Travel Abroad
Nobody likes getting dumped in a foreign country, but for o要e woman alone in Europe, it was the chance to put her travel skills to the test.
"Alexandra, I'm leaving."?
Ada, who was supposed to be my transcontinental travel buddy, slung her enormous backpack over her shoulders as she teetered above my sleeping head. It was a beautiful late-August Sunday afternoon in Thira, a town o要 the island of Santorini. I was just recovering from my favorite mid-afternoon Greek activity: siesta. But unlike normal Mediterranean siestas, this time I had the flu.
"Can't you stay with me until I get over this?" I exhaled, sweating feverishly, reeking of garlic cloves, a village remedy imparted to me by my Greek aunt. I hoped I would soon defeat the flu Ada had brought with her when she'd met me in Thessaloniki two weeks earlier.
"If I don't leave in ten minutes,"? Ada said,"I'll miss the o要ly boat to Hios, and then I'll have to wait another week until I can go to Turkey."
"Okay, then. Bye."? I didn't want to beg her to stay with me, but I couldn't help feeling a little bit like getting left by Dean Moriarty in o要 the Road while o要 a bad acid trip in Mexico City. I wondered if, like Kerouac, I would end up shivering and alone in this foreign city, hallucinations and delirium playing themselves out against my sweaty sheets. How would I - disillusioned and defamed - make it o要 my own through the wilds of Europe?
Glaring out the blue-shuttered window of Thira Youth Hostel, converted from a dilapidated mansion, I watched my well-planned vacation slowly walk away in turquoise sequined sandals.
Ada and I had been saving up for a three-month European odyssey beginning in Greece and ending in the U.K. Though I had been to Greece several times, had family from Greece, and spoke the language, I was wary of traveling by myself. I thought that my knowledge of Greek culture and Ada's independent experience (she'd crossed India twice) would make us the perfect travel team. Live and learn.
After sweating out my flu alone for a few days, I mustered the strength to lug my suitcase through the cobblestone streets of Thira, where I booked passage back to Thessaloniki o要 a ship called The Daedalus. I was going back to my aunt's house to recuperate and make a final decision o要 whether or not I should end my trip early.
When I walked into an Internet cafe and asked the proprietor in Greek how much it cost to use a computer, I was met with surprise. "You speak Greek!"? he exclaimed. An artsy middle-aged man with sculptor's hands and a ruddy complexion, the cafe owner had spent time in my native Los Angeles in the '70s, and he showed me the framed pictures of his polyester-clad self posing with former mayor Tom Bradley to prove it. His friend - younger, in white overalls and a haphazard hairdo - jumped from his seat excitedly and announced to me, "I'm a shepherd!"? Then they brought me homemade tsibourou - anis-flavored Greek moonshine - and tangy, dry kefalotyri cheese wrapped in wax paper. "These are from my goats,"? said the shepherd, adding that his flock had o要ce been extras in a movie. Soon I'd had enough little sips of tsibourou that I'd lost track of time. As the final baritone horn of The Daedalus blew in the port, I raced with my bags up the drawbridge and waved good-bye to Santorini.
After recovering in Thessaloniki, I traveled south. Though I pretended to have a plan, I was just wandering, biding my time until I connected with my friend Julia, who was studying in Paris. In Athens and in the Western port city of Patras, I called and e-mailed her, exhaustingly, to no avail. So I took my chances and decided to set out again.
Western Europe, where you have to adapt to a new culture every time you cross a border (which happens more frequently than you ever expect), is the land of o要e million breakfasts. In Greece, breakfast is coffee and a cigarette; in Paris, le petit d'jeuner is a crepe; in London, brekkie is corned beef and hash. My favorite, however, was colazione in Italy.
Half-asleep and hungry, I got off an all-night train to Venice and stumbled into the first cafe I saw. People huddled around the espresso machine. I joined them in ordering: "un cappuccino e un croissant."? The barista made me the richest, smoothest cappuccino of my life; he then slid a plate cradling a warm, apricot-filled pastry my way. Without thinking, I grabbed the croissant, bit into its flaky crust, and devoured it in a few bites. Standing at the bar as you stuff your face and slam your cappuccino is customary, even respected behavior in Italy. Table service is for tourists who unwittingly pay double to sit and eat their pastries. I stood and sipped my cappuccino proudly. I was slowly fitting in, the quirks of breakfast refining my travel persona as I inched my way west.
I had learned from some travelers that Venice was hosting the famed Venice Film Festival, second in reputation o要ly to Cannes. When I got off the vaporetto, the Venetian waterbus that transports people through the maze of canals, I was lost. Serendipitously, a young woman with soft brown eyes and a warm smile approached me with a question. She was looking for the same place, so we made our way to the festival together, becoming friendly o要 the walk. Margarita helped me buy an all-day ticket for 25 bucks, and it turned out that we both had the same taste in film. We watched three movies in a row and then broke for calzones and free prosecco from a local winery. Sitting at a little cafe table overlooking sunbathers in their striped cabanas, we rehashed our favorite contracorriente films.
The next day, I met her husband and their friend, a director. By the end of the night we had snuck into the outdoor VIP party, where we met cast and crew from the films. I ate finger foods, enjoyed a free Shiatsu massage under a beige canopy, lounged o要 cushy pillows surrounded by hundreds of lit candles, and drank free Red Bull-and-vodkas under the stars. While schmoozing with my new found friends at La Mostra Cinematografica, I knew I had made the right decision to go off o要 my own - or rather, to keep going after being left o要 my own. I wished Ada well wherever she was, but I knew somewhere deep down that I didn't regret a thing. I had made this moment happen.
I had been o要 my own for over a month, and I was in Genoa when I ran out of ideas. Lonely and confused, I sat down o要 a park bench in the main square to steady myself. I hadn't spoken to a soul in a day and a half. Back in Santorini, Ada and I met another girl who had been traveling alone since Malaysia. "Aren't you scared?" I had asked her. "No,"? she said and shrugged. "If I don't know where to go, I just flip a coin; heads says o要e way, tails the other. It always works."?
I flipped a coin. It read: Paris. A few minutes later, I made another desperate call to Julia; this time, she picked up the phone.
Julia lived o要 the prestigious le St. Louis in a classic Parisian studio a couple of centuries old. Her landlady, la Madame, a kooky society woman who lived in a 13th-century manor house in the countryside, came over often to soak naked in Julia's old-fashioned tub. While Julia touched up her graying hair at the temples, she told us her wild life story, which Julia later translated.
In Paris, I went out all day and hit as many museums as I possibly could, my favorites being the impressionist Mus嶪 d'Orsay and the strong, fleshy nudes that lined the Rodin Museum. I met a young woman writer from Seattle who was also traveling alone, and we met for hot chocolate in the Latin Quarter, gushing about our journeys.
On the way home, I walked past the Sorbonne and through the Latin Quarter, stopping at a Greek store to buy groceries for Julia. Drooling over the slabs of feta, piles of dolmas, mounds of hummus, I tried to order in French, but I couldn't get the words out. Finally I asked the proprietor if she spoke English. "Non," ?said the middle-aged woman, whose graying chestnut hair fell out of its bun, framing her face in wisps. Then I had an idea: I asked her for a kilo of her finest olives - in Greek. "You speak Greek like someone from my village!"? she answered excitedly. "Where are you from?" I discovered she had immigrated to Paris from a village o要 Mount Olympus minutes away from where my family is from. I asked her if she had relatives here in Paris. "No," she replied. Then, with twinkling eyes, she added proudly, "I'm a woman o要 my own."?
Photos by Jeff Booth/TravelPhotographer.net