Europe is Like Nothing Else

What the hell was I thinking? I said in a previous posting that outside the smells and the tube, you wouldn't know you were in Europe. Wtf? Are you kidding me? I was just still jetlagged and confused. Europe is like nothing else. It's Europe, for crying out loud. There is something in the taste of the bread I got from a Swiss man, thick and dense and dotted with crunchy poppy seeds and sunflower seeds, the richness of the butter. It's in the taste of a fig, swollen and purple, bursting with flavors even my mouth can't recognize. The first one tasted of strawberries and the second, pineapple. We can't express in words the earthly taste of a fig, I don't think. This one was almost as good as the one I had at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market in San Fran. That one was still warm from the sun and dripped pink juice down my arm. This one wasn't so juicy as it was soft and silky. It was probably shipped over a day or two ago from Greece. Not too shabby. It was even in the grilled scallops and prawns I had for lunch. Served over a bed of wild rocket and lemons, it was simple, but intense. Like it swam right up onto my plate and curled up for a nap.

Nothing is as it is back home. Even the baby apricots, tiny as strawberries, sold clinging to one another on a big vine, the dates, the gorgeous raspberries, they actually have color you'd find on a painter's palette. Natural beauty.

I watch through the windows as men carve gyro meat off giant spits and make sandwiches that cave under the weight of yogurt dressing, I smell the hookah from the Lebanese restaurant (there are probably 10 on the main street), one day it's rose, another mint. This is Europe, but a different kind. I only know the green pastures and castles of Germany, the chewy baguettes and cheese of France, the incredible tomatoes and gelato of Italy. This is foreign to me. They speak my language, but I don't speak theirs - yet.