Travel Blog

We arrived at the Arsht Center well before the concert – Caetano Veloso in performance with his three sons – and went to the Café at Books & Books. Asking to sit outside, we were led to a table next to three young men with shaggy black hair who were speaking Portuguese.

A few minutes after the waitress poured our water, one of the men looked over at me and pointed out that my cup was leaking. I had been so focused on our neighbors that I hadn’t noticed the small waterfall now cascading over the side of our table. I thanked him and asked if he had come for the concert. He smiled and said “yes.” “Are you in the concert?” I asked, and he said “yes” again. We had taken a table next to the great singer’s sons.

Shortly after the waitress got me a new cup, their father arrived, and took a seat at their table. He was a slight man, still handsome with chiseled features and a full head of hair. A young woman walked from the far end of the terrace and asked if she could have a picture with him. He graciously obliged. Then a middle-aged woman approached him, speaking in Portuguese.

Hania asked if I wanted a picture with him. I said no; I didn’t want to bother him. I tweeted, unobtrusively, that I was eating dinner next to Caetano Veloso. When he got up to leave, Hania also stood up and – with none of my reservations – said, “I hope you’re not a fan of your new president.”

He seemed less surprised by her outburst than I was. No, he assured her, he wasn’t. She explained that she was from Poland, which was having its own problems with a right-wing, nationalistic government. “It’s not good at all,” Hania said. “Not good at all,” Veloso agreed in that soft, sympathetic voice that, one hour later, we heard in mellifluous song.