CONTINENT TO CONTINENT

THE TROUBLE WITH AN ADVENTURE is that it consumes all of ones time living it, leaving no time at the end of the day to quiet the mind and allow all that has happened to spill out onto the pages.  But now I must and will write for I fear that you, my fellow travelers, will go in search of a new travel companion leaving me to make this journey on my own.  So let’s begin.

    

      John can sleep anywhere, anytime.  For me, sleeping on a plane can be a challenge--even if it is a night flight.  But I guess I must have dozed off because I am startled from a sound sleep by passengers moving in the aisles and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. 

     As Lufthansa’s sky hotel passes over the snow covered Italian Alps and a hint of light creeps from under the shaded windows, I am consumed by the happy thought that our destination is less than an hour away. 

     While I rearrange the belt that has crept awkwardly up my bodice, make a futile attempt at working the wrinkles out of my clothes, and run my fingers through a hairstyle gone awry, I think to myself as the lovely flight attendant leans down with my breakfast tray in hand, what hidden suite do they go to during the night that allows them to emerge looking crisp and refreshed while we, the passengers, look like we’ve spent the night on the wing of the airplane! 

     The male German flight attendant announces that we will land in 20 minutes and the plane begins its descent into Frankfurt, Germany.  I don’t think there’s a person whose every flown who wouldn’t admit that once those wheels hit the runway, a real sense of relief, if not gratitude, sets in, And if you listen carefully, you just might hear those subtle little sighs of relief coming from the passengers around you.  Subtlety, however, is not on the minds of Russian passengers when their planes land.  On the contrary, everyone breaks out with a loud and enthusiastic hand clapping the very instant the rubber scrapes the runway, and this persists until the plane comes to a complete stop! If you ever experience it for yourself, you’ll bust your sides laughing, just as we did on our flight to St. Petersburg, Russia, two years ago.   

XXX

John has said many times that Germany is the second U.S., and if I didn’t know better, I would think I was back in the Atlanta airport.  Like Atlanta, Frankfurt is a bustling hub, with connecting flights to all parts of the world…which is evidenced by the diversity of cultures and languages I feel challenged to identify, but with little success.

     We board a double-car tram which travels along an elevated rail outside the terminal and have a bird’s eye view of the activity below in a landscape dominated by Lufthansa’s giant sky birds.  The tram delivers us to another wing of the airport where the sight of swinging pendulums on Black Forest cuckoo clocks and the smell of German sausage simmered in sauerkraut remind me that we are, indeed, in Germany.  Now we must kill three and a half hours before our connecting flight to Split, Croatia.  Much to my surprise, we aren’t fighting sleep…yet!

    

     There are plenty of places to spend our dollars at the duty free shops, but Gucci and Armani---to mention a few---aren’t affordable at any price, so John is content with his purchase of a bottle of THE BLACK GROUSE blended scotch whiskey, and with that we find a comfortable place to people watch.

     I suppose we are just too accustomed to the stinginess of the American carriers who serve you a snack package containing 13 peanuts and a small plastic glass filled only two thirds full with a slightly flat beverage (Lufthansa excepted) so when the flight attendant serves us a sandwich and a beverage on the one-and-a-half-hour flight to Split, Croatia, you can imagine our surprise. Once I consume the sandwich I fall into a sound sleep, waking only when the pilot announces in his heavy Croatian accent that we must prepare for our landing.

     I don’t have a window seat allowing me a view of the Adriatic as it comes into view, but I have seen, and been mesmerized by this sight so many times that it is etched into my memory.  So as the plane begins to reduce altitude I imagine the series of oddly shaped islands of the Adriatic, some of which remind me of the shapes formed in a bubbling Lava lamp, and of the calm, crystal clear, brilliant blue sea dotted with fishing vessels. As we approach land, white stucco homes with uniformly tiled red roofs line the many coves that form deep indentations along the coast. In the background, the end of a rugged mountain range separates the country’s arid interior landscape from the sea, and the crowded and pulsating city of Split dominates the scene.

     

    I feel a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth and a colony of butterflies fluttering in my stomach.  I wonder…will I be standing where I left me two years ago, a tear replaced with a smile, and a welcome sign in hand?

XXX

     We breeze through customs and on the other side our Croatian friends, Merlin and Milhe, await our arrival.  We embrace, all genuinely happy to be reunited after two years.  Merlin, a petite woman with a lively step and an easy and unruffled manner owns the Rent A Car M & M in Baska Voda. Her husband, Milhe, a seaman by occupation, has a devilish grin and a wit to match. I say to him, “You are looking good. Milhe.”  With a twinkle in his eye and a hand moving over his round belly, he replies, “No, too much eating.”  Milhe is out to sea several months at a time.  Merlin always refers to his homecoming as “the honeymoon.”  She’s a fabulous cook (my mouth waters at the thought of her octopus salad) so one can hardly blame Milhe for over-indulging. And it is, after all, a long time between “honeymoons.”     

     Outside in the small parking lot our car waits. It is a balmy 84 and not a cloud in the sky.  We are home, safe and sound.  Everything is perfect!  Well, almost everything…jet lag hides and waits like a tiny criminal.

    It is now 1:30 in the afternoon and we have successfully made the crossing over a vast expanse of ocean, delivered in just ten and a half hours to another continent...none the worse for wear.

     Settled comfortable back in my seat I am left to my thoughts and an uninterrupted, beautiful coastal scene passing by my window as John makes the 45 minute drive to Baska Voda. Out of nowhere  a vision of my twenty-seven-year-old grandmother, Giovanna Favretto Abele's, crossing over the same ocean some 108 years earlier creeps into my consciousness.

     It was June 11, 1903 when she left her birth place of Venice for Genoa, Italy, acccompanied by 2 young sons, a toddler son, and a two-month-old baby girl.  Once there, she booked passage in steerage aboard the ship, Princess Irene, bound for America, leaving just ten dollars left in her pocketbook.   

     I begin to picture her standing on the crowded pier holding her baby girl, Vittoria, protectively to her breast, the other three children clinging to her side.  She orders William, the oldest, to guard the bulging satchels with her few worldly possession on the ground next to her.  She quiets her restless children long enough to gaze at the ship that will deliver them to the unfamiliar land where her husband awaits her arrival, all the while fighting the fear and loneliness that begins to wash over her.  But she stubbornly refuses to give in to her emotions holding tight to my grandfather, Guglielmo’s, promise that in America, she will have a “better life” than the one of poverty and toil she is leaving behind. 

     Unlike our comfortable flight across that same ocean interrupted only by the occasional turbulence requiring a seat belt,  her two-week crossing over the swells of an unpredictable ocean, confined in the hot and crowded bowels of the Princess Irene had to be grueling. There were no attendants to see to her and her children’s needs, no movies or computers to keep their restless minds occupied.  Perhaps the only entertainment  and respite from the unpleasantness might have come from a mandolin and attending voices belting out songs from the “old country." 

     Although I can’t even begin to compare her voyage with mine—hers was a monumental task; a testament to her strength and courage---I can make the leap by saying that like myself, my grandmother was pursuing a dream, innocent to the twists and turns that fate held in store. A horn honks and I'm jolted back to reality.  All I can think about now is Baska Voda.