Trippin'...

Sleepy town of Tiburon.
Mediterranean feel and setting.
Walking around the boardwalk, right along the Bay, overseeing the Ocean. The views are quite spectacular in themselves: the City and the Bridge. My favorite!

The beauty is overwhelming. One could sit and admire, which is obviously done by, what seems like mostly, locals. It's just past noon. The sun hits its zenith and it spoils us with its cushy rays that the wind splits in somewhat individual hits. I run away from the breezy shore and hide in a nearby street protected from the cold gusts, sit at an outside table of a café. The sun has reached me here. So did, eventually, the waiter: I am brought a fresh squeezed lemonade, a summer drink made of winter fruit (alas, it is winter, although it feels like a mature spring or early summer day at least!). Oh, how well the freshness and tartness of it go with the heat of the Mediterranean-like sun and intensity of the Ocean blue! Spinach, feta and aubergine salad just add to the virtual, if not visual, teleportation back to my Mediterranean roots. It could be Antibes here, or Cagnes-sur-Mer. Or maybe even St. Jean Cap Ferrat with its million dollar houses and celebrities, existing just as if, casually and colloquially next to us.

The environment is clean. There are no people around one could define as "suspicious". No beggars, not even a cat: Mediterranean homeless pets would be so jealous, especially the Turkish ones. They work so hard there for their food, and don't even get the board...

One of the first languages I encounter is a very familiar to my ears "franco-arabic": French words spliced with Arabic sentences. Very particular accent and sounds once distinguishable, always discoverable. The other one is Russian: a nouveau-riche woman walking her dog (a Sighthound, stereotypically?), talking on the phone somewhat loudly in her mother tongue. Spanish, and English, of course, are present, too. We're in America, after all, even though a different one, a world detached from the rest of the Earth, and somewhat overprotected.

Are these two worlds really that similar, or is it just this place in particular, and its pulling me to its side by masquerading as my well-loved and missed and left behind with so much pain and sorrow place that I yearn for so much and that is so close to my heart and which causes sentimental and melancholic mood swings? Is this place being itself or is it disguising itself as my beloved Med just to please me at this very moment? That I will never know. What is for sure is that nothing will be able to replace the original, no matter what. Luckily, other places that remind me of it have their own beauties unique to them only that make them so much more worthy of a visit or two... Just look...

And even though it was just a day trip to Tiburon, it took me back to my idealized Mediterranean for a little while for a day-dreaming trip that felt oh-so-real and magic at the same time. And it was, in an American way, fun. Dreamy. And unreal... :-)