What We Saw For A "Song"

I know that is a cliche, but we did get to see a lot of things most people have to pay a great deal for, just because they have to pay for a flight from wherever they are in America to get to the memorable destinations.  It helps to live, for a while, close to the area in which you want to see places. 

Evelyn managed to get a job with a Travel Agency, while we were in Berlin.  That turned out to be a God Send, because a lot of travel providers gave great deals to employees of travel agencies, because they know that is a good source of advertisement for travel agent's clients.  Just for paying taxes, we managed to get airline tickets and hotel stay in Athens, Greece, for a full week. 

The hotel we stayed at was in the heart of an older part of Athens.  It was reached by bus from the airport.  It was an older building, but the hotel room had all the necessary conveniences.  While it was not a presumptuous type of room there was one feature we were not accustomed to.  There was a kind of a rope in the shower that seemed to be hanging from the ceiling.  I tried pulling on it, only to find out it summoned a maid service person.  I thanked her for coming, but made it clear it was a mistake.  Fortunately I wasn't showering at the time.  I can only assume it was to have the maid wash one's back?

Lamb's heads on a Spit

The Marina access of the island Hydra

We walked to a plaza not too far away and found a place to have dinner.  We had met a couple young boys (in their upper teens) while on the airplane and they were at the restaurant plaza we found ourselves in.  We ordered a salad and some kind of meat (it was easier for us because the menu was in Greek and English).  The boys, at the table nearest us, on the other hand, wanted to order Greek food, lamb, and pointed to their mouth and made a sheep like sound, "Baa-aa-aa."  When all the food was brought to the tables, the boys were surprised the waiters actually put a plate with a sheep's head in front of them.  Not knowing exactly what they were to do with it, they used a knife and a fork to cut into the head.  Suddenly, they were looking at teeth.  That was all they could take.  They pushed the plates away and decided they were not hungry.  Our food, however, was great.

We took in all the sights we found interesting, which included seeing the changing of the skirt sporting guards in front of the Parliamentary building, seeing the Parthenon, swimming in the Mediterranean, and visiting some of the islands that were like garden outlying communities.  One of the more interesting islands was the island of Hydra.  We arrived by boat at the marina only to find there were no automobiles, at all.  There were a lot of fishing boats and tons of cats, but the only public transportation was by a donkey pulled
cart.

Evelyn at the Parthenon

The Parthenon

Our most profound experience there, though, was the visit to the Parthenon.  The feeling of antiquity and the scale of the structure was enough to subdue any chatter or rowdiness.  The marble pillars were without a doubt as impressive as anything we can construct today.

Today, they don't allow visitors to actually enter the Parthenon.  One has to view and appreciate it from the exterior.  Back when we saw it, we were allowed to walk amongst the pillars and what few walls were still standing.  The whole trip was for about seven days.  We were able to take a bus to the Mediterranean and spend time in the water.  It was pretty cold, but it was worth it just to say I swam in the Mediterranean.

On one of our outings, we walked some of the truly old, meandering, streets on the hills of Athens.  There was an old lady knitting a scarf of some soft white wool.  She had several examples displayed around her.  Evelyn could not resist.  She purchased one and eventually gave it to a relative as a gift.  Our hotel  was not too far from a large marble tiled plaza where we discovered a few outdoor patio restaurants.  From our vantage point we were able to await the changing of the guard at the Greek Parliament building.  It was interesting to watch the men in white kilts or skirts, pleated and bloused, as were the sleeves of their garment, and the tassle on the toe of their shoes.  The whole thing took a little less than five minutes and takes place every day at around eleven o'clock.

The trip was inexpensive, interesting, and educational.  It was one more event that shaped our desire to travel and experience the exotic and unique things of the world.
 

Travel should be inexpensive and Fun

I have watched people at the airports and train stations, waiting to depart on their trips.  Most of the time what I see is stress.  It starts with what the traveler is trying to take with him/her.  It is not uncommon to see a couple travel with four large suitcases, not to mention the carry on bags.  Not only does that get expensive, these days (often $50 per suitcase), but the burden of having to carry, so much, keep track of it all, and risk not having something show up on the other end, is more effort and stress than it is worth.

On our first trip, together, it was our intent to make a one way trip and stay indefinitely.  That meant taking pretty much everything we had.  As a result, we each had one large suitcase, one medium case and our carry on bags.  Since that was our first trip, we had little to compare it to.  While in Germany, for the four years we stayed there, we did a lot of traveling.  Many of our excursions were relatively local, which means inside Germany.  We also made numerous trips to the surrounding countries and went as far as the Mediterranean.

There are many types of carry-ons

Each time we went on a new trip, it became easier and easier.  The reason for that is, we learned we could make the trip quite comfortably while spending less and carrying less.  Today, when we travel regardless of how long we are traveling, we each have our carry on suitcases and a small bag or small back pack.  That includes a laptop computer I take with me wherever we go.  It further means we might have to wear some articles of clothing a little longer than we are accustomed to.  It also means, if the stay is long enough (and it is not uncommon for us to go to a destination for as long as a month), we might have to find a local facility to do laundry.

In our case, it is my great fortune to have a wife who is organized enough to know the most important items to take with us and how to pack them for the best result.  Not only do we not have to pay for checked luggage, but our carry on luggage is light enough that if she can't get assistance in putting it into overhead bins, she can manage it on her own. 

To show the difficulties that accompany taking large suitcases, we returned to America in May of 1974.  When we left Berlin, we checked out larger pieces in and expected them to meet us in San Francisco.  Not only did we experience the loss of some luggage; the only things we had with us when we arrived was what we had taken on the plane with us.  We went through the long process of reporting the luggage missing, but the bottom line is, we didn't receive our luggage for almost three months after arriving.  Needless to say, we ended up having to purchase a lot of new clothing.  The consolation prize, we received an extra suitcase that was an exact match to the ones Evelyn owned.  We tried to find out who it belonged to, but the airlines didn't know and there were no clues in the suitcase.  All we know is, it was a woman's suitcase, judging by the clothing in it, and not much of it was suitable for Evelyn. 

In my next post, I will start telling of some of the interesting and yet inexpensive travel we did in Europe.

For Me It Started In The Early 70's

People ask me how I became interested in travel.  I was quite young (19) when I met Evelyn, my wife.  She was a product of the "legal" immigration process.  Her family had come to America from Germany in the early 60's.  We met in August of 1968.  We were both around 20 and I was enthralled by the intrigue of dating someone with a cute accent and a distinct cultural difference.  Over the next year, I took German classes and spent a great deal of time with her, all of which lead to our planning to move to Germany for a couple years.

I had been out of the state, several times, but had never been out of the country.  For Evelyn, it was not exactly old hat, but it was something she was much more calmly objective about.  She was fluent in the language and knew what to expect.  We finally set the date and booked a flight on a "United European American Club" charter airline.  That was in May of 1970.  The anticipation of actually traveling out of the country was quite invigorating.  It was also a nervous time, since I really didn't know what to expect. 

Berlin was our destination, because it was the city of Evelyn's birth and she had a strong desire to return to it, at least for a time.  We landed in Frankfurt and purchased train tickets to Berlin.  The passage through East Germany, where the locomotives were exchanged from a more modern diesel locomotive to a steam locomotive, the intimidating inspections by East German police and dogs, is a story on its own.  Perhaps I will go through that sometime.  We arrived, however, in Berlin at around 6:00 a.m., local time, to find that nothing--no restaurant, fast food place, or store was open.  We walked up and down the main street, known as Kurfürstendamm, and looked in store fronts for two hours when some stores did start opening.  We had breakfast of sorts at Aschinger, a restaurant that was famous for its split pea soup and bread rolls, but is no longer in business.  The next few days, leading up to a form of permanence as a resident of Berlin, were adventurous, exciting, challenging, and got me hooked on wanting to experience new national and international cities. 

Kurfürstendamm by night

It started with me getting a hand full of coins for the pay phone and Evelyn catching public transportation to a distant aunt's apartment in the southern part of West Berlin.  She was not sure how her aunt would take bringing a total stranger with her, so it was agreed I would use my poor school German to call ads in the local newspaper, to find a temporary place to stay.  It was quite a challenge, since I had never truly used what little skill I had in the language for anything beyond greetings.  I found it quite invigorating to realize I could, in fact, communicate questions and ideas over the phone in the German language.  I ended up finding a room for a price I thought reasonable and was told which buses would bring me to that location.  Following the directions I had received, I was able to get to the "hotel" pretty easily.  The room I had rented had a bed that was cheap, worn out, springs and a flimsy mattress.  Accepting my "luck" in finding such a miserable room, I settled in and took a much needed nap. 

When I woke, I decided to take a walk.  It was late afternoon and was already starting to get dark.  The hotel was on a major road and was lined with a wide variety of store fronts.  Most, it turned out, were strip joints or peep show stores with some very explicit posters of what one would find in those establishments.  I was particularly surprised to find several obvious prostitutes standing in front of some of those places, many of whom were American and Black.  I resolved I would find somewhere else to stay for the following night.  I understood why the rate I had paid for the room was so low.  It was apparently a room used by the hookers for their activities. 

I located another pay phone and called the number Evelyn had given me for her aunt.  I had never been so glad to hear her voice.  She asked me where I had ended up and, after telling her where I was, she relayed that to her aunt.  She--her aunt Hildegard Radis--immediately became frantic and insisted that was not a good part of town.  It was the "famous" Berliner red-light district.  Wouldn't you know it.  My lack of knowledge of Berlin and the language got me into an area I would otherwise have avoided like the plague.  Tante (aunt in German) Hildegard insisted I get out of there and come to her place.  I told them, because I had already paid for the room, I would go ahead and spend the night and go to her place, the next morning.  As you can imagine, the room was very noisy, all night, and I didn't get the sleep I had hoped for, not to mention the fact the springs in the bed were shot and the mattress was short on padding.

The next morning, I packed my suitcase and found a bus (using directions from Tante Hildegard) and made my way to her apartment.  It was an old building with very dated apartments.  It was, nevertheless, a comfortable apartment.  Hildegard and her significant other were gracious hosts, but we decided to make early efforts to find another place to stay.  I had to register as a foreign resident and get a work permit, so we set out right away to do that.  After receiving the necessary permits, I went to the employment office.  I had worked for several years as a welder, first for the Hunter's Point Naval Shipyard and then at Gillig Brothers School Bus Manufacturers, so it made send to apply for a job as a welder.  I was fortunate enough to find a job with an overhead crane manufacturer in a suburb called Reinickendorf.  As a side benefit, the job came with a one room apartment on the fifth floor, in an older building with no elevator.  It included a shared toilet in the stairwell, between floors, and a portable shower in what served as a kitchen.

Evelyn and I had planned on spending a year or two in Berlin.  She, as a German citizen with an American green card, was allowed to stay out of the country for up to two years.  At the end of the two years, she had to go back to America, so we planned on going back to California at that time.  It became a little more complicated when first her brother decided to move back to Berlin, and then her parents sold their house in Newark, California, and moved back to Berlin.  They said they thought we were going to stay there, so they decided their place was with us.  Well, we did go back to America at the end of the two years, but only for a little over a month...on vacation.  We went back to Berlin and resumed our adventures, there.  Now it was in my blood.  We made quite a few excursions, to other places in Germany and other countries, but that will be for a future entry.