More About My Early Travels
It was my mother who first took me to another continent, and who instilled me with the beginnings of a lifelong love of travel. I don't know how she developed her own passion for visiting other countries, because her own mother was afraid of flying and her only big trip as a child was a cruise to Alaska. She talked about that trip many times, and re-created it for me and my family when my youngest daughter was the age she had been on that trip.
We went to Europe together during a time when both of our lives were changing. She'd just gone through a divorce and I was about to begin graduate school. We had a month to explore, to reflect on our lives, to think about new beginnings. We took a guide book, "Europe on $5 a Day" and landed in Athens with only a single night's hotel reservation. The trip would unfold
An older Greek man who spoke no English appeared from time to time, smiling at my mother and offering her single red roses. I acquired a Greek boyfriend who led me by the hand onto the dance floor at one of the tavernas on the Plaka. We danced and the small crowd smashed crockery onto the floor, a custom that has since been discontinued. He danced solo for me too, in the way only Greek men can, holding a table above his head with his teeth, strutting his youth and showing off. We sat at a beach on the Island of Tinos and he carved my name onto his rubber diving flippers with a pocket knife, asking me to stay and marry him. Graduate school wasn't something he could understand. I promised to write.
We went to Europe together during a time when both of our lives were changing. She'd just gone through a divorce and I was about to begin graduate school. We had a month to explore, to reflect on our lives, to think about new beginnings. We took a guide book, "Europe on $5 a Day" and landed in Athens with only a single night's hotel reservation. The trip would unfold
An older Greek man who spoke no English appeared from time to time, smiling at my mother and offering her single red roses. I acquired a Greek boyfriend who led me by the hand onto the dance floor at one of the tavernas on the Plaka. We danced and the small crowd smashed crockery onto the floor, a custom that has since been discontinued. He danced solo for me too, in the way only Greek men can, holding a table above his head with his teeth, strutting his youth and showing off. We sat at a beach on the Island of Tinos and he carved my name onto his rubber diving flippers with a pocket knife, asking me to stay and marry him. Graduate school wasn't something he could understand. I promised to write.