So to speak: Away from home

What are the odds of someone calling your name five thousands kilometres away from home? I have travelled extensively but it never happened to me until this summer. My wife and I were strolling in a town in the heart of Holland when I turned my head to see a man beckoning at me.
Our homes in Seeb are just a 100 metres apart but we have not seen each other for more than a year. Yet, in a foreign country, I just ‘bumped’ into him in the most casual way. We talked less than a minute and promised each other to meet once we were both home but I have my doubt if we would do it. I was happy to see him but you travel to see new faces, learn a different culture and eat local food. My neighbour and I shortly walked away from each other but I noticed that people from the same countries, though strangers from each other, hang around in the same places. What is the point? It is like taking a little bit of your background with you and slamming the door for new and exciting experience.
When Portugal won the European Championship, they got together in a square and celebrated. That I can understand. It was for patriotic reason. It also gave the opportunity of other nationalities to join them so they could share their joy. However, it is far from patriotic when a group of Indians gathered in a restaurant pulled by one restaurant owner. A kilometre away, we saw a small crowd sitting outside a roadside café. For me, travelling is to detach myself from all the usual familiarities. You leave your anxieties behind and not take it with you. Though most of the times it is impossible to put up a barrier between your routine and adventure, but it is worth a try. And why not? Taking a holiday is expensive these days with spiralling costs. Besides, you may not live long to have another chance to treat yourself.
I am not sure what you have to talk when you meet your compatriots abroad. All I can say that it removes the thrill away from your holiday. The time you hang around in the roadside cafés take you away from the real magic of travelling. Minutes after I walked away from my friend, I saw something I would never see in the gulf. A group of swans were ‘walking the water’ of the river in a single line. Half an hour later, a frail old woman, who could not be a day less than a hundred years and dressed smartly in a scarlet dress, tights, red lipstick was dozing off on a chair. She was completely oblivion to the bustle and commotion of the city. I bet, I told my wife, if she had outlived the rockets of the World War II, the noise of the trams and cars were a lullaby to her tired bones.
The spectacular and not so spectacular were everywhere, depending what excite the tourists. Men, who rather be women, sporting wigs and mini skirts, were happily dancing outside the train station for no particular reason. Not far away from them, a dog, thinking it was a cat, was scratching a streetlight, much to the annoyance of its owner but to the amusement of onlookers. By the time I go back, I would at least leave behind many of my worries, far away from home, before I meet fresh challenges. Thanks to a foreign land and the time I spent away from my country to replenish my system.