Innocents Abroad

Youngest making good food choices in Prishtina

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: We've been enjoying pictures and stories from several Reds' trips abroad these past few weeks, and it's gotten me thinking about that FIRST trip to a foreign land. Youngest left for Kosovo (with stops in London, Istanbul, Serbia and Croatia) for a month-long college program, and has been sending back pictures, texts and emails describing her experience. She's traveled quite a bit around the US in her childhood and teens - usually accompanying me and Ross on book business - but the was the big one, her first time away from the US ( we won't count a baby appearance in Canada) and the first major trip without parental aid and supervision.

I spent years overseas as a child when we were in the military, which left me with a love of travel and fond memories of many European countries. But even though you're living with and learning about cultural and linguistic differences, living overseas with your parents managing every aspect of your time and travel is nothing like heading out under your own steam.

I left for Italy in the summer of my junior year. I was participating in a stone-age campsite excavation in the Tuscan region before the start of my school year in London. Unlike my daughter, who managed all her flight reservations by herself, mine were done for me by my mom's travel agent. I remember clutching my precious paper tickets nervously, because of course back in the day, if you lost one you were in trouble.

That's not the only difference between my experience and Youngest's. I had several slim wallets of American Express Traveller's Cheques and a new Kodak camera. I took exactly thirteen pictures in an entire summer spent in Italy because I was so afraid of running out of film and not being able to capture some vital scene! I had a tablet of onionskin letter paper and air mail envelopes, though I was extremely negligent in writing during the summer. My poor parents - I don't think they heard a word from me in the first four or five weeks. No phone, of course - in fact, from the time I left until I came back to the US for Christmas, the only time I actually called home (with a public phone and a stack of one pound coins) was on my little brother's birthday. I was FINE with this as a impecunious student, but as a mother, I'm very grateful for Face Time.

One thing I had that's still being used by travelers? A Eurailpass. The official Ithaca College/University of Pisa component ended something like ten days before fall classes started, so I hit the rails and began roaming. Scheduling the day meant showing up at the station and reading the times and destinations on a big board. Upon arrival in a new town, I'd check Frommer's Europe on Ten Dollars A Day for suggestions on a pensione, then walk to the place and see if a room was available. I saw Rome, Florence, Nice (where I spent an afternoon topless on a beach!) Monte Carlo and Paris before taking the ferry across the channel to England (no Chunnel yet.)

Except for the fact I flew across the Atlantic and didn't require a chaperone, my first solo trip abroad feels more like the experience an American traveler of the late 19th century than that of my daughter 37 years later. All the time I spent studying maps,haunting information kiosks, waiting in line to talk to a railroad agent, and visiting American Express offices has been  replaced by a smart phone and a debit card. It's easier now, in many ways, but I'm pretty sure one thing hasn't changed: Just as I did, I expect my daughter to come home more mature, more confident, and with a broader view of the horizon.

How about you, Red? What was your first time as an Innocent Abroad?

HALLIE EPHRON: One of my proudest accomplishments has been raising two daughters who are enthusiastic travelers. Jerry and I traveled a lot in the six years after we were married and before we had our first child. We started again with a trip to Puerto Rico when our oldest was 9 months old. When the girls were 8 and 13 we spent 2 weeks in Europe, traveling by train, and whatever you packed to take with you, you had to carry. It was a great trip, including venturing into Prague, before the Velvet Revolution.

My first international trip was to Europe for our honeymoon. We were crazy. Three months with the guy you just married? It's amazing the marriage survived. We rented a Citroen Dayan 6 (that's me with it in the picture -- I'm holding a Michelin Red Guide in the days before GPS), a car so basic it could not be imported into the US. We flew into London, took the train to Paris, rented a car and made our way up to Amsterdam where my husband's college roommate lived, down to Rome via Belgium and Luxembourg and Switzerland, and back through France to Paris. Yes, on $5 (maybe $6) a day per person.

RHYS BOWEN : I wonder if one is born with a travel gene? I had an overwhelming desire to travel from a very early age. I remember my first trips to Wales and Cornwall, what a huge impression they made on me, and begged to go abroad. Finally my parents arranged for me to go to friends in Austria when I was 14. They put me on a train in London. I had to find the right boat, and then the right train on the other side of the Channel. One and a half days in the train (3rd class, hard seats) and I was met at the other end. In those days one did not telephone so I sent my folks a postcard to say I had arrived. If that had been me, I'd have been frantic! Since then going across Europe on my own was a regular event.

Luckily I married a man in the airline business so travel was a big part of our lives. We've been to India several times, Indonesia, Vietnam, all over Australia, and to almost every corner of Europe. I'm writing this from a house in France where we have been entertaining our daughter Clare and her family. We had taken them to England but it's a first trip for the twins to mainland Europe and they are making the most of every minute, including eating snails and sipping red wine (they just turned 16). 

A grown-up Rhys enjoying Nice

Our own children grew up traveling frequently. We always went to England at least once a year, and to other fun places on vacation. They each followed this up with a junior year abroad and then both Clare and Jane went to work in other countries. It was a real growing-up experience for all of them.  And my own travel gene? I have decided I don't need to visit strange and exotic locations. I want to return to places I love. Lots of France and Italy, Switzerland and Austria, and maybe a little taste of Hawaii occasionally.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  When I was a teenager, my father was in the foreign service--a cultural affairs officer for USIA. When I was a junior in high school, I went visit him and his family for a few weeks in Hamburg, Germany--and ended up spending six months! That summer, and about half of my senior year in high school. So it was total immersion European living--and a life-changing experience.

  I remember one chilling experience: we went into East Berlin, just my fellow 16-year-old foreign service kid pal Allison and I, because my diplomat dad was not allowed to accompany us. Talk about life-changing--it was if the war had just ended, bleak and bombed out, and patrolled by Vopos with snarling German Shepherds. Two cute Jewish girls from America were most definitely not welcomed. 

Checkpoint Charlie, c. 1965

Hank in the 60's

We also went to Amsterdam  and London and Stockholm and it was all amazing and seemed very natural and not touristy--since I lived there, I had to go to the grocery and buy flowers and go to clubs and ride the Ubahn and hang out in parks and not have to DO anything. I learned to speak German pretty well..much of that, sadly is gone, it seems. I attended the International School, so you can imagine the life-broadening experience for a girl from Indiana.  After that, travel never seemed unusual.

Now? It seems like it takes a lot more planning. I'm not sure there is one photo of me there. But here's what I looked like at the time.

LUCY BURDETTE: My first trip abroad was with my family when I was in high school. It was one of those "If it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium" deals. All we kids remember my father freaking out because he was driving around Rome in heavy traffic at night and we couldn't find a room. I also remember feather beds and wiener schnitzel in Switzerland, and desperately wishing for ice in our Coke. I think I've improved as a traveler since those long-ago days! 


JENN McKINLAY: Italy with my mom! A real gal pal trip that included lots of gelato, wine, and art museums. We cherish that trip and the memories made, which includes my mom flagging down the police when she had a beef with the one of the transportation monitors on the city bus! Hiiiilarious! And, yes, I did come back with a fabulous new appreciation of the world, which is why I took the Hooligans to London a few years ago. There is nothing like travel to broaden the horizons.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: My parents took me to Europe the September after I graduated from college (probably because they were so thrilled not to be paying tuition!) Like Lucy's, it was a "if this is Tuesday, it must be Belgium" trip. We started in London, then rented a car in Oxford and did Oxford, Stratford, Bath, Stonehenge, and the Cotswolds. Then across the channel and the train to Paris, Provence, Rome, Florence, Venice. On to Switzerland and Germany, then Amsterdam and finally the ferry back to England for our return flights. 

Eurail pass, American Express Traveler's checks, and Frommer's how many ever dollars a day. I absolutely loved every bit of it, but especially England. Obviously. I lived at home the next nine months, worked and saved money to go back to England on my own, which I did the following June. I had a bus pass and traveled all over England and Scotland, staying in cheap B&Bs, pretty much until my money ran out. I know I have photos somewhere from the first trip, buy I have no idea where! Regardless, it was life altering, in so many ways.

JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What was your first trip abroad? Or your first great solo travel adventure in your own country?

Searching for Christmas Past

RHYS BOWEN: Within the last week or so I finished next year’s Christmas book in the Molly Murphy series. It will be called The Ghost of Christmas Past. And also the paperback of last year’s book, Away in a Manger, has just been published (can you say stocking stuffer?) I love writing these books because they give me an excuse to go back to the past and experience the Christmas of long ago.

I suppose like many of us, I think back with nostalgia to the Christmases of my childhood. They weren’t nearly as grand as the country house party that Lady Georgie attends in my other book, The Twelve Clues of Christmas, but they were extremely satisfying because of all the small traditions and expectations, repeated each year. The week before Christmas we’d go carol singing around the village and be invited in for drinks and goodies. 

We would drive to my grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve, bringing with us the Christmas tree (trees were smaller in those days and I suppose we must have strapped it onto the roof of the car). We’d decorate it while my grandmother served hot punch and mince pies. We’d string paper chains around the house.  After supper we children would be put to bed, but of course we stayed awake, hoping for a glimpse of Father Christmas.  At midnight the grown-ups went to midnight mass at Bath Abbey. I couldn’t wait to be old enough to join them. It was magic sitting in that beautiful building, listening to the choir singing those wonderful hymns and then walking home through the frosty night, our breath coming out like dragon-fire.  At home we were greeted with more hot mince pies and sausage rolls.

                Our presents appeared in pillow cases at the foot of our beds. We opened them at first light, sitting up in bed surrounded by wrapping paper. I suspect we ate the sugar mice right then. I’ve been longing for another sugar mouse ever since!

The presents in my childhood were nothing like today’s gifts:  a sweater, a book, and in my teens a long playing record ( I guess that dates me horribly.)   The day itself was simple—highlighted by the turkey and the Christmas pudding, brought flaming to the table at lunch. Snooze afterward then the magnificent Christmas cake, frosted to look like a snow scene with little porcelain figures on it. And small presents had miraculously appeared on the tree and were handed out after tea. We children were required to put on some kind of entertainment—a pantomime or charades. Then a cold turkey supper and bed.  

It sounds almost boring now, but it was special because our lives were so much simpler the rest of the year. It was the only time in the year we ate turkey, or dates or saw tangerines in the stores.  Today when everything is available all the time and we have so much more, it’s hard to create the thrill of treats. We try hard—that’s why stores start blaring Christmas music at us in October.  We up the ante by requiring bigger and better presents—remember the ad to “put a Lexus under the tree?”  Right. We want that feeling of a special occasion but we don’t know where to find it.

                I’ve gone looking for it myself on several occasions—one year we rented a cabin in the snow with friends. We arrived to a picture perfect Christmas card scene. We awoke next morning to rain. It rained non-stop all week. No snow, no skiing, just bored children imprisoned in a cabin with no TV, playing endless games of cards and charades.

                One year we took a Christmas market cruise down the Danube, going around the markets in each small town. It was quite magical with the booths and the lights and the smell of sausage and cinnamon and hand carved toys. I loved it. John complained “How many more angels does anyone need to look at?”

And one year we decided to do away with commercialism and make handmade gifts.  I made dolls and quilts and others made candles and pillows and scarves. When we exchanged gifts on Christmas morning we tried to be thrilled and excited, realizing the supreme effort each one of us had made. But it’s really hard to get excited about a fleece pillow or a painted bottle. I was the first to crack. “Okay,” I said. “I did go to the store and bought these little extras.”

                “So did I,” one daughter said. “I did too,” said another. And laughing we handed out real, store-bought gifts. I guess we’re not Little house on the Prairie after all.

                So how about you? Do you still have nostalgia for long-ago holidays? Do you seek to recreate them?