The Long Trip Home: Archives

Archives

February 2002

Spotlight: Love on the Road

November in Paris
by Tonna Corbin

The Train to Rome
by Jackie Goyette

Thanksgiving in Ponte Vedra
by Carly Sachs

A Honeymoon After 13 Years Together
by Rosalie Robison

Fate?
by Carin Stimolo

Love in Prague
by Ellen Kamilakis

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Archives

February 2002—Spotlight: Love on the Road

A Honeymoon after 13 years Together
by Rosalie Robison

Traveling to Europe, I sit in an aisle seat in what seems like the kids' row of an airline. This time I am confident it will fare better than my last excursion, where a large metal sheet flung down from the kitchen compartment and my serving tray kept collapsing on my hand. My husband sits three rows behind. Aside from the kids, I contend with a constant stream of tourists visiting the restroom. A blue curtain separates classes, barring me from a perfect view of the ceiling mounted TV. Later, the movie "Analyze This" will play. I try watching, but a Mafia figure that needs a psychoanalyst is too much to take. "Notting Hill" would have been a better choice, mixing British and American style love, as my husband and I embark on a honeymoon after 13 years of being together.

Moving through city after city attracts a person to new sights, items, and globally made goods. Yet, cities can turn travelers into collectors, tempting like a good bet, designed for buying and selling, whereas rural areas focus on people. Rural areas depend on self sufficiency, independence, neighbors, and providing food in order to survive. While cities draw people to buy things, just one more crystal bowl, country folk offer themselves.

Our first move after landing in London is a leisurely drive down to Salisbury. On the way we stop at Billingshurst, a small village. A woman pushes a baby pram, another shops for bread and produce, a man walks to the post. I eat a tasty chicken and mushroom pot pie at a local market before returning to left side road driving through the English countryside. The narrow roads are challenging, too. One swerve too close to a curbside and zing!-the hubcap is rolling down the street behind us.

Our Bed and Breakfast, newly run and owned by a likable British couple, is filled with romantic, rose patterned drapes, bedspread and woven rug. The room overlooks a large green yard sparse of any flowers. Where is the famous English garden? Ah, the next morning we find the front patio filled with flowering pots. A walk through town reveals England is a country of shopkeepers, while, looming in the distance, is the unmistakable Salisbury Cathedral. Its spirals alone evoke images of 11th Century construction.

Next morning we head to Stonehenge on a bus ride through gray, spitting rain. We are excited to see Stonehenge-one of the wonders of the world. It is as I have seen in photos and on TV travel shows. On a self-guided tour a young man remarks, "it is certainly impressive, but not that interesting." Does he not know the history, or theories of the rock formations? Surely he must realize one of the earliest civilizations lived here. Yet, what was the mystery and why was it never solved? That evening we eat at a Turkish restaurant. The restaurant is filled with the exotic tastes and smells of humus, zatziki, fish and lamb. After dinner, we walk along the narrow streets of Salisbury. We notice how polite and accommodating the British are. Our vacation time lazes along. We do whatever we feel like, aware that this time together is worth the 13 year wait.

For three days we walk up and down the narrow streets of Salisbury, constantly discovering something new. One evening we become lost in the Bishop Wordsworth School grounds, wandering around in their gardens. There, we run into the polite headmaster who escorts us out after we have a friendly chat about education in England and America. Later I eat my first fish and chips served with green peas in an English pub.

After three days, we leave the Bed and Breakfast and the huge breakfasts that our host tells us are designed for tourists. We are relieved to know they do not always eat kippers, eggs, ham, sausage, toast, yogurt, fruit, juice, cereal, tea or coffee, all in one sitting.

We are excited this morning, taking the Chunnel high speed train to Paris, where I have visited in my mind for about 30 years. We only have a day and a half, and I want to see everything. The city is overwhelming, stretching in all directions. Bridges span the left and right bank of the Seine. Each section-the Bastille, the Louvre, and The Champs de Elysee-is different in character and feel, yet the overpowering buildings steep everywhere and detract from the busy crowds below. The city of light is beautiful and expensive, like a good bottle of wine.

On street corners artists dance, play instruments or mime. Two sisters dance, play keyboard and sing-drawing a crowd around them in the heart of the city. Across the street a Congo drummer plays. At night the aura of Paris changes. It is quiet. Secret romances ascend. Each street we turn onto brings us closer on our honeymoon. A slight drizzle adds to our mood. We saunter past artistic sculptures, study architecture at odd angles, gaze at elongated gardens and terraces, and eat slow-paced meals. The maddening day tourists, all spent, have retired, and the streets are calm now.

Because we have little time in Paris, my husband suggests taking a tourist bus with an open upper deck that goes on three different, but connecting routes. This is a good way to see most of the usual attractions: Eiffel Tower, Arch de Triumph, Musee, Opera House, Bibliotechque, Louvre, and Notre Dame Cathedral. Routes are interchangeable and you can get off and on at stopping points. The first day we take the entire tour; the second day we pick and choose, stopping at places we want to see. One stop, the Sacre Coeur, takes us through a winding narrow street up steep steps to the top. We pass the Tijuana of Paris, a gaudy Moulin Rouge area, and buy baguette sandwiches along the way. Later we stroll along the river, past souvenir vendors. We buy our daughter a French beret, stamps for her collection and postcards of Paris I know will outshine my photographs.

Caught up in the whirlwind of a new place, we forget America. Work routines and daily rituals dissolve. Oui, I could stay here, I think, and I begin remembering some French I learned in high school. The French can be noisy yet will defend their country, stand up for their rights posthumously.

Sunday morning, church bells wake us after a good sleep. Someone's apartment across from us screeches weird music through their open window. We rest up. Tomorrow, we will drive through the French countryside. We walk around, checking out, and quickly dismissing, the long winding lines at major museums like the Louvre. Summer attracts tourists to Paris like kids to ice cream, and we found both-tourists andice cream at a vendor near the Eiffel Tower. I take photos from odd angles for my daughter who is fascinated with arranging constructions, especially with Legos. Gardens surrounding the tower offer space for lazing near a pond, McDonald's wrappers floating by.

Strolling along the Seine, we spy couples like us-hand in hand. Having exhausted Paris, we drink a last sparkling lemonade at a street side cafŽ outside our hotel. People and their dogs are everywhere. From non-French, we learn a vague dislike for the French lack of manners, help, and their unfriendly attitudes. We think it is a lot like San Francisco.

After leaving Paris, we try to contact our Danish friends and discover the messages we sent them from our Parisian hotel were not delivered. After some delay, we finally connect and are on the road. Tidy old country homes and expansive farms dot the French countryside. Small villages bop up along the route, yet many buildings and houses are abandoned. Passing through France, Belgium and Denmark, we discover treasures along the route-a monastery in restoration for over twenty years; a fine German village called Werne. In Werne, we conjure an escort from the police to find an Inn since we don't speak German. Romance captures us in the medeival hotel's classy room and matching dining area. In the morning we are greeted by the smells of an open air market of food and flowers. We are on the road again, yet a truck wreck on our way to Homburg causes a traffic jam that detains us for over two and a half hours. Shades of American freeways still my mind.

Our friends, waiting for us in Arhus, Denmark have held off eating dinner until we arrive at their charming beach house. At a candlelight table we catch up-talking, laughing, eating, telling stories. Family togetherness ranks first with the Danish. Children play happily, staying near their parents. Denmark is surrounded by water, like an island. I picture the beach house as a writer's haven with its small sitting room facing the water, a bedroom nook, tiny kitchen and toilet in the back hallway.

My husband and I become lost in thoughts of traveling through Europe. Everything falls into place here, void of pressing thoughts of work back home. Relaxed after the long drive, we are ready to leave for Sweden. We agree that the days have moved too quickly, trying to expand the years we were separated from our Danish friends. I met them over 20 years ago in America and we had lost contact over the last 10. They were married in America and now have three daughters. We part with tears in our eyes. They will be going south to Austria and Italy.

In Sweden, our cousins are waiting with open arms. We fall into a comfortable routine, bantering, joking and seeing local sites. The next day we travel to a nearby university town, Lund. We return to an old haunt, an Espresso cafŽ where we enjoyed a romantic rendezvous a year and a half ago. We visit St. Peter's church where an unusual medeival time piece with a clock on top and a horoscope on the bottom graces the church. We close the evening at a friendly gelato shop. It is then I know our romantic interlude is fast approaching the finish. I think about our daughter back in New Jersey who is visiting family. I miss her.

That evening we take a ferry to Copenhagen to see the Tivoli gardens at night. We pass entertainers, drinkers and street people, winding our way from the dock to the gardens. Artists perform as on Paris street corners. Flowers are planted everywhere inside Tivoli in formal patterns while trees weave in between amusement rides and abundant restaurants. Interactive games line a narrow uphill cobblestone lane, tastefully executed.

We fly back to London for two days, our last stop before returning to America. We take a tour bus to gain an overview of a town that is new to me, but not to my husband, who lived there before. We are tourists atop the double-decker bus, riding to the London Bridge, Kensington Palace, and The British National Library. London is overwhelming, congested, dirty, crowded. Traffic on the streets keeps us awake at night. Black taxis are everywhere. In the morning when we leave, a downtrodden man sits on a stoop, his eyes, watery and bloodshot. He extends a worn hand in a ragged suit coat while the other hand holds a half smoked cigarette.

The countries explored, and the people and sights along the path etch an indelible memory in my mind. When it ends, I may feel powerless or full, but the belated honeymoon was worth all of the orchestration.