Lately, my friend Nancy Nichols sent these pictures together, from our visit to the Vancouver World's Fair. The first is her boys and me, the second is Dad, Mom, and me. We look very 1986. That trip came to my mind lately because from Vancouver, we travelled to Calgary on some now-defunct train. A fond memory. I had just acquired Watersalt, the stuffed orca, and my parents gave me Richard Scarry's Busy Busy World to pacify me on the rail. Our steward was named Glenn. And by buying a ticket for a bed, you were simultaneously buying a ticket for a seat.
Not so with the TransBalkan. The good thing about being spontaneous is going where the wind may take you. The bad thing is getting there, which is either inconvenient, expensive, or both. I found out on Tuesday that I could visit Lost Coin in Athens. Their work is with people, mainly women, who have been sold or tricked into prostitution. More on that later.
So it was between the train and a flight that arrived in Athens at 2:30 am. I had a few days, so I decided to take the decidedly non-linear trip to Thessaloniki. It ended up 48 house en route, from Bratislava to Budapest, Hungary to Bucharest, Romania, to Sofia, Bulgaria, to Thessaloniki, Greece to Athens. I did break down and buy a sleeper, but not without a run-in with a steward who only accepted euros or dollars and would not dream of accepting Hungarian forints in Hungary.
When I look at the picture of Dad, Mom, and me (Abby was left behind in Albin), we look so young. At least Dad and I do. Friday the 22nd was Mom's 53rd birthday, but she's always 38. I spent the day intermittently sleeping and forking over my passport.
2 comments:
reading your blog makes me cry, smile, laugh and want to eat that bratislavan brandy, cherry, ice cream concontion thing all at once.
i love your blog. please... blog on. and how is athens?? did you find a place to stay that is cool?
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