40 sleeps

Someone asked me recently what it was that made me start traveling. Is it something I always wanted to do? Or did I go on vacation and just forget to go home? I was drawing a blank for a while then, like a lightning bolt to the forehead, I remembered.

When I was 17, my High School Sweetheart (hereinafter HSS, because I'm too lazy to type that out every time) and I arranged a lunch for our mothers. So, off my mother toddled to his mother's house on a lazy Sunday afternoon. She was gone for about four hours. When she came back, she marched into the house, slammed the front door, pointed a finger at me, and stated "You're going to Europe." I said "Oh no I'm not." My mother won. I went to Europe. Twice. Travel seed planted.

I'll backtrack.

Lunch was going well. The conversation was flowing. Then, his mother said to my mother "I just can't wait until they start having kids!" My mother quietly freaked out. Lunch ended on a high note [happily, my mother refrained from freaking out publicly] and, on the way back to our house, she plotted. And planned.

As much as my mother liked the HSS, she wasn't prepared to see me settle down quite so quickly. As it happened, my high school was planning a cultural exchange to Italy for language and art students. My parents signed me up for it. I didn't want to go...bear in mind that I had no idea why my mother was suddenly shipping me off to Europe. Well, off I went, kicking and screaming. We did Rome, Sorrento, Capri, Naples and Pompeii. It was fun. The food was great. I saw a lot of art. I was homesick - I missed the HSS and, more importantly, my horse and my cat. I was happy to get home after the grueling ten day trip. A couple of days later, the HSS pitched up and took me off to a dinner. On my way out I told my mother that I was so happy to be back in the Hammer.

When I got home my mother suggested I do a family foreign exchange with a French family. Again, this was offered through my high school for language students. I balked. Loudly. Repeatedly. A whole summer in France seemed like an eternity. But my parents signed me up for it. And, kicking and screaming, off I went. My mother said that, after this trip and after my university degree (again, my parents said I must do my degree outside the Hammer), if I wanted to stay in the Hammer for ever and ever and ever like I was threatening to, then I could.

I did France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and almost-Germany-by-accident (pesky trains and directions) on that trip. The family I stayed with in France was amazing... we stayed at their summer house in the South of France, we went sailing on their sailboat in Bordeaux, we hung out at her place in Nancy. I was with my own family in Amsterdam (my mother's side), which was great. My 64 year old uncle offered to take me to a 'coffee shop'. I politely declined. I ate my way through that summer and didn't speak English once. I was upset that I had to go back to Canada when the time came, but I was soothed by the fact that I was bumped to First Class on Air France. I discovered my love of carpaccio on that flight.

The rest, as they say, is history.