India, Day 2 - The lonely way to travel.
I have a love/hate relationship with transatlantic air travel. I like having nine hours to relax, but I dislike doing it in a metal tube filled with recycled air.
I like movies, but I dislike four-inch screens.
I enjoy conversations with new people, but planes always carry the threat of a seatmate whose bulk occupies both his own seat and part of mine. Worse yet, I've previously been caught next to talkative sad sacks, and with nowhere to run or hide, they depressed me with their life stories for hours at a time.
All that said, I generally enjoy the experience of air travel, even flying coach. Even at its worst, flying gives me dedicated time to catch up on some reading. Post-college, reading has taken on a new significance, because I finally have the luxury of choosing my own books. Based on the recommendation of a friend, I chose to bring a book on the trip that was very, very special: Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. Set in India during the 1980s, there was little difference between what was on the pages and what I saw firsthand in India every time I put the book down. If you have not read it, I highly recommend that you do so, sooner rather than later.
Aside from a reading and some intermittent movie-watching, my flight from Miami to London was uneventful. I managed to sleep a little bit as well, which always helps kill time. Someday I'll learn to take some Tylenol PM every time I fly, so I can just go right to sleep and be blissfully unaware of the passing time. After nine hours, I touched down in London early in the morning and was met by a familiar sign.
As I entered the terminal, following the familiar path through the "B Gates" in the international terminal, I grinned for a couple of reasons. The first reason was the knowledge that I would be returning to Britain at the end of my trip, and for the first time, I would actually get out of the airport and see England itself. As many times as I had connected through Heathrow, I had never actually set foot on English soil.
My second reason for grinning was the sight of several information screens held hostage by my old arch-nemesis, the Blue Screen of Death. I had no idea the old blue screen still afflicted modern computer systems, much less in airport terminal displays, but there it was, big as life.
As I said, it was early. Early enough to eat breakfast, although my body clock was so confuzzled by the time change that I might have actually been craving lunch or dinner. This is one point of my travel recaps that will remain problematic. On a good day, I am hopeless at processing numbers. Dramatic time changes and long flights exacerbate this weakness and make it even harder for me to remember details that aren't logged in my journal or with photographs. Details like exact times.
Where was I? Oh yes, breakfast. Or, "brekkie," as they say in the UK. I love that term. "Brekkie." Fun to say.
One of my favorite things about England is, honestly, the food. I don't know why England's traditional fare has been the black sheep of world cuisine for so long, because I find it delicious. Traditional British food is certainly simpler and less magazine-ready than, say, French or Italian cuisine, but that is actually what I love most about it. There's been a renaissance in British cooking in recent years, and top-tier gastronomy is dramatically changing the modern opinions regarding British cuisine, but I will always be a fan of the classics. From the delicacies and to the pub grub, it is simple, hearty fare, always savory and always satisfying. Especially the traditional English breakfast. Eggs, sausage, bacon, beans, tomato and potatoes. I can't think of a more comforting eating experience.
Breakfast moved to the top of my action list, I entered Giraffe, had my brekkie (I love that word) and a cup of good coffee. The repast over, I sat in the atrium of the terminal with my journal and wrote. As I got still and focused on the blank page, I became aware of an odd feeling. The last two times I had flown--including the last time I had gone through Heathrow--I had been with friends. I was retracing the same path to India, but I was doing it alone.
Alone. That's a naughty word when you're traveling. I've traveled alone plenty of times, and had fun doing it, but after several trips in a row with other people, I missed the company. I missed them badly, in fact. I have to confess that my trips to India aren't just mission trips. Selfishly, I look forward to the chance to spend ten days at close quarters with good friends from another state who I don't see at any other time during the year. And now I was doing the India thing again, but they weren't there with me. In the film The Third Man, Orson Welles' character, a sociopathic gangster, says from atop a ferris wheel: "Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?" In that moment, tired and listless and with no one to talk to, I felt like a dot.
This was the first of several such moments that I had during the course of my journey. When I was actually in India, I returned to several places where I had served on earlier trips. Coming back was strange, because the paradigms were so drastically different. Whereas the first time I went to this or that place, I was with friends, and often arrived there after a bus ride filled with conversation, laugher and even the occasional song. On this trip, however, I visited these places as the "silent partner" of various hosts, with almost every word out of my mouth requiring translation into Hindi or a local language before they could be understood. Having such strong memories so far from home, and even in a place like Heathrow, was a new and surreal experience, made slightly depressing by the removal of all the familiar and positive emotional associations. It almost felt like I had lost something, or someone.
In this incredibly positive state of mind (irony alert!), I sat in Heathrow and journaled my thoughts onto paper. My plane left in the late afternoon, and before departure, I also translated my mild sadness into a bit of emotional eating by buying a cappuccino and a bar of dark chocolate for an early dinner--my last Western indulgence before committing myself to India for six weeks. That decision has not gone down in the annals of "Steven's Personal Best;" to the contrary, the assault of milk and sugar on my stomach, unaccompanied by any other solid food, made the flight uncomfortable and set me up for a very tired landing in India.
My re-entry into Incredible India will be covered later this week. I am slowly realizing that my writing consecutive entries as long-form narratives is a little too time-consuming, so you may look forward to shorter but more frequent entries in coming weeks. Stay tuned!
An update from my Italian grandparents -- two people who gave me kindness when I needed it most.
Two years ago, I sat in the Ristorante La Giostra in Florence, Italy. Apart from the single candles that sat on every table, the only light in the room was an omniscient golden glow that descended from Christmas lights strung along the walls and wrapped itself around everyone and everything in the dining room. I sat alone.
Florence was everything I wanted in a city. It was beautiful, diverse and busy--but not so busy that I felt overwhelmed. There was balance, just like the proportions of the Renaissance statues to be found all over the city.
Sitting alone in this luxurious restaurant, the walls near its door covered in snapshots of the celebrities who had previously dined there, it struck me how out of balance I was in this perfectly-balanced city. I wasn't sharing this experience with anyone. Not the city, not the sights, not this meal of goat chops and parmesan-crusted zucchini. It was just me, in my khaki pants and blue shirt. I usually took delight in the freedom of traveling alone. But that night, surrounded by candles and laughter, served by a head waiter descended from the Hapsburg line, a beautiful young woman of my own age dining with her mother at the next table, I was struck by the ridiculousness of my being in La Giostra without a companion. For a brief moment, I saw myself walking with that young woman, laughing and discussing art and history and dreams as we passed the Ponte Vecchio on a walk along the Arno. But my reverie was just a reverie, and I was snapped back to life with the arrival of the secondo.
I enjoyed the food. I paid my bill, complimented the staff and emerged from the restaurant feeling melancholy. I had done what I wanted to do: I was in Italy. I had gotten what I wanted in Florence: a meal at the best restaurant in town. Every day was a learning experience as I moved in and out of museums, churches and palaces. But it was a quiet trip. I would go most of each day without talking much. And that night, it became a fact to me that travel was not always best when the traveler was alone with his thoughts. I might be a modern Hemingway in my own mind, sitting on riverbanks and hilltops inscribing a leather-bound notebook with thoughts and impressions, but to whose benefit was my facade of quiet mystery? I shook my head as I walked and vowed never to eat at La Giostra again unless it was a shared experience.
The melancholy of that night abated, but that moment of clarity was like a bite of Eden's apple--there was no undoing it.
Two weeks later, I was on a train. I had left the Hotel Bonconte that morning singing beneath the weight of my backpack and camera bag because I was on my way to Venice. Venice was the city of dreams. La Bella Venezia, floating like a ghost city in the early morning mists of the Adriatic. The city of Marco Polo, and my final destination in Europe.
I boarded the train with my customary haste, barely clambering into a trailing car before the final bell sounded and the doors hissed shut. I walked the length of the car and settled into the first compartment I found which was unoccupied. It was a weekday, and it took a while to find a space with no commuters reading novels or talking on their phones on the way to work.
It was a pleasant morning outside. I had a pleasant view of the Adriatic shoreline for the first leg of the trip. The rocking of the train and the serene blue of the water relaxed me, and I settled into the well-worn seat to write in my journal. I would enjoy Venice greatly, but I was still alone, and the knowledge that I would be in a guest house with internet that evening gave me the comforting knowledge that I would be able to video chat with my family.
But, in the space of a moment, I wasn't alone any more.
The train had just stopped in Faenza. Some people got aboard, others got off. Two of the people who had just boarded, an older couple, smiled at me through the clear plastic compartment door and entered. I smiled back and they sat down. The old man was bright-eyed, sanguine and cheerful. His wife was missing teeth and bore an inscrutably mischievous expression that hinted both a quiet demeanor and the threat of sharp wit.
The man leaned forward in his seat. His English was serviceable, if spoken with a concentrated effort. "You American?"
"Yes," I said.
He smiled broadly and leaned back in his seat. "Ah! And what do you think of Mr. Obama?"
And thus I met Renato.
Renato and his wife, Lina, lived in Faenza, and he was more than happy to hear my benign opinion of President Obama, and to eagerly tell me about himself and his family in return, as well as to give me a crash course in some basic Italian to prove to me that it was not a hard language to learn. A retired train conductor, Renato and his wife were traveling the train on his lifetime pass, which he told me was one of the perks of twenty years of unbroken work in the industry. They were on the way to Bologna to eat lunch at the Bologna Centrale station cafe, apparently a favorite spot among train personnel for a well-prepared and inexpensive lunch. Would I like to eat with them?
Renato asked me this question in a way that seemed impossibly friendly for someone he had just met. I was instantly wary of some surreptitious scheme that would see me jumped by a confederate at the station and relieved of my cash, camera and passport. But I had an hour to kill before my connecting train to Venice would arrive, and Italian trains on this side of the country were usually late by as much as an hour, so I agreed.
Lunch turned out to be delightful. For the first time, as an American traveling abroad, I was made to feel like a novelty instead of a commodity, and it was both pleasant and humorous. Entering the restaurant, Renato jovially called out to people he knew, greeting them in Italian before gesturing to me and saying "Americano!" I felt like a bullfrog brought home by a young boy with a proud herald of "look what I found!"
We ate and talked, and I asked Renato and Lina to sign an empty page in my journal, as a way of remembering them. Renato went the extra mile by adding their address below. The two of them, with Renato doing most of the talking, were a sweet relief to me on my quiet trip across Italy. After three weeks of entering and exiting places of interest with no more impact than the ghost of an enemy of the Medici, I found myself with a pair of surrogate Italian grandparents; two older companions who were eager to give of their time and share a meal with a traveler who was much lonelier than even he realized at the time. "Hemingway-esque sojourn" be damned, I had finally established a relationship, and it was grand.
After our meal of lasagna and salad, Renato graciously escorted me to the platform for my next train. He consulted every timetable twice to make sure that I made I was on the right line to go on to Venice. I bade him and Lina goodbye a little after noon as they boarded their own train back to Faenza, and I sat on a bench on the platform to continue my journey.
The journal in which Renato and Lina’s names and address were written went on with me to Venice, two trips to India and a college tour of great American cities from Charleston to New York. I never wrote to them. I always meant to. In fact, the memory of them only grew fonder in my mind as I grew older and saw what a blessing our time was together. When swapping travel stories with people, I would always smile and reference my “Italian grandparents in Faenza.” But work, college and several moves always distracted me from writing to them, or anyone else.
Two years later, this year, I heard from my father that there had been a damaging earthquake near Bologna. My first thought was of Renato and Lina. By this time, my own grandparents had all passed away after long illnesses, and I was and am extremely sensitive to the plight of older people under adverse conditions. The idea that they might have been injured in an earthquake sickened me, and I felt guilty for not having ever written to them.
That night, I opened a page of stationary and wrote a letter to them. I pulled my travel journal off of its revered place on my bookshelf and thumbed through it until I found their address, still barely legible in Renato’s unique handwriting. I copied it down as best as I could and posted it the following day. I was not overly hopeful for a reply.
Today, at a moment that I did not expect it at all, I received the following envelope in the mail:
I couldn’t believe it. The letter had reached them. I opened it with trepidation, not sure what I was worried about but worried nonetheless. A smile so big it hurt crossed my face, and I felt a surge of emotion in my throat and behind my eyes as I read the letter’s contents.
This happened several hours ago, and I am still smiling as a write about it. Renato and Lina were okay. Furthermore, they remembered me and still wanted to show me hospitality. What a rare, beautiful thing that spirit is.
It’s easy to write about travel as a marketable subject of interest and quantify human contact into an abstraction. The depth or number of local relationships forged during a trip are used by the pretentious as badges of the nebulously defined “accomplishment” of being a “traveler” instead of being the dreaded “tourist.”
I have no time to engage in these arguments. At the end of the day, a few things are true as facts and the rest is interpretation. And the facts in this case are: I was a young man traveling alone, and I met a wonderful couple that remembered me as long as two years later. I have friends in Italy. They call me Stefano. And it means more than they know.
We could all take a cue from Renato and Lina's unhindered hospitality.