One of my favorite mornings to date was during my time in Barcelona. I was staying with a friend and her family in Sant Cugat, just outside the city. We needed to catch an early train in as she had to get to class. We planned to meet up later in the afternoon, but the morning was mine to explore.
As an ambitious traveler, I planned to visit a museum and catch the hop-on-hop off bus to see a few famous sights. Little did I know that the city had other plans for me. When I got to the museum, it was closed. And the bus tours hadn’t started up for the day either. I was quickly learning that Barcelona was not a morning city.
At a loss, I walked down the street and continued down a wharf. Just as I neared the end, I found a café. With time now on my hands, I decided to enjoy a nice breakfast. Even though I didn’t drink coffee at the time, my sister told me prior to my trip that I had to try the “café con leche”. I ordered one and a pastry. The café was tiny and not specifically designed for guests to stay and sip their coffee. There was one other customer. I pulled up a chair near the front door and took out my guidebook. The fishy breeze was refreshing in the stuffy café. Any my sister was right, the coffee was amazing.
The guidebook stated that the museum wouldn’t open for another hour. So, after I ate, I decided to continue to stroll around the area until the doors opened. None of the shops were open, the street vendors weren’t set up yet, there were no business people rushing to work, and the city was quiet. The only other people I saw out and about was a group of German tourists. I’d run in to them the day before on a bus and so we nodded politely to each other. Having already discovered we didn’t share a common language, we continued on our separate paths.
Before long, I was back strolling along the water again. This time, I was on a boardwalk. More people were starting to appear. The city must finally be waking up. Vendors started to unroll their mats and set out merchandise along the boardwalk. They had carved wooden bracelets, Barca Football Club t-shirts, sunglasses, earrings, postcards, and magnets. I picked out two scarves and bought them for my sisters. As one of the first customers of the day, I managed to haggle the price down a bit.
The city was in full swing now. Tourists crowded the boardwalk. The vendors were yelling out the merchandise they had for sale. The shops all had their doors propped open. It was time to get back to my itinerary and I headed to the museum.
This is also great. You are describing that discovery of travel.
ReplyDeleteYou could give your sentences more weight. Discard sentences that say something general for something specific. Give me more fishy breezes and your first real coffee.
I learned to love coffee overseas too.
This also gives me an opportunity to give you a relevant metaphor.
There is the itinerary of our writing.
And then there is writing.