet.

Bread arrived, a fanta, I breathed deeply and relaxed into my seat.

The food arrived after the delay that food cooked fresh requires. A huge piece of cod, charred perfectly and adorned with sliced garlic and a bath of olive oil. The sides included potatoes, sweet and savory, and a greens, broccoli, and carrots (Vegetables! In Croatia vegetables were not as common as I would have liked).

I dove in greedily. Learned that the bones were still inside the cod, realized despite the copious amounts of olive oil the dish wasn’t greasy.

And they had WiFi. The WiFi that let me know I'd been headed in the wrong direction...only, I suspect it was the direction needed to feed both my body and my expectations.

Bit O' Lizzie

A big burly, if gentle, dog with a tagged ear roamed between people, flopping down comfortably every few minutes until he spotted a cat.

Of course I didn't get a picture of the little girl.

In my mind, that cat is its perpetual nemesis. They are locked in a roadrunner/coyote or Tom/Jerry scenario- the dog the perpetual loser. He stalked that cat, a fraction of his burly size, and the cat managed victory each time. Two paws perched comfortably on the basket under a stroller, no one shooed her away, instead the dog- lumbered low and barking loudly if not at all aggressively. The children that were gathered near, the parents positioning themselves between dog beast and child, paid no mind to the cat that seemed almost to taunt its furry foe.

This passes for entertainment at 6:45 am when fatigue plagues you, dog chasing cat and people watching. The line was already beginning to snake behind us. The chill surprised me. I wrapped my arms around myself, the fleece hoodie Lizzie had encouraged me to grab soft under my fingers, relieved to be warmer -or at least less cold than I would have been.

I didn’t hear much English from the other people huddled in familial knots along the line. French, to be expected because August is France’s holiday season; Dutch, or maybe Afrikaans – I heard a “futsaak a less than polite expression common in South African villages; maybe German. A comforting cornucopia of country distinctions and the people to match.

My head swiveled, following sounds and imagined dramas, settling for a moment on a small blond child. She was maybe eight years old. Her eyes were an ice blue framed by blond hair that ran beyond her shoulders...and she stared. She stared at me so intensely- no smile- no change in her stoic face. So I smiled. I might have waved a bit; something I do when children in other countries stare at me.

I know I'm often the most foreign of sights. It used to be my brown skin and grand crown of curly twisted locks- now I imagine it is the extreme opposite- still the brownness, now accompanied by shorn curls and big earrings (twine feathers brushing my shoulders on this day). So I smile and possibly wave and usually kids either grin sheepishly and return the wave or hide behind a parent or turn their heads away.

This girl. This young version of what I imagine Lizzie to have looked like in her younger days, instead stared coldly at me for another beat and then turned her head slowly away. It reminded me more of what I get from staring adults. They stare and when I make eye contact they keep it a moment, as if to show me they weren’t staring at me or they aren’t embarrassed, and then they turn away. She did just that – an odd reaction from someone so young but whatever.

A few minutes later I felt her eyes on me again and so I repeated the exercise: smile, possible wave – and she repeated hers: a moment longer staring with unsmiling eyes or lips and then a turned head.

She repeated this for 15 minutes – the staring. It unsettled me.

I turned to Lizzie to see if I was imagining the whole thing, making more out of it than what should have been made. Lizzie smiled sympathetically at me, she noticed too, she thought it strange, too.

Croatia is a whiter country than I had expected. Or rather, I hadn’t really expected anything in particular but it is rare that I have been in place so very white that I noticed the contrast of myself so intensely. The summer in Iowa comes to mind and not much else. I had anticipated this sense of racial distinction in Amsterdam, only to be foiled by my own ignorance of the place- flush with people of all hues and a myriad of languages singing in my ears. But Croatia, even standing in line at one of its most popular tourist attractions during its busy season, showcased a sea of whiteness without a second brown face in the mix.

I get that I might have been a strange sight to the little girl. An anomaly to what she sees in her daily life. Still, the piercing blue eyes seemed to bore into me. Her joyless face surprised me. No childish curiosity or mirth or even fear – simply the stare of...I'm not even sure what.

I dubbed her Bit-O-Lizzie because she resembled what I imagine lizzie looked like at her age. And soon the line moved and we made it inside the park. But I didn’t forget her, I couldn’t quite shake her stare.

Karaoke

When the proprietor of the unagi shop brought me the telephone with someone on the other end, I was surprised. I hadn’t anticipated hearing from the pharmacists who had given me directions and his own testimonial about the place.

A hand drawn map to unagi.

Hamamatsu is known for unagi (freshwater eel) and gyoza and so of course I was on a mission for both during my stay. I found the famous, gyoza shop that afternoon (I’m ruined for life!) and searched out the unagi spot (on the advisement of my server at an izakya spot the night before). So after eating gyoza and then gazing at the Nakatajima Sand Dunes and the Pacific Ocean, I headed back toward my hostel in search of the unagi restaurant.

Only all of the signs are written in Japanese and I didn’t know the exact name of the restaurant to do a search. When I ducked into a pharmacy on the main road, I had already typed out the question and I was a little surprised when the pharmacist repeated the question to me in English. Once he was clear on what I was asking, his eyes lit up, “that is a wonderful place, I eat there,” he told me. He explained where it was and then, uncertain I understood, he sketched me a little map, complete with landmarks to help me along my way.

While he sketched he asked me the most common question I get asked while traveling, “where are you from?” and when I replied the United States, once again his eyes lit up and he began to tell of his trip, with his family, to California and Arizona years ago. How beautiful the drive… He even showed me a pine cone collection – one from Hamamatsu, one from Yosemite, and the last one from somewhere in Canada.

The meal really was picture worthy.

Friendly as he was, I didn't anticipate he’d want to chat any further after I set out in search of dinner. But there his voice was on the other side of the line asking if I could stop by the pharmacy on my way home.

The last light was fading from the day when I finished dinner, but it wasn’t dark yet. Why the hell not?

I ducked into his store on my way home, pleasantly full from my dinner (bless the women who served me, they pantomimed my choices, pointing to pictures for clarity and brought out bills from the register to show me how much it would cost).

We chatted for a bit and then, as it approached 8pm, time for the pharmacy to close, he asked if I would like to go for karaoke.

Karaoke? In Japan? Hell yes I want to go.

Ever been your own band at karaoke?

So he locked up the store and then offered to show me his home...upstairs. No thank you, even at 70ish with kids my age, I still wasn’t going there. So instead, we headed to the mall - where everything seems to happen throughout Asia.

Karaoke in Japan is nothing like I've ever experienced in America. The room was spacious, there were two large screens blinking neon colors at us, there were two touch screens for us to make our selections, standard enough but there were instruments. I stared, lounging on the couch in my slippered feet (no shoes in the room) in awe of the setup.

The song options and our selections were varied: Garth Brooks, Nat King Cole, New Edition, Elvis Presley, Bill Withers, and something in Spanish. We were all over the place, getting more into it, moving from sitting to standing so we could really emote.

Screens everywhere!

And then it was nearing ten, the time I'd said I wanted to head back, I prepared for my last song and as I did, this 70 or 80 year old man began rubbing my thigh. I ignored it for a moment and then realizing he wasn’t going to stop on his own volition, moved my legs out of reach. A moment later and I felt his hand rubbing up and down my back – an odd thing since we hadn’t touched in any way at all prior to this moment. There was no subtle way to make him stop so I simply moved from where I'd been sitting so that I was no longer in reach.

My last song was belted out with contingency plans scrolling through my brain in case I needed them, what I would say, how I’d get home. But I didn’t need them. He didn't seem upset as we put on our shoes and prepared to leave. He did reach for a hug, and I immediately recalled the old man who discussed his kids and public health job with me at a night market in Laos and how as he hugged me he slapped my ass.

Sigh.

Thankfully he didn’t do anything inappropriate...until he looked me up and down and said, as he walked down the hall, “you have a nice body.”

Sigh.

So many songs...

I could have avoided the whole thing. The awkward conversation and uncertain motives; but to avoid all of that means I avoid so many interactions...people who see me as a person, as someone in need of help or someone who has an interesting story to tell as a friend. And so instead of saying “no” I take a deep breath and do a gut check, and sing Garth Brooks at the top of my lungs.

Travel Hiccups

 I don't even know I've messed up yet.

I can’t tell you how it ends yet. I'm still in the middle. I'm still in the flux of this leg of my journey. And good or frustrating, this is the part I like. The part that doesn’t have a pat ending and has potential to unfurl amazing things or simply quiet time by the ocean.

I spent a few days in Hakone. No particular plan other than to search out local cuisine and soak my body in the hot springs.

I was ambivalent to people’s excitement about the Hakone Open Air Museum. I’m not sure what changed my mind. But on my last full day in the city, after a second person mentioned it and I google some images and was taken by the beauty of some of the work, I decided to navigate the bus and search out beauty.

It was an amazing day and unexpected in the best way.

At first, I balked at the price...$16...but I'd braved the bus walked the meandering road into the mountains, so paid my admission and began to wander anew.

The gray sky threatened rain but held itself at bay, save a few drops here and there. And I marveled at what people create when they have time and intention.

That was a plan-less day. A day without an itinerary or even expectations that ended with me at an onsen and an amazing dinner. A day that went according to the of plan I didn’t have.

Then there was another day.

My sister is a voracious reader and she sends me articles of interest as I journey. One about ways to meet people when you travel, stories from women who travel alone (like me), and most recently – one about a noodle shop that is opening in New York but whose original store is in Japan. I was intrigued and so I checked a map and realized that Kamakura (the site of the original shop) fell on my trajectory to Tokyo. So little distance between Hakone and Tokyo in fact (especially with express trains whizzing by every few minutes) I planned (Planned! A word I use so infrequently my parents have stopped asking me.) to leave Hakone in the morning, have lunch in Kamakura, and then head on to Tokyo.

Mistake number one wouldn’t become evident until after mistake number two.

Not the best presentation but delicious!

I arrived at Hanon at 12:30pm. According to google, it opened at 11am and didn’t close until 5pm so I had plenty of time to eat and be on my way. But when I walked through the narrow alley flanked on both sides by fish and vegetable vendors, my heart sank.

The sign read Hanon but the rest of it read Korean cooking class and deli. Who knew there was more than one Hanon...clearly not google maps because I had to do a separate more intentional google search to identify my mistake.

The view from my mistakes was delightful.

Now the question of the day...”do I call it a wash an head to Tokyo or do I stay overnight (which had been my original thought when I didn’t know how close the cities are to each other)?” My onsen glow had dissipated by then. I hadn’t eaten, in giddy anticipation of special noodles, so food was the only thing on my mind (even more than usual).

After a surprisingly delicious bowl of soup and a promising looking hostel (something I had yet to secure in Tokyo) I decided to stay. I made my way to my hostel and that is when I discovered mistake number one…

I left my passport in my bed at the my last hostel.

Sigh.

Anywhere other country I might have worried rather than simply being irritated, but Japan has a lovely way of restoring my faith in humanity. A friend lived here a few years ago and he recounted to me a time when he left his phone on a train and somehow it was returned to him.

My passport arrived the next day. It cost me 500 yen, a lowly $5 dollars – less than it would have cost to take the train back.

Yes! I made it to the noodles and they were wonderful!

My lack of discrete plans made this hiccup relatively inconsequential. I didn’t have reservations...anywhere...not hotel or train, not food or cooking class.

All I had was anticipation...anticipation of my passport’s arrival, of noodles I only knew about because my sister was the original Google in our family, and for whatever awaited me when I made it to Tokyo.

My tomorrows are full of uncertainty, and in my travel life, I like it that way.

No Translation

Places that offer an English menu, though helpful when ordering, are often places that non-Japanese people frequent. I don’t want to eat at places where foreigners outnumber Japanese. Of course the food can still be delicious, but I'm looking to experience Japan not the myriad of countries us tourists hail from.

The challenge, when I am able to find a restaurant nestled into one of the narrow alley streets that pepper Kyoto and Osaka, is that if there aren’t many foreign patrons there is a strong possibility that no one inside speaks English and I can’t read a menu written in Japanese. In Vietnam this wasn’t an issue because Vietnamese uses the Latin alphabet. It has way more punctuation, but plug it into a translator and a word pops up. Or, if the food can’t be translated, searching it out online provides at least a picture to decide if that was what I want to eat for lunch.

Hiragana, katakana, and kanji don't offer that luxury. And although things are sometimes translated into the Latin alphabet (Romaji) that isn’t the most common thing ESPECIALLY if there is no reason to expect a non-Japanese person to use your services.

 

Ordering by picture

Some restaurants have pictures. The whole menu is seldom represented in photos but another desperate lunch search in Osaka (the restaurant I was looking for didn’t open until dinner) brought me to a random spot upstairs. Yakiniku was pictured on the menu pages and so I pointed and the server brought it out to me (oh my GODDESS, the best beef I have ever had in my life).

I also rely on patient wait staff when they present themselves. Not every place has patience on the menu...and I get it, tourists can be cumbersome.

For dinner one night, I passed a restaurant that had a sign outside by the menu that said no English that, in the way it was written, felt less like an announcement and more like a proclamation for me to keep moving.

I did.

The menu Google couldn't translate

That evening I did stumble into what looked like an after-work spot for drinks and small eats. The waiter looked over the menu with me and tried to describe items to me. She smiled and occasionally conferred with another waiter for clarification or amusement and I offered up my GoogleTranslate although it wasn’t of much use. Dinner was hodgepodge but I was delighted by the experience- especially as someone from the table that was sitting behind me stopped on his way out to wish me a good evening – in what sounded like practiced English. It was a kindness that was not lost on me.

Sometimes I play food roulette. Hanging with a friend in Osaka, we simply pointed at line on the menu. That turned out to be a plate of very flavorful extremely chewy cartilage. I chewed for about 10 minutes, like meat flavored gum, before finally giving up. Japan is an expensive country, especially compared to Southeast Asia, so food roulette is a much more expensive approach to dinner than it was in Thailand or Vietnam (where I routinely ate three dinners each night).

One night I was desperate and tired and ended up in a tiny little shop run by a husband and wife. She spoke enough English to explain that one thing on the menu was a set menu. I ordered that. It wasn’t my favorite meal, but the hamburg steak (something I'd been avoiding in Osaka because it looks like salisbury steak) turned out to be flavorful and moist in ways I hadn’t anticipated.

The surprise, the not knowing, is part of the journey. For certainty I could stay at home. I could cook all of my own food or read a menu in a language I understand. But if I did that I might never learn how amazing wagyu beef is when perfectly marbled.