It was Lisbon, a Tuesday in July. I'd just arrived at the hostel after 6 hours on a bus from Madrid. I was hungry, tired, and the dorm smelled like sunscreen. The bed across from me was taken by someone reading a book with a cover I didn't recognize. I hesitated for exactly one second. Then I said: "Is it good?" He looked up. "Really good. Did you just arrive?" And that was it. We were off.
We had dinner together that evening. His name was Marco, he was from Florence, doing a tour of Western Europe in three weeks before starting a master's in architecture. He knew Lisbon because he'd been two years earlier and wanted to find a specific café in Bairro Alto where he'd spent an entire afternoon sketching the building facades. I'd planned to do the tourist classics. Marco said "okay, but first this café."
The café wasn't in any guidebook. It was a tiny room with three tables and a wooden counter, run by a man in his sixties playing fado from a small speaker on a shelf. The coffee cost €0.80. We stayed for two hours.
The next morning Marco had an early train. He left the café's address on a Post-it. I went back the following day, alone this time. The same man was there. I ordered a coffee. He asked if I was with the tall dark-haired guy from the day before. I said no, that he was a passing friend. "The best friends are often the passing ones." He said it without thinking, wiping down the counter.
I think about that sometimes when I think back on those two days. Not Lisbon specifically, not the fado, not the castle. I think about the second of hesitation before saying "is it good?" Because that second is real. It exists every time. In every dorm, on every beach, at every hostel kitchen table. There's someone who wants to talk and someone waiting to be spoken to. Sometimes they're the same person on both sides. Most of the time, both wait. And nothing happens.
It's not a question of courage. It's just a decision. A fraction of a second where you choose to say something instead of nothing. Almost every great travel encounter starts this way. "Is it good?" "Do you know if the bus still runs at this hour?" "Have you been here long?"
That first second, slightly less uncertain
There are now tools to make that second a little easier. HollyFriends shows you who is staying at your accommodation right now — filtered by age. You don't have to approach random strangers. You already know there's someone, somewhere in the same building as you, who might be reading a book with a cover you don't recognize. The question is still the same. Just the first second that's slightly less uncertain.
Marco and I exchanged social media handles the morning of his departure. We still follow each other. He finished his master's, now works at an architecture firm in Milan. Last summer he sent me a photo of a café in Florence — same wooden counter, same atmosphere — with just "found the local equivalent." I replied: "coffee €0.80?" "€0.90. Inflation."