Musings from the Road

I love the interludes of strange conversations and strange people I meet while traveling. Take for instance, in Barcelona at 6 in the morning when I met Mervio. Not homeless, but not quite 'all there', he was either up late or up early.
He graciously offered to share his marijuana with me, and even offered to buy me whiskey, I refused both. He spoke no English and I, no Spanish. Bleary eyed from just getting off the bus from Marseille, I answered most of his questions in broken French.
A harmless simple-minded Spaniard, he spoke of sport and then professed his love for me in his best English: "Baby, I love you." Unfortunately, the gulf of language difference was too much for us star-crossed lovers, and he lost interest, said 'Adios' and wandered off into the early morning light. I reflected on our strange conversation with amusement. It reminds me of the man I met outside the train station in Rome last year who bought me a bottle of water and then asked me to marry him (to which I politely declined). Or the homeless woman I met in a bus stop in America who was gnawing at cheese straight from the block. These people are not dangerous, rather misunderstood and largely ignored by society. It is the joy of travel to meet the locals!