A Diary of Travels

By Avis Trammell

A compendium of stops, observations, and snark by a weird family, not the least of whom is the author, wandering around the hapless landscapes of Europe, Colorado, The Pacific Northwest, New Mexico, Minnesota, The Black Hills, and other unwitting places. Includes the author's obsessive thoughts about the arts and pointed intrusions by the cat, Thomas Stearns.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Traveling Press
• Release date: Jan 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311947451

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A Diary of Travels

by

Avis Trammell

Copyright © 2012 by Avis Trammell

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Cover art © 2012 by Avis Trammell

Thanks to everyone who appeared in this book, witting or unwitting.

Europe 1988

This entry was written about two years after I graduated from college. I've since cleaned up the writing, added a few things I noted at the time but didn't write down, and deleted other passages that no longer seemed worthwhile. The main players are me, Avis Trammell, my sister Cecilia, known as Ces, and my mother and father. Other persons who show up later in the narrative are my mother's siblings, Fred and Ellen, and my cousin Mark.

Sept. 4--Mom claims this is our (Ces's and my) 'finishing off'--revolting idea. We are waiting, delayed, in the dirty Kennedy airport lounge because the weather is foul with rain. It's noisy and crowded, and Mom is disgustingly cheerful. She has taken a photo of us that must resemble the dismal arrivals at Ellis Island a hundred years ago. Remember how Hunter Thompson always starts his books? He’s stuck in a hotel somewhere with dogs or seals barking away and driving him mad. I feel like that now.

Sept. 5--We have finally gotten out of that wretched airport. It’s night as we fly, and I am disappointed that we can’t see the Atlantic Ocean. Not really interested in sleep, too keyed up. There are several empty seats in the center of the 747, and Mom and a couple of other passengers have stretched out on them like hobos on a park bench. I may have to struggle to keep my window shade cracked when the sun rises--everyone else wants the lights doused to either watch the movie or doze, and I want to read Edith Wharton's Summer. This vacation doesn’t officially start until the sun comes up and I actually see something.

It turns out the Edith Wharton isn't as good as some of her others, but who cares? The sun's finally rising. Can see the Big Dipper standing on its handle, but the Atlantic is refusing to show itself--feh. Haze and cloud cover are blocking everything.

Sept. 5-ish--Never did see the Atlantic. We landed in Amsterdam, and I fell in love with it in the first 10 minutes. Fascinated by the sight of 19th-century bourgeois buildings with 1960s-style graffiti. We took the subway to the central train station and from there walked to the Holiday Inn. Mom was accosted by a couple of touts offering us rooms, but Dad waved them away. Mom was so fried that she didn't even notice they were speaking to her. Everyone except me was frazzled by the long trip.

Passed an intriguing-looking record store and vowed to check it out immediately. However, we met a snag at the hotel. After we dropped our luggage, Mom went up to the counter and waited for a clerk. Fifteen minutes later, I woke up and noticed that Mom hadn't been able to get anybody's attention, even though a couple of other men had nipped in and had their business taken care of. At that point, I became angry. I knew what the problem was. We were all rumpled and tired, didn’t look respectable enough, and the clerks wanted us to leave. American clerks understand you don’t look your best after traveling all day. For a plebeian Holiday Inn, European or not, this was obnoxious. So I stalked up to the counter and raised my voice, telling them forcefully we had reservations. The clerks snapped to.

Everyone except me decided to go to bed, and I went to the record store. Mom protested, assuming I'd be kidnapped on the way there, so I had to calm her by saying it was only a block off. I’m a little surprised to be going strong while the others are dropping like flies.

Blew about 100 bucks at the record store. It specializes in underground rock and rare 60s reissues, and I could have spent three times what I did. Among other things, bought Saints-Prodigal Son, Jacobites--Robespierre's Velvet Basement CD, The Last--Confession, and a Stranglers record. When I came back, Mom exclaimed that I wouldn't be able to travel with the LPs, saying they’d become warped, but I just told her loftily that I'd manage. (I kept them standing under my knees whenever we took the bus). I think jet-lag has burned out her common sense--she keeps having these irrational anxiety attacks.

When I came back, the others had pulled themselves together, maybe because of my example, and we went out to eat. Mom wanted to go to a restaurant near the train station which some friends had said 'served real Dutch food,' but after dragging us everywhere, she couldn't find it. She finally decided it must be the detached wooden building right in front of the train station. It served one of the worst meals of my life. I received a cold hamburger bun with a single thin processed cheese slice inside it, plus a 'lemonade' that was worse than you could imagine, a truly weird synthetic-tasting acid fizz that wasn't like any lemon on earth. I ordered two because I was dying of thirst (they didn’t offer any water at all), and they dumped both portions in one glass to make one normal American-sized drink. Their regular glasses are skinny tubular things that I swear have the volume of a shot glass. Ordered yet another icky double lemonade, as did Ces, because we were still dying of thirst. (I stayed desperately thirsty the entire trip, and was never able to catch up on liquid. I did not know that Europeans can store water like camels, needing only a cup of cafe au lait in the morning, another drink nursed all afternoon, and a glass of wine in the evening.)

I vowed that from now on, I would not let Mom decide where we should eat on this trip. After the meal, we went for a walk and Mom kept getting us lost. Ces and Dad were too jet-lagged to care. Was surprised that everyone speaks English. Saw a bank with its front window smashed in several places, probably by a hammer.

Sept. 6--Mom and I went out for breakfast at a restaurant near our hotel. I had crab salad on a hard roll and liked it, though the bread crust skinned the roof of my mouth. Mom kept exclaiming at how good the food was. I don't think she has a clue how bad American food usually is. Afterwards, we all went to the Rijksmuseum, which was not that interesting. I can't even remember what I saw. Mom brought along a water bottle in her purse, she having heard horror stories about water being scarce and overpriced. (It’s about 2 dollars a glass). The bottle leaked all over the inside of her purse, and she had to shake the purse out and pass stuff to us to hold while she tried to dry things off. But it wouldn't have been a proper vacation until she’d done something dumb. A little later, Ces and Dad went to Damm Square where Ces outdid Mom--she had her wallet stolen. Ces was wearing a travel wallet in her front shorts pocket, and a corner of it peeked out whenever she sat down. Although most of her money was back at the hotel, she lost her credit card, her Eurail Pass, and her driver's license. Since she and I were planning to rent a car in England, this makes things difficult. I don't know why she was carrying these three things with her anyway--she wouldn't be using any of them today except maybe the credit card, and a couple of traveler's checks would have been better. I too, had a travel wallet in my front pocket, but with nothing in it except a little money. I was also walking around with my hands in my pockets--directly on the wallet.

While Ces was getting robbed, Mom and I went to the modern art museum. This had some hilariously rotten pictures mixed together with a few good ones. A legacy of the 1960s, an era of greater enthusiasm than good judgment. After that, Mom and I went to a historical museum, but my feet were too tired to drag me around it properly. This was still a wiser decision than what Dad and Ces did--namely go to Damm Square. For some bizarre reason, neither of them wanted to do anything more than loaf today. I couldn't imagine spending my first day in a foreign country just sitting somewhere.

Liked the sight of Amsterdam better yesterday--it was all rainy and gloomy, which I love. Today is too sunny. I went off by myself to a bookstore and bought a copy of From Bauhaus to Our House by Tom Wolfe. When I returned to the hotel, I discovered the rest of the gang had spent about 4 hours trying to figure out how to make an international call to a friend of Ces's so the friend could cancel the stolen credit card. Since this was on M & D's money, they told Ces how expensive it was to call overseas and how she shouldn't say anything unnecessary, repeating it over and over until they scared her to death. Ces finally got through and fired off the instruction to cancel the credit card in one hysterical, machine-gun sentence, and then slammed the phone down on the hook. M & D looked at each other and said to her, you could have taken longer than that. My thought was, what do you two expect when you go on like the call is going to wipe out the family fortune?

A little later, I discovered I am the only non-idiot in the family so far. Dad pulled his back muscles yesterday carrying Mom's suitcase. He was sore enough today that after C’s phone call, he went off to soak in the bathtub. Then his back muscles stiffened, and he couldn't get out. He had to yell for help, and Ces went in to heave him up. This vacation is turning into Avis and the Three Stooges.

Ate at an Indonesian place, and had a Rijsttafel--lots of dry things, and not very good. We took a cab over to the Indonesian place and boy, was that an experience. I got stuck in the front seat with the driver while the others cowered in the back. The driver roared off at about fifty miles an hour, barely missing pedestrians and other cars on crowded city streets in a manner I thought was the most reckless driving I had ever seen–-until he left the road entirely. He went zooming right down the trolley tracks, and I thought he'd gone nuts. It turns out this is legal for taxis in Amsterdam, because of the heavy traffic. There was dead silence from the back seat the whole way.

Read some of From Bauhaus to Our House, and found it good.

Very amused by the fact that the most impressive building in town isn't a palace or suchlike, but the post office. You can tell the middle class has been in charge here for a long time.

Sept. 7--I spent the morning trying to hurry everybody, because we had to catch a train to Brussels. The Dutch countryside looks like the American