I wandered into a bar in the Malasaña neighborhood one raucous Friday night the last time I was in Madrid.

As I sat at the bar and enjoyed my beer I couldn't help but notice a very loud crowd of 20-something Madrileños at the back of the bar singing along to music videos and classic commercials playing on a giant flat screen television. Only I couldn't recall any of the songs, didn't recognize any of the singers, and couldn't sing along to the jingles of any of the commercials -- unlike that young crew in the back of the bar.

The longer I watched them carry on -- and they were very entertaining to watch -- I started to realize that they have a whole different history, a whole different set of memories, that I or most of the people I know do. The music, the jingles, the commercials, the camaraderie, the cultural history -- it belonged to them, los españoles, and not the American at the bar.

From my Madrid journal:

Whole different lives are lived here. Different histories, different memories, different ways of being and living. It amazes me. We're so self-centered as Americans, thinking our experiences define how the world should be. It isn't until you go somewhere else that you realize that it ain't all about us.

I see Madrileños and the way they are, see the things they do and how they do them. I'll pick one, my tender here at Café Oliver for instance, and think about where she's been and how she got here. What her history is, what her memories are. Who loves her, who she loves. What does she do when she gets off work? Does she have a live-in, is she married, or alone? How does she fight with her lover? What does she look like when she cries? What does she look like when she has sex? How does her body move when she's with her lover, that person bringing her to ecstasy? How does she laugh? What makes her smile?

All of this and more comes to mind from a simple "hola" and the pour of a beer.

The more I travel and meet people who aren't like me, the bigger and richer it makes my world. I want to know all about how other people (non-Americans) live their lives and see the world. I want to know what their histories are, what matters to them, and how they find and pursue their passions.

Twitter and Facebook have made this pursuit much easier. I have several followers and "friends" on these social networks that are from Spain, Mexico, and other places where our only connection is that we share a similar language and, maybe, a cultural interest. That's the starting point, though, and there has to be a starting point.

I can't wait to see where my travels, both virtual and physical, take me and what they'll continue to reveal and teach me -- hell, all of us -- about the world beyond our borders. Hell, I might even learn a few new tunes and jingles.

In December I joined ClotheCharlotte in their effort to collect coats, hats, and gloves for the estimated 5,000 homeless people in Charlotte.

I added an extra incentive for most everyone I knew by offering up a portrait in exchange for a donation to the cause. The response was overwhelming!

© Armando Bellmas

My “ClotheCharlotte, get a portrait” drive collected over 50 clothing kits of coats, hats, and gloves.

© Armando Bellmas

On December 20, my son Nick and I helped sort and deliver the clothing kits with dozens of other ClotheCharlotte volunteers.

One of the best parts of the whole campaign was when Nick, realizing we were done volunteering and ready to go back home, said to me “I want to help out some more!”

Anyway, a big thanks to Joe and Nathan at ClotheCharlotte for getting it going and spreading the word. Also, thanks to everyone who donated, got a portrait, and helped us ClotheCharlotte this winter.

Nick and Sophie outside the Georgia Theater in downtown Athens, Georgia.

I hit the ground running when I got back home from New York City a couple of weeks ago. I’m just now getting around to processing the film and looking through all the photos I made while walking the streets of lower and midtown Manhattan.

© Armando Bellmas

There are three things I did a lot of while I was in New York City: met a bunch of very creative and interesting people, drank lots of Ketel One, and walked my ass off.

© Armando Bellmas

It was during my seemingly endless walks that I would search for pieces of the city that I could bring home with me in photographs. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. It was a vague craving for something that would move me in a different way.

© Armando Bellmas

I had six days to take it all in and I was damn sure going to try to take as much of it home with me as I could. I posted this tweet to Twitter as I wandered down yet another street that I’d never been down before:

Last night here. Wandering around in a futile attempt to take it all back home with me.

Greedy, I know. I wanted to soak up and bring back so much of New York City that I wouldn’t miss it as much as I have after leaving it in the past.

© Armando Bellmas

In the end these photographs, and the countless others still on the contact sheets, have been a wistful reminder of my rambles around lower Manhattan. They capture exactly what I saw and experienced, even if I’m still not sure what I was looking for.

© Armando Bellmas

“I memorized a face so it’s not forgotten
I hear the wind whistlin’
Come back anytime
And we’ll mix our lives together”

from “Home” by David Byrne & Brian Eno

© Armando Bellmas

I was working late the other night and received this text from my wife before I came home:

Out of beer- have ribs & wine

Yep, she’s a keeper.

I recently read Brian Morton’s novel Starting Out In The Evening and was struck by this passage on “the glory of choosing your own life, even when it takes ruthlessness to do it.”

You seize your freedom in a spirit of rebelliousness, exuberance, defiant joy. But to live that choice — over the weeks and months and years to come — requires different qualities. It requires that you turn hard, turn rigid. Because it isn’t a choice that the world encourages, you have to wear a suit of armor to defend it.

My 19-month-old daughter Sophie pulled this bookmark out of a book on the shelf recently. It’s from a bookstore I worked at fresh out of college in ‘93. I don’t know which book she pulled it out of. She just walked over and held it up to me as if she knew I would want or need it.

The phrase I wrote on the bookmark:

…walked with a stagger of experience…

I don’t recall what book the quote is from. The phrase, however, has just as much punch for me as it did back then.

Those days I noted the phrase in a bookmark as I read the book. Today, I scan the bookmark with the phrase on it and post it on my blog.