I remember one experience for the pure joy of it.
My buddy and I were doing an epic bike trip through Europe. We were on a very tight budget, sleeping in fields for the most part and eating whatever was cheapest in the local food stores.
Spain was the hardest leg of the trip. The roads were awful, it was very hot, mosquitoes ate us alive at night. For food we subsisted mostly on canned sardines, canned pork liver pate, some fruit and lots of bread.
After three weeks of Spain, we were pretty miserable. Finally we decided that at the next town, we’d treat ourselves to an actual meal at an actual restaurant. It wasn’t much of a town, but it did have a restaurant that looked just perfect.
We were encrusted with road dust, unshaven, our clothes rimed with the salt of our sweat, but they took us in and sat us down. Neither of us spoke much Spanish at all, and we couldn’t make sense of the menu, but it didn’t matter. The waiter would just show up, suggest something or other, and we would just say, in joyful unison, “Si”. That one magic word propelled a pageant of delights our way.
We just ate until we couldn’t “Si” anymore. It was like a wonderful dream.