Travel

I still have a faux-antique globe and beer stein in cobalt blue which I bought on that trip.  The stein has a saying on it. "You only find peace in the pub." 

The stein looks very much like this, but has more dark blue. I think mine is nicer.  




This is what the globe looks like. 

You can say that again. I was pure of heart and body. Naive' might just begin to describe my state of mind. 

You might ask, "How naive'?" This naive'........

The tour group had two guides. Both were attractive personable young women in their twenties, maybe early thirties. One was Finnish and the other Hungarian. Both spoke English, German, French and Italian as well as their native languages. 

For whatever reason, my friend and I got close to both girls over the tour.  One night in Venice, a bunch of the people on the tour were having a party in our room which overlooked one of the canals of Venice. My friend, who was less "angelic" than myself, was drinking Asti Spumante and tossing empty bottles into the canal. I did not drink alcohol, but enjoyed myself just the same. The two tour guides were at the party also having a good time. Sometime around 10-11:00 pm, the Hungarian girl got up to leave. She stopped at the door, turned to me, waved her hotel key and said, "Fu Zu, room 117." I smiled and waved back and she left. I kept partying and the night passed by without me leaving my room. Only long after the trip was over did it hit me that she was inviting me to her room. That's how naive' I was. But as I say, I was pure of heart and body. On the other hand, perhaps I was just dumb. 

I like the faux antique globe. I've got a half dozen globes decorating the office. I have a really cool pair of bookend globes. Nothing expensive but rather nice anyway.

Unfortunately, you would be wrong.    I don't have any irresistible animal magnetism, and if possible, had less then.  

It is hard to definitively attribute reasons for why people do the things they do, especially in one-on-one cases, but I will give a possibility in this instance. 

I was very young and innocent. I was a happy person who was open to seeing new things and Europe was a new experience which I was taking in as fast as possible. As a result, I was in almost a constant state of excitement and wonder. There was nothing negative about me at the time. This can be very attractive. People generally like to be happy and it is much easier to be happy around others who are happy than those who are sour. 

Let me tell you a short story which may give you and idea as to what I am talking about. 

We spent the last days of the tour in Paris. There, we stayed in a small hotel which served us breakfast each morning.  The same waiters/waitresses served us every morning and I got friendly with one named Jean-Michel (if I recall correctly.) Each morning we would greet each other with a Bon jour and big smile. 

On maybe the second-to-last morning, the two tour guides and my friend were sitting together at a table when I walked in. As I moved to the table Jean-Michel came up and I gave him my smiling Bon jour which he countered.  He looked at me with a big smile and turned to the two tour guides and said something in French. They laughed and replied to him as he went away to get my breakfast. 

I looked at the girls and they were both smiling and shaking their heads in a knowing way. I asked them what Jean-Michel has said. One of the guides said, "Jean Michel just said that Fu Zu doesn't speak French and I don't speak English, yet we understand each other quite well." I was very happy to hear that.


Then one of the girls said something to the effect of "I don't know how you do it. Everywhere we go you are a stranger and don't even speak the language, but you are able to make friends in each place. It is amazing."

Perhaps it was this type of innocence which she found attractive. Lord knows I would love to recapture it myself. In any case, even though I did not show up at her hotel room door in Venice, nothing changed between us. We continued to spend much our time together and got closer. She and the other guide would spend much of their free time with me showing me places, which were not on the itinerary.  I recall going out with them one evening and walking around Paris. We stopped to buy some crepes. The Hungary girl asked the sidewalk vendor for Crepes Suzette. He then gave her a friendly frown, tsk-tsked abit and said something to her. And she laughed. I asked what was up and she told me that he was correcting her French. I don't quite recall the exact mistake, but it was either no Frenchman would use the term Crepes Suzette or no Frenchman would call what he was serving Crepes Suzette. It was very nice to watch this friendly interchange between them.

In any case, this trip was one of the most enjoyable experiences in my life. 

By the way, over the years, I have found traveling with another person is one of the best ways to get to know what they are truly like. Constant exposure will out truths which occasional encounters do not. 

Then maybe you don't understand the true nature of the problem.