Peaches in Austin…peaches will never ever taste as good again as when I had my first peach on sunny day in Austin last July. You were not there with me when I did bite in that one piece of fruit my dear friend H had just handed me over. You will never be able to share that experience with me because it was one of those taste experiences that went beyond. It was like a collision of so many emotions and my taste buds were on fire. I can only describe it as fireworks were going of in my mouth but also in my brain. Desperately I wanted to hold on to that sensation. Sweetness, and smoothness were two words that I will for ever link up with that heavenly snack moment. But I even wish to top it with the following more in depth words that even reflect so much better the intense moment I experienced while sitting on a high chair in an cozy air conditioned kitchen:’succulent luscious and mushy’!
I guess you must wonder if all the rest of my holiday abroad was as good as that or even better…hmmm…hard to say. A mango is not a peach, and pancakes in NYC are not the same as a breakfast taco in Austin, a mojito is not a Texan Mule and a swimming pool is not a walk in the park. Just to give you an idea how different my two vacation spots were. And that is just the top of the ice berg. Because there is more than meets the eye when I travel to the States. For me that nation brings together so many things, places, food, art, architecture, landscapes, landmarks and foremost people I love. It is a bit like coming home when the plane comes to a total stand still.
It also not the average holiday that I end up having when getting into a cab or shuttle bus. Also I can’t hide my American accent that I inherited after being 11 months an exchange student. It still lingers around in my sub conscience. Strangely did it took me over 48h that I seem to speak the English the average American understood. Guess that the job related Britishness has crept under my nails and now has also taken over how I pronounce certain words or have a slightly adopted vocabulary. There was even a moment of panic when I did try to order two bottles of still water and that the waiter gave me a blank face. With temperatures and humidity on the rise in the Big Apple you do wish to able to order a bottle of refreshing water asap. Thanks to my speedy and helpful niece I did manage to get my hands on them. Believe me at that exact moment I was feeling desperate and about to lose it all together.
It are these extra ordinary journeys to the US that make me go beyond in many ways. Oh yes, I do need to push a few snooze buttons when I see the skyline of NYC looming up. Even when the limo-driver points out that he never gets enough of it I do know that I will not walk in there anymore as a first time traveller. I have been on top of the World Trade Center two months before it came down. It will remain one of the most intense experience I ever had in my life due to me having to push myself due to being afraid of heights. N who was there with me, knows that what I remember of that trip is not the height or the impressive buildings. She was there with me and I am very sure that she is one of the few people who understands what that nation does do to me. Nobody will ever take that away from me either but I am still happy that I was there together with N. I then strangely had predicted that she would one day would live in the US. Guess who now lives there and who has to settle for Facebook updates and Instagram posts? Time zones do interfer with long distance friendships.
The other reason that traveling through the country of stars and stripes is also a bit extra ordinary is also linked up with the fact that some of my in laws and very close friends live there. Yes, I know what it feels like to be picked up by a limo service or what a great sensations race through my brain when a car picks me up at arrivals with cheerful people in it. It then feels like I arrived home…those car trips are so much more fun. Plus believe me that getting on a train in the morning that heads into Central Station instead of walking out your hotel lobby in Mahattan is so much different. We do now more leave the city around rush hour and head to a suburb where a total different great experience awaits.
Or wandering around in Central Park is a bit different when you have parked your car just a block away from it. Or when you manage to give them a local zip code while shopping with your niece at the so girlie and amazing fun American Girl Store. Also instead of having dinner at one of the thousands restaurants your tour guide book raves about you end up in a local very classy and glamorous taco restaurant where the locals dine is so much more intense. Or ending up unexpectedly in that coffee bar that is linked to a certain book you read this year and wondered when you would ever end up in that coffee bar. Not that I will ever get used to the humidity and the unpleasant temperatures that come along with summers in the Big Apple but the homemade pancakes and lemonade at Bubby’s make up for that. Or getting two scoops of gelato at the EatItaly at the Flat Iron building and then walk back to Central Station knowing that you are about to blend in with the regular ones. These are just a few of these exceptional intense moments that I had down town in NYC this time.
I walk now through the city in a total different manner than the first time when I landed there. Most due to now having the privilege to hang out with locals. Who also sometimes wish us not to go into those places we are tempted to walk into but rather pay attention to those places, things, monuments that are a bit off the touristy route or walking into something you are sure is considered a ‘tourist trap’. Believe me I had the best of time in restaurants, bars, museums and such that from the outside looked rather a bit dodgy when I stood outside. You know how challenging it is for the capricorn to let others decide and just going with the flow?
Well traveling to the US is nowadays exactly that. I will never ever forget what it was like when I walked into that spa my friend H dropped me off. Or how my son started to dance with his cousin in the Adidas store on Fifth Avenue. Yes, there are sometimes down sides as well because my son has so far not seen the skyline of NYC at night. We tend to leave the city that never sleeps at rush hour and board a train with hundreds of suits and briefcases. That we go in depth with locals means that you sometimes have settle for those moments that you do not know what is up next. They are the best tour guides and that the same time you do wonder how well they really know you. So it is give and take and I have to say that it sometimes challenges you but it is so well worth it.
This trip I found out that my US family and friends know me so well. They have given me a holiday that went beyond any tour guide. Numerous moments I just was amazed by what insight information they had and how to please me and make me the happiest bunny hopping around on the planet. Especially when I for once not feel tempted to check out beforehand where they are about to take us or me. I can assure you that walking into the lobby of the Fairmount hotel in Austin was so insane and when I saw the bar I was about to loose it all together. Or when they drove me to the Presidential Library of LB Johnson. People who know me personal know what the effect of an library is when your name is Stallie. That moment you walk into the big hall where you for the first time get to see the archives behind glass I can only describe as being ‘beyond’.
Yes, there are also the simple moments that have given me so much joy. Like having a home made smoothie that your niece has prepared with great eager or when you end up reading a bedtime story to two cutie pies who sit on your lap in their bedroom. It is when you find out the recipe of the barbecue sauce the father of your friend prepares with you before putting it on a chicken you just bought in Wholefoods where it all started for that supermarket chain. Also when you sip from the homemade cold-brew handed over in a Yeti-cup that keeps your drink so much longer cooler than you ever imagined. It happens when you are instructed to do outlet shopping on a very tight shedule and then decide that you are going to buy that one bag you have set your mind on for years. It is when you drive into cities and passing by places that you know from books, movies or songs but have only seen from one point of view. It is the deeper sensation that runs through your veins when your friend takes you to Bookpeople, an independent bookseller in Austin, where you can get your hands on a signed by the author copy of that book that is on your want-to-read list. It happens when you are offered a Texan Mule that is prepared by a local who tells you that he has been in Dilsen Stokkem, Belgium. And it happens when you have a great chat about life while cooling down in the pool and realizing that you are blessed a thousands time more than you imagined.
One of the most magical moments was one evening when my sis in law parked her car in front of the house and I suddenly saw of the first time fire flies. Yes, I had never seen them before and a part of me even wondered if they still existed or were a by product of fantasy authors. I stood there in the wet grass wearing my blue ballerinas and felt so light and happy. ‘Are those fireflies?’, I asked my niece. ‘Oh, yes there are many around.’, she answered and ran towards the porch of the house. My son then wondered:’So when are the raccoons coming out?’ I guess that he was more after the action animals than me. Also did my other significant not manage to ‘kill’ the moment when he told me that they also just fly around in Belgium. Well, my first encounter with them was in the States and it was a perfect moment that nobody will ever be able to take away from me.
What I do also find out while trying to write a blog entry about my travels is that I never ever manage to recreate the atmosphere you are after. I have tried before to write stories about places that I have been to. Spots close by or at the end of the world where my blood streams faster, where I manage to come to rest, where my mind just stops racing, where I have found that one missing piece that I was after to make sense of what I am doing or thinking, where my body feels in synch with her heart, where a smile of a total stranger is the ultimate boost shake, where you come to terms with what you have instead what you are longing for, where you embrace hope once again and that against all odds (the States is momentarily the best place ever to so),where my taste buds go into a certain modus that I can only describe as ‘full on’, where background music intensifies sitting in a waiting area, where picking out your newest acquisition for your charm bracelet stands for so much then just the amount it costs, where singing along in a Sunday church gives you goosebumps and even makes your cry…I could go on and on but it is rather a mission impossible to reenact by the means of words what I have been experiencing. Every Summer I need to come to terms that I have been there on my own that even the people closest to me and who might be present are not even getting close to what I am sensing and experiencing.
The closest I got to finding the most fitting words for this experience I came across in ‘Tell Me Three Things’ by Jullie Buxbaum, one of the 3 books that I managed to read in between all the fun and joy:
“Perfect days are for people with small, realizable dreams. Or maybe for all of us, they just happen in retrospect; they’re only now perfect because they contain something irrevocably and irretrievably lost.”
So yes, I had 13 perfect days abroad that have brought me so much more than I could even imagine while booking my flights, filling in my ESTA online document or when packing. Not all of them were with joy…some of them made me realize that it might be a while before I will be back to write the next chapter of a guidebook that I do not have a clue where it will take me to.
I also wish to thank my great in laws L&L and their awesome daughter/niece A, my closest American friend H, her cool husband J and cutie pie daughters G and L, H her lovely parents who all have spoiled me to bits. It is highly appreciated and believe me you all gave me an energy boost that I will not easily find in a container of vitamins. Thank you of the bottom of my heart for having created those moments that I can only describe as being ‘perfect memories’ of something that I now have ‘lost’ knowing that I can not wait for the next time we meet up again for an other round of ‘found’.
Hoping that all of you are having/had such an intense and incredible fun Summer as I did and that if you are still about to book or board your well deserved break away then I wish you an unforgettable ‘found&lost’-time. Just do not forget to take along your phone/camera & charger so that you will have some ‘proof’ of these intense and joyful moments to look during a rainy, cold and dark day.
P.S.: These two songs are connected with my trip. The first one I even get to hear preform life by Taylor Swift in a mega stadium while I was fighting jetlag and at times did think that this all was not happening. Thank you L for taking to that concert of a life time! The second one is a song that my friend H loved playing in the car while we drove though the Austin landscape, one kind of a landscape that enables to make me breath more easily. That I have to let go many at these kind of trips is something I will never get used to! Missing you already heaps!
