Just One Jewish Girl On Vacation In Europe

This was my experience decades ago, during the summer of 1970. Mine. It is not a cautionary tale nor foolish advice for others. I am not an idiot. I know many friends and relatives who constantly travel all over the world to the most remote places and love it. But, this particular piece tells of my time in Europe. And to this day, those two weeks still live inside me. And so does that fear.

So what could go wrong with a TWA Travel Adventure? Barbara and I planned the trip to Lisbon, Madrid, Paris, and Rome. I did not realize that when Barbara invited Ilene, who would already be in Europe, to meet up with us at our first city stop... my adventure would immediately go south. 

I was timid back then and very shy and quiet. I suppose that demeanor made me a bully magnet: a target for the unresolved angers of others... in school, in camp, and elsewhere. So when that "mean girl" Ilene talked dopey weak minded Barbara into dumping me and going off on daily explorations without me... Barbara agreed and off they went leaving me alone every day to decide whether, after leaving the hotel, I should wander left or go roam right. The only good day I had was going with my friend Tina to the Louvre, a meet up we had planned before we even left Manhattan since we knew we would be crossing paths during our two separate vacations. 

I had one night with the two sadistic mental torturers: I have a photo of the three of us in a Madrid cafe... but to protect their identity I will not post it. Trust me, the misery on my face in the picture is palpable. Seriously, who does that? What kind of "friends" trot off and leave another girl behind to spend days and nights alone in foreign cities? I do not think it was a plan... I think Ilene instigated it and the lemming Barbara followed along.

And if that was in Barbara's nature, why didn't she let me back out when I had a change of mind about even going? That fool called my mother to tell my mother she had to convince me to still go. And of course my mother put some shtik of guilt inside me saying I would ruin Barbara's summer if I did not go. 

In Rome, those two horrible girls, Barbara and Ilene, talked me into going to an isolated beach house (at some deserted location) with three guys they had just met that day. That night, we arrived there after a 45 minute drive. It was very dark and nobody else was even around. In that cabin, most of the light bulbs were broken and there was no working toilet. Some bed was turned on the side and all the furniture was broken. It was just a long wide empty beach under a moon... and us: three guys and three girls. 

I think I passed out. I cannot remember how we got back to the hotel. Years later, I wondered if they used the interior of that place for the set of the film Hostel. 

I remember being alone in the Lisbon hotel room one night (once again Barbara and Ilene flat left me, going off for perhaps another dangerous escapade) and wishing that when I opened my eyes the two weeks for that trip would be over. I just wanted to go home. I was so tired of having every dinner alone in a foreign country, I felt so deserted... I even got paranoid that they realized I was Jewish and restaurants were poisoning my food. I lost a great deal of weight during those two weeks away. 

Anyway: even though we were an organized TWA group, we did not have structured days... we only gathered at the airports and every experience at customs was a personal nightmare. Did I look suspicious? Did I look like a smuggler? My unlocked luggage was ALWAYS picked for inspections.  ALWAYS. EVERY.SINGLE.TIME. I had actual hallucinations that drugs would be planted in my suitcases and I would be framed. Why? Because I was the Jew! I began to feel they had some nefarious plot to throw the American Jewish girl into a prison and that was decades before "Locked Up Abroad."

Some time later, after I was back in New York City, I read about Billy Hayes's Midnight Express Experience and thought... "there but for the grace of G-d."

The fear from that summer still lives inside me. I think that trip triggered my OCD. I was very young, changing, and just at that time did not have the skills or confidence to handle the matter or manage my situation. My thoughts were unrealistic, and as I developed and grew older I probably would have had a great time alone in those wonderful cities. Of course, I probably had a tendency to develop that anxiety disorder because I was a nervous kid and a worrier... but that trip in 1970 sealed the deal. I spent years after that going into panics that never impacted others but certainly thwarted my own life. And after that traumatic and hurtful experience that summer, I got off easy. I could have developed agoraphobia.

And though I have traveled many times to diverse locations since that time, I never went back to Europe.

(continued below)

After that year, during summers... I spent many days at Long Beach, Long Island. I never had to travel far to find a place that gave me strange comfort. 

And the trips I really enjoyed after that were the "safe" ones I took with Jerry. So rest in peace, Jerry. And I still maintain you drove that night back from the Syosset movie theater with your eyes closed. And that night was the third time I saw this film: