My soles join the pavement, each click of contact connecting us further. The atmosphere envelopes me and invites me in. The city takes me by the hand and guides me through its rugged streets. It swoops me up, loosens my shoulders and takes me where I need to go.
The view is raw. The pavement is patched and broken but beautiful. The walls have been decorated and dressed up in technicolour in the dark hours of the night. When the morning light arrives, it reveals the art left behind by the beautiful minds.
The inhabitants are inspiring. Each face tells a different story. Clothes are not simply worn, but draped and adorned. This city has serious style. Even the grit is beautiful.
The furniture on the sidewalks is worn. Paint chips show lives lived before this one. Edges have been roughened up by weary backs. There is an appreciation for the past. Creativity flows through the streets. It seeps out of the soles that touch them and spreads like a fantastical virus up and through and into the atmosphere. I breathe deeply. I want to be part of it. The smiling faces welcome me in. They fulfill my yearning.
Is it better here? Not necessarily, but it's a city that tries. This city juts out its hips and forms an inner circle. It walks circles around the others that don't quite try as hard.
I am spoiled here. I have the luxury of time to sit in a roughened cafe at ten-thirty on a Tuesday morning. I am bathed is the scent of freshly baked croissants, sipping a foamy cappucino. I have the time to write a love note to a new favourite place filled with delectable spaces and faces.
I sit at an old wooden table on a chair with a crooked leg. Beside me sits my familiar black bag. Inside this bag is my passport. I am a million miles from home...
