Traveling Tuesday

Not long after my seventeenth birthday I took my first trip overseas. I was to stay with a family who lived in Seyssinet, a small city near Grenoble in the southeastern part of France, but because the student group I was with flew on KLM, I had a brief stopover in the Amsterdam airport. While the layover was just barely three hours long and I never stepped foot outside the terminal, I still think of this as my first introduction to European culture.

I forget exactly how many other soon-to-be exchange students were traveling with me, probably about twelve or fifteen or so, but we were all saddled with the responsibility of looking after each others' bags if someone wanted to get up and walk around or go to the bathroom. Nowadays I don't know if this would fly even in a European airport what with all the security warnings and not-letting-bags-out-of-your-sight business, but this was 1989 so security measures were lax by today's standards.

Being the non-trusting soul that I was even then however, I chose not to part with my carry-on. If I recall correctly I had a six-pack of Diet Coke in there, and I didn't want some travel mate from a rival school stealing them just for the taste of it. When I had to go to the bathroom, I took the bag in with me.

At this time, most European airports ranked up there with bus terminals or rest areas in the amenities department. Sure the men's room in the Amsterdam airport had toilets, urinals, sinks and even showers, but high school locker rooms during half time must have smelled better than this place. And it was terribly drab. No Sports page hanging on the wall . No soft rock Muzak playing in the background and no signs announcing We're Glad Georgia's On Your Mind or Mayor Shirley Franklin Welcomes You or whatever the Dutch equivalent would be. What it did have though was something I had never seen in an American airport bathroom at that time or even since, an airport worker who happened to be female.

It struck me as odd when I first stepped in. She didn't look up from her mopping, but I glanced at her long enough to know she was a woman. I hesitated thinking maybe this bathroom was out of order for cleaning, but no, this was Europe and asking a woman to mop the men's room while she watched all her efforts rendered pointless by the many haphazard dribblers from across the globe was not unheard of.

She also was Black which, for whatever reason, struck me as odd. Her skin was very dark complected and weathered maybe by age or hard living or the daily stress endured by first generation immigrants, which, now looking back, I'd guess she was. I suppose at seventeen I pictured Europe as lilly White. Kinda like the National Hockey League but with more teeth per capita. What did I know?

She paid me no mind, so I made my way to the urinal and sat down my bag, thus making it easier to go about my bidness. Just moments afterward . . . mid-stream if you will . . . she decided my luggage was in her way and picked it up to move it to one side. She never looked up. She just scooted the bag over, mopped where it had been, and then put it back where she had found it. Slightly unnerved I kept my eye on it the whole time. Did I mention there were Diet Cokes in there?

Anyway, when I rejoined the group I didn't say anything about the woman I had seen working in the men's restroom. In fact, I made a point of not saying anything to anyone. I think a common characteristic of young Americans going abroad is that we fancied ourselves being no longer subject to the rules of prudent etiquette practiced by those back at home. Being adolescents in a foreign and notably more permissive land, we were above such constraints.

Sure we were from the South, but we were Southerners bound for Europe. I felt I should have no more been fazed by a mop-wielding immigrée in the men's room than I would a topless sun bather in Paris' Bois de Boulogne or a scantily clad sex worker in Amsterdam's red light district, two things I later saw on subsequent European sojourns. And even if such things did faze me, I shouldn't let on to members of my peer group that they fazed me. At seventeen that would only be admitting my own chastity and therefore sacrificing my reputation as an upcoming Bohemian libertine. OK, I'm stretching, but you get the point.

A bon vivant with a hint of bad boy was another label I had hoped to invent for myself on that trip, so my next move was up to the nearest bar. It didn't matter that European-based flights originating from the U.S. generally get in well before noon or that, being from a relatively dry family, I had very limited experience with alcohol. Upperclassmen who had made this trip before me had shared their own alcohol-related stories so I knew such an indulgence was easily obtainable. I was right.

The bartender, who was dressed in a black vest and matching trousers, was more than happy to accommodate what was his only customer at the time.

"And for you?" he asked as he wiped down the bar.

"Rum and Coke?" I asked not knowing whether his English was sufficient to grasp either of the two ingredients. For all I knew at the time asking for either rum or Coca-Cola in Holland could have been like asking for buttermilk biscuits with sawmill gravy. But he confirmed my order.

"Bacardi and Coke," he said and went to mixing.

I paid whatever was necessary to walk away with the glass and leave a small gratuity. I'm sure the drink was ridiculously expensive, but this trip happened long before the euro would enter the financial scene and I had only a minimal amount of Dutch guilder. If I wasn't going to spend it in the Amsterdam airport, it would have gone to waste. So I got a little something to take the edge off, or more accurately to flaunt in front of an audience.

I needn't have taken but a few sips before a few girls from the group approached me and asked me what I was drinking.

"Oh, it's just a rum and Coke," I tried to say nonchalantly, "I got it from over there."

Then the questions came all at once. "Did he ask you for I.D.?" "Did you order in English?" "Do you think I could get one too if I asked."

"You have to say Bacardi and Coke," I said self-assuredly. And my fellow travel mates left me for the bar thus following me down the path of impropriety.

Two of them got the same drink as I did, probably concerned that any variation from the tried and true might have not resulted in the desired outcome. Whether they liked rum or Coke for that matter probably made no difference. One girl strayed from the norm and scored a vodka tonic. Sexy, I thought. She proved herself to be even gutsier when she disappeared from the group and reappeared with a stamp in her passport because she dared venture outside the international terminal and through Dutch customs.

It wasn't long after we finished our drinks that it was time to board the plane that would carry us on to Paris. The bulk of our foreign travel and the experiences it would bring had yet to transpire, but I think we all felt like we had already taken that first step toward prospering in a foreign land. Sure, Amsterdam is about as English-speaking as Atlanta and airports, even of the international variety, aren't exactly cultural Meccas, but we were thousands of miles from home and yet still managed to get what we wanted. I, like the other scofflaws in that small group, boarded the plane with a smug smile on my face.

And booze on my breath.

I'm not making any promises because I once tried to have a regular feature on my blog only to let it fizzle out after two brief write-ups, but I'm considering taking time out on Tuesdays to blog about past travel experiences. Any thoughts?