Near the city of Bilbao, Spain, there is the smaller coastal town of Laredo. We had just arrived on a boat from England, armed with three-month first class Eurail passes and a sense of adventure (at least on my mother’s part—I still wanted to be a “normal suburban child,” whatever my idea of that was). We found a pensión in Laredo that would become our bolthole every time we ran out of money; they served three meals a day and they allowed us to pay for our stay at the end of our visit. One of those meals involved mussels, which I tried unsuccessfully to eat—fortunately I was able to fill up on side dishes. (I presume people swallow mussels whole—or maybe other people are better at eating something the texture of rubber.) I remember other meals much more fondly, especially the breakfasts of bolillos and thick hot chocolate.
When we weren’t hunkered down in Laredo waiting for Mom’s next disability check or a bailout from my grandmother, the trains that criss-cross Europe were essentially our home. Because we had sprung for the first class version of the Eurail pass, we often had seating that allowed us to sleep on the train, in compartments with seats that slid forward to meet in the middle. It was not uncommon that we would board the train in the evening in someplace like Oslo and arrive the next morning, semi-refreshed if we were lucky, someplace like Vienna. We would spend the day exploring Vienna, then get back on a train that night and arrive in Copenhagen the next day. Rinse and repeat.
Of course, we also stayed in more traditional lodging so we could spend more than a single day in a town. This lodging usually took the form of youth hostels and other inexpensive lodging, since we had blown a sizable chunk of our travel budget on the Eurail passes. I don’t remember specific places, although I do recall being very confused when checking into a place in Spain when the landlady kept pointing at the wall and saying “La looth! La looth!” We finally figured out that she was pointing to the switch for the light (la luz in Spanish), and we needed to learn the Castilian pronunciation of Spanish.
Maybe we should pretend to be from Canada
My memories of this trip—those that are still accessible to my aging brain, anyway—are divided into neat little anecdotal parcels. Because of our haphazard continent-crossing habits, I don’t recall what happened when, or in what order we visited various places. It was an interesting and somewhat shameful time to be an American traveling in Europe. Richard Nixon was the President, we were at war in Vietnam, and it was an election year in the U.S. We saw Canadian backpackers who had sewn a Canadian flag to their backpacks, lest they be mistaken for one of the “ugly Americans” (as I overheard someone on a train refer to people from the U.S.).
During one of our Vienna stops we went to see the Lipizzaner Stallions rehearse at the Spanish Riding School; it was an inexpensive way to enjoy them although not a full performance. It was a long wait in line to get in, and someone decided to poll the largely U.S. crowd about politics. If the line we were in had been representative of the U.S. as a whole, George McGovern would have easily won the Presidency. I don’t recall whether anyone asked if everyone was submitting absentee ballots.
Assorted Adventures
We also met a guy who claimed to be Henry Kissinger’s nephew. During a chat on our train to Barcelona from…somewhere, he claimed to speak 12 languages and wrote something in each of them on a piece of paper. He did resemble Kissinger enough to make his story plausible; but he also told us his parents were missionaries in China. My mother pointed out to me that Kissinger was Jewish, so we quietly doubted the claim that he was Henry’s nephew. (Henry had one brother, Walter. Walter did have sons, but none of their first names matched the first name this guy gave us.)
We accidentally found ourselves in Cannes once, but we were nowhere near the glitz the city is associated with. Our train’s destination was Paris. We were in an open car instead of our usual compartment, so we could hear the only other occupants chatting. Wait…that’s a familiar and very distinctive voice. As we approached Cannes, near midnight, we realized that the man at the other end of the car was award-winning actor James Mason. At midnight, when we pulled into the station in Cannes, we were all kicked off the train—not because of anything we did, but because the entire French railway industry went on strike at midnight. James Mason and his female companion faded into the night, and we picked a random direction to walk in hopes of finding lodging. Those hopes were in vain. The street was desolate, with no businesses of any type and no people on the street (it was midnight, after all), except for the teenagers who drove by as we rested on a bench at a bus stop. They threw tomatoes at us. We eventually gave up and went back to the train station, where we huddled on a bench until the trains started running again at 6 AM. That was a rough night.
I wish I could remember more of our adventures in greater detail. Most of the rest is little snippets and impressions:
We found ourselves north of the Arctic Circle, staying in hostels in Narvik, Norway, and Kiruna, Sweden. I remember walking past an orchard where the farmer gave us pears right off the tree. They were firm and crunchy, not ripened like the ones in the stores. To this day, I prefer my pears crunchy like the ones the farmer gave us.
In Naples, we had trouble crossing the street, since no one stops for pedestrians. Drivers do stop for priests, though. We just had to wait until a priest came along and cross the street in his wake.
We went to the Louvre, of course. I had some art knowledge, primarily due to the board game Masterpiece. I hadn’t realized that the Mona Lisa was such a small painting.
We happened to be in Munich when the 1972 summer Olympics opened. Somehow there was a nearby hillside from which you could watch the opening ceremonies. This is a very fuzzy memory, though—and I don’t think that hillside was really close enough to see much unless you had binoculars. We didn’t.
One of the times we holed up in Laredo, we were so broke we couldn’t even afford feminine hygiene products, and of course I got my period. I had to be adaptable and make my own pads. Mom had some soft crepe bandages she let me cut up, and I wrapped those around layers of newspaper and a piece of plastic shopping bag. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. I remain proud that I had the wherewithal to improvise like that at the age of 12.
Heading Home
Our Eurail pass expired in early November, so it was time to go home. We flew from Luxembourg, stopping in Reykjavik, then on to New York City. From there, we had a marathon Greyhound bus trip to get back to Arizona. I don’t recall that we stayed in any hotels along the way—I think we just slept on the bus.
Home, at that point, was my grandparents’ horse property north of Tucson. We settled there for me to finish 8th grade, then Mom and I moved to Tempe the following year. For the next four years, I had a semi-normal childhood—no more traveling—and finished high school. It was really not my idealized concept of “normal,” though, since we didn’t have a car and we lived in a 1-bedroom apartment.
My mother became nearly bedridden during these years due to the severity of her arthritis, so it was my job to care for her. I had never learned to ride a bike, so we bought a second-hand three-wheeled bike with a big basket so I could shop for groceries. I’m sure I was considered one of the eccentric kids, but I made friends anyway; some of my friends’ parents unofficially “adopted” me into their families, so I got a little taste of “normal” family life.
Traveling, at least internationally, was put on a shelf for a while. The next time I left the country was 1984. But that’s a tale for another day.
This is all so interesting. I have a friend who told me a similar story about knowing or meeting a relative of someone famous— I think it might have been kissenger’s nephew. lol
VERY impressed with 12 year old resourcefulness with period protection. Brava!!!