Recapturing the Feeling of Discovery

This past week I've had that wonderful feeling of being completely enraptured by a new book- not just one that has an incredible story line, but also one that has an absorbing and detailed (but not overly descriptive) writing style. The Historian attracts me with its vivid and quaint travel descriptions. The diplomat father often brings his teenage daughter along with him, and on their journeys they amble through open, dusty Italian plazas in the summer, sip orange juice in front of a Gothic-style churches that her father can describe with a historian's expertise, or partake in simple picnics of goat cheese, soft bread, and mixed greens from a side-road vendor, often with a chocolate bar for dessert.

The other day I was struck by a particular passage, which seemed to speak directly to me and my traveler's soul. The young woman in the novel, later in life, reflects back on her young travels and writes how, "As an adult, I have often known that peculiar legacy time brings to the traveler: the longing to seek out a place a second time, to find deliberately what we stumbled on once before, to recapture the feeling of discovery. Sometimes we search for it simply because we remember it. If we do find it, of course, everything is different. The rough-hewn door is still there, but it's much smaller; the day is cloudy instead of brilliant; it's spring instead of autumn; we're alone instead of with three friends. Or, worse, with three friends instead of alone" (Kostova 80). In this passage the author captures the main draw of traveling, for me and many others - that sense of discovery that is so saturated in traveling experiences. I've gotten to explore a lot of places in Spain this year, but just this past week, I've felt this addictive sense of discovery in Madrid- like I've been traveling in my "own" city.

It began last Saturday, on a perfectly sunny spring day, with a tea and meriendas at our Brazilian friend Debora's new apartment. She had brought back some special cookies from Brazil and wanted to share them with others while debuting her new apartment. We had a lovely afternoon in her new sun-filled place drinking lemonade, eating cookies, quiches, lettuce wraps, and gooey cheese buns, while taking advantage of her large, slick wood floor (my friend and coworker Sam and I put on Gangnam style, whose choreography we learned a bit of at a salsa club the night before!) That night we met up again at Retiro Park for an unexpected San Isidro fireworks show. As we entered the park with throngs of people, we enjoyed the warm spring air that was almost thick enough to taste, a welcomed change after a long, drawn-out winter. We could hear the orchestra and opera music blaring from the lake, and soon Laura and Ash and I began to lip sing and prance around, expressing the joy we felt in the atmosphere around us. And then the fireworks show itself- incredible! The fireworks exploded over the small manmade lake in Retiro, over the large white monument that was ablaze with changing colors of reds, greens, and blues before and during the show. The fireworks were perfectly synchronized with the instruments, as if they were made to complement each other. Loud, large explosions accompanied trombones and fast beats, and the graceful, falling fireworks that look like palm trees went perfectly with the slow, lone violin, or the note of a traditional Spanish ballad. It was so beautiful and moving, that I (and those gazing up around me) were almost brought to tears. It was one of those experiences that will stand out to me most about my time here- and it'll be hard to recreate again, even if by a small chance I happen to ever be back here in May.

The discovery continued Sunday when our Spanish friend José picked us up for lunch and took us to a new area in Madrid that I'd never been to (that's what I love about Madrid- there are always more parts to discover!). Only after walking around and exploring the area a bit did I realize where we were- just behind an area in La Latina where I'd been last year to eat at a vegan buffet (that I hadn't been able to find since)! There are so many hidden corners of Madrid. This tucked away space was an open, sunny plaza, bordered by clusters of terraces with outdoor tables and sun umbrellas, happy dogs in leashes, and chatty, fashionable madrileños relieved to finally be able to don their new spring attire. We waited in the sun, relaxed but also vigilant for a table at any one of the various restaurants bordering Plaza de la Paja. Fortuitously, a table at La Musa opened up, and we pounced on it. Only half way through the meal did we realize that this was one of  Tal and Danielle's favorite restaurants in Madrid- one they'd always been trying to get us to go to! We ordered "La Bomba", a boiled potato that was then fried, scooped out with a spoon, filled with ground beef, tomato and white sauce, and served in a bed of cilantro pesto sauce. If the description on the menu wasn't enough to get us to order it, their boasting of the fact that it sold over 20,000 of this potato wonderfulness a year did! We got a couple good wok orders, and ended with a mind-blowing dessert called "leche souffle con cookies". I was in love at first bite! It was served in a clear glass jar that exposed it's bottom layer of milk souffle, it's middle layer of sweet brown rum sauce, and its topping of dark crumbled cookies. Quite the fortuitous discovery!

One of the tree-covered cafes in Plaza de la Paja

"La Bomba" (photo thanks to Sam;
sadly I didn't have my camera on me that afternoon!)

My "vacation" continued Monday, as I always have Mondays off of work, and sometimes I take the afternoon to treat myself to a tea or lunch at my new favorite local cafe, Mur cafe, while studying for my online education classes. The staff is so sweet (and have begun to expect me on Mondays), and though it's a little pricey, the quality of the food and the care they take in its presentation. Last Monday I arrived at the cafe on a want-to-be sunny afternoon to find tables set up on the terrace, complete with large black shade umbrellas strung with pale yellow tea lights, glass jar centerpieces with leaves and wildflowers, and black napkins and silverware tied with twine (this is the care of details I was talking about!). I sat down alone, pulled out my book, and ordered an eggplant bagel sandwich and fresh berry melon iced tea. A few minutes later, the sweet waitress carried out a small tray with the bagel served on a wooden block, a small china bowl of rosemary potatoes and the tea garnished with two fresh blackberries. I was tickled to be having such a gourmet lunch alone, and as I took the first bite of steamy potatoes and closed my eyes to savor the flavors, I thought "is this real life?". Then I opened them to find a group of Spaniards at the table across the way openly staring at me (like they tend to do more often here), probably thinking "Quién es ella?". I decided to ignore them- that there's nothing wrong with enjoying a delicious lunch by yourself every once in awhile.

On Wednesday, as it turns out, I'd soon experience that feeling of trying to "re-discover" a place, that sensation I'd read about in my book. It was Día de San Isidro, which meant another day off of work for yet another saint (hey, I'm not complaining!). I met with some friends in La Latina for drinks, and after a lazy afternoon of tapas and mojitos (they're obsessed with this drink here), I decided to take a walk home through Plaza de la Paja, where I'd had that amazing lunch with my friends only the Sunday before. I walked down a side street from La Latin and as I entered the plaza, I could tell it was already different. It was smaller and less open than I remembered; it was a cloudy day, not a brilliantly bright, sunny spring day; the plaza was completely empty; and I was walking alone. Sam, Ashleigh, Laura and José were not with me. We were not conversing animatedly about gender norms or the US education system. There was no little 5-year-old girl in a pink dress, running through the middle of the plaza with a German Shepard that was 3 times her size, contentedly and obediently following her.

But I didn't have too much time to wallow in the differing conditions of that plaza. I continued on my walk and stumbled across a parade for Día de San Isidro, a solumn procession of old women in black lacy dresses, women with white traditional head scarves with red flowers right on top of their heads, middle aged and elderly people watching stoically and silently from the sides, and the vibrations of the mournful and nostalgic drums and trumpets echoing off of the brick churches and narrow alley walls. I could almost feel the history of this tradition in the air, on the walls, in the streets, in the tall statue of the Virgin Mary being wheeled along. As I stopped for a few minutes amongst the crowd of elderly, I thought of how neat it would be to come back to Madrid to visit someday and share this experience with another. But again, I soon realized I was making a new unique memory, another one that would also be impossible to recreate, even days later. Another day it wouldn't be a Saint's holiday; it wouldn't be a cloudy, melancholic day that fit the mood of the procession perfectly; it wouldn't be a small discovery I made walking alone walking uphill, following the sounds of drums echoing in the contained, narrow streets.

These unique experiences, and failures to recreate them, are more reasons and reminders to live in the moment and always seek out novel experiences- to keep moving forward. If you're always trying to recreate old experiences, you will miss out on that continued sense of discovery, that chance to explore and find new places and things. And to that I say Carpe diem!