Diary

Being disrupted from one’s routines, as happens with travel, can be a powerful reminder of facts—pleasant and unpleasant, weird and ordinary, significant and silly— about oneself.

At home in San Diego, I easily manage to skirt around many things I don’t like, the behavioral equivalent of taking back roads and alleyways when the roads are clogged. When traveling, that’s not so easy. Often I am lucky to figure out one way to do things, with no idea what the alternatives might be.

Take, for example, my experience today shopping in London. It has been so much colder than I thought it would be in mid-April (it is amazing how low the snow level was in the Alpes Maritimes outside Nice, and everyone is commenting on how it hasn’t warmed up). My plan to muddle through with clothes more suited for May and June isn’t working very well, so I decided to take a long walk this morning through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens and end up at Selfridges to look for some long pants.

I had totally forgotten how much I really, truly hate large department stores. The sensory overload of perfumes and confetti colors, plus the nauseating hipness of the place—the very loud “in” music, the ridiculously over-cool fashions— it all just makes me want to scream.

For a minute I thought I might actually do that (scream) and I talked myself down the escalator and outside onto the street before I started babbling in tongues with tears streaming down my cheeks. Yes, it was that bad.

I decided that I was simply going to let my lower legs freeze rather than going in any more large stores, but luckily I did find one that was a little smaller and more downscale and managed to do a quick stealth raid, so I now have the long pants I need.

At home I just never go to those stores. That’s what online shopping and discount chains are for. Workarounds are a blessing I had most certainly taken for granted,

I am okay with not having morning coffee right away, as I do at home. I am okay with washing clothes less frequently. I don’t need as many bras as I think I do. There’s nothing I possess that I miss that much. I am not as attached to the news as I thought I was. Those things are as clear to me now as is the fact that if I do have to go out to get coffee, I am a walking zombie doing it—a fact I hadn’t noticed when I just had to make it from the bedroom to the kitchen. Note to Laurel—next time, brush your hair and check for makeup smudges.

I am very comfortable in my own skin, both at home and abroad. But it’s interesting to do a little examination of what’s inside that skin that I hadn’t noticed in a while, other than a couple of pounds of cruise aftermath!

Don MacLean’s beautiful song about Vincent Van Gogh, “Starry, Starry Night,” kept running through my head all day in Arles yesterday. Vincent made his home here for a while, trying so hard to figure out what people wanted of him, and how to lead a normal and typical enough life that people would just leave him alone.

Now, of course, people come here to adore him. Then, his was a life of quiet desperation better captured by gloom and rain than by the sun and glowing light that lured him (and us) here.

Unfortunately, I have to add the Fondation Vincent Van Gogh to the long list of places that have been closed when I came to see them. Here I am, disappointed, outside. However, I can also add to the even longer list of unexpected treasures I have chanced on. There was a photo exhibition by Christine Turnauer of faces of people from around the world that rivaled any I have ever seen, and another quirky one in an old mansion with ceiling plaster decorating the floor like snow. Took some photos of Turnauer’s work that I won’t post because I am not clear on intellectual property issues, but strongly recommend you look her up.

Once again, Plan A morphed into no plan at all, but “ca ne fait rien,” which is French (sort of) for just go with the flow.

I love almost everything about travel except the luggage. I always tell myself that I only have to lug the bags from curb to check in and back to curb, with slight iterations on the theme, and that makes it not too awful, since I have a system whereby I can handle it myself all at once.

Except for land travel.

Now I am in this zone where I don’t want to get into those packed suitcases and so I say, “oh, this will do for another day.” In this case, it has to do, as I wasn’t prepared for freezing rain in Provence with any degree of fashion sense, so I just pile on the layers anyway. That spot of the sweater sleeve? Another layer will hide it. A spot on the pants that I wouldn’t let pass on the ship is just fine today. And we haven’t even gotten to the grooming. Thank goodness for the chips of soap, and those sample size combined shampoo and conditioner of dubious provenance in the Air BnB. Works for me!

I will get the hang of this on My Year of Living Travelly. I already have been scoping out luggage storage at airports and other luggage services like Nannybag, and those will help a lot, as will a few tweaks of my packing system.

Notes to Laurel: Yes it is true that you think of doing laundry on the ship as the entry stage to hell, but that is because you have built it up in your mind. Bring enough for two weeks, max, period.

Just because you use almost everything you bring, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t have brought much less. Just because travel clothes tend to be very light and don’t take up much room, you still don’t need so many. Just because you would like to have lots of choices, you aren’t home, so forget it. This applies to everything but earrings and necklaces, which must be applied liberally, as anyone who has traveled with me knows.

I have gotten better over the years, but still not anywhere good enough. One thing I know for sure—if people start giving me small change as they pass me in the street, I’d better open the suitcases!

I’m sitting in the parking garage at the Nice airport, managing to turn renting a car into an all-day affair. By the time I can post what I am just drafting right now, I will know the end of the story.

Here is what has happened so far: Jane and I got our first car—a very nice Citroen automatic—and after about five minutes I still couldn’t figure out why, when the brake was off and the car was in drive, it failed to move. A very put-out “I’m too good for this job” young, skinny, pretty French woman huffs out, takes a couple of minutes herself to repeat without success everything I had tried, before finally declaring that she would give us another because “this one is too complicated for you.”

Channeling my inner Buddha for not the first or the last time today, I remind myself how many times in French I have probably managed to say something insulting without realizing it. And then again, maybe she really does think I am an idiot.

While I am waiting for Jane and the young woman to come back with our new car, I am trying to work out how to say in French how many equally sophisticated cars I have owned without any problems, and how I have been renting cars without difficulty longer, most likely, than she has been alive. But I won’t say it, mostly because I can’t remember enough of the vocabulary.

Update: Apparently I can still operate a car with my remaining brain cells. I drove 4+ hours to St. Remy in a nice upgraded Audi SUV, sometimes in driving rain, sometimes in scattered clouds and beautiful sun.

We ambled around the town and picked up the obligatory local wine, cheese, and baguette (and of course, local olives), to eat while we peruse the maps. Oh so true that living well is the best revenge. The evidence is in the photo.

Tomorrow Jane and I will go to the local market and the monastery/hospital where Vincent Van Gogh was hospitalized for mental illness. Then off for a half day in Les Baux. What a lucky imbecile I am!

The other night, my traveling companion, Jane, made a casual reference to the 90-day limit on travel without a visa in what is called the Schengen Zone (pretty much all of Europe and beyond. Oops! Hadn’t take that into consideration when I made my plans for the European portion of My Year of Living Travelly.

I have spent the last day or so counting days on the calendar and figuring out enough times out of the Schengen Zone to get me back stateside without a potential black mark on my passport. I overstayed my visa when I was living in Italy a few years back and I freaked out for nothing, but I have heard things are a lot more closely monitored now, especially in Scandinavia, where I will be running low on days in July.

If you have to have a problem, this is a pretty nice one. I considered taking a one week Nile cruise in April between cruises, or a week in Morocco, or Albania, or Croatia. Poor me! What a rich set of options!

My decision ended up being a bit on the less adventurous side, but after spinning out every possible scenario, the one that really worked was London, even though I didn’t bring any clothes that would work for the UK in the spring. Well, how do you spell Visa card? At most I need to shop for a more water resistant pair of shoes, maybe a wool sweater, and beyond that I will just wear layers of ridiculously light cruise clothes.

Actually, I am pretty excited about it! I have a little studio rented for a few days, from which I will check out the museums and other locations I haven’t seen in years, hole up a bit to finish up some lectures I need for the Baltic, and rest my voice. Then I am going down to Cornwall to visit a couple who are two of my favorite people I have met while cruising the last few years.

But what is going through my mind right now as I cancel flights, a car, and hotels in Spain to get out of the Schengen Zone, is that this kind of “who knows what’s going to happen?” Is exactly what I want. I love thinking “Either this, or that, or maybe that” and just letting life be what it is going to be. That’s what a Year of Living Travelly ought to be, and I am embracing everything, easy or difficult, predictable or a surprise. Works for me!

When I hear the term “do over,” I think of something that went badly the first time around and is in need of fixing. That’s not what I am thinking as we sail away from our last stop in the Canary Islands. Today I want a do over because it was so special it simply wasn’t enough. I am already burying my nose in cruise schedules, scheming about how I will get myself back to the Canaries sooner rather than later.

I heard about so many things I missed, but I wouldn’t have changed anything I did. Today I went on a three-hour hike through lava fields, into calderas, like the one in the distance here, and across landscapes that looked like frozen oceans of rock. Next time, I’d like to go into the town of Arrecife and see the Works of Cesar Manriques and get a glimpse of life on this tiny speck in the ocean. Yesterday I saw the great National Park of El Teide. Next time I’d like to poke around the colonial town of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. So, so much to do!

But before that, life is so full of experiences I have yet to enjoy. I’ll tuck these away for later, and just sail on. Next stop, Tangiers, and my guess is I will want a few of the lovely kind of “do overs” on that too!

Years ago, maybe in my 20s or 30s I saw a photograph entitled “Sunrise, Tenerife.” I have written before about how deep seated my wanderlust has been throughout my life, and the many years I had to rein it in while I tended to things like motherhood and career. This photograph fell into that period, but I remember thinking how beautiful the name “Tenerife” looked on the page, and how lovely it sounded when I said it aloud.

When I was given this cruise assignment, I was thrilled that a stop in Tenerife while in the Canary Islands was on the itinerary, and today was the day I photographed my own “Sunrise,Tenerife.” Sorry to report that mine is only of a cement wall where our ship is docked, but I’m here all the same.

This morning I went for an excursion to the National Park at Mt. Teide, an area of massive volcanic mountains and calderas, and I can report that the difference between it and a cement wall was extreme!

We rose from a rather tropical sea level, through dense forests of Canary pines, then up above the timberline, to the highest mountain in Spain. Magma dykes that have eroded more slowly than the lava around them have left weird forms jutting skyward, and countless lava flows and debris layers have created a dramatic landscape. And then there’s this perfect volcanic cone, patched with bits of snow, supervising the whole geologic show.

I will have to anticipate another chance to be here to witness what sunrise must look like in a landscape like this, but for now I will just say that eleven in the morning was pretty darn good too!

I can trace my lifelong wanderlust to a song. In 1962, when I was 12, the Duprees sang their version of “You Belong to Me.” I was way too young to appreciate the lover’s sentiments, but everything about me perked up at the places mentioned in the song.

See the pyramids along the Nile
Watch the sun rise on a tropic isle
Just remember, darling, all the while
You belong to me

See the marketplace in old Algiers
Send me photographs and souvenirs
But remember when a dream appears
You belong to me

I’ll be so alone without you
Maybe you’ll be lonesome too, and blue

Fly the ocean in a silver plane
Watch the jungle when its wet with rain
Just remember till youre home again
You belong to me

Of course I had to grow up first, and when my first idea for a career, becoming a “stewardess” (as they were known then) was emphatically kaboshed by my mother (along with becoming a tap dancer and a palm reader), I dutifully went off to college.

Other than a year on education abroad in Edinburgh in 1969-70, my travel dreams went entirely unfulfilled for several decades, but when I found myself single again with no minor children I began pursuing travel opportunities like crazy. In fact, for a couple of years, while I was still teaching full time I managed to be out of the country more than I was home, by juggling education abroad teaching opportunities, sabbaticals, and travel write offs doing research for my numerous school library books on modern nations.

I didn’t see it at the time, but everything from teaching humanities to writing books was preparing me for the life I have now.

Six year ago I got my first lecturer assignment on a cruise line, and I haven’t stopped since. Twelve-year-old Laurel is now more than half a century older, but still every bit as excited about being in new places and returning to old favorites. Now, as my tee shirt says, Home is where the anchor drops.”

Pyramids? Tropic isles? Old Algiers? Jungles? Oh yeah, sign me up! The girl with the transistor radio glued to her ear is still right here.

Gave my first lecture last night. One would think that 6:30 is a bad time for a lecture, but Seabourn makes it work beautifully by having bar service during the lecture. Come spend happy hour learning something! It’s a concept! Attendance was fantastic. I figure if 10 percent of the passengers are at my lectures, that’s pretty good, but las night my guess is it was over 15, so yay!

The subject was the Amazon , touching on the massiveness of the river (its volume is higher than the next 7 biggest rivers in the world combined), the ancient civilizations in the area (the real ones, not El Dorado) and contemporary issues like deforestation.

I really enjoy being on the Amazon. It’s earthy, and authentic in a way cruise destinations often destroy over time. We are a very minor thing happening today as people go about their business in Santarem. I like it that way. It’s not all about me and my dollars. In fact, most people scarcely pay us any mind. They have better, or at least more pressing, things to do. I have left them to it, and am now ensconced on the ship, ready for a relaxing afternoon, falling asleep over my audiobook by the pool.

Regardless of how much I have streamlined the process of setting up my little abode on a cruise ship, it always takes a day or two to feel in the groove. Where in the world did I put A, did I forget B, what time is C, on what deck is D? Then, little by little everything falls into place. I have my routine. I know where I am going. I have a sense for the rhythms of the day.

Today is for easing in. We are anchored off Parintins, Brazil, on the Amazon. Outside my window, the muddy water flows past, carrying the occasional tree limb, or floating island of foliage, down towards the ocean. Even at anchor, the ship has a wake, due to the relentless current. The sky goes from blue and sunny to dark gray and pouring down rain in minutes, and as I scan the horizon (which is in this case the far bank of the Amazon),I can see pretty much every kind of tropical weather happening somewhere.

Since I have been to Parintins twice before ( and have the beaded jewelry an tee shirt to prove it!), I am skipping taking the local ferry in to shore ( that’s what is pictured in the photo here). Jane has claimed her chaise lounge near the pool and back here in the room, if my droopy eyelids are any indication, we will both soon be doing the thing that most clearly shows that we have eased into a lower gear—taking a nap!

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