Mr NYC in France, Holland & England

Memory is tricky. Some things we remember as clearly as a blue cloudless sky. Other things we remember only faintly or not at all. It doesn't matter how long ago or recently these events were -- we remember what we want to, for whatever reason, no matter how long ago. 

I think the memories that fade are those that can't be easily catagorized as "good" or "bad." We remember our traumas and our triumphs but rarely the things in between. 

As our movements in the outside world have been limited by the pandemic, as I've clocked more time at home than ever before, I've spent a lot of time thinking about trips I've taken in the past. Most of them I've blogged about here already but then, quite recently, my memory was jogged about a trip I had taken the summer befor my freshman year of high school. It was a five week student trip to France, Holland and England. For whatever reasons, I honestly hadn't thought about or remembered even going on this trip for years and years and years.

Until now.

I guess I didn't really remember this trip because I didn't like most of the other kids on this trip and there was lots of teenage nonesense (who wants to remember that?). And yet, as I thought about the trip again recently, I realized I didn't remember any of the other kids on it -- but I remember what I saw.

And what I saw was amazing.

First, France. We landed in an airport in Basel, Switzerland and took a bus across the French border to a small town called Argentierre. It was a small, picturesque country town. We stayed in a hostel up on a hill, with a stunning view of the Alps. We would then walk down into the town to get food and change money but we spent most of our time hiking the Alps and beholding the amazing vistas. After a few days we took an overnight train to Paris, emerging into the city in the early morning (in fact both of my trips to Paris, nearly 20 years apart, have involved my arrival by train). We stayed in an old fashioned stone building on a beautiful street with a courtyard, and we walked streets and over the bridges of this stunning city every day. One night we even ate in a Chinese restaurant. We visited the Louvre and, yes, saw the Mona Lisa; we visited the bizarre-looking Centre Pompidou (a modern art museum that is a piece of modern art itself), we walked through the Luxumbourg Gardens and strolled around at night, the city truly living up to its reputation as the city of lights.

Second, Holland. We took a train to, if I remember correctly, the Hague but we didn't see any of the international courts of justice. Instead, we got on bicycles and biked for several days around the most hilly parts of this otherwise very flat country. This was the roughest part of the trip for me -- by far. The bikes were big and metal and I had neither the size nor stamina for long stretches of biking (at one point we even biked past some royal palace behind a big gate). At the end of each day, at the various hostels we'd stop at, I would collapse from exhaustion (we did, however, spend one afternoon during our biking adventures at a topless beach -- that was interesting!). At one point, as we were biking, I had a really nasty fall and the skin from part of my left knee was dug out, exposing a vein. It took a long time to heal and I still have a scar to this day. Fortunately, we soon ended the biking portion of the journey and headed to Amsterdam. I love this town. Highly walkable, gorgeous canals, lovely and simple architecture. We went to all of the big museums (I don't remember all of them, sadly), and, of course, we saw Anne Frank's house which was moving, sad, and inspiring. And, yes, we strolled around the notorious Red Light District although obvious we didn't patronize it. Nor did we go into any of the pot cafes. However, I did go into some of the McDonalds and, not for the nothing, I laughed the loudest when the movie Pulp Fiction came out and the Vincent Vega character talked about Royales with Cheese and people in Amsterdam soaking french fries with mayonaise. I saw all that with my own eyes, a couple of years before Mr. Quentin Tarantino did!

Third, England. We took a boat to get there, a boat from Belgium. I don't remember where in Belgium we left from or where in England we landed at. But on the day we landed we took a boat to Cambridge and stayed at the university. Our home was called Sidney Sussex College (British universities are made up of a number of "colleges"), whose most famous alumni (in real life) is Oliver Cromwell and (fictional) is Sherlock Holmes. Again, memories of this time was scarce, but I remember we ate in these huge neo-classical dining halls and we rowed down the River Cam in punts which is a huge tradition there. Next we headed north to the beautiful Lake District where we spent days backpacking around the stunning hills and dales around the lakes, mist everywhere. We also visited Rydle Mount, the modest but gorgeous home of the poet William Wordsworth whose family still owns it to this day. Then we headed down to London and stayed at the University of London, a massive and rather dreary modern-y place. I've been to London several times since then and I honestly don't remember much about this particular visit except that we spent a lot of time hanging out in the city's parks -- including the infamous Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park where, on Sundays, people stand and kvetch about whatever's on their mind. One guy I saw spent his time shouting "I'm perfect! I'm perfect!"

After that, we came back to NYC.

And that's it. That's all I remember. But these vague memories of that trip, a long time ago, has inspired me to go back to France, Holland and England as soon as possible -- and to enjoy it properly this time!