Let's Do the Time Warp Again!

Anonymous Yesterday we visited two very old places. It is an awesome (in the true sense of the word) feeling to stand somewhere and think of how many thousands of years people have stood and walked in that same spot. It is awesome to look at stones stacked and gathered in that place and think of the hands that brought them there so long ago. It can give you shivers to reach over the "Please do not touch" sign and run your fingers across the post-it notes of three thousand years ago (not that I did, I deny everything!). Reflecting on this "time warp" inevitably causes another, and brings me back to other times I have stood on hilltops and wondered at how long people had lived and sought meaning in that very spot. I could go on to talk about these moments, but instead I am going to talk about food. Because, as we all know, food is rather essential, and because I have had way more experiences with food than with sacred stones, and those experiences, brought back to my mind by a different time warp, are, let's face it... a little bit funnier.
After feeling the familiar awe at places of great age and meaning, I felt another familiar feeling: that of being stuffed with bread. You see, traveling brings with it so many unique challenges, and eating is one that can bring both great joy and consternation (or another word sounding very similar... ;) When packing for our day trip, I did my best to pack a lunch. The thing is, when packing food to sit with you on a bus all day, it really ought to be non-perishable. Which really boils down to one thing: bread. Now, I know that there are all sorts of creative ways to pack non-perishable meals. The time warp whisks me back to afternoons buying snacks in Spain, squirreling them away in a drawer for the next time hunger struck between meals. Not having access to a fridge, my choices were limited, but I tried to be creative. Crackers, cheese, apples, more crackers, some cookies, nutella, more crackers, some more crackers, some more crackers. Ok, so I could have been more creative, I tried. In the end, my non-perishable snacks only exacerbated the feeling created by mealtimes: that of being bloated with bread. It's not that I didn't eat other things, it's just that, for one reason or another, I also consumed and inordinate amount of bread. Bread on my bocadillo, bread dipped in my soup, bread for breakfast, bread for mid-morning snack, pasta (just a cleverly disguised form of bread) for dinner. Bread, and more bread and MORE BREAD!
Ok, so, back to the time warp. Eating in Greece has been, thankfully, less bread-filled. But yesterday, after eating my cereal, my pita with peanut butter, my pita with chorizo, my pita by itself, and then some bread with my dinner (SALAD!! THANK YOU, GOD!), I felt a once familiar feeling... ugg. I never want to eat bread again. Now then, I really was going somewhere with this... but I can't remember exactly where. I guess the point is, that for me, yesterday was filled with more than one time warp, as are lots of days in Greece (not all because of bread, thankfully). And that, over the centuries (or the travel experiences), there are some parts of human experience that don't change very much.