I'm Still Here

By Barbara Belden

Life is an adventure. Make the most of it and remember; The best is yet to come.
I am now in my eighties, and for many years I have wanted to share some of my travel adventures with friends and family. Some adventures have been hilarious, some have been dangerous, all have been exciting.

Many of the places I have been to no longer exist, and some of my adventures would not be possible today. My world is disappearing before my eyes and I want to record some of it before it is completely gone.

To my children and grandchildren; I want them to know Grandma was not always elderly. There was a time when she climbed Mount Vesuvius, rode camels in the desert and para-sailed over the ocean.

I began traveling when I was very young and the world was a much friendlier place. Each trip was a lovely adventure, there were no fast food places, hotels always had a room and you never stood in line.

So here are my stories for you to read and enjoy, and hopefully to remember me, and yes, Im still here.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462895977

Book preview

I’M

STILL

HERE

101014-BELD-layout-low.pdf

Barbara Belden

Copyright © 2011 by Barbara Belden.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2011910850

ISBN: Hardcover      978-1-4628-9596-0

ISBN: Softcover       978-1-4628-9595-3

ISBN: Ebook           978-1-4628-9597-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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101014

Contents

Chapter 1     Europe on Our Own

              August 1952

Chapter 2     Morocco Bound

              October 1975

Chapter 3     Yugoslavia in the Rain

              October 1975

Chapter 4     Egypt: Land of Mystery

              April 1983

Chapter 5    The India Adventure

              March 1986

Chapter 6     Surviving China

              September 1999

Chapter 7     A Ride on the Orient Express

              November 2001

Chapter 8     Welcome to Jordan

              October 2008

For

Christine, Jane, Charlie,

Amanda, and Garrett

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Enjoying our grand adventure

On the Riviera, France 1952

Chapter 1

Europe on Our Own

August 1952

THERE WERE NO jets to whisk you across the Atlantic Ocean, no tour guides to lead the way, or magic Internet to make reservations ahead of time, and in 1952, hardly anyone in Europe spoke English. We would be truly on our own.

We thought it would be a great adventure for my friend Nancy and me when we decided a trip to Europe was what we needed to break the monotony of our office jobs. We even found a good reason to go. Nancy had relatives in Germany, and we thought that we could visit them and then we could see Paris, London, and all the wonderful places in between. So we carefully laid our plans—to work at our jobs for a year and to add enough money to our savings for the trip. In the end, we each had $1,000 in the bank, plus $500 for the round trip ticket, new $5 dark-green American passports, two new suitcases each, and enough energy and confidence to carry us to the moon and back.

Our first step took us to Philadelphia to the Thomas Cook Travel Agency on Chestnut Street to buy our tickets. We had our choice of sailing with the English on the Queen Mary or the Queen Elizabeth or with the French on the French Line, which sounded like more fun to us, so we decided right then and there to sail the French way. We thought the food was bound to be better and the rules more relaxed! We chose The Liberté which had been built in Germany and originally christened The Europa. After the war, the French took it as a prize of war and rechristened it The Liberté. It was the right decision for us, for the fun began as soon as we crossed the gangplank.

In 1952, Europe had still not recovered completely from the war, and tourism had not become what it is today, so seeing two young girls traveling alone was quite a novelty. The people we met wondered how we had the money to take such a trip. How did we accumulate such wealth and how could it be that we were allowed to travel unchaperoned? We explained that we had worked hard for a year and saved our money, but I don’t think they believed us. In those days, a thousand American dollars went much further than it does today.

But there we were, looking smart in our leather shoes and matching luggage. I bought a new dark-blue winter coat that had black fuzzy bumps woven into the fabric, and it fell nearly to the ground. I wore a black velvet hat to match, leather gloves, and a leather shoulder bag large enough to hold everything I would need, including a borrowed camera, the new passport, $1,000 in traveler’s checks, and my yarn and knitting needles. We thought knitting argyle socks would be a good thing to do while riding on trains and wiling away lonely nights in hotel rooms. In those days, Nancy and I both could knit argyles in our sleep, and a sock was small, easy to carry, and never grew too big. The English and the Germans were particularly impressed with the fine, soft synthetic yarn we were using. They were still knitting with coarse worsted wool. Our socks could be washed without shrinking; they never got holes in the heels or toes, and they never wore out. Amazing! People watched us in fascination as we knitted away on trains or buses. We found that it was a great conversation starter.

We were scheduled to sail on the afternoon of Wednesday, August 12, 1952, and early that morning, my father gathered us together and stuffed us into the big black Buick with Dynaflo, the latest in automatic drive; then off we went to New York City where the ocean liner The Liberté awaited us.

Our little group included Nancy, my mother, father, brother, and my roommate from school, Mary; all squeezed into the automobile along with our four pieces of new luggage. There were two pieces for each of us, which, thankfully, fitted into the trunk of the car. On our new traveling suit lapels hung two huge lavender orchids given to us by my mother as going away tokens. We were so embarrassed, but we had no choice other than to wear them. So there were snapshots of us two lovely ladies standing on the deck of The Liberté with the skyscrapers of New York City in the background, with large lavender orchids blooming on our shoulders

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The Embarrassing Orchid on board the Liberté

The docks in New York for the big ocean liners were on the Hudson River. Built on them was a long row of large wood and metal sheds that jutted out into the river. The ships came past the Statue of Liberty, past the Battery and up the river, and then turned right into their particular dock in midtown Manhattan to anchor. Years later when I was working in New York on the fifty-second floor of the RCA building, I watched from the south side of the building as the USS United States sailed majestically up the river, surrounded by fire boats shooting huge fountains of water and followed by an armada of boats of every description. She was on her maiden voyage from Europe racing for the Blue Ribbon and was being welcomed into the harbor.

That day, I was part of the busy hubbub that precedes a sailing. Cars and taxis were disgorging luggage while longshoremen were trundling great heaps of luggage on dollies, shouting and cursing. Somewhere along the way, we deposited our suitcases and then walked the length of the enormous shed to the gangplank. Halfway up, I looked down and saw the water washing back and forth between the ship and the dock; that’s when I felt I was really off on my adventure.

After much wandering through salons and corridors, upstairs and mostly downstairs, we finally came to our cabin. We were in the back of the ship, aft, just above the waterline. However, we didn’t know that as we had an inside cabin the size of a small closet with two bunk beds and no porthole. I took the top bunk, and Nancy took the bottom one. There was space to turn around in and just enough room for the suitcases under the bunk. We thought it was lovely. We were in third class with a great number of young male French students returning home after their first year of college in the United States since the war. Just how lucky could two girls get!

Our whole family toured the ship, taking in as much as possible before All Ashore was called. In each salon, an orchestra was playing, and one of my fondest memories was hearing La Vie en Rosé as we wandered throughout the ship. The melody seemed to fill the air. At last, the All Ashore came with clanging of bells and great fanfare; the gangplank was drawn, and the deep blast of the ship’s horn sounded. It was louder and deeper than any sound I have ever heard. It vibrated throughout the whole ship and well into Manhattan. Then slowly the pier started to slip away from us, and I realized that we were moving. It was as if a whole city block had torn loose and was drifting down the river. It was incredible. How could this huge, huge thing even move! It felt so solid and firm. And then there we were turning into the Hudson River with the hardworking tugboats alongside, heading us downstream. My parents’ faces grew smaller and smaller until they joined the mass of other well-wishers. My only disappointment was that there were no streamers sailing through the air that day. In the movies, they always had streamers.

An hour later we had changed and were seated in our dining room, enjoying lunch. We were consigned to the third-class dining room with all those wonderful French students. We sat at a long table for ten and ate all kinds of food that I had never even heard of before. But it was French! And it was very good. I tried eel and thought it was delicious. They were kind and didn’t tell me what it was until after I had eaten it. Across from me sat a very nice middle-aged Frenchman, who was traveling home from a business trip. He was a glove salesman, and he showed me how to eat snails; he also told me that when I bought gloves the little cushions on the counter were to put my elbow on so that the saleslady could fit the gloves to my hand, one finger at a time. That piece of information came in very handy later on when I bought pink kid gloves in Paris and white kid gloves in Venice with flowers delicately embroidered on the cuffs. I learned that luncheon and dinner were concluded with a cheese board and a fruit basket, wine was a food, and lingering over a meal was good for the digestion. It was my introduction to French cuisine!

Every day was exciting—from the time we got up until we went to bed. We spent long hours on deck talking to the French students, playing rather bad bridge, and eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner with them, and in the evening, we danced and went to the movies and the horse races, where the little metal horses on sticks rocked across the board. My special friend was Jacques, who was studying to become a doctor like his father. We met later in Paris and spent five lovely days together before he took us to the boat train and said good-bye.

On board we also met, along with all the students, two young men who were traveling to Europe for adventure, the same as we were. Franz had lived there with his parents before the war and wanted to go back and see some of his special places. The other man, John, was taking the grand tour. We landed in Plymouth together and went on to do some sightseeing with them. When we docked in Plymouth, off the coast of England on the fifth morning, there was no port in sight. It had been demolished by the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, and so they brought tenders out to the ship, and we walked on the gangplank down into a little boat in a choppy sea about half mile out in the harbor. Our baggage came after us. The French sailors held on to us at one end of the ladder, and British sailors grabbed us as we teetered toward them on the other end. Once we had landed, we picked up our suitcases and walked to the train which was conveniently waiting to take us through the lush green English countryside on to London. My greatest memory of the train ride was having lunch in the dining car, my first time ever eating on a train. The waiter served marrow soup, which was a terrible dish, and he spilled it all over my new red corduroy suit. The soup was a greasy, gray concoction, and it tasted greasy and gray. It was my first and last encounter with marrow soup. After a week of feasting on a French Line ship we had now been introduced to post-war English cuisine; it was quite a shock to the palate.

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Well, there we were in London with all the cars driving on the wrong side of the street. Most of the men were in bowlers and carried furled umbrellas while the women were dressed in good English tweed and sensible shoes. We went to the Tower of London to see the Crown Jewels and to see the Beefeaters in their red suits, who looked as if they had just stepped out of Alice in Wonderland. We went to St. Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey and to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. I am sure I have the only picture in the world of a nose-picking bobby in his tall hat, standing in front of the palace. We walked to Number 10 Downing Street, and I took a picture of the front door, hoping the real Mr. Churchill would step out while we were there, but he was busy with the affairs of the state and did not appear, and so we went on to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, where we saw a very silent and immobile Mr. Churchill cast in wax. After viewing most of the world’s famous and infamous wax people, we went down into the Chamber of Horrors and viewed medieval tortures and creative ways of killing people. When we came out of the museum, one of the boys sent me over to the man in the corner of the lobby to ask where we could find the nearest tube entrance. When the nice gentleman didn’t reply to my question, I realized he was a waxwork too! I turned around and saw everyone doubled up in laughter. Afterward, we took an American Express afternoon tour of the city of London and listened to the tour guide give a great account of how England had won the war. Fortunately, I had enough sense to remain silent.

After four days in London, we parted company with Franz and John. They went on to France while Nancy and I caught the Flying Scotsman to Edinburgh, Scotland. It was my first overnight train ride. As we rode first through the city and then the industrial area surrounding London, we could still see evidence of bombing and the empty shells of buildings. By 1952, the rubble had been cleared away; however, there were many vacant spaces where buildings had stood. Then the countryside became green, pastoral, and serene, and small villages appeared here and there.

When it grew dark, we decided to turn in for the night, and as usual, I took the top bunk and Nancy took the bottom one. The steward came in to make up our beds, and then we put on our pajamas in our tiny closet of a room. We had four suitcases to juggle and two big winter coats and two huge shoulder bags to contend with. Next we had to find our toothbrushes, washcloths, soap, and bathrobes. Finally, we were ready to go to the ladies’ room to do the nightly chores. Nancy went first, and after a short time, she came back with toothbrush, towel, and soap in hand, saying she could not find the ladies’ room. I said that I would try and find. I made the rounds of the sleeping car from one end to the other and still could not turn up at the ladies’ room. By then we were getting desperate. How could there be a sleeping car without a ladies’ room? We decided that we would ask. So we tracked down the porter, and he told us that the bathroom was right there at the end of the car marked WC: no men’s room, no ladies’ room, just a toilet and a washbasin for everyone to use. It was another introduction to life abroad when we discovered WC meant water closet and that it was for men and women both, and so we sped north through the night to Scotland.

Our arrival at Edinburgh the next morning was eased by a very nice young man named Bob Kennedy, who we had befriended on the train. He took us to 36 Buckingham Terrace, where we met Mrs. MacDonald, an ample Scottish widow who had Rooms to Let for 1£ a night, which included breakfast, in a lovely substantial brownstone city home. Granite steps led up to a solid wood-carved door with a large brass lion head knocker. She lived on the ground floor and rented out several rooms on the second floor. We took a step back in time when we walked into her living room. It was a complete Edwardian parlor with high ceilings, overstuffed furniture, a marble fireplace mantle filled with framed pictures, and a round table covered by a fringed tablecloth, where a large picture of her husband who had gone out to India sat in an ornate frame.

Our room on the second floor also had a tremendously high ceiling, but my lasting impression was of the bathroom. In London, we had encountered our first toilet with the water box on the ceiling and attached to it a long chain with a ball about the size of a golf ball on the end. When the chain was pulled, the rush of water was ferocious and deafening, but it was no match for our grand experience in Edinburgh, where we met the copper tub.

The bathroom was down the hall, as were most of the bathrooms at the places where we had stayed. I am sure that it had once been a bedroom which was converted into a bathroom after the house was built many years ago. It was a large room dominated by a gigantic copper tub about eight feet long and at least three feet deep. One could swim in it or drown in it. Next to the faucet end of the monster was the geyser, the meter box in which you inserted coins to turn on the gas flame that heated the water. Next to the geyser was a toilet with a dark brown wooden seat, which reminded me of my grandmother’s cracked toilet seat that always pinched me if I sat on it the wrong way. High above at the top of the twelve-foot ceiling was the water box with the long dangling chain. When we pulled the chain, the water gushed down with the force of Niagara Falls, as we stood there in awe and amazement.

We had been told to take coins to the bathroom, but we had no idea which coins or how many it would take to heat the water or even what a geyser looked like. So, wrapped in towels and carrying our soap and coins, we went down the hall and entered the land of bathing English style. A first and second try at the geyser produced nothing, so we decided to ask the landlady for help. She was not too pleased to come up and select the proper coins and show us where to put them as I am sure everybody in England knew such a basic thing.

Gingerly we inserted the coins, and with a loud hiss, a blue flame shot out of the contraption and scared us to death. We were sure we were about to burn down the house. Once we got it going, it took forever to heat the water, and then we got to laughing so hard we could hardly get in and out of the tub.

By then there was a rather disturbed elderly gentleman guest in his striped cotton bathrobe, standing impatiently in the hall, towel in hand, waiting for those crazy American girls to leave the bathroom. He did not appreciate the humor of it nor did he appreciate the sight of two young girls dashing out the door and down the hall wrapped in very small, thin bath towels. We never thought to take robes with us into the bathroom, and the only way out was to make a mad dash for it and hope the elderly gentleman had poor eyesight. After that, we felt we were prepared for any bathroom experience; however, we found that it was just the beginning of our WC adventures.

The next morning our gracious hostess presented