Twenty years or more ago, we attended the retirement party of a man who was known all over as a leader in his profession. He and his wife, who was a writer and editor, were brilliant and had traveled the world. I happened to be in an elevator with one of their adult children, and commented that the retirement trip her parents were planning sounded wonderful. She responded that she was a little worried about them. This was while they were still "young" by my present standards,and healthy of mind and body, so I said "But they have been all over the world. She replied that that was true, but because most of their travel had been work related,this was the first time they had ever been abroad when there were no hosts waiting for them.
Looking back at our travel to other countries, I realize that because each of our trips to Thailand and to Taiwan were related to Del's work,we also had people who were there to make sure there were no bumps in the road, and to be sure we saw everything and more. We were a bit more independent in Taiwan, and in Hong Kong. When David and Anita and Del and I went to Europe, we spent lots of wonderful times planning for the land part of the trip, and we did a great job, sez I as shouldn't, but Rick Steves held our hands all the way, even though he, of course, was unaware of it. We treated his guidebooks as though they were the be all and end all. We chose hotels, planned tours and transportation between Florence and Rome, rode the Rome subway at night, despite the fears of our hotel receptionist, and had a wonderful time We also learned a lot, but I was still a tentative traveler.
When we found out that Del had been given the Fulbright, I was happy for him because he had dreamed of living abroad for as long as I've known him. I was not so excited for myself, because of my less than adventurous nature, and because we had just moved less than an hour from David, Tracy and Rosa, especially Rosa. Five months seemed like the rest of my life, and when I found out I would be teaching English as a second language to faculty and staff in Del's department, I was in a panic.
But the day came, and off we went. Strange as it still seems to me, I immediately felt at home in Klaipeda. People were so kind, and were so supportive of this very frightened pretend English teacher. Turns out, five months went in a flash, but in that five months, I learned more than I could have imagined.
Of course our hosts were generous with their time and planned many interesting opportunities for us, but as we became familiar with our surroundings, we began to search out places we wanted to go and figure out how to get to them. We figured out how to get where we wanted to go on buses and trains in Lithuania and traveled to Latvia by bus. When we went to Rhodes, we felt felt comfortable taking public buses to places of interest instead of going on tours, and we went out to a festival in a small town just because we wanted to. It was great!
I don't think I will be signing up to go on the Greyhound bus anytime soon/ever, and I will probably still want to take ship tours to places far from port rather than just taking a taxi because my fear of being left behind by planes and ships is still alive and well. I think I came home a less tentative traveler, however. I don't think traveling abroad alone would ever be my choice, but I feel confident that I could do it. It's a pretty good feeling. Thanks Del for bringing/dragging me along all these years, and thanks to our friends in Lithuania for teaching me so much.
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