Feeling disoriented and breathless after a long travel day and wheeling our suitcases up the steep stone Callejón (pedestrian street), we knocked on the rustic wood door of the rental house and hoped that the housekeeper would be there to greet us as planned.
I was jet-lagged from the trip but, even more, I was emotionally exhausted. My husband, Hank, and I had returned to the States, after more than three years of living abroad, to attend a family wedding and ended up postponing our travels for the next five months due to a series of events that had left us reeling. This was our first foray abroad since then and I hadn't realized how tense I was until a woman with a kindhearted smile and a cheerful yellow apron opened the door and I felt a wave of relief flood through me. The intensity of the emotion startled me.
Ellen Barone is an American writer and wanderer. She co-founded and publishes the group travel blog YourLifeIsATrip.com and is currently at work on her first book "I Could Live Here".