December 28, 2012 - Oregon
 |
| Portland International Airport |
~ Ernest Hemingway
Fifteen years ago, after a summer archaeology field school in France, I traveled with a friend around Western Europe. France, Spain, Strait of Gibraltar, Ceuta (Africa), Italy, Sicily, Switzerland, and beyond. Of all cities, regions, lands visited, my least favorite was Madrid. Discovering in mid-October I would be placed on a 3-day-mad-dash-over-the-pond-and-slightly-gluttonous adventure to Madrid, memories of my 22 year-old life began to swirl.
How it all began: One 1998 spring evening in a Gunnison, Colorado bar, a couple of France-bound undergraduate anthropology students settled in for an evening of cocktails. I had planned to travel post-Saint Cesar, France Neanderthal Archaeology Field School with my high school/college boyfriend, but within months of departure we began to embark upon differing paths. As the Colorado drinking evening ended, the bartender and another France field studies student (whom I barely knew), hollered over the bar, "Hey Sarah, want to Eurorail around Europe after France?" Corralled and prodded toward the 2am-closing-time doors, in the throngs of other barely legal college students, I shouted back, "Yes!" And it began.
I'm a recorder. A connoisseur of history. Personal and global. Historically marking my international gallivanting in journals, now via this blog. Maintaining extensive journals of thoughts, monotonies, adventures, and neurosis since my teenage years, during the summer of 1998, I recorded everything, multiple times a day. I have brought my 15 year old Europe travel journal with me to Madrid.
August 2, 1998 Journal Entry:
Irun, Spain
"The only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it." ~G.K. Chesterton
We just had lesson #1. Verify which train you are getting on & off. We just missed our train to Madrid because we were standing at gate 2, but the right train was leaving from gate 3. So now we want to explore Irun, but we left my travel book in Paris - 'J' used it as a cover for his face yesterday while sleeping. Anyway, now we have no guide book for the rest of our trip... We're all sitting in a train station right now laughing about it. We also just figured out by the time we get to Madrid tonight it will be to late to get into the hostel so we'll have to sleep on the street. Guess what? 'H' just came over to tell us that the next train is booked up so we have to leave even later. I usually do things with a lot of structure but I'm pretty sure this little trip with 'H' & 'D' is going to be like flying by the seat of my pants.
+ Wine in Spain is served cold. We are drinking some in the train station. We can't decide if we don't like the wine or if it's just rough drinking cold wine before noon.
+Goat cheese doesn't travel well.
*Proper names have been abbreviated and much of this entry has been deleted - as we were enjoying the easy-access-to-Morocco Mediterranean lifestyle.
**My writing style at 22 years old is bittersweet in reflection. There's beauty in the innocence, but the grammatical configurations are painful. Can I get a comma? And my continuing past/present verb tense challenges appear to transgress time.
+ Wine in Spain is served cold. We are drinking some in the train station. We can't decide if we don't like the wine or if it's just rough drinking cold wine before noon.
+Goat cheese doesn't travel well.
*Proper names have been abbreviated and much of this entry has been deleted - as we were enjoying the easy-access-to-Morocco Mediterranean lifestyle.
**My writing style at 22 years old is bittersweet in reflection. There's beauty in the innocence, but the grammatical configurations are painful. Can I get a comma? And my continuing past/present verb tense challenges appear to transgress time.
