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This is a true story about how something incredible can happen when you least expect it. Even the names have not been changed because in this case, the innocent need no protection.
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It was spring 1968. My 21
st
birthday was coming up soon and I would be graduating from college at the end of May. At dinner one evening my mother asked me if I had given any thought to what I wanted for my birthday and graduation presents. I knew she was inclined to nice clothes and fine jewelry and would want to give me something really extravagant to celebrate these two impending milestones. I told her I had not decided on anything yet but would try to come up with some suggestions for her. She said not to wait too long as she might need to make some plans.
The next day as I returned home from my afternoon classes she asked me again if I had made a decision about my gifts. I told her I hadn't but would give serious thought to the matter over the weekend. She then asked me if she could make a suggestion. I envisioned some really expensive watch or ring but what she said surprised me. "How would you like to go on a trip to Europe?" she asked. I knew she had been there in the early fifties and stayed for almost a year but I had never considered going there myself. I thought about it for a moment and said I thought a trip might be a perfect gift; something to invigorate my summer before going off to graduate school in the fall. She was hoping I would say that as I could tell she couldn't wait to start planning it.
By the time graduation rolled around, the trip had turned into a major production. She had made arrangements for us to sail to England on the QE2 where we would spend 3 days seeing London and the surrounding sights and sometime while we were there, we would meet up with my older brother and his wife who had been wanting to go on a trip since they got married but had never had the chance. I wasn't about to tell her that I had sort of envisioned going by myself and keeping it a bit more low key. She was just too excited about the prospect of all of us doing this together. I figured I could always go back another time if I wanted to do the solo thing and this way I could do some research on where I might like to go if I came back by myself.
The trip began in glorious fashion. We flew to New York and saw a musical on Broadway the night before boarding the ship. She had not overlooked a single detail. We spent the night in the Plaza hotel and ate at an expensive restaurant prior to going to the theater. A limousine picked us up the next morning and took us to the dock. The voyage over was a perfect way to relax and unwind from all of the tension of final exams and birthday and graduation parties. I hadn't realized how much I needed it. We were truly pampered the entire time we were on the ship. An Atlantic crossing is quite different from a typical cruise aboard a modern cruise ship and I will always appreciate having the opportunity to experience it.
The day after arriving in Southampton and catching the train up to London, my brother and his wife arrived and met us at the hotel. We did all the things tourists do in London and two days later boarded a train to Dover where we would be put on a ferry (train and all) to be transported across the channel. We had purchased rail passes that allowed us to ride first class on any train in Europe any time we wanted. We arrived in the station in Paris just as it was turning dark on Bastille Day. The train was going unusually slow because there were people in the streets celebrating and traffic was especially heavy. It turned out to be a fortunate situation as we were able to see fireworks all over the Paris skyline while we crawled along. We were not going to stay in Paris this night as we had planned to return here later to fly back home so we just spent a little time changing trains and heading off to Amsterdam.
We had 16 days of sightseeing ahead of us and used them to visit many of the places one wants to see on a trip to Europe. Our next to last destination was Milan where we stayed in the most luxurious hotel I have ever been in and had a remarkably sumptuous dinner the night before we were to leave to return to Paris. The next day when we arrived at the train station we were informed that all of the compartments had been booked by previous reservation. We had never had this problem up until then so we inquired about another train and were told that there was one leaving an hour later but it was not an express and it too was almost full so we were only able to get second-class space on it. That didn't seem like too much of a problem so we decided to take it.
Apparently trains to Paris were in demand that summer and the only compartment we could find was in the next to the last car and it was for six persons. That meant we would be on a slower train and could not rearrange the seats to form something resembling a bed, as we had been able to do in the first class compartments. We were not scheduled to arrive in Paris until 9:30 the next morning so the prospects for a good night's sleep were dim. In addition to the problem with the accommodations, we had not bothered to have lunch before boarding expecting that we would be able to get something in the dining car as we had on previous trains. We were due to leave in a few minutes and the hallways of the passenger cars were full of people looking for a place to sit and put their luggage, so I got off the train and ran forward to see if I could locate a dining car. I finally found one fourteen cars further up toward the front. I ran back toward the back and stopped long enough to buy what looked like a couple of submarine sandwiches but the only thing they had to drink were bottles of Chianti. So, wine and subs for lunch; could have been worse.
The other two people in the compartment left as soon as they put their bags in the overhead rack and returned about an hour later and took them out. They said something to us in Italian that none of us understood but we guessed they had found better seats somewhere else. This allowed us to at least slide the seats into a reclining position so we didn't have to sleep sitting up. About ten o'clock the train stopped at the Swiss border and changed crews. When the Swiss conductor checked our tickets and passports we asked him about the possibility of moving to a first class compartment and he said there might be one available when we stopped at the French border to change crews again but it would be in the front of the train and we would just have to go up there and see.
At half past midnight the train pulled into a little station with only two platforms in a small town just inside the French border. My mom, brother and sister-in-law were all asleep so, since I was next to the door, I quietly slipped out and got off and hurried to the front of the train where I saw the French crew getting aboard. I asked the conductor if there were any first class compartments available and he told me that they were going to be taking off and putting on additional cars and that one of them would be a first class passenger car so when they were finished, we could move up. I asked him when this would be and he said we were due to leave at 2 AM. European trains, at least back then, were extraordinarily punctual so when he said 2 AM you could literally set your watch by it. I then asked him if there was any place I could get something to drink, sodas or even just bottled water since you were advised not to drink from the basins in the bathrooms on board. He told me that there was nothing on the train until 6 AM when the dining car opened for breakfast but I might be able to find something in town though he doubted it since it was so late. "We just stop here to do a little rearranging so we can move on," he said.
I had ninety minutes so I figured I'd check out the little town and see if there might be something still open even if it was only a vending machine. I walked past the darkened station and looked up and down the street and saw a light at an intersection about a block away. I headed for the light and as soon as I got to the corner I saw a couple coming out of the door of what looked like a bar so I went inside. There was a small foyer with a wide doorway to the right and a flight of stairs to the left leading up. I went through the doorway into a larger room with a bar and about twenty tables with chairs around them scattered throughout the room. It was exactly what you would expect a little French bistro to look like; even though I had never actually been in one, I had seen many of them in the late night movies I had watched with my aunt. Cozy lighting and still relatively clean given the late hour although it did smell faintly of cigarette smoke. There didn't appear to be anybody around so I walked up to the bar to see if they might have something to drink that I could take back to the train.