Traveler’s Pride

My late mother-in-law, Frances, born and raised in North Carolina, described behavior that she and her family displayed the night before travelling long distances, ostensibly by plane.  This behavior was characterized by sleepless anticipation of the next day; the mind was bombarded by a trillion chores needing attention. There was the packing, properly closing down the house, and rehearsing the movements and timing of the next morning; loading the car with luggage, tracing the steps after arrival to the airport, and the resigned anticipation of the long lines to endure…….. until that final moment when you collapse in your seat and snap the seat belt in place temporarily restoring some order and calm in your life.  This is what Frances called traveler’s pride and unbeknownst to her, I suffer with a 4+ case of this disorder - which always makes me loco and paralyzed with madness around travel time.  For me, this disorder should be called traveler’s madness.  Predictably, it kept me up the better part of last night as our cruise was ending and the long haul back to Honolulu from Miami was about to begin.

My mind was racing and racing.  Not only consumed by the concerns and vagaries of impending morning travel, memories of past European vacations crept into my mind, denoting moments of great importance in my early life.  These memories did not come in any order but as snippets of random thoughts.  Rather than recounting them in this fashion, I will attempt to bring some order to the description in hope of maintaining some modicum of attention of at least some of my readers.  

This, I feel will be more interesting than the boring story of my present European vacation, highlighted by a transatlantic Crystal Cruise, which was preceded by a short stay in Europe.  The cruise was the highlight: the overabundant and  exquisitely prepared cuisine, nationally and internationally recognized lecturers (of varying quality), stretch and Pilates classes, computer class, Spanish class, dances classes, napkin folding classes (not kidding), yoga, fit ball, the music and dancing venues, the Broadway level entertainment, and the very special gigantic ethnic buffets followed by late afternoon tea.  Every moment was filled to capacity.  Indeed, these overindulgent excesses and superlative customer service spoil guests beyond extravagance.  But it does not paint a pretty picture for an exposition in my blog.  It presents the usual boring story of high-end cruising that seniors do when they have the time and money to spare and want to be treated like kings and queens and waited on hand and foot 24/7.  They are spoiled to the max and continuously fussed over and served by surprisingly caring and patient staff.   In return, the guests pay the tab, and while most are gracious and kind, some are spoilers and demonstrate a tendency to be oppressively impatient and demanding, a combination that can be brutal in affecting staff moral when taken to its logical conclusion.

In the late 60’s and early 70’s, I travelled to Europe just about every summer, mostly when in college.  But I even spent 3 months in the fall of my third year of medical school in an elective at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark…more about that in a later writing.  Icelandic Airlines was the preferred carrier; the price of less than $200 (I recall a price of $139 one summer) was the starting point round trip for these chartered flights from New York to Luxembourg.  Later the price of travel increased to over $300.00, which made it more difficult.  My travel bible was Frommer’s Europe on $5 a Day.  I travelled alone or with a friend, but even when I travelled with a friend, I often ditched the friend (or was ditched by the friend) early in travel, and was frequently alone and open to the possibility of new experiences that just didn’t happen when you are travelling with anyone else…… armed with the teenagers dream of meeting European girls… through any chance encounter as they also travelled alone or in small groups around Europe on their summer holiday …..also looking for adventure.  Americans were not hated in those days, and it was easy to stay clear of other American travelers because they stood out as loud and pushy (a distinction that has been passed down to Russian travelers as Americans are now identified by the enormous size of their waistlines). 

Armed with Frommer’s, a Europass, a sleeping bag, a list of European hostels, and an unlimited capacity to survive on fresh bread, cheese, salami and soft drinks, I travelled throughout Europe looking for adventure and enjoying the wonderfully diverse culture and landscape.  The biases and clichés of these early experiences, for better or worse still stick with me like super glue between my fingers.  But to taste these experiences more, you will need to wait as I carefully construct a PC, but hopefully not too boring account……