My trip is approximately into its 11th day with majority of time D guiding me through Spain. All together it is a wonderful country. The beauty of travel for me is to see stories play out in real life. Observing someone you see during lunch or just explore the city that shapes the people around it. There is something interesting about the action of wondering because you learn the appreciation of the things that a person have and redesign the things that you want. It s a continue cycle of course. Everyone choose a path, but when I am at another country it gives me the freedom to wonder what if I lived there and how would my daily life be if I wasn’t me? It is difficult to explain, but in a certain way I think this simple exercise gives you a piece of the answer to that ever lasting question of “what is the meaning of life”.
So my impression of Spain is that people don’t work. You see many people just observe. I can see how a person would love this place because in each one of us, we want to take time off and to do just that. Just too bad we been told all of our lives to wait until we are old and in retirement so we can wonder about dying. So Spain fulfills that part of me, the acceptance and appreciation of the simpler things. Such examples are in their food. They are simply made and yet so delicious. If you are a believer in being a purest, you will come to learn to love their food. Its culinary attempts reminds me a lot about Japanese food where you take the pure flavor of the food and use the spices along with other complementary ingredients to bring that flavor out to the consumer. Yet the funny thing about Spain is that with its simple food, its inverse is its complex artists. I came to appreciate Dali and Gaudi during the trip. They are masters during their own time and beyond. Many people attempt to imitate but you can tell the ones who fall short. Talented people’s mind is a bit scary though. It is very true; geniuses tread on the edge of sanity and craziness. So bottom line Spain is a great place. It is better when you go with your girlfriend. Because I think to take the theme from the food, art, people, and places that we visited this past 11 days, a relationship encompass just the ability to extract out the wonderful flavor of the simpler things and while learn to make it work while appreciate the insanity of it all.
