Travel time takes me, my mind to a different place, scared, but safe at the same time, scared of all the unknowns and discomforts, but feeling safe in the sense that people are the same everywhere. And everywhere they are facing their fears and problems too. So my first travel time shift where time actually slowed down for me involved a pistachio filled croissant.
It was pouring rain when we left the airport and got off the bus to our hotel area, and we could not find our hotel, so I placed myself at the closest café and my partner went off to try find our hotel. I entered the shop to face the most beautiful colorful array of pastries I had ever seen. One particularly popped out at me-I asked the waiter for that lovely looking things and a café.
I’d never seen nor tasted a bright green looking pastry before. The way the light green cream melted in to my mouth marked a sweet memory and start to our 25th anniversary celebration. A croissant led my first day of travel upon arriving in Milan and made my journey’s beginning start with that green, soft, supple, sweet pistachio croissant.
My French brother in law once made serious fun of me when I was in France at his wedding celebration. The morning after their French wedding dinner my brother in law sat in front of me at the cool castle we were staying and stared at me with disdain as I ate my croissant. With disdain and disbelief in his eyes he stared and said, “ What is wrong with the inside of the croissant? Why don't you eat that part?”
I replied swiftly, “I only like the soft part in the middle, inside the krusty part.” My brother in law shook his head and continued to make soft disapproving sounds as he looked at my plate which seemed to have more of the croissant on it when I finished with it than when I started eating it.
But when I arrived in Milan, Italy and sat in that café on that rainy day I fell in love with my pistachio Milan croissant—I ate the entire thing, inside and out, edges and all—my brother in law would have smiled brightly if he had sat across me that day. Either I had changed, Milan’s croissant’s differ greatly from those in France or starting my anniversary celebration changed my palate. But not one crumb remained of that pistaccio croissant.