Topic 91: Traveling and Arriving

Carol:

So Long, Farewell

We have just said good-bye to our Canadian friends Bonnie and Michael after a wonderful four-day visit. When we weren’t sightseeing through Northern  Arizona, we were reminiscing  at length about one of our favorite topics, travel. Right now departures are more on my mind than arrivals.
 

Bonnie and I spent the summer of 1969 together in Europe, a trip planned while I was studying in Aix-en-Provence, France and she at the University of Manitoba. Our travels took us through France, Spain and Italy before we ended the summer in Switzerland.  Bonnie would travel alone for several more weeks before returning to Canada.  I would return to the States and classes at the University of California, Riverside.
 

But, first I detoured to Aix to pick up my ticket for a cheap charter I had arranged through a student travel agency. When I got to the travel office, the building was locked, the travel office closed for the summer. I couldn’t remember what Belgian city I was departing from, what airline or time, just the date. In a panic, I telephoned my parents who were not happy that I could be so immature as to pay for a ticket without getting any paperwork. I had almost no money and no credit card, so they had to make all the arrangements through telegrams and wire transfers. And they would had to pay for an exorbitant last-minute, one-way ticket from Paris to Los Angeles.
 

Marc and I spent the summer of 1971 together in Europe. I had met him at UCR in fall 1969 and convinced him that he too should apply for a study abroad program. In fall 1970, he left for Bordeaux , so I spent the year planning the trip with my roommate Clarice and her friend Meg.  You might think that I had matured in those two years since the debacle of the airplane ticket. Well, I had…sorta. 
 

Our June charter flight from LA took us to London, where we would stay for several days before meeting Marc in Amsterdam. About an hour outside of London, a thought popped into my head. I hadn’t really looked at my passport in a while, what if my paperwork was incomplete? When I opened the passport, sure enough,  my passport had expired. In another panic, my imagination went into overdrive, I would be hauled off to a London jail for illegal entry, I would miss our flight to Amsterdam, I would never see my boyfriend Marc, and worst, I would have to telephone my parents to help me out of another travel fiasco. Luckily, the flight attendant told me that I could get my passport renewed in London with little more inconvenience than the loss of a day spent filling out paperwork at the American Embassy.
 

 I arrived at the Amsterdam airport three days later with a brand new passport and thoughts of seeing Marc for the first time in 9 months. By the time we debarked from the plane, I was so overtaken by nerves that I hid in the bathroom for 20 minutes. Finally, Marc sent Clarice in to find out what was wrong, and she pushed me out the door for what I thought would be a public but nevertheless sentimental reunion.    

There he was, outside in the hallway.  He grabbed my hand, gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and greeted me with the kind of romantic words I have been hearing now for 40 years. “Hurry, we have to run. If we don’t get to the Heinecken Brewery in 10 minutes, we’ll miss the free beer.”

Megan:

In Bruges

December 22, 2002
Sunday
Bruges, Belgium

“Before Snuffel’s Sleep-In was a youth hostel, it was an information booth, where backpackers and other travelers congregated to rustle up some guidance about Bruges. To snuffle means to sniff out information, like hunting dogs, or drug dogs. Thus, when converted into a hostel, the information booth became Snuffel’s, with a dog as the mascot”–Kelly

Kelly wrote that before she started back to L.A. today. I went with her to the train station and then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city and doing laundry. Tried to see a movie but I got lost. When the barman at Snuffel’s gave me directions, he mentioned there used to be many cinemas but now only two. I didn’t come across either of them, and wandered for a couple hours along the canals trying to find my way back to the hostel. Unlike Amsterdam, this city does not seem to focus around something huge you can see from far away (like a train station). I walked through the town center three times, walked past the Church where they keep bits of Jesus blood. Kelly and I tried to see it, but it was encased in a tabernacle type thing, so who knows if it was even in there.    

Now I am back at Snuffel’s, drinking Snuffel Beer and waiting to check my emails. Tomorrow I’m going to get up early to go to Brussels and from there, Paris. Then I’ll see how to get to San Sebastian, but I don’t want to arrive anywhere after dark and have to find a hostel. I’m excited to travel alone because I can just wander and take it in. You can’t do that in a large group.
    

Right now, in the bar, there is a drunk American. He exclaims about the beer: “Its more like champagne! It’s way too carbonated and sweet! This will give you a hangover!” He laughs like he’s had plenty of hangovers. He’s the type to constantly compare America to Europe– usually in the U.S.’s disfavor, so loudly and dramatically that the barman and probably every other European look at him and see what they hate about the U.S.
    

Another man we’ve met is Vittorio di Lorenzo, whom Kelly nicknamed Father Time on account of his advanced age, which is probably only late 50’s. We made dinner together in the Snuffel Kitchen, I had pasta and he had veggies. He’s a Londoner who is traveling because the housing rates in the U.K.  are too high. Essentially, he explained, it’s cheaper for him to travel frugally all around Europe than to rent a room in London.
    

Back to the Drunk American. He is making conversation with the poor attractive barman (all the barmen here are attractive). Barman pays close enough attention, makes decent conversation, occasionally has input. But the Drunk American still only wants to talk about the beer. “All American beer is shit,” he says. “But this, this is not beer.” Barman responds that its 9% alcohol, therefore stronger than the American shit anyway. Barman admits that he is hung-over.

 Apparently the Drunk American buys all his clothes with Camel Cash– he has a Camel Jacket and a Camel Fishing Vest. He says that “Amendments” have been passed to raise taxes on cigarettes and beer. “In 100 years, the whole world will be a civilized country– except America.” His theory is apparently that civilized countries ought to provide cigarettes and beer as free services. A large group has gathered around the Drunk American. I hope they gather because he is a freak and not because they agree with him.
    

My main problem with the Drunk American is that I share many of his theories and now I am ashamed. For example, between the coasts of the U.S., there are only farms and nothing else of value– that too once crossed my mind. I also observed that the beer had a champagnesque flavor, but I did not actually speak these thoughts aloud.  I wonder how he came to be here, but I don’t wonder enough to ask.