Dominicanos playing softball on a Saturday afternoon: chatter from the stands, the slap of a ball in a glove. The occasional ping of a bat and rattle of the backstop fence, another foul ball. Either great pitching or bad hitting closes out a scoreless inning, and then rain ends the game and everyone heads to the nearby shelter for beers and rum and laughter.

A street side cafe on a rainy morning in Hue, Vietnam

La Buvette on a snowy Omaha Friday afternoon: a bottle of wine. A plate of cheese. The last 50 pages of a book. People who did not come here together but know each other well enough to stop and chat on their way in or out. A waitress who understands exactly what I’m looking for, ignoring me almost entirely, stopping by my table only once, slowing down just enough to give me a thumbs up, her raised eyebrows serving as the punctuation to her wordless question. Yeah, I’m good.

The coast at Baiona, near where Columbus first touched land back in Spain after his first visit to the Americas. This is just 15 minutes of the ocean.

At the cathedral in Santiago, pilgrims gather with the euphoria of a long hard task completed, or exhaustion, or both. Friends meet after not seeing each other for weeks, and pose together for photographs. In the distance a man plays bagpipes incessantly, confident that that’s what everybody was hoping would be here when they finally made it.

Almost exactly 100 km from the end of the road at Santiago, a peaceful stretch of trail in the Galician countryside. Birds sing, cows low and then later attempt to settle a disagreement with clattering horns. The drama quietly subsides.

The utter chaos of recess at an elementary school is in full swing as kids play soccer, chase each other around the playground, or just chat with friends. Slowly, the noise recedes as kids are pulled in groups back into class, and we are left with the peaceful street.

Triacastela sits on the eastern side of the Ancares mountain range, and just outside of town a stream runs through the valley. Today we’re sitting on the space between the wall in the edge of town and that stream, where some cows are pasturing. The scene is so peaceful that at one point you can even hear a cow grabbing mouthfuls of grass, or another cow’s poop softly plopping onto the grass.

Sitting just inside a peaceful church just after it opened its doors for the morning: outside a chorus of birds chatters constantly until they all suddenly stop and then start again, somehow on cue. Some pilgrims stop by and get a tour of the small space.

Standing just outside the morning’s cafe under an awning: rain falls outside on cars and pedestrians while inside we hear the sounds of cafe making good coffee, as well as washing dishes and setting chairs at tables. Meanwhile a selection of American classic rock songs wafts outside.