Great Expectations

Every trip I took, I was surprised. I started each journey with a mental picture of the place I was headed. Who doesn’t idealize romantic Paris after seeing the city in numerous movies? The first time I saw Paris I was with my 13-year-old son. David and I had a good time, but it was not “Casablanca.”

I love Monet’s paintings of water lilies. Twice I went to the small town on the Seine to see Monet’s house. In spring his garden was a delight with tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils. In July snapdragons, marigolds, cosmos, and other summer flowers filled the entire garden with brilliant colors. But under the trees beneath the arching Japanese bridge the pond was dank and dark without a single water lily.

Many times in my travels I learned something that gave me an entirely new perspective on a nation or a people. With the exception of waiters in Paris, I’ve found people every where friendly and eager to know and help an aging American woman wandering about in their country. On a packed mini-bus in Turkey a bunch of scruffy looking Turks, who did not speak English, smiled, gave up a seat for me, and with hand signals helped me get to my destination.

Best of all were surprises making me keenly aware of this “one world” we live in. Today I read Bill Bryson’s “In a Sunburned Country”, about his trip across Australia. And I remembered Spain.

On a sunny afternoon in Seville, I strolled in one of those romantic Spanish plazas with a gently murmuring fountain and quiet walkways under big, old trees. I heard English voices. A young couple, back packs at their feet, rested on a park bench. I did not identify their accent.

“You are talking English,” I said. “But you are not English.”

“We’re Australian,” the young man said. “And you aren’t English either!”

“No,” I said. “I’m from the States. From New Mexico. Where in Australia do you come from?”

“Perth”

“Oh! In Albuquerque I know of someone from Perth. Luke Longley was the star of the University of New Mexico basketball team.”

The young man, sitting on a park bench in Spain, said, “His mother was my math teacher.”