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I ordered a black coffee from the airport cafe, put too much Splenda in, ate a bagel with cheddar and red pepper packed from home. I started Tempest and Sunshine. I boarded. I slept the 5 hours to Atlanta with such fervor that I'm not sure who I sat beside. At the Atlanta airport I had 6 hours to kill, so I found a spot to sit and watched a woman spend an hour putting on makeup. It's interesting to watch the different ways women work on themselves: the way the mouth was set, at what pace she worked to make her face. It was in this moment where she was exposed in the open, this visibility that began in me this sort of curious encouragement to see and keep seeing. I fell asleep on the airport floor as the woman plucked her eyebrows and her husband stared straight ahead.

I boarded the flight to Madrid, sat beside a thick diva with a weave and three-inch fingernails who was kind in a silent way. I watched Zimmern in Africa, a travel documentary on Madrid, Californication. I ate creamy pasta with squash, had a glass of white wine, bread and cheese, chocolate, virgin Cape Cod's. I watched the sun rise on the Atlantic, watched the boats from the sky, finally saw the coastline, and closer and closer until I was above this new thing that didn't feel too large for me to know. There was no nervous desire, no fear, just a feeling of Finally. I had never thought about Spain as tangible. I had only thought of it as something you make happen when you want to immerse yourself in language, or as a place you run to. I went through Customs, got a first stamp in the passport book I never thought I'd need, until a while ago when he said, "Why wouldn't you? We'll sail the Mediterranean one day."

I walked through the baggage claim, through a doorway, eyed through pleading faces and then there was Anders with fake flowers and a helmet y una cara llena del amor.

We exchanged some cash for euros at the airport and weresoexcitedandcouldn'tstopsmiling. We got on Rodrigo's moped with my mother's Lucite-handled suitcase between us. We passed through a toll where I held out a palm of euros for the woman to pick through, and we all smiled at the helpfullessness. The moped was perfect: to feel the wind, and to hold a person, and to exist in the city, immediately, as a body. Everything didn't feel unimaginable. Then we took the side streets of cobble, winding, and something hit me. We pulled up to Suites Viena. The room was really beautiful, with a large glass door leading out to a terrace that looked out on the city. We had bocadillos of cheese and white asparagus and chorizo and beer and white wine and red wine from Rodrigo on the terrace. We had fish noodles and a slop of stewed potatoes and tomatoes and green chili's on the terrace, we had plump green seedy grapes and peaches and tea on the terrace.

The first day we went to a supermercado and bought groceries for breakfast and lunch. On that first night we went to a restaurant on the edge of this plaza where we saw two of the finest dressed women of my life. We were eating outside by candlelight and beggars and blind men and men selling roses and paper flowers and night club solicitors were circling as we ate oxen flanks that they brought out raw, along with a skillet to cook it on ourselves, calamari, a carafe of sangria with lemon slices, and a goat cheese and almond salad. We watched people. We walked back to the Suites Viena.

The next day we woke up early to see the flea market. There were venders with antiques, art, ropa, there was a wine goblet musician, pajaros, and so on. Anders bought cool underwear. We shared some chips de jamon y Aquarius y orange fanta.

After the flea market Anders and I met up with Rodrigo for lunch. He treated us to his favorites, to a calamari fry, y potato y cheese tortilla y a chicken and ham sandwhich y raspberry cheesecake. He told us about how he had been worried about us, because he hadn't heard that we had made it to the hotel okay. He said he lost all his numbers, and couldn't remember the name of our hotel, so he called a couple asking for Anders Mavis. And when he couldn't find us, he called the same hotels asking for Corty Wilson. He made us a list of things we needed to do:

-Reina Sofia

-Caixa Forum

-Retiro

-Vingon (Castello)

-Restaurant (Castellos Goya)

-Jorge Ivan St.

-Nap

-More wine

-Call pepe

-Mercado Fuencarral

-Zara

-Bershka

-Stradivarius

After lunch we went to the plaza mayor y el mercado for dinner ingredients. After a siesta we went to Rodrigo's for a swim in his pool. He had this really beautiful vintage Luis Vuitton chest that he restored and turned into a table. Anders played with a dog named Sopa, and can hold his breath under water for much longer than I. Rodrigo loves Reeces and Mcdonalds very much.

We went back to our hotel to make dinner. We had dos botas de vino: Rioja's roja y blanco, and then walked downtown to meet Rodrigo and his wife, Covi, on Gran Via for drinks. At the pub we each had gin&tonics, large, ice cold, expensive-gin-with-thick-slices-of-lime-type of gin&tonics. Rodrigo and Covi took our buzzed selves back to the hotel. I picked up a chair leg in the alley and asked if it was a chorizo stick. We got into bed, ate several boxes of chocolates, Anders spilled water all over the sheets, and then, wonderfully, we fell asleep to Grey's Anatomy.

August 16: It was muggy and gray, and Anders and I woke up late. We had fruit on the terrace with raisen bread. We rode el moto to Gran Via para comprar. We spent the day shopping on the main street and through alley ways where flags of bright colors were strung from building to building. We shopped for clothes to sail in; with a sailor's life in mind; for stripes and boating pants. We dropped off the moped at Rodrigo's parent's place by Retiro Park. We saw the Caixa Forum y Reina Sofia: cuatro stories of art y installations: Salvador Dali y Picasso. We walked through the Plaza, ate paella with crab, shrimp, clams, had cerveza. We bought groceries for goat cheese y grilled vegetable hamburgers y un bottle de Rioja: R. Lopez de Heredia Vina Condonia 2000. In the middle of the night Anders surprised me with two tickets to Milan. It was necessary that we pull an all-nighter. Our flight was at 6 in the morning.

We packed up our stuff in the Suites Viena, finished a bottle of Rioja, took a 40e cab to the airport at 4:30a, sat on our luggage, watched people, ate plump grapes. When we went up to board they wouldn't let us take two pieces of luggage, but they didn't tell us where to put the second, so when they weren't looking we snuck on, hearts a patter. Anders conked out on the flight. We landed. We hopped onto a bus, drove a half hour to get into downtown Milan, and then Anders said, "We're not going to Milan."

We went into the underground rail station to buy train tickets for Venice. The train ride was beautiful: graffiti, the track cutting the water in half, vineyard edging vineyard.

From Milan to Venice the sky was blue with few clouds. It was a 2-hour ride. We got dropped off in the heart of Venice's tourist circle, where all the venders began, selling masks and postcards and pastries. We hopped on a boat taxi headed for the Lido. Anders had purchased a couple boat passes for us that would allow us to ride them the entire stay. Our hotel was on Lido, an island off the side of Venice. When we got off the boat we walked around the island, aimlessly searching, until someone set us straight. Our hotel, the Venezia 2000, was right on the beach, with two large stone lions at the entry, and the most amazing and helpful concierge team. Our room was on the ground floor, and waiting for us within were two champagne glasses and a bottle of Prosecco.

(The photos above are from Venice's main canal to the Lido.)

August 18:

The sky was hot baby blue. We woke up early for continental breakfast: salami and cheese on croissants, apricot spread, orange juice, thick, strong coffee. We took a few packages of a chocolate Nutella spread to our room as a snack for later. Anders rented us bicycles for the day, so we picked out these retro creme y blanco models and rode around the island several times. In between our legs it hurt. The bikes came equipped with large beautiful baskets, so we stopped at a supermarket and bought boxed wine, a bottle of red that we watched some Italian pick up, potato chips, a large hunk of watermelon, green and red peppers, a loaf of bread, and chocolates. We biked back to the hotel with the groceries piled into our baskets. Wemade little stops on the way to look for sandals for Anders to wear at the beach.

(We passed this dog on the ride, guarding a beautiful mansion.)

When we got back to the hotel, we packed a bag with the potato chips, the Minolta, some hotel towels, a jug of water, and headed down to the beach. The sand was white-hot, the water cool. We swam in thesea, and it was so beautiful, and it felt beautiful, and then we might have been attacked by jellyfish, our ankles full of sting. We walked up to the bar and ordered a mint and lemon rum slush. We took them back to our towels and sipped them with our chips. After a couple hours, we headed in to get ready for dinner.

At the Venezia, we changed, grabbed our bicycles, put the boxed wine in the basket, and took off for the end of the island to catch a ferry to another island that the concierge suggested we go to for dinner.We sipped the wine along the way, my heart; our stomachs warm. We took the ferry, watched large boats pass and dock, and within a few minutes we were there.

It took us a while to get into the livelier part of the island. There was a large stone wall lining the left of us. We parked our bikes and ran up to see what it was blocking. There was sea grass and sand dunes beyond. We rode through the small city, saw a little restaurant open and debated going it. It was authentic in the least. It was almost like I didn't want to disturb them. We should have gone in. But because we didn't, we were able to watch the sun fall from a dock off the side of a beautiful path.

We were starving from all of our bike riding, so we stopped at a pizza place and ordered an XL gorgonzola and prosciutto pizza. Imagine this: two glasses of prosecco on the bedside table, us laying on the bed, with an XL pizza between us, ripping off hunks, one after the other, with greasy chins, until we fell asleep, sadly, leaving the pizza out.

In the morning, there were thousands of ants eating what was left.

August 18: Hot. We had continental breakfast and hurried to the boat taxi to go to Venice. We got off at the top of sorts, where the train station was, and started a long walk through all the shops and venders, through side streets, over bridges. We took a 1e gondola ride across the canal to the inner side of Venice. We were sweaty and hungry, so we grabbed a piece of vegetable pizza with mushrooms, artichoke hearts and cheese and a can of coke and sat on some steps that led into a canal. I almost fell in, stepping on wet algae. For dessert we had brought a loaf of bread and some of the nutella chocolate spread. We kept walking, for hours and hours. We took the ferry back to the Lido when our feet became too tired. It was early night, and I wanted to go back to the beach, so we went out to sit beneath the sun setting, with another cool Bacardi drink.

What might have reignited a repressed passion:

We went back to the hotel and got dressed up: white dress, hair slicked back, lipstick. Anders in a blue long sleeve button-up, white shorts, striped belt, tan leather shoes. We took the boat taxi back to Venice and searched through the streets for a place that had the perfect ambiance, the right feeling. We put our names down for this side street, outdoor spot that looked full of life, and went to get a glass of Chardonnay at a small bar a few winding streets away.

This dinner was the best dinner. We had bread and breadstick crackers and oil and vinegar, a bottle of white wine that sat in a plastic bag of ice on our table, a bottle of water, a seafood platter with fresh clams, muscles, a cut of raw salmon, crab, shrimp, and so on. We had gnocci with crab, the green and white potato shells spilling from a hollowed out crab carcass. We walked down through the dark corridors, back to the boat, back to the Lido, back to the Venezia 2000, and it was all beautiful.

The next morning we ate continental, packed up, took the boat back to Venice, bought souvenirs for Rodrigoand Laurey, and two train tickets back to Milan, where we would spend one night.

Our last continental: weiner, creamy white cheese, croissant, orange juice, cappucino!

We watched Reservoir Dogs on the train ride back into Milan. Anders had set us up to stay in this swanky, modern hotel in the middle of nowhere. We tried walking to it, but we got too sweaty and confused, so we took a taxi, except the taxi guy was a complete asshole and took us in circles to up the cost. This is Anders: "If only we understood each other, I would tell you that you took advantage of us, and that I'm upset about it." This is the guy: "Oh, oh uh I got so confused, you know, streets..." In the middle of somewhere, Anders and I stayed at The Hub on Via Privata Polonia, room 1018. (http://www.thehubhotel.com/?lang=es-ES) Our room had a view that opened upon the city, but the bathroom was what was astounding. The shower was what was astounding. We sat in it with glasses of red wine. We were tired, or I was, and it was hard to get out of the room, but we were hungry, so we took a night train to a random stop on the line, got out, heard a concert playing in a park, ordered some fast sandwhich food from a camper outside of the concert: meat patties and cheese and sauerkraut on bread, a hotdog, cokes. It was a long night and we had to wake up early to fly back to Madrid, so we fell asleep hard in a large white bed, watching Bear Grylls.

August 21: We took an Easy Jet flight back to Madrid, and were back to Gran Via by early afternoon. I didn't know where we were going, where we were staying. Anders stopped us in front of the Vincci Via 66. This was the best hotel. The one we could have lived in.

Vincci Vía - 66 - Madrid Hotel

We stayed in an executive suite with a private terrace, on the top floor, with a view of Gran Via. Anders and I ate lunch at this pretty laid back, authentic buffet. We had too much to eat, and walked it off around the main shopping drag, looking in windows, enjoying our last part of the trip. Anders set us up to do a private Nammu spa session. We went up to the spa, thinking we were going to get massages, then we found out it was that we had the spa to ourselves, and that all we had to do was put a Private sign on the handle and use the amenities as suggested, or, as desired: steam room, sauna, ice shower, vibrating-color-mood-lighting bathtub, massage tables, beds, cold bottled water, lotions, and so on. It was pretty sassy, those tricksters. After the spa session, we walked out to the bar and sun deck in our white robes and slippers. There was a 360-degree view of the city.

View from the room:

On the sun deck:

View from the spa:

After the spa, I was completely wiped out, and passed out eating a loaf of bread and a chorizo stick. I wish I could have lived every moment awake. I wish I could have spent every second awake and aware beside him on the last night, exploring the city until there wasn't a single thing I hadn't seen. Saying everything that could be said about how thankful I was and what it meant to me to see this new place, and how much it means to have someone to do it with, and how full my heart is and continues to stay beside him in Spain or Italy, and away, thinking of the next possible thing we could experience together, from a shitty tent I forced us to buy from Walmart, letting the rain in, afraid of the bears-to a ritz of a hotel with a view of the city, and a moment where we could just relax and be.

The last morning there wasn't enough time for us to eat breakfast. We took the subway to the train station, got me checked in, sat on my luggage eating meat and bread, people watched. We said goodbye, and then I sat in the airport and thought of staying, and got on the airplane and thought of staying, and then no one sat beside me, so I knew it was him who was supposed to be there. I stretched my legs out long on the empty seat.