We quickly fell into a blissful rhythm of waking to the midmorning sun filtering in through the gauzy curtains and making coffee on the stove top. On Sunday morning there was one of those emblematic French markets. Food stalls, produce stands, cheese mongers, butchers, rotisseries, and more stretched for blocks, and we lost ourselves in the magical wonder of the incredible bounty of fruits, vegetables, cured meats, cheeses, yogurts, and perfectly roasted chickens. Like everyone else, we bought a rotisserie chicken to eat for a late lunch along with a simple salad and array of cheeses, some soft and delicate and others strong, pungent triple creams you had to scoop onto your bread with a spoon. At the market, David discovered a patisserie that sold the most enormous meringues we had ever seen. Bigger than my head, the meringues came plain or dipped in dark chocolate. We opted for the dark chocolate version and made the glorious mistake of eating the entire thing in one sitting. We found the most indulgent vanilla yogurt with cream on top. It had flecks of vanilla bean, and the blue ceramic containers were so charming we saved four to bring home as coffee cups.
We also began to recognize the locals’ daily rituals and adopted a few ourselves. David would stroll to a bakery at 5:00 p.m. for an evening baguette. We befriended the cheese monger at the local shop, and for the days leading up until her holiday closure, we would stop in and sample something new, always leaving with at least three different cheeses to enjoy as an afternoon snack or after-dinner treat.
We spent our afternoons savoring the slowness of the days. David wrote songs on the little Martin travel guitar we had carried around the world with us, and I devoured book after book from our host’s English-friendly collection. Rosé replaced water. At sunset we would stroll to the nearby park and settle in for an aperitif, opening a bottle of wine and unwrapping the most perfect dome of goat cheese while watching the sunset. Sometimes David would bring the guitar, and we would dip into our own little world, playing and singing together as the light dimmed. We were in heaven.
We ended up going back to L’Oenothèque de Lyon two more times before we left the city. Both times, the lovely woman we had met on that first night was there, and soon we were friendly with not only her but the owners as well. On our last visit to the restaurant, she and the brothers invited us in at the end of our meal for a farewell glass of Champagne. We both remarked on how wonderful we thought the wine was, and when the brothers showed us the bottle, we took a picture to remember it by. When we got back to the flat that night, we were still talking about how delicious the Champagne had been. David looked up the bottle online, and we both gasped when we read it was a €120 bottle. What a luxury!
During our time in Lyon, we also took advantage of the city bike share. We would rent bikes and cruise to the bottom of the hill where the more commercial part of the city was. Some shops remained open, and we would bike along streets lined with galleries, fashionable boutiques, and artisanal-food purveyors. One afternoon we bought a bottle of wine and biked to the banks of the Rhône River, where David jury-rigged two wine glasses with an Opinel knife and plastic water bottle. I’ve rarely seen him more proud.
The bike ride back up the hill to La Croix-Rousse was quite the workout. Even with all the walking we had been doing, I felt a bit out of shape. David has what his cycling buddies like to call “old man strength.” No matter how in or out of shape he is, he’s able to chew up hills with fortitude. I don’t share this ability. One evening, we were making our attempt to conquer some streets that crisscross up the hill. David was in the lead, and I puffed along behind him. Sweat poured down my back and face. As we rounded the second to last turn, we passed a café we had biked by several times in the last few days. Normally the café was closed, but tonight it was open. Inviting golden light streamed onto the small terrace, and contented patrons laughed over glasses of wine and plates of food. A few people even cheered us on as we labored past on our bicycles, shouting words of encouragement and raising their glasses. Even in our pain, we were able to take note of how blissful the scene looked, so as soon as we had parked our bikes at the top of the hill, we shook off the sweat and walked the two streets back down.
The café was named Au Temps Perdu. The owner welcomed us warmly and seated us at a comfortable table in a romantic corner. The small menu was scrawled on a chalkboard, which the waiter held up for us to read. He provided some input on some of the items we weren’t as familiar with and made a few recommendations, many of which we took. Although we were hungry from the ride, we were still tremendously hot, so we ordered a large salad resplendent with prosciutto, cheese, and seasonal produce, and a plate of succulent prawns swimming in an herbaceous garlic sauce. Paired with glasses of bright white wine, the food was spectacular. We ended the meal with a perfectly browned crème brûlée.
As we savored the last few bites of our dessert, we reveled in the atmosphere of the café. We observed the other diners, all of whom seemed familiar with one another. The owner moved back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, playfully interacting with the guests and helping out with the cooking. The waiter was both server and bartender. We noticed a classical guitar leaning against one wall. After we had finished our meal, David asked if he could play. The owner was delighted and immediately brought over the guitar. David began to play a Spanish melody, and one of the couples sitting nearby got up to dance. It all felt very French.
When we left for the night, the owner encouraged us to come back again. We only had a few days left in Lyon, but the very next night we found ourselves back at Au Temps Perdu. The atmosphere had such a magnetic pull on us. That second night our meal wasn’t quite as magnificent, but it was equally if not more memorable. We made the risky move of ordering very local dishes: frogs’ legs and andouillette. The former was more straightforward, but the latter ended up being quite the surprise. I had ordered andouillette under the assumption it was a sausage, but it turned out to be a tripe casserole. Having made this discovery, I could barely stomach the dish. I gave it to David, who said he didn’t mind it, but his appetite changed when I asked, “Can you taste the poop?” while he was midbite. David’s meal must have involved the deaths of roughly twenty frogs. The plate was piled with legs upon legs upon legs. He was able to get through half, then struggled through the last quarter out of sheer guilt over how many frogs must have died.
As we lingered over our meal, the restaurant began to fill with a small crowd of locals. Some we recognized from the night before, including the dancing couple. We felt as if we had happened upon a little party and watched happily from the corner as they opened bottles of Champagne and began pulling out instruments. There were two guitars, a tambourine, and a maraca-like thing that made a rainy shimmer when shaken. We were invited to join the group, and as more glasses of Champagne were poured, the owner went to the front of the restaurant and pulled down the metal grate, closing us all in for the evening. It was at that point that the cigarette smoking began with flagrant disregard for the government-issued Ne Pas Fumer (no smoking) signs hanging on the walls. The room filled with laughter and the sounds of classic French songs from the ’60s. One man in the group sounded like a French Bruce Springsteen. David was given a guitar and joined in the revelry, and I sang on a few songs as well. At one point, a woman even pulled out a cello from who knows where. We had somehow stumbled into another time or a scene from a classic French film. We stayed until three in the morning, playing music, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, and getting to know the crew. It was one of the best nights of the trip, and for an evening, we let ourselves get utterly lost in the underbelly of late-night French café life. As we walked back to our flat, holding each other and strolling through the empty streets, we were filled with smiles. What a night! What a city! We felt at home and never wanted to leave.
We often think about how none of this would have happened if we hadn’t come to Lyon during the start of the August holiday season. What others might have considered the worst time to visit a French city, we ultimately considered the bes
t. We found life, real life, in the in-between. Of all the places to not feel like a tourist, we definitely didn’t expect it to be in France.
Chapter 7
People Make All the Difference
Vacationers and travelers are received quite differently. We were skeptical of the stories we had heard of how open and generous people could be to travelers. It seemed a bit far-fetched, especially since we were not college-aged backpackers looking to crash wherever. The idea that adults we hardly knew would offer up their homes and food or take the time to provide a mini-tour seemed improbable at best. Perhaps we even believed that mistrust came with age.
What we see now is that there is a fundamental difference between welcoming a vacationer into your home or town and welcoming a traveler. Generally speaking, vacationers are looking for a respite from their often stressful and hectic lives. Their focus is on being taken away and rejuvenated in a new place. Travelers, on the other hand, are looking to learn and experience as much as possible about where they are. They are not looking to escape or seeking a reprieve. We often sensed from locals that a part of them was thinking, Out of all the places in the world to visit, you chose here. I want you to know my home and its people are as good or better than any in the world! Having us leave with a real understanding of their home seemed as much a point of personal pride as it did anything else. Learning this comparative context and the difference between a traveler and a vacationer revealed the larger picture of why people were so willing to show us a great time. Our experience was a reflection of their individual kindnesses, the pride they took in their heritage, and the opportunity to have their home compete with great places all around the world. We often felt this more intensely in small towns, but even in big cities people wanted to show us the real side of their city as opposed to the guidebook version.
In this chapter, we illuminate the special inherent connectivity that travel infuses in relationships, both new and old. We share stories of reconnection with old friends and moments of instant connection with new ones. Travel friendships are a special breed. The new relationships we forged and the old relationships we rekindled were some of the most rewarding elements of our journey. When we look back on our trip now, we not only think about all the incredible places we saw, the things we did, and the cultures we experienced, but we also think about the people we visited and the moments we shared together.
A GLOBAL VIEW OF FRIENDS AND FAMILY
Before we left on our trip, we mapped out all the countries and cities where we had friends and family. We were shocked at the number. Between the two of us, we knew people all over the world, and through the connections of friends-of-friends, family friends, and new people we met on the way, that people-to-visit count increased all the more. Having people to visit gave us reasons to see places we ended up loving that may not have otherwise made the list, and as we’ve mentioned before, having a local guide show you around is invaluable.
Before you set off on your journey, sit down and make a list of the people you know living abroad. You may be surprised at the number of global connections you have, and there is an unbelievable joy in reconnecting with a friend or family member you haven’t seen in years.
CONNECTIONS
New Zealand
family friend we hadn’t seen in fifteen years
New South Wales, Australia
new acquaintance through family friend
Singapore
distant relative
Osaka, Japan
former classmate we hadn’t seen in five years
Tokyo, Japan
new acquaintance through friend back home; new acquaintance through distant cousin
New Delhi, India
former classmates we hadn’t seen in five years
Bangalore, India
new acquaintances through former boss from back home
Bucharest, Romania
close family friends
Prague, Czech Republic
former classmate we hadn’t seen in five years
Dublin, Ireland
acquaintance we met while traveling in India
Milltown Malbay, Ireland
distant relative
London, England
former boss; former classmates we hadn’t seen in five-plus years
Leeds, England
new friend we made while traveling in Thailand
Edinburgh, Scotland
new friends we made while traveling in India
Paris, France
new acquaintance through friend back home; family friend we hadn’t seen in ten-plus years
Tours, France
friend we hadn’t seen in ten years
Köln, Germany
family friends we hadn’t seen in five years
Mannheim, Germany
new friends we made while traveling in Thailand
Hamburg, Germany
new friend we made while traveling in Cambodia
Berlin, Germany
friend we hadn’t seen in ten years
Grasse, France
parents of former classmate we had only met once before
Nice, France
new friend we made while eating out in Tours, France
Rome, Italy
new acquaintance through family back home
Florence, Italy
new acquaintance through friend we met while traveling in Thailand
Bologna, Italy
new friend we made while traveling in Thailand
Milan, Italy
distant relative; relatives of friends back home
The Irish Cousins
Milltown Malbay, Ireland
ALEXANDRA
52.8562° N, 9.4008° W
Nell and Jim Gleason are as Irish as Irish come. They have six kids, including a set of twins, own and maintain a farm, and, until recently, managed a general store and traditional Irish music pub. When the local church was under construction for renovations, Nell and Jim opened their pub to the town for Sunday service and a convenient transition to postworship libations. Nell had also run a book club with her friends for over forty years, and her personal library was beyond impressive. She had somehow read countless novels in between raising a family, working a farm, and running a pub and store. When we were telling the Gleasons about our trip, Nell kindly commented, “Well, I have no idea what that’s like. We never took a day of vacation.”
Nell and Jim are David’s somewhat distant cousins, with whom he did not have regular contact, but they had generously invited us to stay in their home in Milltown Malbay for a few nights during our time in Ireland. We had just come from five days on the tranquil bliss of Inis Meáin, the most remote of the three Aran Islands off the coast of Galway, and we were over the moon to discover that our stay with Nell and Jim coincided with the Willie Clancy Festival, the biggest traditional Irish music festival, which took place annually in midsummer in Milltown Malbay. Irish musicians of all ages had descended upon the town, and for the next few days and nights, every single pub in the center of town (and there were a shocking number considering how small the town was), would be filled with the sometimes uplifting but often heartbreaking sounds of traditional Irish music from midmorning until well after dark. We couldn’t believe our luck.
When we arrived, Nell let us know the festival officially began the next day, but there would be some more casual gatherings at a few of the pubs in town that evening. She suggested we go, but not until we had eaten our fill at dinner. The definition of the gracious hostess, Nell prepared an Irish feast for us on our first evening: lamb, potatoes, cabbage, soda bread, and plenty of creamy and golden Irish butter. Nell piled David’s plate as high as if he were a laborer in her field needing to refuel after a long day’s work. David enthusiastically polished off his plate, but little did he know he was accepting a quiet invitation to a three-day eating challenge. For the next two mornings, Nell steadily increased the amount of food on David’s plate, beginning with four rashers of bac
on, two sausages, three eggs, and a half loaf of bread to a whopping six rashers of bacon, four sausages, two slices of blood pudding, four eggs, and a half loaf of bread. David managed with the first breakfast, but after over an hour of happily struggling through breakfast two, he had to admit defeat. Overfeeding was clearly a sign of love in Ireland, and in this household, the stove did not have an “off” button. There was always a full kettle on ready to make someone a cup of tea, and Nell ran a microbakery of sorts, with loaves of hot bread fresh from the oven every day. It all felt like magic.
After dinner, we retired to the sitting room, where it was apparently a family tradition to play music and sing after supper. I could feel my palms break out in a sweat. David was handed a guitar, and Derek, Nell and Jim’s middle child and one of only a few uilleann pipe makers in the world, took up a set of pipes to play. He kicked off the performances, playing an achingly beautiful traditional tune. When he was done, Nell turned to me and inquired about my musical skills. I weakly replied, “I sing.”
A Year Off Page 10