Tag Archives: travel

Aug
16
2011
Deprived

We sat in silence in the back of the cab. The driver wanted to share one of his poems. Oh God, I didn’t think this ride could get any worse. The driver probably thought we were flying to a funeral. No, we were going on vacation.

Six months earlier I had broached the subject of a “big trip” to celebrate our tenth anniversary. We earn a good living, we don’t have kids tying us down, why don’t we ever go anywhere, do anything exciting? We settled on Belgium. Exotic enough to mark the occasion, but comfortable since I had lived there for a semester in college.

At first, excitement fueled marathon internet research. There was so much to do. After much mental hand-ringing, I booked an apartment and a flight and was too overwhelmed to do more.

A few weeks before our departure, I started to panic. I would never be ready in time. I asked Dave for ideas. I rejected his suggestions as not sufficiently informed by our books or my inflexible idea of what it meant to be ready.

I read the travel guides cover to cover. I spent hours searching the internet, printing custom maps, creating spreadsheets with sight-seeing and restaurant ideas (sorted by location). All while worrying about being ready.

I became fixated on the perfunctory section in the travel guide about security. Somehow “be aware of your surroundings” turned into an internet search that uncovered a murder over a MP3 player on the Brussels metro.

Dave used his iPod all the time. He was trusting and not very observant. I became convinced something bad could happen to him on this trip. Rationally I knew this was extremely unlikely, but my mind kept conjuring up terrifying scenarios, including death, anyway. No trip was worth any of these scenarios. 

I started to dread my looming…vacation.

When we arrived in Brussels, I was horrified to find my French had deteriorated so badly I couldn’t communicate. I hadn’t prepared enough, I wasn’t ready. The first morning, I couldn’t finish my breakfast. Worse, I could feel my body about to reject what I’d already eaten. Even though I was exhausted, my insomnia the first night didn’t surprise me. Rick Steves had warned me about that.

Surely I would sleep the second night. I got comfortable and tried to clear my mind. After hours of lying still without sleep, I tucked deeper into the fetal position and stuck my hands under my chin. My fingers rested lightly on my neck and I felt my heart pound at double my resting heart rate. Images and thoughts raced through my mind, unintelligible but disturbing. I did not sleep for one minute.

The nausea didn’t let up. In a country we had selected in large part for the food, I ate only to avoid passing out. Walking around the city, I felt weighed down by my brand new pants dragging on the ground.

Midway through the week, we sat at the small kitchen table in the dreary apartment. I choked down tiny bites of takeout. I worried about getting sick on our trip to Bruges the next day. I felt guilty Dave wasn’t getting to eat any real food, that I was ruining this trip for him.

I wanted to tell him I’d been counting down the days until it was over and how worried I was that I couldn’t even enjoy a vacation. All I could say was “I just want to go home.” The words caught in my throat and I sobbed.

I made a deal with whoever might be listening. If I got through this vacation, I would figure out why I made everything so difficult and fix it.

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This post is in response to this week’s RemembeRED writing prompt.

“This week we’d like you to write about a moment in your life when you knew something had to change drastically. Really explore the moment.”

I decided the word limit should be 619 words. I managed to hit the mark exactly!

“How was your trip” was never such an unwelcome question. I do have some pleasant memories of the trip, like the way Dave held my hand. He was steady and comforting and wonderful.

Dave told me after the trip that all my rules (no iPod!) freaked him out so much he was afraid of the little old ladies who’d tried to strike up a conversation with us on the train to Bruges. I’m sure they planned to stab him for his iPod, then sell me into slavery.

This was really hard to share. I’m telling myself everyone has things they want (need) to change. And that being open about it can only help.

Jun
28
2011
French In Action

Ah, the sounds of France. The sea crashing onto the beaches at Normandy mixed with the respectful hushed voices at the World War II cemetery, the rapid fire native French speakers I strained to understand, the clank of the manual metal elevator doors in the charming small hotels, and the beat of the techno music at the discotheque our teacher allowed us to go to one evening.

However, of all the sounds I heard during my junior year trip to France, none is more vivid in my memory than slurping. The good old-fashioned slurping of an American girl reunited with chocolate after a long Lenten promise. At first, I was charmed. After 40-odd days without chocolate, and the last few with the added bonus of jet lag, my friend was getting pretty fucking grumpy. So at the strike of midnight on Easter Sunday, I was happy for her as she pulled out her stash of Cadbury Creme Eggs and prepared to shut the door right on Lent’s ass.

I believe this was the same evening I’d called my Mom collect to check in. When the French operator asked for my name, I cringed as I said “Tracy,” since I knew he was going to have trouble with my super American name. But to my surprise, he excitedly said “like Tracy Shapman?” (French-ifying the hard “Ch” sound of the semi-popular singer of the time’s last name). I toyed with the idea of breaking out into “Fast Car,” but just said “Yes, like Tracy Shapman,” and that seemed to satisfy him.

Do you know how long it takes to finish a Cadbury Creme Egg if consumed by sucking out all the fondant through a tiny hole in the tip? A long time. The sound attacked a nerve in my brain. Oh my God, the slurping. She was like a crazed junkie getting a fix. But because we were celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ the next morning (at Notre Dame, no less!), I decided to let my friend live.

Good thing too, otherwise I would have been in a French jail instead of at the discotheque in my super hot periwinkle skort outfit with mock turtleneck and white tights. Amazingly, a French guy asked me to dance that night in spite of my outfit. For some reason, I’m more popular in France. I believe I’m three for three on dance requests at French discos/dances. Let’s just say the figure here in the U.S. is…lower. My friend titled this photo “Tracy at the piano bar.” It looks like I’m ready to begin my lounge singing career. Thank you!

My friend and I went back to France two years later, accompanying our high school French teacher and his students on their next trip. Being graduates, but not yet 21, the trip was a weird mix of independence and stifling. On that trip, we hung out with the chaperones just as much as with the students. We sang while walking back to our hotel in Nimes late one evening and I did Paul’s harmony on “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and felt free (mostly of this). On this trip, it was hard to maintain the respectful silence required at the World War II memorial because my friend and I spied the ridiculous sign below. How the French expect school groups (and ahem, mature college students) to avoid giggling over wild boar warnings is beyond me. Especially when my friend posed on all fours and acted like a wild boar (the photographic evidence of which I’m kindly not publishing here).

This is in response to this week’s memoir prompt at the Red Dress Club. The prompt was to write about a memorable school trip. Word limit is 600.

Jun
27
2011
Fremont (OH) Is The Perfect Place To Fall In Love

I’m kidding about the title. I’m trying to catch up on my “Bachelorette” watching and since they are in the exotic travel portion of the show, I’m so sick of hearing them say “X and such is the perfect place to fall in love” I could spit.

This weekend, Dave and I went to Ohio for his nephew’s graduation party slash annual family reunion. Before I go any further, I have to point out Dave’s cookies were a huge hit.

My in-laws are wonderful people and I had fun, but it wounds me that driving 8.5 hours on Friday and 8.5 hours on Monday to spend two days with my in-laws counts as two days of “vacation” to my employer. We left the hotel this morning at 8:30AM, and didn’t get home from getting Chuck at the kennel until 6PM. We are exhausted and we have to work tomorrow. If only employers offered a few days of “visiting family leave” in addition to vacation and sick leave.

Dave’s brother lives in the country in a tiny little unincorporated “census-designated place,” whatever that is. All the hotels in the nearest city were booked by the time Dave called to make reservations which was baffling. So we stayed about 20 miles away in a slightly larger city. Even though we spent most of our time at my brother-in-law’s, we did have a chance to explore Fremont a little. The night we got in, we drove into Fremont’s downtown area in the hope of getting away from the strip mall chains near our hotel. After breakfast on Saturday, we scoped out the trail where I wanted to run on Sunday morning.

My verdict on Fremont, OH is that it’s a miniature version of my hometown (Erie, PA). I drove 440 miles to stay in Erie, only without a lake, without my family, and no Panera. Even though Fremont is about one-sixth the size of Erie, almost everywhere I went (in about a 4-5 mile radius) reminded me of a specific part of Erie. It started to get a little confusing actually.

We ended up eating at the 818 Club on Friday night. Once I saw they served fried perch, I knew what I was ordering. So the perch reminded me of Erie. As did the modest but pretty houses with manicured lawns, the run down downtown area near the river, the built up strip mall area near the thruway, the large number of bars, and the even larger number of churches. I lost count at five churches just driving the 2.5 miles from the hotel to the restaurant on Friday night. We drove by a Catholic school whose side entrance reminded me so much of the gym entrance to my grade school I got a chill.

Then there were the trains. The running trail I used was right next to railroad tracks. On Saturday, Dave and I had to wait for a train to pass through an intersection so we could cross to get to the trail. There are several intersections where you have to wait for trains in Erie too. I could hear trains at night from my bedroom in Erie and the sound is strangely soothing to me. I’ve never seen anything like that where I live now.

Saturday morning, we ate at a Bob Evans for the first time. I chose bacon for my breakfast and Dave got a good laugh over that. We managed to avoid the eight thousand calorie sausage biscuit bowl with sausage gravy, but Dave did put the “whipped butter blend spread” on his biscuits before I opened mine, smelled it, and reported that butter was the fourth ingredient.

I took almost 200 pictures over the weekend, mostly of Dave’s family. I didn’t have my camera when I explored Fremont and I’m disappointed. If we ever go back I want to get pictures of all the things that reminded me of Erie. Here is a picture I took on the way to my brother-in-law’s…GPS fail.