People we meet on vacation

Notes on the road

This is my first solo trip in my life, aside from a short trip to Chicago for a weekend several years back. From start to finish it was seventeen days, most of them through Italy, though there were also short (and eventful) stops in Switzerland and Valletta—and, with luck, Barcelona. There was one night where it rained decently hard in Taormina, but otherwise I’m grateful that the weather held—really it did, a long stretch of clear skies and sun on most days, which made wandering around easy and pleasant. Right now, I happen to be writing this from the Zurich airport, en route to Barcelona, so the trip is still not technically over—and I am far from being able to retrospect and “process it.”

What I found most fascinating about being by myself is that the world seems to open itself up to you a little more when you’re alone. Most people ignore you, some give you strange looks or whisper about you at dinner (“Why is he eating alone?”), but every so often a pleasant stranger crosses your path, strikes up a conversation, and, in the ensuing exchange, broadens—just slightly—the mental horizon you’ve drawn around the world, and your own small place within it.

I think waiting for the “right time” is just an excuse, and maybe an impossible one at that, in this dopamine-obsessed state I currently find myself in—as well as in this overwhelming, ever-stimulating world we live in. Better to write all this down while it’s still fresh in my head.

Thursday, February 19 — Ortigia

I was walking around the streets of Ortigia mostly to window shop—I was, for the first time in my life, traveling light, and had no space in my bag—and wandered into a shop selling clothes and bags in bright, vivid colors. Most of them had logos splashed across them. There I met Emiliano, the first stranger with whom I chatted on this trip. He first said that he was happy to help with anything, then, seeing me staring rather cluelessly at the slogans on each t-shirt I flicked through, offered to give me translations of the Sicilian logos on them.

Which he did. Then, he proceeded to spill his life to me. I forget what we talked about, mostly, but I do remember that from him I first learned about the divide that seems to exist between southern and northern Italy. He, a Sicilian, told me that Sicilians think of themselves very much as Sicilians, and that parts of the Italian they speak are different—sometimes practically unrecognizable—from the Tuscan Italian spoken toward the north. I told him about where I am in life, how I’ve lived in the US but want to move back to Hong Kong, and he emphasized to me how important it was to experience things. He was very intent on an example about sweetness—how you can know everything about the sensation of sweetness, read about it, understand it, but still be totally unprepared for, and ignorant of it, when you first taste sugar.

I was surprised by how he managed to transition a conversation about witty Sicilian slogans on T-shirts into something that cut a little deeper. Then again, he was also a yoga instructor/mental wellness coach, so I guess it makes sense. Anyway, a group of people walked in wanting to try on some hats, so he got busy, and I left.

Friday, February 20 — Taormina

I was minding my business eating uno panino con prosciutto e formaggio—yes, I ordered that myself—and waiting for the train from Ortigia northward, when a woman stopped me and asked, in English, if the train that had pulled up in front of us was headed to Catania.

“Uh—” I said.

“Catania? No? Uh, Taormina?”

“Oh, yeah. I think that’s the one to Taormina. But not until 1:50, I think.”

Clara took a seat next to me, and while we waited we didn’t talk much. But then, when people began to board the train, we kind of shuffled toward the entrance together. I figured I’d ask the office if this was, in fact, the right train, and when I found out it was, we boarded together. We ended up sitting across from each other, and I even told her, “Don’t worry, I won’t bother you on this trip.” Which, of course, was what began our conversation.

She was Austrian-American and ran a shop in the Hamptons, selling clothes for a famous designer I hadn’t heard of. After I told her I’d recently left my corporate job, she told me it was the right move, having once been in a similar situation herself with a marketing job at an agency, a while ago. She was also excited to hear about my pivot into hospitality, having worked across restaurants before, and told me—as many people since have told me—that I will meet a lot of people. We also talked about how nice it was for her to have months off every year where she could escape the East Coast cold; how she’d traveled quite a bit across Italy; how solo trips were the best.

I was en route to Taormina and she was able to give me a bunch of tips, including that I’d picked the right place to stay (I had been unsure, since I didn’t know too much about Catania and Taormina, two of the primary hubs in that area), and that walking up the hill wasn’t really possible—I’d have to take the bus. Which proved true; that was the only night it rained quite hard, and I would never have been able to make it up. But I did, later that night, manage to hike my way down, down a dark, wet trail that would have—maybe on another night—terrified me.

Taormina

I almost didn’t talk to Marco. Taormina was mostly closed, but I wanted to grab a drink, and a rooftop bar in the area seemed promising, and looked open. I wound my way up the path leading to—and then through—the empty hotel, and arrived at a bar that looked equally empty, save for a man smoking a cigar while on a call. I turned and left, and had already walked down a flight of stairs when—maybe it was the man who had let Marco know, I don’t know—but Marco came running after me saying, “Sir! Sir!” He and his colleague had been in the kitchen.

I felt bad for pulling them from the kitchen—and also because I don’t think I will ever be comfortable being called “sir” by anyone in life—but I’m glad that Marco and I met, in the end. I learned from chatting with him over an overpriced mezcal margarita that he hails from Mandanici, a small town with two hundred people. I told him that more people live in a single apartment building in Hong Kong.

He is a Latin dancer, and apparently has always wanted to visit Hong Kong because it is a hub of Latin dancing. He has never been to Asia but has traveled to London, which he said is beautiful, though the food isn’t great. He made a face every time he talked about the food.

I remember what he wore quite vividly—a black quarter zip, black jeans, and white New Balance sneakers. He had long hair and probing, dark eyes that reminded me of a kid I once knew in my apartment complex named Niccolò.

Saturday, February 21 — Catania

The reason I was in the Taormina area was foremost because it was close to Catania, from which I could visit Mt. Etna. It was the off-season and I was stressed about finding a tour. I’d delayed it until the last minute, when I was already in Taormina and needed a tour for the following day. I’d booked several and they were all cancelling at the last minute due to bad weather, and I was beginning to think I’d come all this way only to not be able to hike Mt. Etna. Luckily, the fourth and last tour I booked—reasonably priced, at a reasonable starting point—went through.

My tour guides were Marie and Antonio. I remember them because their names, put together, sounded like Marie Antoinette. The tour group—around fifteen people—met at the McDonald’s in Piazza Stesicoro in Catania, and there they shook our hands in turn and introduced themselves. Antonio was the seasoned local, who hailed from Sicily. Marie had been doing tours for eleven months. She was originally from Germany and had lived in Rome before moving to Catania, where she had—I later found out—fallen in love with Antonio while on the exact same tour that I was on, and packed up and moved her life down south.

They both smoked. Before the hike—which was at a lower altitude than initially expected because it had snowed toward the summit, around seven meters of snow having collected—they stopped at a town called Trecastagni, for the group to buy eggplant parmesan sandwiches and get coffee. I got gummy bears and an Americano, and outside the café where they’d stopped, started chatting with Marie while she lit a cigarette. Antonio came over and joined the conversation for a bit, but he was the Italian guide and she the English-speaking one, so I ended up talking to her more, then, and throughout the rest of the day.

Both of them were young and beautiful people; her eyes, in particular, were mysterious, expansive—the kind of eyes that make you think the person behind them thinks, feels, and reflects more than most.

I shared my story. She shared hers, across the day. Mostly there was small talk across the group; here and there she stopped to describe the terrain, and at one point she pulled out rocks from a bag to show how time affects the appearance of volcanic material, something to do with chemical change (oxidation?) over time, and even described a special type of rock called a “lava bomb.” These were smooth, rice-shaped rocks that had solidified before erupting from the volcano, and were incredibly rare; it enthralled the (mostly young) group, which spent the rest of the hike trying to spot them on the ground, even bringing them to Antonio to verify. None actually ended up being real lava bombs.

I myself didn’t care much for them, but like to think that I hung back with Marie, who began talking to me about ethics and morality in the world we live in today; about the United States, and Germany, and home; and about what it’s like to live in Catania and run tours. Does it get repetitive, I asked. Parts of it, she said, like the cyclical regurgitation of information; but the people she meets every day are different, and keep it interesting. A day isn’t much to know them, I continued. Yes, she said; a day is never enough to know someone deeply.

We shook hands again at the piazza with the McDonald’s when we left. They Airdropped me a list, written out on Notes, of their favorite spots in Catania. I managed to go to two that day: Vermut, a bar with an excellent glass of red wine and a platter of cheeses, pickles, olives; and then BarnAut, a cool-seeming bar that was perhaps a little too cool to engage me in conversation, though I enjoyed the Unnimaffissu spritz that I ordered and had at the bar.

Mt. Etna

The other friend I made during that day was Laura. Like me, she was a solo traveler, from a small town in Germany close to Dresden. She was wearing a bright Adidas windbreaker and carried a large backpack. She was very kind; we small-talked throughout the day, too, until small talk became medium talk, about solo traveling, mostly. She was also friendly and bantering with three other guys on the tour whom I myself didn’t care much for—they were the kind of guys who only wanted to talk to girls—and so I kept my friendly distance.

But toward the end I think we became friends, especially after we asked one another to take photos for us, and then later, when we visited a lava cave and tried a local wine together. She didn’t like it much; I did. The wine was called “Kilometer Zero” wine because all the ingredients and production happened zero kilometers from where we were tasting it—onsite. It was going for eight euro a bottle, but no one bought one.

We only found out each other’s names toward the very end. We exchanged Instagrams.

Sunday, February 22 — Taormina

I was having my breakfast in the Taormina hotel by myself that morning when a man came up to me and, rather nosily, leaned his head in to peer at the book I was reading. He started a conversation with me by saying “你好”—always a great start—and then proceeded to grill me about my life, asking questions like “Are you an ABC?” (he said this with conviction, as if he were letting me in on some grand cosmic insight) and where my family and life were, and so forth.

I was actually okay with him. I think the trick with people like this is to turn the conversation back onto them, to make them realize that they, too, are objects of others’ perceptions, just as much as they are agents going about the world and starting conversations with whomever they elect. So I asked him about his life. What do you think about your life? Who are you? And I did learn things about him, which I now already have forgotten, other than that he’s from Bavaria and that he has a PhD in chemistry. His children are my age.

I offered the seat across from me to him but he said he had to go. He wanted to go to a shore beyond Taormina that he used to visit with his wife on holidays, whose Hellenic history he gave me a small lecture about. Said wife came up finally looking for him—he’d come up only to fill up his water, but had gotten sidetracked for about half an hour chatting to me—and dragged him away, less than courteously.

Palermo

Later that day I had made it to Palermo. I was walking around, as I tend to do, in search of a good cocktail. I had my eyes set on a place named P. On Google it seemed to be a modern, pop-py sort of bar, with bright, cold lighting. When I got there the lighting was indeed so, but the atmosphere was very calm. No DJ, just 2010s pop.

There I met Luca, the first person on this trip I’ve met whom I would call a true friend. He hails from Catania, is the fourth of five siblings, and is the only one of them to have skipped university. Instead he brought himself to London, and across Europe, working in hotels and restaurants, including several with Michelin stars.

He is in his early thirties. Finally, after ten or so years working for others, he decided to take a risk and start his own bar—P. It has been open, at this point, for just under a year. He decided to open it in Palermo, and described the challenges of doing so. He especially noted that people were hesitant to accept him at first, a sort of “Why are you doing this here?” energy, but that over time the bar has begun to establish itself.

And the drinks are good, too. I had two Negronis, one mixed with Pu-Erh tea (I gave him the Cantonese pronunciation), and then a mezcal margarita, which I have learned by now that I really enjoy. One of the drinks came with a little chocolate leaf that betrayed its Michelin-starred origins.

He talked about his dating life, especially about how he can’t seem to settle. I think it’s because he is an entrepreneur at heart and needs to focus on his business—to get it off the ground—before he can really invest in another person. He mentioned a relationship he once had with someone who couldn’t give him the space he needed; how she lived close by, an hour’s commute, but never came to see him as he settled into Palermo and worked on P.

He also told me that he goes to therapy, which made sense to me—emotionally he’s rather mature and self-certain—and which was something of a revelation (I guess because he probably doesn’t tell most other people that). Indeed, later he said that the conversation he had with me was “not [one that he’d have with] everyone,” and I was touched.

Monday, February 23 — Palermo

I met up with Laura again. After we had met in Catania, she mentioned she’d be in Palermo, and I realized that we were going to be there at the same time. I messaged her on Instagram, and we met up again, outside a coffee shop somewhere in the city center.

This time our conversation cut a little deeper. Around that time I was writing a letter to Daniel, and in it I described what I remembered of our conversation:

The other day I met a girl named Laura on a tour around Mt. Etna. She is from a remote part of Germany, and since we were both alone on the tour, while others had come in pairs or groups, we talked for a bit, and by the end of the day, had become friends. A few days later, we happened to be in a totally different part of Sicily named Palermo, and, after we found out, hung out a second time. When we met, we had a probing conversation that cut into the grander matters, beyond everyday chitchat. As I think about this conversation now, I think you’d really have enjoyed it, and would have had questions to ask.

One thing Laura brought up was that she came from a small town in Germany, whose name I admit I’ve already forgotten. But she did say it was tiny, only several thousand people at most, that she had a sister, and that her parents had separated. She was the only one to move out of the town into the “big city”—Dresden, which I just Googled to be the 12th most populous city in Germany—and has faced backlash from her older sister from doing so. Her dad had health problems last year, I learned, and her older sister, around a year and a half older than she, had stayed back and tended to him—cleaning his house, sorting his meds, while also going to her regular office job and the gym; while Laura herself was studying civil engineering in college, visiting once every four weeks. Laura said that the rift between her and her sister has caused her to feel quite down in the past couple of years, that she would like to mend their relationship, but didn’t see a way to do so.

“He’s literally a grown man. He can do it himself. Especially that his hand works now, and he’s back to good health,” said Laura about her father. Even her parents don’t guilt her for being away from home, she said, just her sister.

But drawing boundaries was important for her, she said, to live the life she wanted. She had to balance her guilt with an innate desire to see, and experience, the world, which was what had led her on her third solo trip, this time to Italy—and where she had the misfortune of running into me.

After the coffee and pastry we had, I had to go back to the hotel to grab my stuff ahead of the ferry I had to catch. But I had time for a drink, so we decided we would meet up again in an hour or so at P..

Palermo

So we did. We got there right around when it opened, and like the day before, it was practically empty. Luca was there, though—of course he was. And he was just as welcoming, though a little hesitant to chat because I’d brought Laura, and of course he didn’t know her. I had to tell him specifically that we had met literally two days ago, and even then that didn’t fully mitigate his anxieties. Eventually I just said, “Luca, where’s your drink?” And he reemerged with the house spritz, a drink with peach and a vivid red ice cube that slowly infuses hibiscus into the drink as it melts.

I had to leave early to catch the overnight boat to Naples and grabbed the tab. By that point I think the awkwardness had diffused enough that it felt fine to leave Luca and Laura to be. As it turns out, I got a text from Laura the next morning saying she had stayed until 10:30, just about as long as I had, and that she and Luca were going to hike the local Mt. Pellegrino together the next day. I figured there was—or would be—some lore there, but I’ll save it for the next time I see either of them to figure it out fully. I did see pictures of the hike on both of their Instagram stories.

Tuesday, February 24 — Sorrento

The whole time I talked to Chevon, I was feeling the drink slightly. I’d just run down from my hotel, high up in outer Sorrento, to the city center—a run I probably wouldn’t do again, because it was hilly and a little dangerous—and had stopped at the town café for a quick drink. They had these nice seats al fresco; it seemed like the place to be. I had a limoncello spritz, and then was making my way through an Aperol spritz, when I noticed the woman at the table over was American and seemed friendly.

At this point I’d become more confident in starting conversations with strangers, and so I did, with whom I came to find out was Chevon—also on a solo trip, staying in Rome and having taken a day trip out to Sorrento with a tour. She was from Orlando and was treating herself to a trip for her birthday; on the actual day she’d be in Tuscany. We didn’t talk for very long, but enough to follow each other on Instagram, and for her to tell me about the tax refund that was timed to land right when she’d be up north. But then she had a boat to catch and it was getting cold, so we left.

Friday, February 27 — Portofino

I had walked the hour from the town of Santa Margherita Ligure to Portofino, which was a beautiful walk, if a little scary toward the end as the sky went dark. Portofino itself was basically a ghost town—shut for the season, only one shop on the strand open for business. I walked around the town for a little bit, passing the one open restaurant, which had a two-star rating on Google, before circling back and sitting down for dinner.

I struck up a conversation with the server, and learned he was from Bangladesh and lived, too, in Santa Margherita Ligure. He was nice enough but kind of distracted. The owner, on the other hand, was, I guess, a local Italian man. He was kind of unpleasant.

There were a few tables there that night; couples along the waterfront, another couple who’d come in right after me and taken the table behind me, and three Chinese guys who were speaking Cantonese. I was the only one eating alone and had my meal rather solitarily.

By the time I’d finished, most everyone had left except for the couple behind me, who were evidently happy and whistling along to the music. They struck up a conversation with me, asking where I was from and what I was doing alone—the two questions which, by then, I’d figured most people are curious about—and I, in turn, asked them the same. It turns out they had met two days ago for the first time and were already planning their wedding. This shocked me, in a great way. I thought things like this happened only in movies.

The most interesting part, however, was when one of the guys—whom I thought had already left—came back, from the bathroom or somewhere, and asked if he could join us. Of course he was welcome; and the four of us were just at the beginning of a good conversation—I’d learned the woman was also in consulting, but for tech companies—when the man in the couple suggested we get some wine. He walked inside just as the owner was heading out and asked for a glass of wine for us; in response, the owner made a flat “X” with his arms—closed—and wore an expression that basically told us all to get lost. So we did, before I could get the couple’s names (or maybe they did tell me, and I’ve just forgotten)—but not before Tommy, the Chinese guy, gave us all his business card.

Yes, a business card. He turned out to be twenty years old, younger than my brother, and intent on networking, or building his career—no harm in that. I asked him where his friends were; his brother, as it happens, was caring for his nephew in the car. Car? Yes, he said, we drove here. From where, I asked. Amsterdam. Which they were from. And did I have time for a walk? Yes, I said, I did; my bus wasn’t coming for another forty-five minutes anyway.

So we went for a walk up toward the peak of Portofino, where there was a castle that the three of them had seen earlier when it was still light out. Apparently the views had been incredible, and I should come back in the daytime.

On the way up, he told me about his life. His parents were both Chinese, but he and his brother had grown up in Amsterdam. Among themselves they spoke a mix of Dutch, English, and Cantonese. He had studied law for the stereotypical reasons someone might choose to go into law, or medicine, but was now at a crossroads as to whether he truly wanted to do it. Corporate law, I think he mentioned.

I asked him further about his life—some larger prompts. “What’s the question you’re asking yourself now?” He told me that he struggles with his identity, having grown up in the Netherlands. “Am I really Dutch?” was the question I remember him asking himself.

Tommy was called twice on our way up and down, about ten minutes each way, by his brother. He told him in Cantonese that he’d be back soon. They had fourteen hours to drive that night; it was best for him to get back, I said. We shook hands at the bus terminus. He didn’t have Instagram, but asked to connect on LinkedIn. I told him if he should be in Hong Kong again in the future, he knows who to find.

Sunday, March 1 — Pontresina

This was my first night in Switzerland, and I was hoping to try some fondue. I ended up eating alone at a “sport hut” attached to a ski resort in Pontresina, the town I was staying in, a delightful, cozy place with just four long tables. I ordered a fondue for myself and was one of two diners eating alone.

Across the table from me was a couple who walked in at right around the same time. They spoke German and, having gone to GSIS, I understood their conversation somewhat—especially when they said, in German, clearly about me, “Does he have a friend, or something?” I knew that people always judged you, even if they didn’t let on, but it was somewhat surprising to be confronted so head-on with the idea that others were judging me. I proceeded to have my dinner anyway.

I ordered olives and pickles to go with my fondue. I admit I don’t know much about eating fondue, but, being me, wanted to try everything dipped in the cheese at least once. I dipped the bread and potatoes that had come with the fondue into the cheese, then, out of curiosity, dipped a pickled carrot into the bubbling pot as well. Not five seconds after I did so, the woman in the couple came over and told me, kindly but firmly, that that was not how to eat fondue. I thanked her, laughed off the fact that I hardly ate fondue, and that the pickle tasted weird with the cheese. I suppose at the time I thought nothing too much of it—but now, looking back on it, I guess I do feel a kind of way about the whole thing.

I chatted with the couple a little over that dinner. I told them I lived in the US; they said they came from Munich, and that they were here to go Nordic skiing on the frozen lakes. We talked a little about the state of the world, and they—especially the wife, who seemed to like me more than her quiet husband—expressed a certain fear about what the future might bring. Which, as I look back on this now, carries a certain gravity.

We didn’t exchange names, but bade each other a good night as we left.

Monday, March 2 — St. Moritz

I was walking around the town of St. Moritz in search of something small—like a postcard—to buy, and then maybe a bar I could sit down at for a cocktail. I saw that there was a S. shop and recognized the brand from its branch on Star Street in Hong Kong. I walked inside to a small, warm space filled with tasteful things: postcards, bags, clothes, and a set of scents that included a hinoki one that reminds me of COVID every time I smell it, because James always used that kind of cologne back when we were friends. The shopkeeper, a nice-seeming man, asked me how I was. I said I was good, and asked him about his day.

We ended up talking for a while about each other’s stories. I told him about my move from consulting into hospitality, and he told me about himself. Adrian is from Romania and has, like the rest of the people I met that day, lived in St. Moritz for under two years. He told me about his two jobs—one at S. and the other doing pricing and revenue management for a local hotel, which he didn’t specify—as well as some smaller, here-or-there topics, like what it was like to live in St. Moritz, moving to Switzerland, solo travel and how it wasn’t really for him. He also told me about his idea to run a pop-up café, a nice idea that he seemed to be in the earlier stages of thinking through. He had a habit of emphatically saying “Fuck!” and other swear words, in a way that made me feel immediately closer to him every time he said it. We talked for about twenty minutes—half an hour, maybe—when the shop started to fill up with people looking for coffee or light shopping. First one person came in, then a family, until there were at least seven or eight people in the small space, and I decided it would be best to leave, and maybe return later.

Which I did. I used getting a tote bag as an excuse (I actually did want the tote bag), but really I wanted to continue talking to Adrian, who seemed like a fascinating character. I think he also noticed the goodwill in my coming back, and after greeting me with “Hello, stranger,” told me to take a seat. We talked for a bit more, including about what my plans were that night—which had been to walk around, get food and maybe a drink, and take a funicular ride, because I’d seen it in The Grand Budapest Hotel—when he asked me to have dinner with his friends. I just had to wait until he closed up.

Of course, I said. There was no hesitation behind my answer, even if there might have been some apprehension.

Eventually it got dark outside. We continued to chat until he realized he was running late, and eventually shushed himself from talking to me so he could finish up all of his tasks, which included taking the trash out, cleaning the espresso machine, and doing some sort of record keeping at the tiny table space the store had. He was sure he had forgotten something, though, and later realized he also had to bring the signpost standing outside back into the store. While he was doing all this, I busied myself with the S. magazine, which had an interesting series on one hundred things—or ideas, or concepts—that had captivated the team of late. At a certain point, a well-dressed, handsome man walked in and asked Adrian when he was going to dinner. Adrian introduced Ivan, who had just gotten off work at Omega, to me, and said that I would be joining dinner. Ivan left to walk over first.

Eventually Adrian closed up and we walked to dinner, which was around ten minutes away by foot. I was carrying the tote I’d bought and a sticker I’d picked up earlier that day, and we talked about his favorite month. He said his favorite month was May because you could feel the spring without it getting too hot, and after I asked him, he told me his birthday was in November. He also mentioned being in something of a depression last year, and that it had something to do with how little light there was outside. He asked me about Boston—how the light was there. Awful, I said. At some points in the year, the sun sets at four.

The name of the restaurant was Riccardo’s. It was an Italian pizzeria. When we got there, Ivan and his American friend Sam were waiting for us. Sam, like me, had crashed the dinner; he and Ivan had met in Mallorca, hit it off, and when Ivan told Sam to come over to St. Moritz, Sam—who runs his own business and therefore chooses his own hours—bought the ticket spontaneously. He’d be staying until Wednesday.

The four of us took a seat at a table for eight first. We got drinks: Sam and I a Negroni each, and Ivan an Aperol spritz. Adrian ordered the table two bottles of wine, which he ended up paying for entirely later. Sam, I learned, lived in the West Village and ran his own PR / marketing firm for political clients (what that meant exactly, I didn’t quite know). Ivan, I learned, was from Croatia, and had, up until November, worked at M.—which is where the other four we were expecting were currently closing up. Soon enough, the four arrived, all decked out in M. clothes—Chiara, Judita, and two others whose names I have admittedly forgotten. Araminta? And Ralph? Or was it Lou?

Dinner was fine. Adrian had said the carbonara at that restaurant was to die for, but wanted fondue, which needed a minimum of two people to be ordered. So I volunteered, which worked out fine—because who cares, I was in Switzerland anyway, and because it was what Adrian clearly wanted.

The conversation started in English but soon drifted to Italian. It seemed the two sides of the table were somewhat split—the M. and the non-M. folks—but eventually the conversation settled between Ivan, Sam, and Chiara, and mostly in Italian. When that happened I sat there watching the whole thing, sipping my white wine and feeling both bored and happy to be invited to the party. Later, I mentioned that I was staying at Hotel Laudinella, which happened to be the only place in town with a bar open that Monday, where mostly locals went, and it was suggested that the group should go to Laudinella. Adrian left early to meet someone, but the rest of us went.

Chiara drove. We must have arrived at the hotel around twelve. We talked for a bit upstairs when Judita insisted that we either get a drink or go home. So we got a drink. We headed downstairs, ordered Peronis and Coca-Cola for those driving, and talked among ourselves. Eventually Chiara and I fell into our own conversation. She told me of her background—of coming from northern Italy, how St. Moritz wasn’t too far for her from home—and I told her about Hong Kong. She said she had a good friend named Benny who came from Hong Kong, but later, when we checked our social media for mutuals, we didn’t find anyone. She claimed to know at least five other people who weren’t at our table and said the town was small like that. Since moving there, she’d built a home. I liked her; I liked chatting with her, and felt grateful to, by the end of the night, have called her a friend.

Tuesday, March 3 — St. Moritz

I promised I’d say goodbye to everyone before leaving. The next morning, after a quick breakfast, I walked over to S. to hang out with Adrian. There were two other people there: a woman who left right around when I arrived, and Filip, whom Adrian had mentioned the day before. Adrian and I chatted for a little bit, then he introduced me to Filip.

Filip also worked in the area, doing management for a five-star hotel. He was from Croatia and carried a black Prada clutch, which spilled out—later in the conversation—a wallet bearing another designer brand’s name. He was a funny guy and talked at length about another friend who flaunted an affluent lifestyle on social media, including a private jet he flew on to visit St. Moritz once, and speculated as to the origins of that wealth. He also wondered aloud where he should get lunch in the area. Eventually he decided the bench he was sitting on was too cold and left to catch a funicular up the mountain.

After that, Adrian and I walked quickly over to M., where we said goodbye to Chiara, Araminta, and the other guy whose name I keep forgetting. They greeted us like close friends. We chatted for a bit, and Adrian picked up several things he had ordered from the M. shop via one of their staff accounts, though he explained—on the way back—how he was against wearing expensive things just to perform status for others. He talked about how St. Moritz was filled with “fake rich young people” who sourced designer clothing either by working in retail or by knowing someone who worked in retail, and he seemed to think negatively of this culture.

I hugged him goodbye before I left for my train. Out of all the wonderful people I came across on this trip, I think he (and Luca) were probably the two I connected with most deeply. I do hope life brings us back together one day.

Wednesday, March 4 — Zurich

I spontaneously wandered into a restaurant in Zurich’s Altstadt (old city) district that was, I learned, a historic structure erected some six hundred years ago. Solo diners like me were seated at tables with other strangers. Shortly after I sat down, a man in a salmon-colored polo sat down across from me. He seemed my age or slightly older, and before dining, brought out a notebook to review notes he had taken. Because we were sitting so close, I thought it was rather awkward that we didn’t talk to—or even acknowledge—each other for the first twenty minutes or so, just staring everywhere else across the room, or at our phones, except directly ahead. Later, another person sat at the other end of the six-person table, but she seemed to pay us no attention.

When the food came I decided I would speak up. I asked him if he was visiting Zurich, too. He responded kindly; he was visiting, from Amsterdam, and he was here for an interview at a private bank, for a strategy role. I told him I had started my career in a strategy role, too, for a financial services company, and wished him luck on the final-round interview. He asked me, politely and eventually warmly, about my travels and about the steps I had chosen on my career path.

He’d have to move to Zurich if he got the job. It would involve having his wife quit her job and moving their two young children, one just several months old, to a new country. It seemed to be a decision he was thinking through quite thoroughly. Before we left, I asked him for his name and shook his hand. He had the same name as one of my closest childhood friends. I tried searching for him on LinkedIn after, but couldn’t find him.

Wednesday, March 4 — Barcelona

Diego was my server and bartender at L., a seafood spot that came highly recommended to me by my friends from college. And, holy shit—it was amazing. The prawns, in particular, were so delicious—salty, their heads cracking open with savory butter. I told Diego this when he asked me how the food was, and I ordered six more to add onto the three I’d already had.

At that point, I admit, I was socially drained, but we still chatted. He was my age, and came from Ibagué, Colombia. We exchanged Instagrams, and he wanted to do a shot with me, but his manager didn’t let him when he asked.

Barcelona

Later that night I ended up at Sips, a bar that had won Best in the World several years back. Immediately on walking in I was slightly overwhelmed; it was loud, and I’d had a few glasses of wine at dinner. I was seated at a table with six others—a man across from me who looked anywhere between twenty and forty, and then five other young-looking people.

For a while it was rather awkward, as the group was clearly having fun, while the man across from me and I tried to act as though we were ignoring them, even as we smiled or laughed at their jokes.

Eventually one of them said, not inaudibly, “Why is the vibe so cold on that side of the table?” Another replied, “They don’t even know each other. They came separately.” “Shit, I thought they were fighting or something. My bad.” To which we all laughed, and started to chat.

I had many more drinks that night. Turns out everyone at that table except me worked for a telecom company; the man across from me living in Singapore, the rest in Luanda, the capital of the western African country Angola. They were there as salespeople because they spoke Portuguese, which had been their second-choice language to learn in college, the first being Spanish. One of them had left before we really began to talk; but the rest of them—and the man across from me, whom I learned was there alone for a conference, and who also had a wife and two young children—ended up talking about our lives, the details of which I now already cannot recall. It was one of those nights where the moments began to blur together. But I did get their contact. I woke up the next morning with a throbbing headache.

All encounters described here are real. Some names have been changed for privacy.