Once a year, I meet up with friends from near and far. We spend a long weekend together and go on a city tour. We've spent many wonderful hours together, discovering the world together. We're an illustrious bunch with a diverse range of personalities. We share common interests, such as traveling and exploring local culinary delights. We also enjoy using these days to discuss a wide variety of topics (personal, political, cultural, social, religious, environmental—the list goes on). We have plenty of fun along the way.
For me, these weekends are something very special. On the one hand, it's about the travel. We drive or fly to interesting places I'd like to explore. On the other hand (and this is the more important part for me) it's about the people I spend these weekends with. Our encounters are characterized by curiosity, empathy, openness, and tolerance. Everyone is accepted as they are (even with our "quirks"). Everyone can talk to everyone else and there's no need to "make a fuss about it." That's what I define as "friendship."
So we also took a trip to Lisbon. After an eventful day filled with many impressions, we went to a viewpoint above the city in the evening. It was a mild summer evening with a fantastic view and the scent of flowers and olives. There was a small wine bar up there that we couldn't resist. We bought two bottles of wine and were given plastic glasses. We thoroughly enjoyed the wine in this beautiful setting, stayed there for a long time, and didn't want to leave.
While other people there threw their wine glasses into the provided trash cans after use, we took them as souvenirs. My husband's and my glasses are in our kitchen. We now enjoy using them at home. When we sit in our garden at home and drink a glass of wine from them, we like to think back to the lovely evening in Lisbon with our friends. Memories and thoughts flood back, and I almost feel like I can smell the air and breathe in the Mediterranean scents.
My cleaning lady once asked if she couldn't throw the glasses away, since we certainly wouldn't drink wine from a plastic glass when we have beautiful wine glasses in the cupboard. Of course, that's completely out of the question. The material value of these glasses is close to zero, but their intangible value is infinitely precious.
