A few weeks ago my husband, Joe, and I -- hot and bored like two schoolchildren -- sat on a stone bench at a plaza in northern Spain. It was 3 in the afternoon, during the hours of the siesta, but we were not restful. We were in the wrong town, had checked into the wrong place, had washed out our socks in the wrong sink. Our plans had been foiled and we were wasting a precious day of our vacation.

		Elizabeth Seamans is a filmmaker and writer living in Point Breeze (epns1@hotmail.com).

Nothing moved in this charm-deprived void of suburban Pamplona. The words "neutron bomb" bounced back into my head every time I tossed them out. Was it for this that our peonies and irises were blooming unnoticed in our garden at home? That we were paying a cat-and-house sitter to sleep in our bed? How had we been so stupid?

We knew we were licked -- in this, at least, we were wise --so we just stayed put on our bench. We happened to have ringside seats to one of the sweetest shows on Earth.

It is 4:15. A small boy on a tricycle pedals through the archway at the far right corner of the plaza, his two sisters and young mother behind him. Then come three little girls about 8 years old. The short one with dark curly hair is clearly the boss.

Then boys with soccer balls begin to drift in. They use the balls the way bats use radar: pinging them off walls, doors, pillars and off each other. Old men wade in, gently leading their ancient mothers; with shoulders stooped and walking-canes trembling, they pause and bask in the gathering sea of children who eddy around them.

Tables and chairs are set out under arcades. How quickly they fill with women, the sound of voices and laughter opening up from a murmur to a roar. Babies and stories are passed around the tables while, out on the plaza, poignant dramas unfold: A mother urges her pudgy son to join in the soccer game as he buckles himself backward, pressing himself urgently against her knees. The tall, lovely young girl with turquoise capri pants wades into a churning pool of boys; she takes control of the soccer ball with a sweet, sure smile.

And so it goes. Nobody notices us -- we are like ghosts to them -- so we are free to enjoy the show.

Of all the exquisite sights we saw in Spain -- low, swirling fog at dawn in the mountains, fountains and orange groves in the Alhambra, and much more -- by far the most lovely and the most haunting was that late afternoon convocation on the plaza in Huarte where time seemed to pause and release us all for a while.

Such gathering places are sacred and this seemed the picture of paradise. We know it from myth. The Irish have the Fiddler's Green, the Greeks the Elysian Fields and both of these came to mind as the air cooled and the evening poured its caramel light on the buildings and the people in the plaza. "I want this," was my thought. "I don't ever want to let this go."

We romanticize it, of course. There must be people who feel excluded and some plazas certainly have dark histories. But we believe what we saw: A public space swirling with people of all ages, greeting one another with respect and affection, playing without violence or rudeness, mindful of the very old and the very young. Abandoning television, game boy, iPod, cell phone, even automobile, we saw them as they arrived at the center of their town and we watched them enjoy one another.

One night last week, still missing Spain, we went out for a late supper in a restaurant on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill. We sat by the window and watched the people outside who were walking and talking with a graceful, summery ease. Businessmen with their families, punk rockers, pre-teens, Orthodox families, all kinds of people were greeting each other, stopping and talking, getting coffee or ice cream.

There was something familiar in the whole scene, but what was it?

"It's here," I told Joe. "Spain. That same evening feeling." At least something like it. Joe felt it, too.

And isn't this one of the great pleasures of travel? We realize what it is that we long for -- and then seek it, sometimes finding it, when we get home.

Large things or small ones: this kind of garden, that kind of restaurant, this kind of clothing or music or coffee, this kind of life. If the travel gods are good to us and we are receptive, life is transformed, at least a little.

Meanwhile, Spain is changing. There is talk in Madrid that the siesta is outmoded, that the old ways can't last. Spaniards travel a lot and bring home our busy American ways. Who knows -- the day may come when Spaniards who visit our country will discover in our public spaces a gracious communion that is missing in theirs. Maybe they will find paradise here and nurture it when they get back to Spain.