More European Vacations

My parents took us to Europe a few times when my sister and I were teenagers, but it was never the same as that first trip when I was five-years-old. We never bought a car again, only rented. Everything was much better planned, which made things much less fun. Our European trips were now comprised of four individuals who wanted to do different things, wanted to see different things, and wanted different things out of life. In fact, the only thing we had in common was the secret wish to return home and end this expansive diversion. Yet, we did it again and again. My mother’s need to travel to escape her routine became more frequent, and my dad played along to prove he could afford it. My sister and I had friends we wanted to be with, and the idea of seeing more foreigners and mountains and rain for a month meant nothing.

And yet, when I think about that first trip, with the four of us sitting in the van, a young happy family without converging needs and wishes, I get slightly teary and proud. My parents still laugh today about taking a five-year-old on a month long vacation. “As poor as we were, we took you with us, even though you couldn’t really appreciate anything at that young age.” They mistakenly think that only when I was a teenager, on those later vacations, was I able to appreciate anything Europe (or any different culture from what I knew) had to offer, but by the time I was a teenager I was already tainted by television and by hormones; my soul beginning to crack under the weight of guilt, genetically inherited from my father. It was only when I was five that I was able to see the world clearly. It was a huge planet, round and simple, with millions of people who spoke different languages and used different nuances, but also had much in common, perhaps the most important things: when kids all over the world see someone mumbling numbers with his head turned and his arm covering his eyes, they quickly hide.