Grecia

Another day, we were driving in the rain through a countryside of bent trees and overgrown foliage, and attempted to reunite with the main highway, which lay to the east, except the signs for a town in that direction pointed toward the west; and subsequently we ended up in a residential cul-de-sac where we couldn't turn around without running over a clique of yelping dogs. It was then, knowing we weren't going to get anywhere fast, that we decided to stop and enjoy the world around us and found ourselves in the town of Grecia.

We walked into a bakery and sandwich shop off the central square, the sort of place where you can sit down and order hot chocolate and sweets and drown your own thoughts in other peoples' voices, and all of a sudden it felt like Europe; or at least, it is what I will be looking for whenever I go to Europe. It's what you almost never find in America, and in my experience not in Latin America either: a crowded café where you can indulge in solitude.

What we ordered was advertised as a Greek salad.