Fortunately for me, Service Canada was right when they said my new passport would arrive by December 30. In fact it arrived right on December 30, just in time to celebrate the new decade with the realization that I will have to look at that passport photo for the next ten years! :) Good thing they lived up to their promise, since we are going to Israel in just over two weeks - gah!
2020 is the year of Walt travel, G-d willing, with the family planning trips to Israel, Japan, Vilna, Riga and Tallin, and, closer to home, St. John's, Montreal and of course, Ottawa. Phew. For someone who hates flying, that's a lot of Air Miles.
But at least I get to stay in warm and comfy places, including hotels, with my family, and maybe at the occasional B&B - someplace that's warm, cozy and clean and where they give you a good breakfast. Over the holidays, I was thinking about how much I enjoy such creature comforts, as Mum revisited her 1955 European backpacking trip with our daughter. They poured over Mum's photo album and map, on which she had charted over 3,000 kms. of travel. I have always loved that photo album, and I remember as a kid looking at the black and white exotic pictures of far-off places like Venice and the Alps and being amazed at Mum's many adventures as a young woman. She had graduated from Mt. A. in the spring of '55, worked for the summer and then took a steamship trip with her best friends from university to London, via St. John's and Liverpool.
Remarkably, none of them were sick at sea, the crossing taking more than a week. They arrived with no plan, no place to stay and no idea of what would unfold, spending their first weeks at the Great Ormond Street Y with very little heat. Eventually Mum met a boy/chum, and they and others hitchhiked throughout Spain, France, Austria, Italy, Germany and Great Britain, all by thumbing a ride or hopping a train, sometimes taking up an invitation to stay in a new acquaintance's home if no hostel were available. Can you imagine the folks at home? My grandparents travelled in Canada and the US, but always by car, and as far as I know, never made it outside North America. They must have worried day and night, especially my grandmother. Mum sent a lot of postcards home, brought them beautiful souvenirs and eventually abandoned her plans to stay on in London when her parents telegrammed, "Come home." But that's another story.
Meanwhile, as my daughter told me, I can't worry about her travelling when I compare it with her grandmother's forays in '55.
But, (she said, sounding so motherly), it's a much different world, and the things that my grandmother worried about, even the immenseness of Mum leaving Pugwash for so many months in Europe, are replaced by other worries today - do we wear anything that identifies us as Jewish? Am I compensating for my travel carbon footprint? Will there be floods, typhoons, tsunamis or other natural disasters? Do I feel safe in crowds, airports, on buses, trains, subways? And the all important, will there be Wifi?
Nevertheless, we are travelling, exploring and adventuring in this big bad world of 2020. May it be a year of safe travels, new experiences, learning, finding family and new food, always new food.
Bon voyage, happy trails, and happy new decade to all!
Wishing you a safe journey. I hope you don't run into any danger in Israel. I loved Tallinn. Only there for one day while on a Baltic cruise. The wonderful previous music director of the Sarasota Symphony Orchestra - Anu Tali - was from there (didn't realize before how similar her name is to her home town :0) Will look forward to any posts you have time to make while you're away.