Once the non-refundable charter flight tickets to Germany were paid for, our family of four was committed. We were going to Germany for five weeks during June and July. Excited and scared, our children had no idea what to expect. My husband and I knew what to expect in Europe, but not what it might be like traveling with two bickering siblings who are always hungry and never have to go to the bathroom at the same time.
Could we manage to enjoy ourselves packed into a small rental car with a 9-and a 12-year-old? There were bound to be those tense moments when we might be lost, tired, hungry or worse, all of those.
It was a sizable commitment: five weeks abroad for a total tab of $8,000, including air fare of $2,500 and car rental of $800.
Anyone can travel, but the key to pleasant traveling is flexibility. Always expect the unexpected. Ordinary life may cram us into a schedule, but pleasure travel should leave room for staying up too late and then sleeping in, for getting lost and for unscheduled stops to see something unexpected.
Bring sense of humor
Don`t forget to pack your sense of humor. We were always lost, but it soon became an ”expected,” so instead of creating tension, it became another excuse to laugh.
Often I would ask directions of a native, listen attentively, shake my head in understanding, and then get back into the car to tell my family, ”I didn`t understand a word he said.” Those times when I did understand brought me to the conclusion that in Germany, everything you are looking for is exactly ”50 meters” from where you are standing, no matter where you are or who you ask.
One day, as we were leaving a centuries-old mountaintop town in Italy, we discovered we had just toured the wrong town. We then proceeded to get re-lost trying to find our way to our original destination.
Another time we ferried across the Rhine River four times before finding ourselves where we needed to catch the commuter train to return ”home.” Yet it was in getting lost that we often saw some of the most spectacular scenery and spent many of our most memorable moments.
Unwanted adventure
Only once, as we wound our way upward through remote villages in the Italian Alps late at night with our gas tank dangerously near empty, did we in desperation take a room that was less than desirable. With a bawdy bar underneath us and questionable activities in the neighboring apartments, we restlessly spent the entire night in one king-size bed with the lights on in order to discourage pests, human or otherwise.
If you wait too long to look for a room, you may find that you will have to spend more in order to lay down your weary heads that night. Once we had no alternative but to be frivolous and overnight in a renovated castle. The children were excited because it advertised that it had a swimming pool. As they opened the doorway to the pool area, they became aware of a repugnant smell. When they discovered green algae covering the water, they decided swimming wasn`t all that important.
Another larger hotel we were forced to stay in because every other room in the area was taken, advertised a sauna and hot tub. We discovered two disturbing facts the hard way: that you had to pay extra to use them, and that even in public saunas, Europeans don`t wear bathing suits. My daughter nonchalantly said to me before entering the smoky glass door of the sauna,
”Mom, I think those people are bare-naked.”
”Bare-naked!” I snorted. ”It can`t be.” Sitting eyeball-to-eyeball in a small, steamy room with complete strangers who are stark-naked was more of a shock for my 40-year-old American puritanism than for my 9-year-old who seemed undaunted.
Because we had lived and traveled in Europe, we recognized that the difference between the way an American and a European travels correlates to the differences in their cultural lifestyles.
What many Americans assume are necessities are luxuries to the Europeans- air conditioning, for example. It would have cost us twice as much to rent a car with air conditioning. Because air conditioning is thought to be unhealthy, frivolously expensive and environmentally wasteful, most Europeans do not have it.
Few but the most expensive hotels catering to American tourists and businessmen have air conditioning, either. Avoiding Americanized tourist traps and hotels will not only save you a lot of money, but will enhance your stay in any foreign country.
Pensions are great
The more international word for bed and breakfast is a pension. In Germany you will most often see them referred to as a gaststatte. Their owners often are friendly, helpful and curious about you, a foreigner. You`ll gain a greater understanding of a country`s people and customs.
Most Germans have never visited their most popular tourist traps such as. If you want to do more than make an impressive report to your friends and neighbors of where you have been and what you have seen in Europe when you return home, find out from the local residents what they think is worth seeing in the vicinity.
It is best to do more than whisk past a particular town in a car. The best way to get the feel of an area or a town is to walk around it-all day, and then again after an interesting people-watching dinner at an outdoor cafe. It is best to decide before the trip begins how much money each person will be allotted for souvenirs. Everywhere you go there will be items you think you can`t live without.
Free souvenirs
Some of the best souvenirs are free-rocks, pressed wild flowers-or cheap: postcards, coins, collector spoons, stamps or stickers. Because we love antiques, we can recognize ”flea market” in any language. In Germany my husband bought an antique wooden Italian sled for about $2.50. I bought a used cow bell from a farmer in the Italian Alps for about $12.
Our children`s souvenirs were more expensive. Our daughter bought a German doll, and our son a set of castle Legos that are unavailable in the U.S.
We had long ago decided that only the Germans really know how to sleep, and have always coveted their featherbeds, which actually are feather-filled comforters. Spying a sale price on them in our old familiar shopping territory, the time had come and we bought one for each of us. We packed them in our large suitcase, which we left bulging at the seams with some friends, while we spent the next four weeks living out of four cloth duffel bags. We looked like a comedy team dragging everything, including the sled, to the baggage checkout before our flight home.
When an elderly Italian gentleman came up to fondly touch the sled because it was like the one he had used as a child, it made our struggle worthwhile.
Forget clean clothes
Laundromats are almost unheard-of in Europe. Face it, you will look disheveled most of the time. Leave the iron at home, and take only a very few outfits that are interchangeable and that you know are comfortable, even after a big meal. Your feet will swell from sitting for hours in the car or walking miles in the heat, so don`t try to squeeze into Cinderella`s slippers. Broken- in tennis shoes or sandals will suffice.
It is easy to forget that there are no castles in the United States and that you never see a city celebrating its 750th anniversary. Old dilapidated buildings in the U.S. are quickly demolished, but in Europe they are continually renovated and comfortably lived in. The enveloping quaintness makes you feel like you have stepped into the past, and that the New World no longer exists.
When our children said things like, ”Another castle?” or ”Another museum?” my husband and I understood, because we, too, often felt overdosed. It is better to see a variety of things, visiting one of each new thing you encounter along the way-one museum, one nature park, one palace, one castle, one fortress, one former concentration camp, one zoo, one mine, one factory;
take one boat cruise, one train ride, one cable car, one mountain hike.
Just because this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience does not mean that everyone`s going to enjoy everything, especially in multiple doses.
Golden Arches beckon
I have to admit we ”squealed” off the freeway when we saw our only set of Golden Arches in five weeks, but a European vacation is a good chance to force your junk-food junkies to try new culinary delights. Because every town or neighborhood has its own specialty food, it seems appropriate to try these dishes. Our children ate squid and eel, among other unusual foods, and actually liked them all. The only complaint my daughter wrote on a postcard to one of her friends was, ”I think they are trying to starve me. We eat bread and cheese for every meal.”
Eating three meals a day in restaurants was unrealistic because we could have spent whole days looking for, and then waiting for them. After breakfast in our gaststatte, we would usually make at least one, sometimes two, meals on our own by buying bread in a bakery, meat at the butcher shop, cheese and juice in a supermarket. It was an educational experience to peruse foreign supermarkets and see what is available, how it is packaged, how much it costs, what they have that we don`t, and what we have that they don`t.
One time we were shocked when we thought we had bought a box of elastic bandages only to discover one gigantic (at least 72 inches long) bandage in the box. Eventually we decided it made sense: That way you cut off the size you need.
Culture shock
Once back onto American soil, reverse culture shock will set in. Life in the U.S. seemed immediately more rushed and intense. The buildings looked embarrassingly prefabricated, the roads and highways bumpy, the food tasteless and unhealthy. Only the language sounded like music to our ears.
Anyone who has ever been immersed in another culture and language will never be quite the same again. Having experienced pangs of homesickness while on your European vacation, you will now long to go back. As my husband reminded me when I had to pass up a souvenir I felt I had to have, ”You can buy that on our next trip.”
So now we have to go back.
