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Published: December 25th 2012
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Ready to Leave
Wow, look at the awesome luggage. lol This is another blog that is a bit different. It has been 30 years since I took my first "big" trip to another country, so I pulled out my photo album to take a look. I was a Junior in high school when the foreign language classes from all of the county schools planned a trip to Montreal, Canada. I was studying French and pictured myself so very worldly. True, the longings for travel and far away places were within me, but that didn't make me the sophisticate I thought I was. One of the reasons I think about this trip as my first big trip is that I was starting to grow into myself. I was working full time in a local restaurant as part of the plan for heading to culinary school, so I had some money in my pocket and big dreams for the future. Going to Canada was another step to independence and living life in the fast lane. For fun, I thought I would take a look back at the 17 year old Brendan
We left on large tour buses the day after Christmas. The original plan was to drive up through Detroit, take the
A Revolving Door
True, I had never really seen one before, but really? A picture? Ambassador Bridge into Canada where we would transfer to a train for the trip up to Montreal. A price hike in the train system squashed that plan and quite frankly devastated me. I had never been on a train and just knew it would be the most incredible experience whereas the bus, well, I had been there and done that. Nothing could change the organizers minds, so through the night we rode on buses. We arrived to our hotel around 7 AM, but the rooms were ready so we were able to check in and shower before going out touring.
Our first tour was to Eglise Nortre-Dame. It was easily the largest, most grandiose church I had ever seen. I took many pictures of this church and looking at them today I can agree that it was pretty spectacular. I can't remember if it was just prior to this trip or after it, but my Grandfather taped a concert that was filmed in this church on a new gadget called a VCR. He would play it for me each time he saw me. I must have talked about Notre-Dame so much that he wanted to share my enthusiasm. After
touring the church some of my friends and I went for crepes. Apparently I didn't like them much, because all I wrote about them was "Yuck" with no further explanation. This does, however, bring us to yet another side note.
How do I remember so much about this trip? Well, I saved every scrap of paper related to it. I have the receipts for the trip, ($230 USD for everything) the itinerary, anything with French on it down to a McDonald's place mat, newspaper, sugar packet, etc etc etc. I wrote a journal of what we did, saw and ate. It is actually fun to read, because I am seeing the trip through a teenager's eyes. Heck, I even drew a floor plan of the hotel room detailed to show where the beds, chairs and nightstands were. I had recently purchased the newest camera on the market, the Kodak Disc Camera, so I was cool and hip- no 110 film for this boy. I practically wore that camera out. The photos were not good quality, and when I look at what I took pictures of I just shake my head. I have a shot of a revolving door, a
Ah, the Awkward Teenage Years
I had not yet discovered the 1 arm photo shot I guess. shot looking down from my hotel room to the roof below, a picture of a generic hotel hallway and so on.
Not to go into full detail of everything we did or saw, but let me say that there were some highlights. Riding the subway was one of my absolute favorite things. We toured the 1976 Olympic Park. It was so huge, so impressive, so steeped in history that I still remember being in awe. Heck, I could remember watching those Olympics. The idea that I was standing in a place I had seen on tv was very difficult to wrap my mind around. I wasn't too impressed with the Stock Exchange (what 17 year old would be??) nor was I bowled over by the planetarium. But, the underground shopping gallery? Wow, I loved that. Talk about icing on the cake. The subway station would be adjacent to an entrance to a shopping mall under the city. There was no need to walk in the cold winter weather. I just thought this was the coolest thing. Back at home there were a couple shopping malls, but none were so fancy, none had signs in French, and none were underground.
The rest of the trip followed the same pattern. I was intrigued by the little things and open to it all. Heck, going to see a movie was an experience because the movie theater was so huge compared to the ones near home. All in all it was a really great trip with stories and memories I still remember even without having to pull out the album.
When I first thought about writing about this, I chuckled at what a naive bumpkin I was. It was while I was looking at my journal, photos and souvenirs I realized that I am the same person. I still take a ton of pictures, buy new cameras, save silly memorabilia from my trips. Each trip brings new worlds and experiences. Although I may travel to further and more exotic locations these days, the core experience is the same as it was 30 years ago. Had there been internet back then, I'm sure I would have been blogging and telling my stories just as I do now. To the 17 year old Brendan I have to say "good job." He knew where he was going and who he was going to become. He
Olympic Park
Ok, I would still take pictures of this. just didn't have all of the tools and life experience yet.
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anonymous
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Geez! How old are you?
Great idea for a blog. I really enjoyed this! The first big trip makes the biggest impression. If you only knew then the places you would go....