More from the Swiss trip
As I read the entries from my old diaries, I marvel that the memories that have persisted from those days are NOT the things I wrote about. Did I censor myself because of real or imagined future readers? Was I incapable of writing about my emotions? Maye what was happening was the "stuff" of a diary, and what I was feeling was something best kept quiet or to myself?
Or perhaps the emotions developed over time, as the memory was written and re-written in my mind, until those emotions melded with the memory and are today indistinguishable?
In the following entries, I can read through the lines and see two events that I remembered in my earlier blog - the day that Cathy yelled obscenities at Italian men, and the grapefruit shoplifting. Notice at the end of the day I decide she is "unstable". Of course it doesn't stop me from liking her and thinking we are alike somehow. But stranger to me than that is that I don't mention the true details of what happened, and yet I remember those events so clearly.
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June 30, 1971
We took buses to downtown Milan - through miles of "suburbs" - farms interspersed with factories and houses and some villas. The whole area was very country-ish - like would we never get to the city?? Milan itself is very modern, with many office skyscrapers. The strangest thing was that all of the houses, stores and buildings looked like they were unoccupied - there were blinds and shutters on all the windows, even thought it was about 80 in the shade and a beautiful day.
Our hotel is the Hotel Argentina - a real old place out of a movie. The street - Via F. Filzi, is bordered with trees and tiny cars. It's filled with crazy drivers with loud horns. The hotels and apartments on this street all have long balconies on the street, where Italian women lean over an dwatch the men sit at the cafes below. Our room (Happy, Cathy and mine) is small with a big wardrobe, sink, chairs, table, two beds, and a cot. It’s really nice but it really looks foreign. The wallpaper has grape vines on it. We had a great dinner on a back terrace in the hotel. It's a big patio with a roof of grape arbor, with wine bottles hanging all over. Our group got a big table and sat together. We had 1) a big plate of pasta - noodles, sauce and spice, 2) big plate of roast beef slices and vegetables in oil - really was good, 3) a plate of fruit - plum, peach, apricot each and 4) a bottle of vino rose out of a coke machine for each of us. It only costs 20 cents a bottle - and Coke is about 60 cents. That was dinner, and we practiced European manners, like never put your hands in your lap while eating, and use your left hand, and don’t gulp the wine.
After supper, Cathy and I walked all over Milan. We got fruit at a store that had every kind of fruit and vegetable you ever saw. We got three grapefruit, three oranges and a three quart basket of sweet red cherries, all for about $2.80, or 1850 lire (the exchange rate is .65 - that means that 65 lire is 10 cents, I learned at dinner). Cathy and I also explored the HUGE train station and decided that the reason Italian men are so pushy is because Italian society had made them that way - not that their actual beliefs or attitudes are different. Met a few Americans at the train station: two girls going to Florence who had been in Bern, and a guy from Texas who is living in Milan for a year, with his family. Tomorrow we take a tram at 11am and travel four hours to Lausanne.
July 1st, 1971
The Alps are fantastic! After a walk through Milan early in the morning, we took a bus to the train station and lugged that heavy luggage all over the place. The ride was fantastic - first Italian villas and vineyards, then through the Alps. I have never seen anything like the scenery here. Now we are at a camp (Le Vennes) outside Lausanne - it's a bible school, usually. We’re in dorms - it’s really nice - you can see the lake from here. We had a group meeting about our schedule and stuff and after dinner we all went downtown (not Lausanne but La Sallaz, a suburb. Cathy and I took a long walk and also stopped at a café for café au lait. We spoke only French and did better than we expected. The trees here are neat - they are pines that have trunks like oaks and also prehistoric looking trees.
July 2nd, 1971
We spoke to a woman this morning that helped to choose the families and she told us some stuff about them and what they did. My "father" is a medical supplies distributor. We spoke en francais. After lunch M. Loup, the group representative and his family were here - we spoke to them of the region and our families. We are all terribly excited and can't wait.
Before dinner, we took a walk to the Vivarium, which is a big park with huge trees and a zoo and a pond. It was tres belle. At a chalet restaurant that we stopped at, you could see the French Alps and Lake Leman. The Loups are very nice people. Mirjana will be staying with them. Tonight, I stayed in the dorms - we talked about lots of stuff, and I finished a letter to Mom and Dad. Then, when we went to bed, Cathy and I talked for a couple of hours, about everything. She is really an interesting person, and although she seems to be unstable, she has her head together on a lot of things and what I like is that she isn’t friendly to me just to have someone to impress - she really wants to know me and to let me know her. We are very similar in many ways - our heads are close together. I hope that we become better friends as the summer goes on.
Or perhaps the emotions developed over time, as the memory was written and re-written in my mind, until those emotions melded with the memory and are today indistinguishable?
In the following entries, I can read through the lines and see two events that I remembered in my earlier blog - the day that Cathy yelled obscenities at Italian men, and the grapefruit shoplifting. Notice at the end of the day I decide she is "unstable". Of course it doesn't stop me from liking her and thinking we are alike somehow. But stranger to me than that is that I don't mention the true details of what happened, and yet I remember those events so clearly.
-----------
June 30, 1971
We took buses to downtown Milan - through miles of "suburbs" - farms interspersed with factories and houses and some villas. The whole area was very country-ish - like would we never get to the city?? Milan itself is very modern, with many office skyscrapers. The strangest thing was that all of the houses, stores and buildings looked like they were unoccupied - there were blinds and shutters on all the windows, even thought it was about 80 in the shade and a beautiful day.
Our hotel is the Hotel Argentina - a real old place out of a movie. The street - Via F. Filzi, is bordered with trees and tiny cars. It's filled with crazy drivers with loud horns. The hotels and apartments on this street all have long balconies on the street, where Italian women lean over an dwatch the men sit at the cafes below. Our room (Happy, Cathy and mine) is small with a big wardrobe, sink, chairs, table, two beds, and a cot. It’s really nice but it really looks foreign. The wallpaper has grape vines on it. We had a great dinner on a back terrace in the hotel. It's a big patio with a roof of grape arbor, with wine bottles hanging all over. Our group got a big table and sat together. We had 1) a big plate of pasta - noodles, sauce and spice, 2) big plate of roast beef slices and vegetables in oil - really was good, 3) a plate of fruit - plum, peach, apricot each and 4) a bottle of vino rose out of a coke machine for each of us. It only costs 20 cents a bottle - and Coke is about 60 cents. That was dinner, and we practiced European manners, like never put your hands in your lap while eating, and use your left hand, and don’t gulp the wine.
After supper, Cathy and I walked all over Milan. We got fruit at a store that had every kind of fruit and vegetable you ever saw. We got three grapefruit, three oranges and a three quart basket of sweet red cherries, all for about $2.80, or 1850 lire (the exchange rate is .65 - that means that 65 lire is 10 cents, I learned at dinner). Cathy and I also explored the HUGE train station and decided that the reason Italian men are so pushy is because Italian society had made them that way - not that their actual beliefs or attitudes are different. Met a few Americans at the train station: two girls going to Florence who had been in Bern, and a guy from Texas who is living in Milan for a year, with his family. Tomorrow we take a tram at 11am and travel four hours to Lausanne.
July 1st, 1971
The Alps are fantastic! After a walk through Milan early in the morning, we took a bus to the train station and lugged that heavy luggage all over the place. The ride was fantastic - first Italian villas and vineyards, then through the Alps. I have never seen anything like the scenery here. Now we are at a camp (Le Vennes) outside Lausanne - it's a bible school, usually. We’re in dorms - it’s really nice - you can see the lake from here. We had a group meeting about our schedule and stuff and after dinner we all went downtown (not Lausanne but La Sallaz, a suburb. Cathy and I took a long walk and also stopped at a café for café au lait. We spoke only French and did better than we expected. The trees here are neat - they are pines that have trunks like oaks and also prehistoric looking trees.
July 2nd, 1971
We spoke to a woman this morning that helped to choose the families and she told us some stuff about them and what they did. My "father" is a medical supplies distributor. We spoke en francais. After lunch M. Loup, the group representative and his family were here - we spoke to them of the region and our families. We are all terribly excited and can't wait.
Before dinner, we took a walk to the Vivarium, which is a big park with huge trees and a zoo and a pond. It was tres belle. At a chalet restaurant that we stopped at, you could see the French Alps and Lake Leman. The Loups are very nice people. Mirjana will be staying with them. Tonight, I stayed in the dorms - we talked about lots of stuff, and I finished a letter to Mom and Dad. Then, when we went to bed, Cathy and I talked for a couple of hours, about everything. She is really an interesting person, and although she seems to be unstable, she has her head together on a lot of things and what I like is that she isn’t friendly to me just to have someone to impress - she really wants to know me and to let me know her. We are very similar in many ways - our heads are close together. I hope that we become better friends as the summer goes on.
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