40 in forty: Pack spare clothes in your carry-on

Ciao, friends! After a smooth but largely sleepless overnight flight to Rome via London, we are here. Our bags are not. 

It's a beautiful day in this beautiful city, and I have already witnessed a delightful Italian argument between two cab drivers that involved great deals of gesticulation, dramatic eye rolls and facial expressions, and strong but never screaming language. I was in the front seat of one of the cars, so I had a close-up of the action.

Afterwards, Luca-our driver-and I became fast friends, I now have several favoloso recommendations for restaurants and gelaterias, and I received the double kiss and an enthused hug when he dropped us off. I'm telling y'all, no language is more beautiful than Italian, it is beyond wonderful to be able to converse in foreign countries (Luca is not an English-speaking man), and the whole exchange made for such a happy entre to Rome.

But our bags. They did not leave London. I would like them to get to Rome today because we are all tired of the clothes we're in. Two-day, traveled-in underwear? Horrors! I did pack toothbrushes and paste, hairbrushes and some make-up, but our jackets, delicates, and pajamas would soon be welcome.

Tip: Always pack one spare outfit in the carry-on you bring on board with you! Perhaps you'll never need them, but if you do, you'll be as thrilled as I can imagine I'd be to have some now. 

Lovely Rome

40 in forty: Travel as much as you can

More than a decade ago, I went to East Africa. It was a remarkable three weeks in southern Kenya with a boy I loved. He spoke Swahili fluently, and I knew even then that I was experiencing a rare trip, a life-changing one I'd never forget.

In Nairobi, I ate sukuma and ugali (sauteed greens and corn meal mush) and roasted ears of maize sold from street vendors behind steaming carts. I drank cold Tuskers and shot pool. I scooped doro wat with doughy injera as an Ethiopian belly-dancer beguiled us.

On safari, I saw the Big 5. I visited an elephant orphanage and saw the wildebeest and flamingo migrations. Thousands of rickety-looking animals fording a river because instinct told them they must, even as crocs lay in wait. A whole lake turned pink by plumage. A black rhino and her darling baby. Great cats stretching and tending their young.

On the small island of Lamu, I devoured curry made from just-caught fish, vats of fresh "joo-eece" (juice) from the fruit vendor next to our inn, and chicken with fiery pili-pili sauce at a the home of a lovely Muslim woman, Hosna, the boy knew.

After lunch she invited me to try on one of her burqas before taking a stroll through the neighborhood. "Everyone knows you're white and foreign," she said, even though I was covered head to toe. "They look at your feet. Can you feel them staring?"

Was it strange? Yes. Was it a tremendous learning experience? Absolutely. Do travel and trying almost always enlarge our senses of the myriad possibilities and respect for differences in the world? Most definitely.

I remember being spat at while living in Amsterdam. An American friend (living in Amsterdam) and I were walking through a park, and a Dutch woman heard us speaking English. She spat and my friend retorted in angry Dutch, stunning the woman and relieving me. 

I remember being stuck at the horrid Holešovice train station in Prague, waiting and waiting and waiting. I called it "Holese-shit" and Tom and I laughed for days. The baths in Budapest, the disappointing Sacher tort in Vienna offset completely by the magnificent Klimts at the eponymous museum and the Muchas at his museum too.

I can still taste the rhubarb pie at that diner somewhere by Woodstock, VT. I remember the post office in Quechee, not far from the gorge. The redwoods in Northern Cal, the lunar-like beaches north of San Diego. 

I remember accidentally getting off to TGV train in Biarritz instead of San Sebastian. Shit. I spoke Spanish, not French. My friend was waiting for me so we could haul it to Bilbao to see the new Guggenheim museum there. I cobbled together a few phrases dredged from the depths of my mind, got to Spain, ate incredible tortilla and reveled in the opalescent undulations of Gehry's titanium masterpiece. The Rioja wasn't bad either.

~~~

It seems to me that as people age, they take one of two paths: the safe, familiar one, or the road less traveled. I plan to always take the latter, and I beseech you to do the same in all ways that you can. Do not close off, don't limit yourself. As best you can, speak to locals. Drive, walk, fly, train, in your own country and far beyond. Jump, ask, learn, try, be humbled and uncomfortable, enjoy something you didn't know you would. Keep growing!

Travel is a superb education, possibly the best. We leave tomorrow for Rome, and although I'm exhausted (so tired that I again forgot the correct documentation for the DMV which, naturally, I only realized once there. For the third time. I still don't have a license. I give up until we get back.), I can't wait to jump the border and fly toward a new adventure.

When in Rome...

Trying new things on for size: micro-seasonal eating and other traditions

For those who grow their own food or eat with the seasons, you well know the difference between a plump tomato just plucked from its vine and still warm from the sun and its sad wintry counterpart, the mealy, pale, flavorless orb. The former needs no ornamentation, the latter requires a dramatic amount of it.

I've learned a lot by eating seasonally. What's available in my garden or at the farmers market is what's at the peak of freshness because it's what grows well at that given time.

I've also learned a lot by eating in an even more micro-fashion; the old When in Rome. What's available fresh in any given city or area -Gullah food in coastal South Carolina, for example- or what is traditionally served on a given holiday in a certain part of the world -the Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes in Italy, place-specific stuffings on Thanksgiving Day in America...

Although St. Patrick's Day in the U.S. is most definitely a uniquely American variation on its real Irish counterpart, celebrating the day because it's also Oliver's birthday, has led me back to the annual delight of a corned beef and cabbage feast. 

Literally, I make this once a year, but it's a culinary way to mark this bit of time in March. It's a way to make Ol's birthday mean that much more, linking it to a tradition and country larger and beyond him and us and our family. It's an excuse to read books, study traditions and learn more about a culture, people and language we might not otherwise. 

Sometime during the week leading up to March 17, we start toasting each other with Sláinte (meaning Good Health in Gaelic), talking about the whys and hows behind the celebration of St. Patrick, learning a bit more each year about Ireland and its history, and looking forward to visiting that country some day.

The capstones are Ol's party and our family dinner, and even though the boys still don't like turnips, still prefer raw cabbage to poached, and the unyielding fact that we have zero Irish ancestry, I like the tradition of the whole thing and appreciate the ways in which food can enlarge perspective and understanding and palate, all in one delicious bite after another.

We gain so much by seeking to experience new and unfamiliar tastes and experiences, places and tongues, people and systems of belief. Doing these things is the path to greater understanding: of self, other, and the countless ways we're all connected. If we don't do so, we stagnate and become smaller, closed, less engaged and committed to the greater global community than we can and should be.