~a column by Colleen O’Brien
I asked the front desk clerk for a good place to eat supper.
“Supper?” she asked in her Italian accented American
“Dinner,” I corrected myself.
“Ah, si,” she said enthusiastically. “Our favorite place!” She smiled broadly and waved her left arm across my face and pointed. “Out the door,” she said, “turn left, two blocks, turn left again. It’s called Xorus. It is a little family place and the best food in town.”
I thanked her, thinking that it must be wonderful, considering I was in the big town of Barcelona, Spain.
An hour later I found it, having squared every block reaching out in all directions from my hotel. The front desk forgot to say, “Cross the street and go a block and then turn left.” Or if she had said it, I did not hear.
I am infamous for this – getting lost is what ensues – because I’m precipitous, so eager to get someplace that I’m not listening carefully, thinking I can do it, whatever it is, to get where I want to go. The thing is that I always get there; it’s just in a longer time than it should take and through various twists and turns and asking for more directions. I do meet a lot of people this way.
In my wandering way, however, I get to dally, watch the people and the trees – my favorite things on earth – that line the sidewalks and march down the middle of the streets in some places; they are in backyards of apartment buildings and in the middle of a school playground. They uproot cement steps and gutters and grow into brick walls and office buildings. The natives call them planetrees, we call them sycamores. The plenitude of them is absolutely gratifying in the constant flow of the people and the vehicles of the city, for they are graceful, inviting, cozy and protective, these giant urban soothers. Because they are so old – 50 and 60 feet tall – few of them have peeling bark left, only the occasional young ones – and their big leaves are everywhere. It is autumn, and they are slow to lose them all, so the canopy is still lovely, a vast umbrella for the folks scurrying by, lazing along because it’s a soft day – sunny/cloudy, not too hot – lounging on park benches, drinking espresso, latte, wine at wrought iron tables along the sidewalks, plenty of lost but curious in the way of tourists.
It’s a scene to walk around in forever, to want to live in. I watch nicely dressed old ladies walk carefully in mid-heels trailing their two-wheeled baskets to the neighborhood mercado – a rather big grocery store but nowhere near as big as ours; just comfortable for a couple of neighborhoods, with anything I want inside, I discover, including animal crackers.
I watch young mothers – all of them still so beautiful, happy, talking a mile a minute. Their children are gleeful to meet their little friends, the chubby babies in the strollers sleep. Businessmen with their seriously intent walk the world over; many men simply sitting arguing and coffeeing. Quite a few shop owners stand in front of their doors inviting people in or saying, “Hola!” or “Buenos Dias” to pedestrians.
I never did acclimate myself to the hundreds of black motor bikes along and in the streets of towns of the Med, zooming in and out of traffic, the hundreds parked along walls as close to one another as spooning couples, the one or two parked in front of each place of business. They are everywhere and mostly quiet – a few, like ours, with mufflers deactivated.
There are bicycles, too, used mainly on the streets that are vehicle free – so many of these pleasant thoroughfares with cobblestone sidewalks, lanes on either side for bikes, iron picnic tables down the middle, iron benches here and there, planetrees in neat rows and sporadically dotted throughout the park-like safe streets. Little kids play by their parents sipping their ever-present lattes, chatting, gesticulating furiously . . . the children also – it’s just such a scene of contentment, camaraderie, neighborhood, tradition. I am envious.
That evening when I guide my pal to El Restaurante Xorus, the hustle and bustle of the streets is now mostly people, fewer autos. The town is out in costumed force because it’s Halloween, and there are ghosts and vampires and princesses and Hulks everywhere. Stores and bars and cafes give out candy, as do passers-by (not us, although we would have had we known). Moms and dads and grandparents with goblins and witches, many of them witches and masked Zorros themselves. The parents look as excited as their children; it seems everyone has the spirit.
Inside Xorus, we are invited to a brief dissertation with an occasional English word, a lot of Italian, maybe some Greek of the story of the Greek family Xorus immigrating to Barcelona and opening this restaurant decades ago, where it has stood through peace and war (I think that’s what they tell us.) They pour the home-brewed house wine, a red that is very strong (bold, I think is the vintner’s term), and on the very far side of sweet. At first sip, I want bottles to take home with me, which they don’t do I learn. I order food they suggest – potatoes w/ red sauce and pasta and pork. I’m game; my friend is after the shrimp. (My first food in Italia years ago was a pizza with fried potatoes and pecorino (sheep) cheese made into a white sauce. However weird it sounds, potato pizza and potatoes and pasta together are culinary delights.)
We walked our dinner off among the still-celebrating, duded-up Halloween creatures, now only adults whose children have apparently gone home with the grandparents. We can feel revelry is in the offing, and I want to stay, but we have an early-morning call, we’re stuffed and we’re old and tired.
Ageing, I’ve experienced, is a process of doing fewer fun things, especially if there is dancing and drinking involved.
I say, travel when you’re young enough to trip the light fantastic. Even if you think you must wait till you’re old and have more money, you may NOT have more money, and you WILL be old.
