The idea for spending the Christmas holidays with the family in Europe is obviously not revolutionary, but in our case was certainly something very out of the ordinary. Our youngest child had just spent her junior first semester in London. Somebody told me the airfares to London from Philadelphia were never lower. Once the thought was planted, I found it impossible to shake. So we called the other two children:” How would you like to spend Christmas Eve in Paris?” “Huh? Are you kidding?” “Means no other presents.” “Huh? Are you kidding?” “No kidding.” “Maybe just one little present?” “No.” “Well,. . .If you insist”
And so we did it. . . We made a once in a lifetime trip to Europe, all together, at Christmas. . .as grownups.
I was a nervous wreck that son Scott, a rock musician, would arrive in town with dirty laundry three hours after the plane left. He actually got home with a suitcase full of clean clothes long before the appointed rendezvous time. When I expressed my delighted amazement, he looked at me as though I needed a brain transplant. Like how could I forget he’s always been Mr. Ready.
Our oldest son, Billy, drove us to the airport, knew how to get rid of the car and as he walked across the terminal toward the airline check-in where we waited, I was overcome by the maturity of his demeanor and appearance. I realized at that moment that travel with the kids had changed. Tom and I were no longer the custodian tour guides. These guys knew where they were going, how to get there and what they wanted to see when they got there! They had guidebooks and recommendations from friends for restaurants and must visit places; they'd heard of all the places I thought we should see and were enthusiastic about those as well as a hundred others.
Once on the USAir evening flight to London we knew life had really changed. They were being served alcoholic drinks instead of the wing pins and kiddie activity bags.
Being greeted at Heathrow by Mandy was another parent wake-up moment. So confident after three months in London; she knew how to get us on the express train into town, had arranged a charming hotel for Tom and me and room for the brothers in her student housing. We met her new friends; took her recommendations for the must see places and how to get there; dined at her apartment and Tom and I were shushed off to bed while Mandy took her older brothers around the local pubs. The last time we traveled together, we stashed them in their room with games and snacks and we found the nightlife.
Deciding what to do each day was a little sketchy, as they say. Actually deciding what to do wasn't so much the problem as. . .when. Some of us still have difficulty fully comprehending the concepts of time and distance. Somehow, when you travel with real grownups, they mean it when they say:
“Let’s meet for breakfast at 8 and be on the road by 9 and we'll go here and then there, have lunch at that place and then do this.”
When you travel with your family, whatever you managed to agree upon the night before is subject to change in the light of day. The proposed times for doing such and such are rarely adhered to; no one gets up when they say they will; everything takes longer than anticipated; destinations are altered with impunity. No other traveling companions would have the nerve to groan out, “We’re still in bed. Wake us up in an hour” unless they were suffering uncontrollably from last night’s specialite de la maison. With our gang, at least, one had to simply relax and enjoy the moment, wherever and whenever it was.
One day, we rented a car for a day to drive out to Stonehenge and the Cotswolds. Since the children started driving, I have always preferred riding in the back seat when they are at the wheel. Saves on gasping and jamming my foot on the imaginary brake. No exception in Great Britain. Billy was the driver. I was in the back. His ability to maneuver on the left was impressive due, he said, to all the video games he has played.
The fun part was that I finally got retribution for all the trips taken when we were in the driver’s seat and they were tormenting us from the back:
“ We’re thirsty” “ He’s reading his guide book out loud and I can’t concentrate on my romance novel!” “ We’re very thirsty!” “ Daddy just spilled his Orangina all over me.”
“Are we there yet????”
Scott’s birthday occurred the third day we were in London. No celebration was to be complete unless he went to Amsterdam for a couple of days. In fact, we all would have enjoyed a side trip there but we now had so much luggage with all Mandy’s equipage from the semester plus an original plan to see some of British coastline, it just didn’t seem workable for all of us to go. So we concocted the most contorted scheme imaginable for sending the two boys off to Holland. They left by train and the next morning we taxied down to Canterbury for a night, then to Dover for the ferry to Calais where we rented another car, drove to Amiens, miraculously found a hotel next to the Le Gare (the train station, of course) where we met the boys as they staggered off the night train from Amsterdam at 7:00 AM the next morning. They have since told me often that they were blown away by the fact that we found them. They haven’t yet learned the amazing ability of mother animal to find her young.
I know many people who won’t travel to Connecticut from New York without overnight hotel reservations. We, however, boldly go where we have never gone before with the innocence of the recently born. We did have reservations in London and Paris but all the days in between were up for grabs. Choosing hotels became part of the adventure and we lucked out everywhere. Almost.
As a former college French major, I was assigned the translating job. In Honfleur, a extraordinarily charming seaside town in Northern France, I strolled confidently into “L”Hotel de Ville” to inquire about availability and rates. Scott followed me in to an empty, but wide open lobby with high counters. As we waited for a clerk to appear he noticed the “Wanted” posters on the wall.
“Do you suppose they take pictures of all their guests?” he queried.
My eyelids burst open in response to my brain connecting to the correct translation for “L’Hotel de Ville.” Not The City Hotel but The City Hall! The Jail! We bolted back to the car where I was teased unmercifully until I threatened not to tell them when they were about to order pig’s ear soup or something equally tantalizing.
Perhaps because of recent media interest in the Second World War, the desire to go to Normandy Beach became universal. We drove from Honfleur past churches and houses and barns and landscapes so inviting we felt as though we had been there before. Summer holiday towns and landscapes depicted in literature and the paintings by Monet and other Impressionists we later saw in Paris came to life in front of our eyes. In Deauville and Trouville all the long windows were carefully shuttered over to seal out the winter and leave to one’s imagination the sight of generations of the affluently dressed and coiffed who populate the rooms during the warm months of summer holiday. There is something not only nostalgic but also achingly vulnerable about a place out of season.
We reached Omaha Beach late in the chilly, misty December day.
And we were all overwhelmed.
We stayed until Taps wandering without direction through the cemetery, around the remaining gun emplacements down to the beach. The absolute quiet of the waning day and the perfect rows of bright white grave markers made an unbearable contrast to the madness we knew from newsreels and movies to have happened there. The horror of combat and the terrible price paid by brave young, healthy men was not lost on our young adults. The realization that thousands of men just their ages would never spend holidays with their families ever again and whose families’ lives were changed forever became excruciatingly personal.
I was proud, once again, of the depth of my children’s feeling.
Back in our station wagon, packed shoulder to shoulder, we drove south to Paris. Once again, Billy slipped on his driving gloves as we entered the City of Lights on the fly. His years in ice hockey paid off as we zigged and zagged, ducked and checked, and skated around for yet another pass at yet another circle. Driving in unfamiliar cities is always a little tense. Driving in Paris makes having a nightmare seem appealing. Everyone goes like mad in smoke filled cars in animated conversation with their cell phones and never, never making eye contact with another driver.
“Hand me my camera! Fast! Before I turn this corner. . . there’s a great shot in my rear view mirror! I’ll just hold the camera out the window backwards. . .”
“You’re driving at about 80 km a minute!”
“No problem. I can do this. . “
And he did. The resulting photo might be called strange, but the story of how he took it gets better with each telling.
We became the Griswolds of “European Vacation” movie fame racing past the same monuments and buildings again and again, screaming in laughter as Scott gave out for the umpteenth time with his exaggerated French interpretation of the word . . .“Louvre”. A sound so guttural as to be reproduced only in a barnyard sound studio. We mastered the underground transportation, made friends with the grocer across the rue from our tiny hotel and found one wonderful restaurant after another. We had long, chatty, funny dinners enjoying French wine and crusty bread and tested crème brulee everywhere. We walked and walked, chose souvenir prints from the stalls on the Seine, took hundreds of photos. We loved being there and we loved being with each other.
Tom and I were frankly astonished at the depth of their collective knowledge about art and history, even language, and music and food. Dinner conversations at home were always lively but once the children moved on to college and you’ve stopped checking homework, I guess we sort of lose touch with what they are learning and liking. Spending a couple of weeks without the distraction of friends or work or school or the familiar, seeing the children intrigued, enthusiastic, moved by all the new images we encountered made us realize that offering education to your offspring never really ends. This time, though, we all learned together, and in many instances. . they were the teachers.
As we readied ourselves to leave, I put my mother cloak back on and made some very eyeball-to-eyeball statements about being sure that nothing was being brought home which might catch the attention of the US Customs Authority. I was assured, again, that they were very well aware of the consequences of such insanity and how silly could I be. So, when the sniffing dog went right to my hand luggage in the Customs line In Philadelphia, I naturally did the mother dart- throwing- glare at everybody.
“Do you have any fruit in here?” inquired the rather pleasant, but very official dog-handling Inspector.
Silence.
Could I possibly have put that last orange in my bag before we left the hotel room?
Role reversal was complete.
Love, Carol. Dot.Com
Grandparenting 101
The Bragging Absolution
Identity Verification
And I Have a Ton of Sippy Cups!
Flunking Dog Bath
Wrapping It Up
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