Thirty-Six Years in Europe

PUBLISHED IN RED LINE BLUES, Spring 2008

“I have a job for you while you’re home this Christmas,” Mom announced, coming in from the kitchen to find me lying on the couch with a book.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“I’d like you to go through your stuff in the den closet and tell me what you want to hold onto and what I can throw away.”

“You mean like my old art supplies and sketchbooks?”

“Yes—It’s one of my New Year’s resolutions: Now that all you kids are gone I want to try and get this house in order.”

“You can probably just chuck all that stuff,” I said, returning to my book. “I’m pretty sure I’ve already taken everything I want.”

“Well why don’t you go through it just to make sure.”

“Alright, I’ll have a look.” I’d been living in New York for seven years now, but I had plans to take off on New Year’s Day for Helsinki, Finland. I was ready to try a new city, having lived only in New York since I left home. Through my job I’d met two Finnish designers, Aamu and Johan, and once we started getting along like a house on fire they introduced me to their other designer-friends from Helsinki. I took a shot in the dark and applied for a grant to research Finnish design, and after my amazement over the proposal’s acceptance simmered down I booked a one-way flight for January 1st. Aamu and Johan would be returning to Helsinki on New Year’s Eve from a design residency of their own in Seoul, Korea, and after a stale fall in New York I figured I could use a clean break in ’08.

The day after Christmas I swung the closet door open and flipped on the light. The smell of old coats hit me first, and I pushed the vacuum cleaner aside to get at the shelves of books and papers over the filing cabinet. Luckily the closet wasn’t too stuffed, with all the Christmas decorations out around the house. I found my things on one half of the middle shelf—old school notebooks, some half-used drawing pads, dwindling rolls of canvas and tracing paper, and a few spirals with only the first few sheets filled. I flipped open to random pages, reading excerpts before throwing most of it into a shopping bag I had sitting by the closet door for recycling.

After clearing out most of my stuff I started glancing through other notebooks and papers piled further down the shelf. There were old tax documents, instruction manuals for cameras and VCRs, and a few of Mom’s old binders from previous jobs in real estate. Sandwiched between an old church phone directory and a 25-year college reunion program was a small brown notebook with something in German on the cover. Leafing through the pages I found an old train schedule and a map of the Anne Frank House. I left the closet door ajar and walked into the kitchen to find Mom at the table in her reading glasses with a basket of Christmas cards and letters.

“What’s this?” I asked, holding up the journal.

“Let’s see,” she said, peering over her glasses and extending a hand. I had a pretty good idea what it was. I knew the story of Mom’s impulsive move to Germany at the close of the ’60s. “Looks like my journal from when Beth and I were in Europe.” Disaffected after a summer job as a night desk clerk at a motel in Memphis where she’d just finished college, Mom and her roommate had bought one-way tickets to Munich in search of adventure. “God, we were nuts back then,” she said, shaking her head at the little notebook. They’d ended up finding work in a small Bavarian ski town.

“You think I could take it with me to Finland?” I asked. I’d always been fascinated by her stories from that time. When I was younger they seemed impossibly glamorous; now I think that might have been the time in her life she was most free.

“Sure, I guess,” she said, handing the journal back to me. “I have no idea what kind of craziness you’ll find in there.”

“Thanks,” I said, turning away. “Oh, and I have a bag of recycling from the closet.”

Sunday, September 3, 1972—One week of traveling and I’m already battle-worn. Alone in Dover now waiting for Beth who’s back in France. We seem to be having some bad breaks and both hope it can’t last. It all began Friday night in Paris when we were stupidly taken in by two swarthy little hoodlums in front of Notre Dame as we stared aghast at the gargoyles jutting from the shadows of the church walls. They were terribly ugly. Being the kind souls that we are, we started walking and chatting with the two guys—Mark and Philip. They spoke in slow, broken English about the city, Europe, our plans, etc., telling us they were part-time students and guides in Paris. We walked and walked by the Seine River until Beth and I grew tired and said we had to go. They dropped us at the Metro and said goodnight. As we turned to leave Beth remembered the bag Mark had been carrying for her and ran up the stairs yelling “Mark!” but it was too late—he was gone with Philip to see what loot they had come into: eighty dollars, Beth’s camera, and my student ID. A disgusting experience. We talked to the police mainly to get francs so we could make it back to our hostel, as we’d been left flat broke.

I sat down at the family computer in the den to check my email. Skimming past the spam I halted at the subject line “Soooo Sorry” that had arrived from Aamu in the middle of the night. My heart picked up as I braced for what the trouble might be. I double-clicked on the message.

“Hallo Erkki [Erich in Finnish], Very sad to say we must stay in Korea three extra weeks to finish up our work here. Won’t be able to meet you at the airport as planned, but hope you find your way in Helsinki alright until we arrive in late Jan.”

My heart sank. I didn’t want to admit that Aamu and Johan were two of the main reasons I was heading to Finland. I wanted to maintain my sense of self-sufficiency, but this news was crushing. The trip had been tenuous from the start, everyone torquing their necks and rumpling their eyebrows at my plans.

“That’s right, Helsinki.”

“What’s that—in New Zealand?”

“No, Northern Europe.”

“What’s there?”

“Good question. That’s why I’m going.”

Then, through the sub-prime loan crisis my travel budget had dwindled to peanuts, the exchange rate plummeting in the six months since the foundation had sent me the grant check in U.S. dollars. Luckily I’d made arrangements with Aamu’s friend Selina to rent a dilapidated but dirt-cheap flat from her uncle that was empty in the midst of renovation.

I hadn’t gone through the process of applying for a visa, unsure if I ought to have submitted the paperwork for work, leisure, or student status. I didn’t have a definite plan, didn’t know how long I’d stay, and certainly had no idea what I hoped to do afterwards. Or where I wanted to be, for that matter. Maybe this was an overblown experiment to see whether or not I felt like returning to New York in the end.

I didn’t tell Mom about the email from Aamu, afraid that it would only make her more nervous about my trip.

Monday, August 28—We picked up our checks and boarded the train for Zurich. Arrived just after eight but then wound around one-way streets utterly lost until some other tourists (from Italy/France, I believe) offered us their map. We found the hostel at 9:55, five minutes before it closed. Slept well that night.

August 29—In the morning we visited the National Museum for a couple hours which wasn’t nearly enough time. Afterwards we cut through a corner of Germany to northern France. Discovered that the hostel we were headed for had closed since our guidebook had been printed, so we found an out-of-the-way hotel which cost sixty-five francs with breakfast.

On New Year’s Eve I landed in New York for a one-night stopover to wish my friends farewell before Helsinki. All my stuff fit into a giant backpack I’d checked on the plane; in my hand I had only the book I’d carried onboard. I had basically packed for Finland before I left for Christmas because there wouldn’t be time New Year’s Eve.

I stood at baggage claim watching the luggage circle the carousel and as the crowd dwindled I prayed that my bag would soon appear. Nothing happened. I waited until the bitter end, crawling with anxiety as the carousel shuddered to a halt.

“It looks like your luggage got held up in security at your departure city,” the baggage-claims representative told me.

“Do you know when it’s going to get here?”

“They should put it on the next plane for New York, then we can deliver it to you. If you can give me an address where—”

“But I have to catch another flight out of the country tomorrow morning. Can’t you give me a better estimate of when the bag’s going to catch up with me?”

“I’m sorry sir, but that’s all the information I have. They’re going to get the bag here as quickly as they can.”

Trying not to panic I grabbed a cab to my friend’s apartment where I’d be staying. Using my phone and his computer I checked the status of the missing bag like a madman but never got any more information than I’d been given at the airport.

That afternoon I needed to pick up a check from a freelance gig I’d had before Christmas, but didn’t want to venture too far from the apartment in case the bag showed up. I considered having the check sent to Helsinki, though I wasn’t sure what I could do with it over there. However, it would give me time to get over to my storage unit where I could repack a new bag of essentials for Finland.

Just five-hundred miles from the Arctic Circle, Helsinki would be frigid. In early January it gets light outside for about six hours of the day. I tried to think of what I had in storage that could substitute for the warm gear in my backpack. Still no news from the airline. The cards were stacking up against the success of this trip, and I had nightmare visions of my spirited adventure going down in a ball of flames, or ice.

Spectacularly, with a desperate call to my freelance employer a coworker agreed to swing by my friend’s apartment with the check on his way to a party that evening. Half an hour before he rang the buzzer a call came from the airline’s delivery service saying that my luggage was in a truck on its way to the address I’d provided. My backpack and the check in hand, I enjoyed New Year’s Eve with my friends immensely.

Wednesday, August 30—We headed for Paris and purchased two maps before finding our hostel. There we met a guy named Steve from California, traveling around the world via Hawaii, Japan, Russia, Lapland, and now Europe. Quite a nice guy. We hastily decided to see Paris by bus and Metro, ending up at the Palais Royal which we were hoping was the Louvre. We did meet Gentil there who wanted to wine and dine us the next day but we never showed. Walking along the Seine that night we met Amede who also wanted to show us around the city.

August 31—Up bright-and-early for breakfast and an appointment with “the tour king” Cityrama (a double-decker bus). Onboard we met Yvonne from South Africa who told us about her country (which has no television yet but hopes to in 1975). Saw most of the Paris landmarks from the bus sort of superficially.

September 1—We took off for Versailles but a policeman pulled me over for running a traffic light. Should have taken it as a sign that this would not be our day. We spent the morning touring the palace, though by that point I was getting a bit disgusted by the over-commercialization of all these landmarks. Returning to the hostel we ended up talking at great length with Steve about his world travels. Very fascinating—he sure has his shit together. We then went to the Arc de Triomphe for an overwhelming view of the city. The museum on top was quite interesting to me—about the history of the site. Ate a humble dinner then went to see Notre Dame one last time, were we found ourselves victims of the little Paris thieves!

The plane touched down on the icy runway just after 10 a.m. I confirmed with the flight attendant that my watch was indeed on local time. It was still dark out. On our final descent I was thinking of Finland’s position between Sweden which I’d grown to admire for their outstanding design, and Russia which I’d been taught to be weary of, growing up in America at the close of the Cold War and now skeptical of Vladimir Putin’s botched democracy. Finland’s history is of negotiating life in the shadow of these powers, winning sovereignty just eighty years ago and carving an identity out of her overbearing neighbors’ subjugation.

My bag plunked down mercifully onto the baggage carousel. After I made it through customs and paid a disheartening visit to the ATM for euros I stepped out into the snow at daybreak.

Saturday, September 2—We wrote all our Paris postcards and drove to Calais. After a hunt for a safe spot to leave the car we boarded the ship. Onboard we shared a table with Shirley and Jane who were returning from holiday in Portugal. When we arrived they showed us all around Dover in their car and helped us find the youth hostel, a most welcome sight around midnight.

September 3—Well, this was a day to hurry up and then wait. In yesterday’s confusion Beth had left her Britrail pass in France, so the poor dear made the distressing trip back-and-forth to retrieve it. I stayed in Dover and really got to know the place. First I went to the train station to get rid of that weighty backpack-monster, then returned to the hostel where we had unthinkingly left our hostel cards. I hiked up to Dover Castle and when it started raining headed to High Street for lunch in a reasonably priced restaurant/tea room named Elizabeth’s. The roast beef and Yorkshire pudding were quite good, then from there to the docks to meet Beth. Before she came I swung by the train station to get my pack and met Barry—a blond, blue-eyed, stocky bus driver who seemed a bit bored with it all but too lazy to do anything about it. Actually I rode with him three times that day and he was most kind to me. Beth and I went to Elizabeth’s again for dinner where we had fish and chips and Welsh rarebit. We caught the 8:00 train to London and shared a cabin with some nice folks: an Italian family of four and also Cathy Durean who offered us a bed in her flat. She turned out to be most kind in helping us get oriented in London.

I boarded a bus from the airport into the city armed with an email printout of Selina’s office address. After trudging through the snow I was greeted at Selina’s architecture studio with a warm hug as she popped up from her drafting table. She surprised me with a housewarming care-package courtesy of Aamu and Johan: a shopping bag with a map of the city, a stove-top coffee maker, a pair of thick woolen socks, and a good-sized bottle of Russian vodka. Selina and her boyfriend Vesa treated me to lunch where she surprised me yet again:

“Guess what? Vesa and I have put together a welcoming dinner party for you this evening.”

“What—really? That sounds excellent! But aren’t you exhausted from New Years?”

“Well that was two days ago.”

“Oh right, the time difference.”

“We thought we’d get you started with some real Finnish cuisine, plus it will give you a chance to meet everyone since Aamu and Johan won’t be back for another few weeks.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful. Thanks so much! I wasn’t expecting such a warm reception. Really you don’t have to—”

“Oh, don’t mention it. We’re happy to have you here. Anyway, you’re brave for having come to Finland in the dead of winter!”

Monday, September 4—We left Cathy’s flat around 10:30 and found a hotel in Russell Square (recommended by $5/day book) with very suitable accommodations—two pounds per night with breakfast included. Went to Piccadilly Circus and caught the 2:00 showing of The Godfather. I must say it was very well-done although it left quite a few pangs in one’s stomach from all the violence and bloodshed. From there we toured London and saw: Westminster, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham, Parliament, London Bridge, Big Ben, etc. It all seemed quite dirty; I would have rather seen it by night. We tried to get tickets for Jesus Christ Superstar but it was sold out so we bought two for September 13, when we’d loop back through town.

September 5—Took our time about getting an early start (as usual), having a leisurely breakfast with a young couple from Boston. We packed lunches and went to the British Museum for the Tutankhamen exhibit but the line was so long we just wandered through other galleries and watched the film on discovering Tutankhamen’s tomb (Harold Carter[!?] was the archaeologist!). Ate our roast-beef sandwiches in the park but fed most of it to the pigeons and sparrows. After Westminster Abbey we went in a heat to see the Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick. I was quite depressed by the movie after having just received the first news of the Olympic murders (2) in Munich and the hostages being held in the dorms by Arab guerillas. It gave me a terrible empty feeling and I kept thinking, “Is there no justice?” After the movie we went in search of food and a little fun. At a place called The Taming of the Stew we had an enjoyable meal with wine as two folksingers performed. It lifted our spirits before heading home to crash.

After lunch Selina walked me to the flat, apologizing for its condition the entire way there. We fired up the radiators once we got in and I told her the place was perfectly suitable for me. She gave me directions to her apartment for dinner, handed me the keys, and then headed back to the office. I rolled out my sleeping bag in a corner of the empty room. There was no bed but I figured I might buy an air mattress the next day. I set out to explore the city but saw only a few of the landmarks before it started growing dark just past three in the afternoon. Stopping off a darkened square into a bookstore, I browsed awhile before finding the stationery section. I headed out of the shop in the direction of Vesa and Selina’s apartment with her directions in one glove and an empty journal of my own in the other.

Wednesday, September 6—I’m writing on a train through Wales. The countryside is dotted with mining areas. We continue to be quite horrified by the news from Munich (“Carnage at Munich: Hostages killed after ambush in a rescue attempt by Munich police at Furstenfeldbruck Airfield”). All nine athletes killed, five terrorists and a policeman dead, a pilot badly wounded, and three guerillas captured. Quite shocking. Now the question is whether to halt or continue with the games? At our hostel in Chester we were assigned a room with ten other German girls, all of whom are studying to be geography teachers. Walking around after dinner we met two girls from Canada who’d been working in Munich.

September 7—After breakfast we helped the German tour group clean the dishes, then did some sightseeing before catching the train to Edinburgh. Arrived around 10 p.m. but were quite cold and didn’t want to search out a hostel or hotel or bed-and-breakfast—a most unfortunate mistake. Instead we decided to ride the train all night and sleep. The problem was we didn’t find one we could stay on without interruptions. Got off at Perth hoping to catch another train back to Edinburgh but none came. At the station we met George, age 17, who kept rousing us all night for a train that didn’t end up leaving until 7:05, the morning of…

September 8—Needless to say Friday was a black day until we had eaten and slept. With no help from the hostel we desperately took a hotel room down the street for 4.50 pounds. Crashed for several hours then went to the hostel for dinner (35 pence each!) and reserved a room for Saturday. We trotted over to the ticket office of the Edinburgh theater festival and lucked into front-row seats. The actors had come from Scotland, Singapore, and Norway, and they all performed with great precision. Took several pictures which I hope will develop, but they can’t possibly capture the full spectacle nor the beautiful music.

Turns out Vesa is quite the chef. While he prepared an excellent salmon soup with potatoes, dill, and fresh-cracked pepper in a cream broth, Selina served drinks and set the table for eight. Along with the hearty soup we had loaves of traditional Finnish rye bread with butter, sliced cucumber, and a spread of stiff sour cream with roe. For dessert Vesa had baked spiced apples and we ended up talking around the table through three pots of coffee after we’d finished off all the beer.

“Oh wait!” Selina exclaimed just as I was buttoning up my coat and heading for the door. She ran back to the bedroom and I heard a closet door creak open. Coming back into the living room she had a giant striped bulk under
her arm.

“What’s this?” I asked as she handed me the unwieldy bundle.

“It’s a foam pad for that hard floor back at your flat.”

“Oh, wow—thanks so much!”

“Don’t mention it. And call us tomorrow; maybe we can show you around town or catch a movie or something.”

“That sounds great. Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Erkki.”

Saturday, September 9—After a good night’s sleep in the hotel we had a delicious English breakfast of juice, coffee, rolls, eggs, bacon, tomato, toast, and jelly—just like Mom used to make. We toured St. Giles Cathedral, Arthur’s Seat, Edinburgh Castle, and the University. It was a wonderful excursion and our driver was very cute—always boasting about the Scotsman’s generosity! I bought a Scottish hat and we opted to walk back so we might see some out-of-the-way places. We met an Irish schoolteacher named Shawn McDonnell, and Jim Martin, an American law student, with whom we went to a pub later for some Scottish ale and heard Scot-Irish folk music. Walked home through Queen’s Park where we had seen couples waltzing earlier that evening.

September 10—Up at 7, 7:30 perhaps; packed and down for breakfast at 8. Shawn and Jim wanted to drive us to Inverness but that didn’t suit me so we ran out on them and took the train instead. Met some lovely people in our compartment, especially Mrs. Mackenzie who took us with her husband all around Loch Ness. They dropped us at the youth hostel where we waited an hour for it to open before deciding to hop a train back to London instead, having seen most of what we had come for.

September 11—We groggily stumbled off the train at 7 a.m. to wash our faces and brush our teeth in the station WC before catching another train to Stratford-upon-Avon. There we saw Shakespeare’s home, had lunch, and then headed back to the station for another train to Bath but instead ventured to Salisbury where we cooked our dinner in the hostel, then did some plotting and planning before bed.

September 12—Took a bus out to Stonehenge and were quite intrigued by the ruins. From Salisbury to Bath we climbed HIGH HIGH HIGH [arrow pointing upwards here] up Bathwick Hill to the hostel. We ate dinner with only two others, a Scottish couple, but had a very pleasant time.

September 13—Trekked back through town to see the Roman baths which were 1,500–1,700 years old. Quite interesting—those Romans really had a good thing going. From there we caught the train back to cold, rainy London. We just made our show of Jesus Christ S.S., and afterwards hustled to catch the 11 p.m. train to Dover. Enjoyed the show immensely, with very simple stage settings and great music. After spending a hectic night on a train, a dock, and a ship I was SICK!! We found our car the next morning and somehow made the trip up to enjoy an excellent French dinner near our hostel in Belgium where I crashed for sixteen hours.

There hadn’t been this same Europe when Mom was here. I mean, not a European Union but a land still bruised from war, with different currencies supporting still very diverse cultures. In the final hours before Sweden sent Ikea and America sent McDonald’s and Korea sent Samsung and Finland sent Nokia into every corner of the globe, Mom had known a very different continent. But then now, in turn, I had arrived in Europe from a very different America than she had fled.

As I make my way through her journal in a country with a foreign tongue I think about how languages stay more or less the same but the lives they describe ceaselessly change. Perhaps I’m just picking up where Mom’s entries leave off.

I walk home to my flat, bundled tightly against the cold. Skirting the frozen bay I soak up a crystalline view of my new city. Since waking up at home the morning of New Year’s Eve I hadn’t really slept in—I figured over coffee the next day—fifty-six hours. Once upstairs with my weightless load I could barely roll out the foam mat between my sleeping bag and the floor before I was fast asleep.