The reward of rituals when we travel
Don't you love a good ritual? I do. And some cultures are just so good at doing them. Middle Eastern cultures especially. Take the carpet buying ritual with its unfurling of rug after rug over countless cups of tea. The Italians are do rituals well too, from the late afternoon aperitivo, essentially cocktails somewhere in the sunshine with complimentary snacks that these days verge on a buffet meal, to the passeggiata, that see-and-be-seen evening promenade when the whole community comes out in their best threads to do laps of the town and socialize. When I'm normally at 'home' (we've been on the road three years now!), I love my rituals. And none more so than my weekend ritual in Dubai (and before that Abu Dhabi), which for me was the only way I found worked best to wind down, and that was to relax with a Morrocan mint tea (the pot jammed with fresh fragrant mint) and a dish of sweets (either baklava or Turkish delight, whatever was around), perched on the bench by my window where I could look down and watch the action in the neighbourhood street below. One pot of tea and all was right in the world again. The thing I love about identifying and adopting rituals when I travel is that they make me feel at 'home'. And I don't mean Dubai, or even Australia, but they make me feel at home in the city we're staying in, especially if we're there renting an apartment for a while. Joining the locals in their daily rituals is, I guess, just one way of trying to live like a local, and that's partly what travelling is about for me. What about you?
Don't you love a good ritual? I do. And some cultures are just so good at doing them. Middle Eastern cultures especially. Take the carpet buying ritual with its unfurling of rug after rug over countless cups of tea. The Italians are do rituals well too, from the late afternoon aperitivo, essentially cocktails somewhere in the sunshine with complimentary snacks that these days verge on a buffet meal, to the passeggiata, that see-and-be-seen evening promenade when the whole community comes out in their best threads to do laps of the town and socialize. When I'm normally at 'home' (we've been on the road three years now!), I love my rituals. And none more so than my weekend ritual in Dubai (and before that Abu Dhabi), which for me was the only way I found worked best to wind down, and that was to relax with a Morrocan mint tea (the pot jammed with fresh fragrant mint) and a dish of sweets (either baklava or Turkish delight, whatever was around), perched on the bench by my window where I could look down and watch the action in the neighbourhood street below. One pot of tea and all was right in the world again. The thing I love about identifying and adopting rituals when I travel is that they make me feel at 'home'. And I don't mean Dubai, or even Australia, but they make me feel at home in the city we're staying in, especially if we're there renting an apartment for a while. Joining the locals in their daily rituals is, I guess, just one way of trying to live like a local, and that's partly what travelling is about for me. What about you?