1963

1963 was the year I took my first trip to Europe. I was 18 years old, had just finished my first year at Berkeley and had been working part time to save the money needed for 10 weeks abroad. I was ready. My high school and college friend Linda Reiss was my travelling companion, and we had been planning our adventure for about six months. Her parents were both European, her father was Dutch, her mother was Swiss. They were both lucky enough to escape the Nazis during world war 11 and made their way to America. This would not be Linda's first trip to Europe, but it would be her first trip without her parents. We bought a Eurorail Pass. You remember the train passes that take you all over the continent for next to nothing? We had mapped out a route that began with about five days in London, then crossed the channel on a Ferry (OMG it was the worst experience ever. Everyone was sick.) to France. Then we travelled from France all the way to Greece. We stopped when we wanted, changed plans as we wanted, and in general had a hell of a good time. Our only set plans were to meet Linda's cousins in Amsterdam and stay with them for a few days, then meet Linda's grandma in St. Moritz (actually Sils Maria, just outside of St. Moritz) and stay with her for a few days. As I'm writing this, the experiences come flooding back. Things I haven't thought about in almost 50 years. The strange man on the train that we called Boris, who tried to cuddle up to Linda and pretend he was sleeping, the huge hike we took in the Swiss Alps with Linda's grandmother, who walked up the mountain like a mountain goat, leaving us breathless, the two wonderful girls from New York that we met in Paris and travelled with for about a week, the date I had with David Ansen in Paris (the film reviewer for Newsweek), then found out when I married Ron that he was actually a cousin of Ron's, and the coup de grace, crossing from the tip of Italy to Pireaus, Greece on a huge ferry. We had not paid for a sleeper, so we were up all night, being entertained by a new British music sensation, Donovan. Before I left, my mother had suggested that I keep a journal of my trip. Every night before bed, she said to spend 10 minutes writing what we saw, my impressions, where we ate and slept and how much we spent. I did this, and though it got a bit tedious for the ten week trip, I did complete it. I'm so happy I did. I have reread that journal probably a dozen times over the course of the last 50 years, and I get the biggest kick out of it each and every time. Going to the American Express office in major cities to check for mail and see if we had any messages from fellow travellers that we'd met, staying in a $5 a night hotel on the Left Bank of Paris, buying meat and cheese at the local market and taking it with us for a long train ride, talking to everyone we met, and having no fear at all. Oh, those were the days. I write this all because my future daughter-in-Law Tracy, is leaving shortly on a 12 day cruise from Normandy to Paris, with her mom. This is something they've had planned for a long time, and although Tracy is reluctant to leave David for that length of time, I assured her that she and her mom will have a fabulous time together, and she'll have many memories to last a lifetime. I even bought her a journal, and encouraged her to keep track of her experiences. At the time, you think you will never forget something, but you do. And it's so much fun to go back and read how you thought about things years ago. I've never kept a journal at home, but for travelling, they're indispensible. Keep that journal, Tracy, you'll look back years from now and thank me.