Karen and I revisited towns we had seen as kids when we had travelled Europe with our parents. We were getting familiar with places and feeling like citizens of the world.
We went via air force personnel carriers, the scheduled flights, religiously purchasing our ten dollar lunch box. We hopped from one spot to the next, often staying with the Commanding Officer of the base and his family.
We started in Germany where we stayed with Amos Pudsey and his wife Shirley. Amos was the Commanding Officer at the time. They were close friends of our parents when they were all in 2 Wing in the 50’s They had four kids, Brian, George, Betty-Lou and Shawn. Shirley, Lois Langevin and my mother were to be known as the three musketeers as they had such laughs and fun together.
Cypress, Sardinia, Nice, Venice, Florence, Pizza, Rome, Vienna, Portugal, Morocco, Gibraltar, Spain, England were some of the places we hitch-hiked to.
When the weather got chilly and we realized we didn’t have enough clothes, we jumped on a scheduled flight home, got some warm clothes and then went back to Europe. It gave us a chance to see our beaux. Karen had Brian, whom she came back to marry, and I had Tom, a good friend of Brian’s from University of Toronto. He was a sweetheart, but it didn’t work out in the long run because he was really married to the TV and that just didn’t cut it for me.
Hitch-hiking was something that was just done in those days, so we didn’t attach any danger to it. But we did follow some rules. We only took rides with two people, usually couples, and we only hitch- hiked through the day. We had a couple of incidents when men made advances, but between the two of us we’d just change it into a funny situation and any danger would dissipate. Karen was great at this.
Spain
One time in Spain we broke our own rules when we got in with a single man. He drove us to what looked like a deserted Hollywood set of an old cowboy town. We knew something was up. He made attempts with me in the front seat. I got out, climbed in the back and Karen got in front. He continued. We spoke English. He spoke Spanish. Somewhere along the line he lost his verve. Probably because he felt like a fool. So we drove back on the highway to our destination, Karen and I laughing and guffawing all the while and our driver remaining silent.
Portugal
In Portugal, we had no set plans. We went to the ‘Algarve’ which is the stunning southern coast of Portugal. We popped into a small shop that sold produce and tinned food. We talked with a good looking young Portugese man, Carlos, who helped us find what we needed. Then off to the beach we went. Who do you think should come along? … the young man we’d met in the shop. When he recognized us, he plunked himself down on our towel for an unrushed visit.
A German man came up to him and handed him a key; they spoke in German. Karen, ever inquisitive and outspoken, asked him what that was for and he explained he had a place up in the mountains that this fellow had used for a while and now he was moving on. Karen continued that we don’t have a place to stay, maybe we could use it. Carlos was very obliging, much to my surprise.
It was a hut. Charming, way up high in the mountains, with a beautiful view of the ocean. If I remember correctly, it didn’t have running water. Cows would pass by our window early in the morning. This was a bit startling the first time we heard the ‘moooooo” so close.
We stayed there for two weeks. The boys, Carlos and a friend, came and cooked us fish every night on the old grill outside the hut. They were superlative. After two weeks, Karen was ready to move on and to get back on our schedule. I wasn’t. I could have stayed and enjoyed this for weeks more. But I agreed to leave to keep the peace.
Nice
Nice was nice and so was the French Riviera. I remembered the rough stones on the beach and wondered how we could ever have pitched our tent on the rocks when we were camping there as kids. You couldn’t camp there now, however, as they had built a beautiful board walk all along the beach. Intermittent piers lined the coast, jutting out from the sandy beaches.
One night Karen and I had a disagreement. I got rather hot under the collar, and had to leave to cool off. It was night time in a strange town and I felt uneasy, but I was so mad that I threw caution to the wind and just walked. I ended up on the beach which had peculiar lighting. One minute I was in the lights of the boardwalk and the next, in the pitch darkness of the beach. I saw one of those piers and I walked out to the end and sat down. As I was looking into the darkness of the ocean, simmering from hot to warm, I heard odd clanging noises behind me. My imagination started to twitch and I thought, “Oh no, its probably a gang of thugs with chains dripping from their belts.” I turned to see that this was exactly right.
The four of them swaggered up. I had the feeling they wanted the thrill of intimidating me. I thought, if I let them, I’m cooked. I started chatting as if we were old friends and that nothing was wrong, everything was perfectly normal… me on a pier in the dark with no way to get away, they arriving with chains on, dressed in black and big boots. They reacted well to my natterings and slipped into easy conversation, in French. I slowly got up, still talking, and gradually inched my way off the pier with the four of them in tow. As the lights of the streets brightened our world, the gang seemed to be distracted and they took off with other things on their minds. I was left to figure out from whence I came and to make my way back to the hotel.
Morocco
When we got to Morocco in Northern Africa, we only had our mini skirts to wear. Heedless of their religion, the men would gawk at us, some, in their long gowns, would try and touch us. We thought when in Rome, do as the Romans do, so we bought ourselves a jelabah. Little did we know that the white ones we bought were worn by men after going on a pilgrimage to Mecca, so we drew just as much attention as when we were in our mini skirts. Oh well, we tried and we did feel more respectful even if our jelabahs were white.
We took a bus to Tangiers. The bus was full of locals; the roads were small and dusty. We were hailed to a stop in the middle of nowhere by men in arm fatigues who demanded we get off the bus and line up at the side of the road. They all had rifles. If I had known then what I know today, I would have been worried. But at the time I thought, they are looking for someone and he’s either here or he is not. They’ll do their business and leave. What they could have done was much worse than that, but they did nothing but surmise the group and order us back on the bus. It was an unnerving experience.
Zermatt
It was around this time that our parents were settling in Spain with their real estate mogul friends from Halifax, N.S. We decided that we would meet in Zermatt to ski. We only had vague dates and no particular meeting place. These were the days before cell phones.
Miraculously Karen and I did meet up with them, and then we all met up with Lois Langevin, who was there with Shirley and Amos Pudsey. They were sipping on some hot gluvine outside a Swiss cafe. It was all too much of a coinky-dink, but that was the luck of my mother! She had made similar arrangements with them ….vague. Karen and I said she’d never find them; but she did.
A couple of things stick out in my mind of that trip. Three things actually. One was that my father managed to make it into the country without any ID. He had left his wallet at home in Spain. How he managed to talk himself into Switzerland, I don’t know.
Then, Karen was skiing one day in a blizzard and her face almost froze. I recall we went up the mountain in a swaying cable car which hung precariously over the rocks as we climbed the mountain face. When we got to the top, the guide asked if we wanted to go back down in the cable car or ski down. I started to laugh hysterically as both options were out, but Karen decided to ski down. I went back into the cable car, thinking my odds for survival were marginally better than Karen’s. We both survived the trip, but neither of us thought we would at the time.
An avalanche hit the town a few days before we were planning on leaving. We were trapped. My mother didn’t like this at all. I remember yet, the first day the train was able to pass, she was the first one at the train station. She looked like Elizabeth Taylor in her mini beige leather and fur coat, her head topped with a matching fur hat. With the determination of a pit bull, she had my father push her through a window of the train. She thereby guaranteed herself a seat. I’m not sure she was very worried about any one else, but, in any case, we all got on.
Karen and I continued on to our tour’s end in England where we caught our last scheduled flight home, home to the boys.
