I'm no Rick Steves when it comes to travel, but I've done some international traveling. I like the thought of seeing different countries, the cultures that reside within them and the different ways people do the same things. The roster of foreign countries in which I've spent any appreciable time isn't long: Two weeks in Ireland, a year and two weeks in Spain, a weekend in Portugal and a fortnight in Italy. Sure, I crossed into France, but I was there to get my visa renewed -- this was pre-9/11 -- for all of four hours. I still haven't been to Canadia, for crying out loud.
When I went to Ireland, I went with my aunt the lawyer and her brother, my uncle, the priest. I jokingly told people I had every contingency covered in case of an accident. My uncle and I went over first, arranging to meet my aunt at Shannon a couple of days later. We stayed in a B&B in Ennis, a small town nearby Shannon. My uncle went to exchange some dollars for Irish pounds, so I went to a bar for a drink. As I left the bar I ran into one of my floormates from my days at Illinois. Needless to say, I was surprised, not only since I hadn't seen him in three years but because he had a German surname and had been studying German at school. He's not one of the guys I'd have thought I'd meet in Ireland.
When I went to Portugal, it was by design that I'd run into a colleague, since I was going to stay with his family for the weekend. Still, it was weird to see him in his homeland, my being so used to seeing him in Iowa. It's sad how things turned out with him, but I'll never forget the weekend I spent in Coimbra and Oporto. Those are places I'd love to see again. If I did go back, I wonder if I'd run into Joaquim.
Spain offered the most fertile ground for running into people I knew. By far, the first and most surprising run-in was in the embassy. I had been a graduate assistant at Iowa for a year -- which afforded me the opportunity to go to Spain, financially -- and in one of the first classes I taught, I had a pair of sorority sisters for whom the class was nothing more than an obligation. Not accustomed, yet, to dealing with discipline problems, I cracked down as hard as I dare without making myself seem like a total jerk. They weren't in my second semester class, so one can imagine my surprise when, in the embassy in Madrid to register my presence in the event of an accident, I saw one of the two in a line transacting some official business. Not having seen me, I approached the girl from behind and tapped her on the shoulder, telling her, I sure hope you had a good teacher back in the States. When she realized it was me, I'm not sure whether she was embarrassed or surprised to see me. Whatever her reaction was, it couldn't have exceeded my surprise at seeing her in Spain.
Later, the day before I left Spain, I ran into a colleague outside the main post office in the Plaza de Cibeles. When I greeted Nancy, she told me she was traveling with another colleague of ours, Lea, who was off somewhere at that moment. I wasn't nearly as surprised to run into Nancy, but even so, to run into anyone I knew in a European capital was surely bucking the odds.
Italy didn't present any opportunity to run into anyone, which is just as well. I was sick most of the time. But I did get to see Shaquille O'Neal's basketball shoe. That's a story for another time, and yes it's huge.
Ironically, France and my brief stay provided the most surprising encounter. I was only there for four hours, and since I didn't speak French and the French weren't particularly welcoming, I went to the railroad station to sit and wait for the train that would take me back across the border into Spain. I was in the very station, I believe, where Franco met Hitler to discuss Spain's participation on the Axis side of the conflict, so for me my stay was already momentous. But imagine my surprise when I saw a woman roughly my age wearing an Illinois sweatshirt! There were only two of us in the place at the time. Knowing how rough it is for American women traveling abroad, I approached her tentatively, unsure whether she was just wearing the sweatshirt or even spoke English. It turned out she was a grad student who was traveling during the summer months as she did a year abroad, just like me. Karen will laugh at my amazement at another coincidence, but what are the odds that two Illinois students meet in a railroad station in Hendaya, France?
Moments like these add spice to travel.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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