When I was a child, somebody put a big, blue plastic camera in my grubby hands. I got older and the cameras got fancier and I “studied” photography in high school then college and I took a LOT of photos. So now I’m going to post my photos in no particular order with captions that may or may not have something to do with what’s in them – my new experiment in creative confidence.
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A few years ago Mary and I decided to take a two week trip to Europe, hitting three countries and eight cities – Madrid to Barcelona to Sitges to Paris to Milan to Venice to Rome to Florence.
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On our first night in Madrid, we went to dinner in Plaza Mayor. The square was bustling but the restaurant was almost empty.
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Up until this point, we hadn’t encountered a language barrier but our waiter at the empty restaurant in Plaza Mayor didn’t speak a single word of English (or French, which Mary could handle if need be). We pantomimed questions, pointed to dishes, and got by.
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After we ate as much of the “paella for two” as we could (about a third of it), our waiter came out with a small bottle of clear liqueur, poured two shots for us, set the bottle down and walked away. We tried to ask what the liquid was but he didn’t turn around.
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So we drank the shots.
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Then we waited for 45 minutes but nobody emerged from the restaurant.
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So we poured two more shots and drank those.
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An hour later, it was dark and we were still sitting alone on the empty restaurant terrace. The bottle had exactly two shots left in it. So once again, we poured and drank.
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When our waiter finally reappeared, he did an exaggerated, wide-eyed double take at the empty bottle and burst out laughing. We tried to offer a flustered explanation (“Hey man…if you leave a bottle unattended for over two hours, people are going to assume they should finish it!”), but he just assured us it was free and went inside to get the “check”.
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When he came back out, he gave us a grin and said “check!” as he presented a second bottle. Another hour passed before we were finally released.
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I still don’t really know what it is that we drank but it went down smooth and kicked off an excellent trip.
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📷 This is a picture of the cafe next door to the restaurant we ate at in Plaza Mayor, taken while I was still sober enough to work my camera.