I don’t like talking to people next to me on the plane. I do my utmost to discourage anyone from even thinking I’d enjoy a conversation. I put my hood up, sunglasses on, take my iPad out, and put ear buds in.

This is exactly how I got on a flight from Chicago to Florence via Madrid. An hour into the flight a group of very tipsy, loud, and excited American women began to talk graphically about all the things they were going to do with their boyfriends when they arrived in Madrid (apparently the boyfriends were pro-basketball players). It got so hilariously inappropriate that I burst out laughing.

That’s when the person seated next to me asked, “¿Qué dijeron?” (What did they say?). Now I was in trouble. A person who I was going to have to sit next to for the next nine hours asked me a direct question in the first hour of the trip. What started as a hesitant explanation of my countrywomen, turned into the best conversation I have had in my entire life.  I hadn’t spoken Spanish for months, but somehow found enough words to cover the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.  Was it really possible to find a kindred spirit in the seat next to you?

When we reached Madrid, my companion’s home, we decided not to stay in contact with one another. Our experience had been too surreal to try and repeat in the world outside of a plane. Even though many years have past, I still look for him every time I’m on a flight to Madrid.

Outside of the bigger cities such as San Jose and Heredia, in Costa Rica there are no addresses. It goes beyond numberless buildings. To quote the band U2, “the streets have no names.” Our friends who wanted to visit received this “address”:

Go to Playa Grande, Take a left at the second road before the beach, you will see a big billboard with a bunch of advertising signs on the corner.   Follow that road, which turns into a dirt road, about 5 minutes.  Then you will enter though a gate and you’ll see the sign for “Palm Beach”.  Follow the road and stay left. Then you will pass through a really big drainage ditch, when you pass through the ditch, take the immediate right on the next road.  Go over the speed bumps and you will see the grocery store and the restaurant on the right. It is a yellow house on the right.

It’s a miracle that anyone ever made it. But they did. And I think in a way, they arrived more in the present than if the likes of Siri had guided them step-by-step.  Something so seemingly chaotic and disorganized, took them out of their heads and tricked them into being in the moment. You can’t be thinking about the proposal you submitted at the office if you are trying to decide if the drainage ditch that you just past through was the “really big one.” You must pay attention and observe your surroundings (which incidentally happened to be lush rainforest full of exotic flora and fauna). And isn’t that the purpose of a vacation?….To vacate your troubles and live in the moment.

Did you know that birds don’t just make noise to make noise? Did you know that you can predict when a hawk is in the vicinity several minutes before you see it? Did you know that there is a way to tell the gender and age of deer from only looking at its footprints?

I’ll never forget the first time I went on a walk with a professional animal tracker. Until that point, I’d considered myself pretty “outdoorsy.” I could identify plants, camp, build a fire, and wasn’t fazed by mud or bugs. My first walk only covered the piece about what is called “bird language.” But even that was enough to leave me flabbergasted. Never again could I enjoy bird sounds. I am now constantly wondering what’s prompting the ruckus. How was it that I had previously lived and supposedly deeply interacted in this world and not been aware of what was really going on?

One of the things that both scares and exhilarates me about life and travel are those moments, like mine on that walk through the woods, when a veil is suddenly lifted and you realize that you’ve only been seeing a small piece of what is really going on. It is this tension of never knowing how clearly you are seeing the picture that motivates me to be continuously curious about cultures and worlds other than my own. It also makes me more understanding of those perspectives that differ mine. Because, in the end, how can I truly know which one of us is standing on the “enlightened” side of things?

On the shelf, in a glass shop in Murano, lined up next to its many friends, this horse didn’t make much of an impression. It was a last minute, kind of silly purchase. Who doesn’t need a glass horse in their life?

But, now, miles and years from where it came from, just one look makes me smile. Isn’t it funny how such a small object can hold so many memories?