It was still Tuesday November 27 in the Grindelwald youth hostel and as most of us were finishing our hostel supplied dinner somebody in the group shouted out, “See you at the pub!” and everyone else laughed. I noticed that some people were hanging on to their plastic trays after bussing all their dishes and silverware, including the Cleveland gang. I looked at Peter and pointed at the tray in his hands. “Transportation” he said with a grin, “At least getting there!” They were going to use their trays to slide down the road into town as we had seen the kids do earlier today on their sleds, a noble nod I thought to the goddess of play.

So I followed suit and kept my tray. There were about two dozen of us in that initial batch that headed down the mountain, including the Cleveland Gang, Beth and her Aussie guys, Ragna and Monika still with her unbuttoned jacket, t-shirt and no bra. That woman was indeed a total polar bear, impervious to the cold, presumably from years of living in the frozen north. About half of us had trays, including Monika, but not her travel partner who said to her, “I’ll walk behind, and drag your unconscious body to the side of the road so you don’t get run over!” as Monika got a running start and planted her rear end on the tray with clear indication of athleticism and skill.

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It was Tuesday morning November 27 and given little good sleep on the long overnight train ride from Venice the previous night, I managed to sleep in and missed the breakfast I had paid for. It was 9:05 when I got down to the little dining room and breakfast was served just until 9:00, and things ran on schedule in Switzerland. They were lowkey about stuff but they stuck to their schedules. My first reaction was frustration, not so much because I was hungry and there was nothing to eat but more because I had missed a meal I had paid for with my limited remaining funds. After contemplating my initial reaction for a moment I realized that the good long sleep had been more than worth it.

I had heard the night before, that unlike most other hostels, the showers here had actual hot water, and in lieu of a big breakfast of delicious yogurt and granola, I confirmed that the shower was hot and indulged myself a long one, including washing my hair. Naked, my body completely cleansed of dirt and sweat as it rarely was, the deliciously warm water raining down upon me, my mind wound my narrative back to my last real shower. It had been nearly three weeks ago in the Hotel in Paris where Walter, who had picked up my travel partner Steve and me in Southern France and driven us to the French capital, paid for our night’s lodging. Since then I had only had what my mom called “bird baths”, where I dabbed a wet maybe soapy washcloth on parts of my body. And since then I had traveled through Italy and been in so many famous old locations and met such interesting people who had touched my life in one way or another, all of whom I would most likely never see again, and there was a lot of sadness with that thought.

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It was Sunday November 25, 1973 as I sat on a bench on the platform at the Venice train station waiting for the train that would take me to Switzerland and an anticipated Alpine paradise. I saw a couple other what looked like Americans roughly my age with their long hair and backpacks, but I did not recognize them and did not venture to try to connect with them, nor them with me. Cut loose now from all the people I had shared the Italian “circuit” with – Morgan, Jen, Sarah, Trix, Evelyn, the boys from Cleveland and finally Jacques – I was leaving Venice on fumes, tired and homesick and needing the universe to get me home, but having another two weeks of money to spend and time to kill spending it before my plane flight back to Detroit from London reserved for December 11. I was hoping that Grindelwald in the high Alps would be the waystation where I could medicate myself for four or five days with a hot fire, a beautiful view, maybe some nice company, and a good supply of that delicious Swiss yogurt.

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It was still Sunday November 23, and I was still processing my encounter on the train with Sophia, as I proceeded from the train platform to find my way to the hostel. Though I was longing to just flee Italy and go to Grindelwald in the Swiss Alps, I was determined to complete the Rome-Florence-Venice “circuit”, as I had promised myself. Then the day after tomorrow, after dutifully completing my tour of these three historic Italian cities, indulging my urge to retreat from the urban environs and catch the evening overnight train to Interlaken Switzerland, and from there to Grindelwald. After checking the train schedule for future reference, the information desk directed me to a place where I could catch what I thought would be a bus to the youth hostel.

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It was Friday November 23, the day after the U.S. Thanksgiving. Despite all my fellow backpackers traveling the Rome-Florence-Venice circuit like I was, I somehow ended up on the after lunch train from Florence to Venice by myself. The guys from Cleveland had decided to skip Venice because they had heard it was dreary and depressing and there was not much to do. They had instead headed north to Switzerland and said they might try to get to Grindelwald, where I was planning to go after Venice. Jen and Sarah had left Florence for Venice earlier that morning. Trix and Evelyn had decided to stay an extra day in Florence before leaving. I wasn’t sure what was the status of the other four women we had shared that train compartment with three days back. Maui I think was headed west to Paris, continuing the Western European leg of his world tour that would take him across the States, via a two-month Greyhound bus pass in December and January.

I was on my own again, and as such subject to that creeping melancholy and homesickness that was always lurking inside me these days when nothing else was happening to engage and distract me. But actually it wasn’t so bad on this day because I was pretty confident I would see Jen, Sarah, Trix and Evelyn at the Venice youth hostel, since they had all said they were headed there. But I actually ended up having a distraction. When I boarded the train I had found a seat in a compartment with three elderly Italian women traveling together, two sitting on one bench by the window and the third across from them also by the window, the three laughing and chatting animatedly in Italian. They had all said “bonjourno” to me when I entered the compartment and I had replied in Italian as well, seating myself on the bench with the third but by the door leaving a space between us. Moments later a very attractive Italian woman entered the compartment, considered the two empty seats, one across from me and one next to me, and chose the latter to sit. Soon after the train started moving and got up to speed, she struck up a conversation with me, speaking some English, and seemed to even be flirting with me. Her name was Sophia, probably in her mid forties, and at least by her telling a successful businesswoman, traveling alone and headed to Venice for a weekend conference related to her business.

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It was Tuesday November 20 1973 when I awoke in the male bunk room of the youth hostel in Florence, or as I was referring to it now by it’s suaver sounding real Italian name, “Firenze”. I had arrived at the hostel the previous evening with a big throng of my cohort, all of us with wet ponchos from the rain, dripping everywhere in the main common room as we stood in line, boisterously chatting with each other about the shitty weather, cold and wet. Trix and her five “mates”, who I had shared a crowded compartment with on the train from Rome, went off in their own directions for the evening, and Jen and Sarah, who had left Rome for Firenze a day before, were yet unsighted among the throng in the hostel that night, but hopefully I would encounter them again.

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It was November 19 1973 and I boarded the train headed northeast from Rome to Florence. It was a Monday, not that I kept track of what day it was since the days of the week made no difference to me, except maybe for Sunday, where in some of the more traditional areas, some of the grocery stores or the museums might be closed for the Christian sabbath. The only reason I knew it was Monday was because I’d seen the Pope do his Sunday thing in St. Peter’s square the day before.

As I boarded the train I saw others of my ilk, easily spotted by their backpacks and “freak flag” hair boarding the train as well at different doors. Some of them I recognized but I presume most or all of them had been staying at our hostel, or perhaps another one across town, and were now headed for guess where… probably Florence. My cohort of fellow travellers stuck out because most of the Europeans milling around us had way less unkempt hair, instead styled if even simply so. Easy to maintain short hair seemed to be the “mode” of the day for men and women, functional and even elegant on someone like Giselle’s daughter Laurence, who I had met in Paris. It was all about style I thought… most Europeans had a real sense of simple practical style. Thus the wild often unkempt manes on all of us backpacker types stuck out, along of course with those big packs often to be seen on our backs.

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Inspired by Morgan’s story of his frustrating foray to the Sistine Chapel, the next morning, Friday November 16, I was up early at the hostel, ate whatever remnants of food I had in my pack and headed out to walk to the Vatican, which was not too far from the hostel. As I had planned, I got to the museum entrance about 45 minutes before it opened. It was a small stairway up to a non-descript door, that looked more like a back way in than the main entrance to a bigtime museum. But the guard out front assured me that it was the right place, and I was the first person to get in line. I was thrilled, and I thought through my plan to get to the Chapel as quickly as I could. After about 15 more minutes the line started to form behind me and was nearly 50 people by the time they opened the door and let us in.

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It was Wednesday November 14 and the morning sun lit the interior of the Basel train station where I still sat waiting for the train to Rome. I had said goodbye to Steve yesterday evening in Mulhouse where I had to wait in the train station for the next train from Bar-sur-Aube to bring my passport and rail pass. It was a miracle that they had found my documents after falling out of my jacket pocket as I boarded the train. Without that miracle I would probably now be heading back to Paris, to the U.S. embassy to get a new passport and then quickly return to the States, ending my trip several weeks earlier than anticipated, and thus never getting to Italy, where I was now headed. The whole experience had chastened me, and made all my continuing issues with homesickness seem not so big a deal.

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