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Published: October 21st 2019
An impossibly long time ago, my childhood friend J-- and I embarked on a summer vacation to Europe. Two months on a far-off continent would be ambitious and exciting, an adventure we were sure would connect us forever.
To ready myself, I purchased a sturdy blue backpack and stuffed it with the requisite essentials: a plastic poncho that would double as a bathrobe, curlers made from large juice cans, a wad of American Express traveller’s cheques, an unflattering shift that promised not to wrinkle, and the traveller’s bible, “Europe on $5 a Day.” My father took me to the jewellery store and bought me a silver-plated bracelet that listed my full name and blood type. I often think of his fragile faith that this would keep me alive.
We were reckless from the get-go. I snuggled with my seatmate the entire way across the Atlantic. J-- peroxided her bangs a fierce shade of orange in London. We collapsed in helpless laughter on the Tube and missed all our stops. We washed our feet in bidets but flatly refused to use them for their intended purpose. My modest shift did us no favours so J-- employed her mini-skirt and bangs
to hitch us rides with beefy truckers from Paris to the south of France. We went to a bullfight with Franco in attendance, unaware of whom Franco actually was. We spent idle days in pension beds, reading Gone with the Wind and Portnoy’s Complaint.
Once, on an all-night train through the north of Spain, a soldier followed me to the bathroom and tried to force his way into the stall. I blocked the door for what felt like forever, my screams drowned out by the rhythm of the tracks. J-- countered by falling in love with an earnest young bellhop called Paulo, whose lashes were even more luxurious than hers. They disappeared for a long time in Rome, leaving me alone to sightsee by day and gnaw on baguettes in my room by night. Shards of crust cut my gums until they bled.
We visited the Parthenon, briefly, but shopped endlessly at the Plaka. Bags bulging with treasures, shoulders bronzed by the sun, we boarded a freighter for Israel, land of our people. There, we shoplifted a watermelon in Haifa and cowered in our East Jerusalem Hotel while Arab boys showered our windows with stones.
We forgot to write home.
J-- grew her bangs out and I abandoned my shift for a peasant blouse and cut-off jeans. We sold our blood for $29 on the black market and bought Swiss cuckoo clocks with the earnings. They filled up the space where the guidebook used to be.
By the end of the trip, we had grown apart and were barely recognizable to ourselves or to each other. J-- had fallen in love with Paulo in Italy and Shlomo in Israel. I had fallen in love with Scarlett O'Hara, Michelangelo’s David and stinky cheese. What was gained obviously remained. What was lost does not bear reminiscing.
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Lesley
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Travels
Thank you Liz for your humorous vignette. I very much enjoyed it. Marion, Marilyn and I recently spent a couple of days at Chez Noakes on Salt Spring. I have pictures of a bunch of us sitting in I believe your grandmother’s convertible. What fun! Lesley