What was Your First Big Vacation on Your Own (or w friends) and not...

[DFW]

22. I worked like demon the summer I was 17 to explore Europe the summer I was 18.

I remember telling one great-grandmother (I knew two of mine) of my plans, and she gave me $100-a lot in 1970-toward the trip because she so highly approved of the idea. At the time, I only spoke French, Spanish, Catalan, some Italian and some Russian. I knew nothing of three European languages I would later master that turned out to be very important to me: Swedish, German and Dutch. I got a sense on that trip how important they would be for me.

I went to see the midnight sun above the arctic circle, the Swiss Alps, the west coast of Norway, the walking areas of København, revisited people I already knew in southern France, and went back to my first “second home,” Barcelona in Catalunya. As an 18 year old straight male, I was fascinated by all the different girls/women I met, and how easily people my age were comfortable with those of different cultures. It made a difference that so many different cultures existed in close proximity with each other. I thought I might even want to live here some day.

On my fourth solo—sorta, since my brother joined me for part of it—trip to Europe, I met my wife-to-be in what was then West Berlin. I knew then ( way before she did) that this was the one I wanted for my life’s partner. She wasn’t against the idea, but didn’t want to leave Germany. I thought “for her, I’ll figure something out.” We did a lot of commuting and jumping through bureaucratic hoops. The Europeans do love their paperwork, which I find counterproductive more often than productive, but they have centuries of experience with working around/against it. And so I did “figure something out,” and now, here I am, based near Düsseldorf. I still travel around a lot from country to country for work and some leisure, but it’s not a solo trip any more, hasn’t been for decades.