Saturday mornings in my childhood were dedicated to errands. We’d go to Highland Park, my mom’s childhood hometown, to get money for the week from the bank and go food shopping.
But before all of that, we’d go out to breakfast at our favorite spot - Penny’s. I could tell you about Penny's original location as a small, greasy spoon with mostly counter spots and a few cramped booths, I could tell you that my car seat used to get perched on one of those booth tables because that’s how long we’d been going to Penny’s, or how they moved to a new, much larger building but still provided the same delicious omelets, which I know because Penny’s was the place I graduated from eating silver dollar pancakes to omelets, usually with bacon or sausage and cheddar cheese, or that the owner, Rita, knew us quite well because of our frequent patronage.
But I won’t because this entry is not solely about Penny’s, which sadly closed in 2008. It just happens to be where this story begins.
We were having breakfast at Penny’s one morning in the spring of 2000. I was 14, nearing the end of my freshman year of high school. We were with my grandmother, discussing her lack of summer plans, when she looked across the table at me and said, “Shauna, how would you like to go to Europe this summer?”
How would I like to go to Europe? I would LOVE to go to Europe!
My grandparents on my mom’s side had always been big travelers, and my grandmother didn’t give up when my grandfather passed away. Frequently she went with my aunt, but that summer, Rhonda decided she needed a break from vacations with her mother.
So instead of salivating over someone else’s itinerary, wishing it was me who was going, it would ACTUALLY be me who was going!
Ahhhhh!!!!!
“We have to go to London,” Thelma started. “And if you go to London, you have to go to Paris. And if you go to Paris, you must go to Italy.” My head spun as she churned out a proposed outline for our trip.
After breakfast, we drove straight to our family's travel agent. He loved Globus tours and whipped out a book of options for us to page through. We settled on a two week tour of London, Paris, Lucerne, Venice, Florence, and Rome. I couldn’t believe I would actually be leaving the country for the first time to go on such a grand adventure.
The night before we flew, I stayed up late in some attempt to start acclimating my body to the time difference. We flew on British airways, and I remember the flight being empty enough for us each to have our own row. I laid across three airplane seats, watching Erin Brockovich and not sleeping at all.
But jet lag does not stand out in my memories of the trip thankfully.
In London, our first day was filled with sightseeing. I remember a gregarious blonde with a noteworthy umbrella leading us to a changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and around the Tower of London. MomMom and I went on the motorized walkway past the Crown Jewel several times.
Our second day in London was on our own. MomMom and I both wanted to see a West End show. I had heard great things about the Reduced Shakespeare Company, who, that night, were performing The Complete History of America Abridged. They’re performances were supposed to be hilarious. We found our way to Piccadilly Circus easily, and the Company's theater was right on the circle. We were able to get our tickets very early on in the day, which was exciting.
Less exciting was the fact that my grandmother was very anxious about not being able to find our way back to the theater later that night. We literally stood around Picadilly all day. We spent some time in the flagship Virgin Megastore - at the time, I was obsessed with pop music, and I wanted to be a major pop star, so this was a must do for me. But not for 8 hours. We had dinner in a Pizza Hut. The show itself was great - I particularly loved a joke about 3 ways to identify witches. One of them was if she says, “Oops, I did it again…” The pinnacle of comedy.
But it was not worth the day we had wasted. At least I’ve more than made up for it with my London adventures since!
Next it was on to Paris, where I fell head over heels in love. My mother didn’t like Paris when she visited in the 70s. She found it dirty and the people rude, so my expectations were low.
But oh, did it enchant me. Maybe it was the nighttime bus tour we did that showcased the beautiful architecture illuminated by both man made and moon light. Maybe it was the unbelievable food. Maybe it was the fact that I could identify the flying buttresses I had learned about in history class that year on the side of Notre Dame.
Maybe it was all of it.
It's to be expected when you start traveling abroad that you’re going to catch a moderate cold. Your body is adjusting to new germs on top of new time zones. My cold hit in Paris; but instead of being miserable, I enjoyed hot bowls of French onion soup despite it being July. I inhaled buttery croissants for breakfast and ham and cheese crepes and skinny frites on top of Monmartre.
Day 1 in Paris was a quick rundown of the major sites. We were able to enter the Opera, and my mouth hung open as I looked around the massive, marbled foyer. We visited the Louvre, where the Mona Lisa was encased in glass, surrounded by a crowd five or six thick, and completely dwarfed by The Wedding Feast at Cana, the biggest painting in the museum which hangs across the aisle. I still giggle when I think of these two works facing each other - Wedding Feast is about 6 meters x 10 meters while Mona is 30 x 21 inches - and which one garners literally ALL of the attention.
But there was just SOMETHING about Notre Dame that captured my heart. The romance of its Gothic architecture draws the eye up its tall towers, scanning gargoyles and colorful stained glass windows. It is a masterpiece, and despite all the traveling I’ve done, it is still the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen. On our second day in the city, we went back to the church and spent more time marveling at its literally awesome grace. Despite not being catholic, I bought a religious medal and a cheap Notre Dame shaped pendant. I needed a memento of its captivating beauty.
Of course we also visited the Eiffel Tower. We traveled up to the base and took pictures over the city. This landmark was even more special at night. It had been decorated with lights that twinkled like fireworks in the dark to celebrate the millennium.
All the stories I’ve heard of Parisians speak of how snooty they are and how much they hate Americans, particularly if the Americans make no attempt to speak the language. Trust me, beyond a poorly accented bonjour, I most decidedly do NOT speak French. But the woman we bought Metro tickets from did her best to help us figure out our train route. And when we were looking for a restaurant for dinner, a man with a kind, friendly smile ushered us into a restaurant and genuinely did his best to assist us in ordering even though he didn’t speak a word of English. I don’t know if I was seeing Paris through la-vie-en-rose colored glasses, but I found the people to be exceptionally kind and helpful. I’ve often wondered if this was due to the fact that I was traveling with an older woman.
The next stop was the one I knew the least about - Lucerne, Switzerland. The locale was picturesque, a town composed of wooden chalet style buildings with a snow capped mountain keeping sentinel over all. I was excited to buy a pendant that was a gram of Swiss gold and a cute pen with a cow printed on it that wrote like a dream. The chocolate was the best I’d had until I visited Belgium decades later, as was the ice cream. I had a cone of soft serve vanilla at a rest stop. I stood under a wooden awning while rain dripped over the top, marveling at the creaminess of the treat.
I learned that Switzerland is divided into two parts which pick up large chunks of their culture from their neighbors. One half of the country is more Germanic, while the other seems like an extension of Italy. Which is the country we were off to next.
First stop in Italy: Florence. Florence is a city where straight streets give way to open squares both large and small. In one we saw casts of some of the most famous sculptures from the nearby art gallery, including Michaleangelo’s David. (We would see the original moments later.) A guide pointed out a balcony that would play a pivotal role in the upcoming movie Hannibal. (If you know, you know. I only know because Jon has told me about it.)
But being who I am, one of my favorite parts of Florence was the shopping. We didn’t shop on Ponte Vecchio, the old bridge that's housed gold shops for hundreds of years. Instead, we visited a shop called The Gold Market, where I was ecstatic to pick up a blue cameo of a dolphin. I’ve always had a thing about cameos. Next door was a leather shop that practices the old art of personalizing your leather goods by stamping gold leaf on them. It’s one of a few places left in the world that does this, and it’s complementary with your purchase. I was able to purchase a very uniquely designed wallet on sale for my mom here. (When I returned to Florence in 2014, I purchased a gold bracelet from the Gold Market and a leather bookmark with my gold initials on it from the leather store. I feel a bit loyal to these places for some reason.)
It was somewhere around this time that I was invited to hang out with the teenagers on the trip. I suffer from mild socially awkward penguin syndrome, and I’ve never been great at friend-making small talk. So while the other teens on the tour were chit chatting and hanging out, this one time, one of them saw my Backstreet Boys wristwatch and sang “Everybody” under his breath, followed by a snicker to clearly indicate that he was making fun of me. Yes, that was more my luck.
But one night, this tall, cute boy from North Carolina named Heath invited me to come hang out in someone’s room. He played cards with me and the younger brother of a guy named Chris. A girl named Brooke who gave stereotypical high school cheerleader vibes, often wore midriff-baring shirts to show off her Britney Spears physique, and frequently looked at me like I smelled like something on the bottom of her shoe jumped on the bed like a big kid for a while. Chris observed all of us like a big brother. I think I left my purse in the room and had to go back in the morning to get it, and he was lovely, so nice as he returned it.
But I was never invited to hang out again. I’m pretty sure Brooke and Chris were hooking up, and I’m pretty sure Brooke didn’t want me back. It was just a girl vibe I got from her.
Our next big stop was Rome. Walking through the coliseum, I was struck by the ancient-ness of the place. Standing in the shadow of the stones, my soul trembled at the thought of the horrific scenarios that played out there thousands of years ago.
When we exited, my blood sugar plummeted. I had a hard time walking anywhere. Chris’s dad was a doctor and ushered me over to a food stand, where he bought me a Coke to stabilize me. Mildly embarrassing.
An optional excursion one night took us through the rolling hills of the nearby countryside. We went to a restaurant that felt more like a rich cousin’s country villa, dining al fresco among the orange trees and grape vines. There were platters of meats and cheeses and an outdoor brick oven. After the meal, we stopped at the famous Trevi Fountain to toss in coins in the hope of returning to the city someday.
Our final destination was another city that has been poo-pooed by many but that I was enchanted by - Venice. Most people whine about the heat and the crowds and the exorbitant prices, but none of that struck me. I was mystified by the intrigue of what was around each next blind corner, for there are so many in Venice - would it be a canal cutting off your path, or a bridge to cross such a canal, or a wide open square? There’s almost a creepy feeling about Venice, but one that beckons you to explore further rather than to run away screaming. I was excited to buy a cheap glass dip pen with a bottle of green ink from a street vendor.
We took an option excursion that night which included a gondola ride, complete with an accordion player/singer serenading us and a many course dinner that started with bottles of wine intended for all patrons, no matter their age, and ending with tiramisu that was at least 50% liquor. Someone at the table didn’t love the dessert as much as I did and allowed me to have a few bites of theirs after I had polished off my own, so I was a bit dizzy by the end of the night.
If you don’t already know this, pasta in Italy is never a full meal - it is merely a single course. At 14, I remember being tired of pasta by the time I came home. At 38, I can’t imagine ever being tired of pasta. What a concept.
Our last day brought with it the excursion I was most excited about - Pompeii. I was thrilled to get the chance to see another infamous historical site.
The night before we went, we had no dinner plans. My grandmother was taking her time getting ready to go out. Sitting in the hotel, I could feel my blood sugar dropping. But when I told my grandmother, she was in no rush to move any faster or get me something to eat and bring it back to the room. She had an orange that she offered me, but I was stubborn and I wasn’t in the mood for fruit. A screaming match ensued. I’m sure there was more to it, and I’m sure that a decent amount of that was me struggling with seeing no one but MomMom, who was wonderful and generous but could certainly be a lot to handle, for two weeks.
I know the fight culminated in my storming out of the room in tears. I sat on a bench in the hallway. She followed a few minutes later, saying she was on her way to cancel the trip to Pompeii. Choking back tears, and so weak I couldn’t stand, I actually crawled back to the room, let myself in, and ate the orange in lonely silence.
MomMom later revealed that she hadn’t canceled the trip, but the threat of it is really the only memory I have, which is a shame.
That said, I remain grateful that I had a grandmother who was willing to take a young travel companion along to Europe and expose her to the wonders of exploration . When I graduated from high school, I would accompany her on another trip, this time a cruise to the Caribbean. We ate lobster and the best soup I’ve ever had in my life (chilled cream of pistachio and pear with cinnamon dust) on the newly christened Norwegian Dawn, took a day trip to Universal Studios to ride ET and Jaws together, and she supported me in singing in the ship’s talent show, where I belted out “A Cockeyed Optimist” from South Pacific in front of a massive crowd.
Only two or three months after the cruise, she collapsed at Rosh Hashana dinner and never fully recovered, passing away that spring. Though Thelma could certainly be difficult, I loved her dearly and spent a lot of time with her. Her absence left a gaping hole in my life and in my heart.
When I remember MomMom, sometimes I think about how dramatic she could be. Sometimes I think about how the first time I got in a car with her after I learned how to drive I worried that she would kill us with how slow she drove. Seriously – she went 20 mph down Route 1. I swore I would never let her drive me around again. Sometimes I think about how loud she could be. After spending a full day with her, my mom and I would drop her off at her house, and my mom would say to me, “Shhhhh.” We would sit in the silence on the drive home, enjoying some peace at last.
But mostly, I remember her generosity and support. I remember the woman who took me on my first jaunt out of the country and fostered a love of music, culture, and travel with me.
It is an amazing way to remember an amazing woman.
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