Accidental Tourists

On my bike ride this morning, cruising along The Path behind the MARTA yard on Ponce, I was surprised to see a killdeer scurry across the concrete in front of me.  For the ornithology-challenged (and I recognize fully that I am bordering on uber-bird-nerd), a killdeer is a medium-sized plover, a shore bird named for its call.  It actually says “kill-deer…kill-deer.”  Some birds are fun that way.  (Nerd alert!)

As he scampered along into the grass, I said out loud, “What the hell are YOU doing here?”  The killdeer had the good sense not to linger and to move along – quickly.

It got me to thinking about the surprise of seeing things out of context and the jolt that comes from that.  I have an inkling of how that killdeer must have felt, running amok among steel rails and concrete, with no shore in sight.  My Bride and I just returned from the south of Portugal, the Algarve.  Not exactly a common context for Americans.

I had booked our hotel room on line, sight unseen.  It turned out to be a very nice, very small family-run inn.  When we rang the bell for admittance, the proprietor popped out of the window next to the door, took one look at us and said, in Portuguese, what I suppose was the tourism equivalent of “What the hell are YOU doing here?”  In the town of Lagos, on the Algarve coast, most tourists are Brits or Germans; it’s not someplace that Americans frequent.  But there we were:  My Bride, tall, blonde and attractive, and me in my painfully-American polo shirt and slacks.  We might just as well have been shore birds in a rail yard. 

When I produced a copy of the reservation confirmation, the owner brightened significantly.  I suspect he was unsure whether the 8-night reservation from the USA was going to materialize.  Suddenly, we were in context.  For him.  For us, the surprised reactions continued for the entire holiday. 

As we enjoyed the beauty of the Portuguese coast, the mountains of the Algarve and the shops of Lagos, we were mistaken for Brits, Canadians, Australians…anyone but Americans.  According to the Huffington Post, only 3.5% of vacationing Americans travel internationally; of those, only 35% choose Europe as a destination…and fewer of those go to Portugal (preferring England, France, Italy and Spain).

But okay, as figurative killdeers in a parking lot, My Bride and I had a wonderful time.  Because the Portuguese economy is, well, not booming, prices were depressed.  Even with the 1.3 Dollar to Euro factor, we spent less in Portugal than we’ve spent on a long weekend in the US.  The weather was literally perfect – daytime highs in the 70s and lows in the high 50s – with a delicious sea breeze wafting up the hillside to our Old Town digs.  Nice.

We kayaked the shore caves and grottos, explored little white-washed/red-tile-roofed mountain villages (where we had the best meal of the trip…in a Portuguese road house), shopped for hand-painted Portuguese pottery.  Mostly, we relaxed.  Even out of context, it was easy to let go.  The weather, the laid-back demeanor of the locals, the quiet bustle of a seaside tourist town all contributed to a certain kind of centering that makes traveling abroad so special.  The Algarve is that kind of place.

As we returned to the US, My Bride and I resolved to retain some of that Algarve context – particularly the laid-back part.  We discovered that bread, olives and red wine make a fine dinner.  We found out that, while tandem kayaks have the reputation of being “divorce boats,” we had no problem mastering the art of paired paddling.  And we re-discovered the delight of a cold, mid-afternoon beer, coupled with an authentic Margherita pizza.  All things that we hope to replicate from time to time back here in Decatur.

So I hope that killdeer discovers that the insects around the MARTA yard are particularly plump, and that Stone Mountain Lake isn’t so far away as to make things unbearable. 

A New Context means New Possibilities.