Paris 1976

Paris, France

November 15, 2017

Latitude 48° 2’

In the summer of 1976,  I was 27 years old.  The only country I’d been to outside of the USA was Canada.  I’d travelled, but only within the confines of those two countries.  But I was up for my first trip to Europe and France would be my jumping off point.  I was still poised, although I didn’t know it then, even at the age of 27, on that slippery brink between young adulthood and emerging middle age.  That dream—to travel—had begun in youth and was now reaching fruition.  I knew something was out there, something wonderfully secret and mysterious, and I wanted whatever it was.

1976 was a star-spangled year.  It was the bicentennial of the United States and Montreal was home to the Summer Olympics.  Mirabel, Montreal’s new airport, had just opened.  My parents were going to bring me there to start this fabulous six week trip.

I was excited and totally unprepared.  I did not then, not do I now, speak any French.  I didn’t know a French franc from a German mark, but I was on my way.

My mother was a planner.  Unbeknownst to me she had packed small packages of food in my luggage—crackers, cookies, that sort of thing.  “Whatever you do,” she warned me, “Don’t take money out of your pocket and let someone take it from you.  Figure out the price on your own.”  They had just been to Spain and knew a bit more than I about this sort of thing.

Once alone at the airport fear and uncertainty set in.  Somehow, I my pen scribbled something on my light brown shorts and that marking never washed out.  I was, for the remainder of the trip, a reminder of this wonderful beginning.  My feat But did not deter me.  My faith was simpler in those days, less complicated.  Another flight was leaving for Paris just before mine.  God, I prayed, be on the flight before mine and set the way for me.

Six hours later I was in Paris, at Le Bourget Airport, an airport that probably hasn’t been used since then.  It was so old that Lindberg landed there on his first transatlantic flight.  I had no idea what to do when I landed.  But my seatmates, two women from Montreal, directed me to a bus that was going in to the city.  I must have exchanged some money somewhere, because I had French currency in my pocket.  Of course, I had no idea what I’d just heard, so I pulled out a bunch of money and let the driver take what he needed to get me into the City.  First rule broken.

But I firmly believed that God was a few steps ahead of me, and He was.  I think I arrived at Gare de L’Est, although who knows.  What I do know is that I had no idea how to find a hotel.  I sat down some place, bought a Coke, and waited.  Somehow, I struck up a conversation with an American guy, more or less my age.  I told him my dilemma and bam….thirty minutes later I had a hotel with his help.

The rest of Paris is a blur.  For two days, I didn’t eat.  I was terrified to open my mouth at any restaurant.  I’d found the food in my luggage and ate that.  Perhaps I managed to buy a few other things that didn’t require language.  I think I started eating quiches that I bought off the street.

I finally gave in after studying a menu.  I knew a few words—omelet being one them.  In my very best French-that-I never-studied I ordered that, and ordered it again and again. 

In time, though, I gained my travel feet and managed myself very well around the city.  I don’t know how many days I stayed, but it was enough to get a very good feel for the city.  I learned how to navigate the metro and marveled at how long the days were because of the more northern latitude.

I remember the city as being dirty.  I suppose the same thing could have been said about New York at that time.  The air was filthy and it was the first time in my life that my eyes burned because of air pollution.  In parks, there was a faint scent of urine and dog poo had to be dodged on sidewalks.

Paris—indeed Europe—was different in those days.  Then, it wasn’t necessary to have hotel reservations three months in advance.  A train ticket could be purchased on the day of travel.  Forget internal air travel.  Airfares cost as much as a transatlantic flight.  The best way to get around was on the train and many of us had second class Eurail passes.  There was no fear of terrorist attacks.  Tourists weren’t underfoot everywhere you went.  That would not come for many more years.  My guide book was entitled Europe on $10.00 a Day.  I’d missed by a year or two Europe on $5.00 a Day.

There were, of course, tourists, but not like today.  There was no such thing as a Gap Year.  There were no Chinese, very few Eastern Europeans or Japanese.  Baby boomers were either still in high school or college or had just started families. There were other Western Europeans, Americans and Canadians.  And Australians.  It was hard not to like Aussies.  None of them were out for a month.  They were all in Europe working and travelling for months or years on end.  It was their stories that set the desire to take a year off and travel around the world—a dream that would ultimately become reality 23 years later.

In 1976 there were two Europes and a great invisible wall separated East from West.  The Iron Curtain was a very real thing and travel into those countries was not easy if not outright discouraged.  Once inside, a rigid itinerary had to be kept.

My life was far simpler in those days.  I traveled with a backpack and did not have to carry my pillow.  I had a tent and sleeping bag and very few clothes.  One pair of hiking boots would get me through the summer.  I didn’t carry an arsenal of meds and supplements that I have with me this time.  There was no email and staying connected in the way we know today.  Letters and postcards were sent.  Mail received meant going to American Express.  How exciting it was to get a piece of mail from home.  Phone calls, while possible, were absurdly expensive.

I did not have a cell phone or a computer.  The only “device” I had was my father’s Instamatic camera that I’d borrowed for the trip.  I was able to move from A to B with relative ease, never worrying about having a seat.  There was one price for a ticket and nothing was done online.  I wouldn’t call home until a month later, in Greece, when it would take 4 hours for the phone call to go through.

“Friends” were made one day and goodbyes took place the next.  Such was, and still is, the transient nature of young people traveling.  It was all wonderful.

Six weeks later I arrived back in Paris—this time to go home.  I’d been to Switzerland, Italy and Greece.  That is when I fell in love with Greece—a love affair that would last for more than 20 years of traveling there almost every summer.

It was also the real beginning of my ability to travel by myself. I had traveled alone two years earlier and repeated it again.  I’d thrown myself into the world and became a creature of chance.  And I’m so glad I did, because it changed everything.  I did not know that then, but only in the long view of many years.  What I did not realize then is that these experiences set into place the mechanism to be dropped into a new place and manage my way out of it with relative ease.  I think that’s why I’m at home just about any place in the world, why I adapt so well to other cultures, languages and people and I manage to live out of the country so well.  Good skills to know.

I returned home feeling quite smug—and worldly.  I’d been to Europe.  Not many people had.  The dream had been accomplished, but certainly not completed.  That trip began more than 20 years of European travel.  Then the prices went wild, the Euro kicked in, and Europe was left behind.  Other continents would dominate—Asia in the 90’s and early 2000’s followed by Central and South America.  What was established then and reinforced for years afterward, was the lure of stepping into the unknown and letting it teach me. 

I did not know then that coiled within that young man, a man still secure in his youth, that there awaited a moment when he would be wounded by the unpredictability of life, its sorrow and regret for things for that could not be undone or all that would never be done and, above all, a raging dread of his own mortality.  That was many years way.  But it would come.

I visited Paris again, ten years later, with Steve.  We were both out of graduate school programs and “homeless.”  Our apartment had been rented for a year and we couldn’t get back into it until August.  What a perfect reason to spend a long summer in Europe.  This was his first trip to the continent.  Now, if I should ever have to deliver a eulogy to Steve, and if I had the courage to do so, I would say he is, among many things, that he loves growing things, is very fond of young people, an excellent teacher…and a person who is not easy to impress.  When we exited the metro at the Eiffel Tower his eye caught a car that only came out of Eastern Europe. “OMG,” he said.  “Look at that…a Yugoslavian Skoda.”  There was one of the great monuments of the world, and he saw cars.  It’s still a funny story.

I still think back to 1976.  It was wonderful because it was all new.  I was never as excited about an upcoming trip as I was about that one—my first trip out of the USA.  Flying was a still a novelty and something to look forward to.  I was young and curious, tolerant of youth hostels and sleeping in parks, on trains and on the decks of ships.  Europe was cheap in those days and I had sufficient money in my pocket to make it a go.  I was still young enough to make multiple connections with other travelers.  One day I was best buddies with other travelers; the next day we separated. 

All of this was a long time ago.  In the bright freight of memory I still see those sun-struck days, deeply-lived days on Paris streets, in Alpine meadows and on Greek beaches and still hold all of them dearly within me.

I was privileged then and am privileged now. It was a marvelous summer and I am more than grateful to have had it! 2017 will be different but equally magical in its own way.

God laid a path for me then and He surely will do the same today.