Have you ever
seen that Chevy Chase movie, 'European Vacation'? It's a National Lampoon flik about a family who wins a trip to Europe. What ensues is complete havoc, chaos,
and everything in between. Leave it to Chevy. Thankfully, we didn't . . . leave
it to Chevy.
When I paused
college . . . for the first time (That's another post) . . . in 1988, I worked full-time
for a year to save up money for our own European Vacation. 'Our' being my mom,
dad, sister, and two brothers. And me, of course. Otherwise it would be 'them,'
I guess, so you probably figured out that I participated. I saved some money
and, more importantly, got a credit card (score!!). My sister bought my airline
ticket, and I was just responsible for spending money. As the departure date
approached, my mom shared some wise words ~ Take half the stuff and twice the
money. Did I listen? Of course not ~ I was 19. We had an amazing six weeks, or
maybe five. Traveling by planes, trains, and automobiles throughout England,
France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Holland, and Belgium, we slept in train
stations, bus depots, hostels, a hotel one night - thanks to my soon-to-be-previous
employer, J.W. Marriott.
I can't remember
the whole trip, of course. Somewhere I have the letters that I wrote to Dave
(my then boyfriend of about 4 years) which acted as sort of a journal. When I
get the basement organized (another another post), I'll dig them out and add to
this with some actual trip info. But, in the meantime, I'll share what I do
remember, in no particular order.
Sir Christopher
Wren, a pub on Paternoster Square in London just down the street from the St. Paul's Cathedral where
we were staying in a hostel (I have no idea if those logistics were correct
but, according to my memory, they are). I had my first legal drink there - a
Bailey's and Cream - a flavor I stuck with throughout the trip.
Twinings Tea House
Dinner as a
family in ??Paris?? when we were reunited (or perhaps before we all split up to
go in different directions - not sure which, probably doesn't matter).
The Munich
Hofbräuhaus in Germany where the four siblings hung out and got super drunk on
gigantic beers in amazing, quintessentially Germanic steins (there's a picture
of this somewhere that I'll also dig out and add later).
No seats
available on our intra-country train and the boys passing out in the hallway
while Elizabeth and I found an empty sleeping car and passed out comfortable on
beds.
Abandoning our
brothers in a train station because they were, once again, passed out, while we
took a train to Austria.
Mozartkugel,
Salzburg, and Chamonix – an amazing side trip with just my sister (who gets to
do that??) where we walked tens of thousands of stairs, were awed by the
intricacies of Swiss architecture and the myriad places where Mozart’s face
could appear, slept on a real feather bed in a bed-and-breakfast located on a
hilltop straight out of Sound of Music, and sat in a field of wildflowers
overlooking the French/Swiss Alps. How do I even find words?
A double-decker
bus ride with my mom through downtown London, feeling as grey as the day
because of missing my long-distance love, and being frustrated with all things
foreign, and her finding a McDonalds for me to have a familiar all-American
cheeseburger to lighten my spirits.
Getting halfway
through our trip and running out of money and having to find a post office to
ship half of the stuff I’d brought back to Dave – Why hadn’t I listened to my
mom’s wise words? Oh yeah – I was 19.
Amsterdam. That’s
all I have to say about that.
Buying Dave a
beautiful carved-wood Mallard duck that I carried around in my backpack,
digging into the small of my back, displacing some of the things that
eventually got mailed back to him, only to learn upon presentation after going
home that it had a ‘Made in China’ sticker on the bottom. What the literal
hell?
Going to a friend’s
apartment in Paris – He was the son of a friend of my mom’s pen pal, Madeline,
who had come to stay with us in the States about 10 years prior-ish, and was
now married with a new baby – and having it be very awkward with his
standoffish American wife (who was really beautiful, but not hospitable at all)
and not even getting to see the baby because she was napping. Again, what the
hell? This guy called my mom his American Mama. Seriously? Wake the kid up for
goodness sake. Anyway, that guy eventually divorced his wife and married
another man, so I guess the tension we felt was real.
Apparently, I rode
the ferry from England to France and saw the Cliffs of Dover, but I don’t
remember those.
Juan les Pins (‘Zjwahn-lay-pan)
– along the Côte d'Azur (like coat du jour, but means blue coast not coat-of-the-day) in the French
Riviera, where we visited the condo of someone my mom’s pen pal knew – her sister?
The guy’s mom? Maybe. I’ll have to research that. It was straight out of the
70s with wild flowered wallpaper, oranges and greens, low, minimalist
furniture. We were grateful to be in an actual home, though, after backpacking and
staying in random, not-necessarily-made-for-sleeping places for so long. I saw
my first topless sunbather – who shouldn’t have been topless sunbathing, happily
ordered steak tartare (which, like any ignorant American would think it was
actually steak, you know, like, grilled steak?) only to find out it is raw beef
chopped up into a fine mush and put into a mold to look like a cupcake … Yeah,
didn’t eat that … and toured the art exhibit of my mom’s pen pal’s sister,
which was in a little town called Aix-en-Provence (pronounced like the letter X), which we mispronounced the whole time and then couldn’t get directions to
until someone figured out what the ignorant Americans were calling it. It was a
quaint little town with cobblestone streets and old, old, old buildings (like,
thousands of years old I’m pretty sure – okay, maybe hundreds, but still, WAY
older than anything we have in America).
 |
| Yes. It was THAT crowded. |
That’s pretty
much all I remember. 30 years is a long time, after all. I’ll see how much more
comes back to me when I read the journals and dig out the photos. For now, enjoy the stock photography. PC: Google Images
Little did I know
that I would return with my mom 30 years later to visit my sister who is now living
in France. But that’s another post.