Sept. 24, Where Am I Going, Hold On, Let Me Ask - I Wanna Be a Travel Writer
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Stumble It!Sept. 24 - Where Am I Going, Hold On, Let Me Ask...
Four hours before I was to board the plane, I finally looked at a map. I was leaving for a month in Italy, and hopefully other European parts unknown, but I really had no idea where I was going. Other than a week at a villa in Tuscany, which was a planned holiday with my writers' group the Wild Writing Women, I had no answers for the obvious questions.
"Jen, Tuscany is beautiful, where in Tuscany?" asked a friend.
"Ummm..." I thought Tuscany was the local region... I thought Italy was the country. Italy has states? Where have I been?
It sounds completely idiotic and incompetent for someone in the travel business not to know where she's going, but the truth was, I didn't want to go. Not since the events of September 11.
Like many other Americans, I was overwhelmed with emotions that begged for action. I wanted to help, but felt so disconnected on the west coast in California. I didn't even personally know anyone in New York or D.C. that was affected by the tragedy, yet I didn't care, I still wanted to go to Ground Zero — giving blood just wasn't enough for me.
Attempts to find a charity where I could do some onsite disaster relief failed. With nothing for an unskilled volunteer on the west coast, I continued to be glued to the television as my departure date got closer. And closer. And closer. I thought about backing out of my trip to Italy. It wasn't that I didn't want to go abroad because I was afraid to fly, or because I thought that it would be unsafe to be an American overseas while our country was preparing for war — but it felt wrong for me to be taking a vacation when so many people at home were hurting, grieving, and sending off their husbands and sons to war.
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Americans canceling and postponing their travel plans to stick close to home. At the same time, this report also said "There's a noticeable slowdown, but many people are sticking with vacation plans, said P.J. Jesse, manager of the Vacation Outlet store in downtown Boston.
"'I would say the majority are planning to go ahead,' he said. 'There are a lot of people who we haven't heard from and can be assumed to be ready to travel.'"
I had to make a choice: either I could hop in my car and drive the 3,000 miles to New York and spend my travel money on sandwich fixins and hand them out to whatever worker would take them, or I could get on the plane, meet my group for the week and play the rest by ear.
Though my heart wasn't in leaving, it was still with the group. I'd been apart from them for eight months while they self-published an anthology of our work. Though the trip to Tuscany was planned before Wild Writing Women: Stories of World Travel was completed and signed by a publisher, it was important for us to have this retreat as a group. It was an opportunity to unite, to celebrate our achievements, and to continue on as travel writers without bowing down in fear of one of our most driving passions. And let's face it, my main impetus was not wanting to be left out of a good time with my friends.
The airlines called for passengers to check in three hours ahead of departure time. I showed up when I was ready, two hours ahead of departure time and had no problems at all checking in to Alitalia. Though there was no curbside check-in, there were only five customers ahead of me inside.
We were only allowed one carry-on aboard the plane, so my theory of just bringing a small carry-on weekender on wheels, plus a small backpack so that I wouldn't have to check any baggage, went straight out the window.
Ten minutes later with my boarding pass in hand, I walked through SFO's new shiny international wing. The past week's news seem to disappear into the slick silver walls and new storefronts. I was already in another country, with no American flags posted on anything and everything like the new outside world. Now it was just me and the Duty Free shopping zone, where a quick trip inside had me back out and aimed towards the Fireside woodside pizza parlor with a fresh squirt of my favorite perfume and a smashing new lipstick color.
While waiting to board I saw that someone had to check their walking cane. Talking to another passenger on the flight, I found that his pocket knife had made it through the baggage scanners, even though he didn't mean to bring it and it was in a compartment from his last trip.
About to board, I found my friends. Some of them had been told to show up four hours ahead of time, though there was no wait for them either. Instructed the previous day not to bring anything metal or sharp, my friend asked about a pen, and the airline representative claimed that they could not answer that question.
As we handed over our boarding passes we entered a foyer where 10 uniformed officers from both the U.S. and Italy were standing. They barely looked at us as we passed through, more interested in chatting among themselves and what they looked like, comparing items and gadgets on their outfits. A few looked like bike cops, as I had seen some pedaling through the International wing half an hour earlier, as if it were a Sunday in Golden Gate Park.
Except for the insensitive showing of two movies filmed in New York City with the twin towers in various scenes, the flight was uneventful and the passengers seemed relaxed and indifferent. Italian couples cuddled and cooed each other, Others slept, and many communal laughs were had while Bridget Jones attempted to get some action.
A half an hour before we landed, I woke up and got out my Tuscany guidebook. I still didn't know exactly which town our villa was in, but two other members of my group had come over and told me they had no idea either. It didn't matter; I was pouring through the Frommers and Michelin pages (guidebooks that had been given to me the day before I left), fascinated by the options of my upcoming three weeks after the villa, and hungry to start sampling true Italian fare.
Getting a stiff neck from craning over the book, I lifted my head to look out the window. Before me were undulating green hillsides of rural Tuscan farmland. I had no words. But I knew in my gut that views like these were almost better if unprepared.
