I am now on a journey that will be 15 months long when it’s finished if all goes as planned. I’m mostly going to countries many Americans never visit and you’re invited to come along.  Small Eastern European countries are my favorites. I’m writing this from the island of Cyprus, a tiny island divided by politics into two nations. Civilized societies have existed here for more than 12,000 years. It’s fascinating and beautiful. Great winter weather too!

I began blogging “In My Suitcase” on August 1, 2014. At that time I was a travel agent and I wanted to share information about places I was offering to my clients. Since then I’ve visited and written about (on this blog) many countries in Europe and other places. Not long after Covid struck I was blocked and unable to post by a change in the blogging software. Yesterday I discovered another change made it possible for me to post again.

August 1, 2021 was the day I flew to Poland to begin this year in Europe. August 1, 2022 is the date I’ve picked to return to the United States. It’s been a year of travel, made possible in large part by AirBnB. I’ve made new friends in several countries. I’ve explored the large nation of Poland and plan to return to see more. In the months ahead I intend to visit Bosnia-Herzegovina.  I’m spending this winter in a tiny nation, Cyprus, and loving it.

In the time of Covid traveling has not been normal or easy. When I left home in May with the intention of visiting my family and returning to San Francisco and the west coast before flying to Europe, I thought we were finished with the Corona virus. I might not be making this trip if there hadn’t been a hiatus in the first round of Covid-19. At that time the airports were packed with people, many of them young adults. Lines to check in for a flight could involve an hour or more of waiting but it was definitely worth doing.

In Virginia I got to watch my grandson Charlie’s karate class and to meet my friend Sandi who had moved away from New Bern. In Ohio I was shown around Columbus by my newly retired brother Blaine and his wife Agi, during my first visit “home” in several years. I had time with my grandchildren Sarah and Colin in Michigan. That’s time I had really missed during 2021. I enjoyed time with my grandson Alex and learned about his plans for his new dog training business. I attended my oldest grandson’s graduation from Suffolk University, an event held in Fenway Park in Boston so there could be safe space around every participant. I met my great grandson Myles, the son of Chris and Amanda, for the first time!  Myles was born on the first day of the “lockdown” in Massachusetts. This 5-city tour ended with a stop in New Orleans, a city I had never visited. I met my brother Joe and his wife, Susan, there for a memorable Memorial Day weekend.

A bit earlier in Spring 2021 I drove to Atlanta to catch up with my husband’s daughter Patti, her son Andrew and his wife Jenna, and their three beautiful children whom I count as my great-grandchildren because I love them.

I promise to keep this blog growing, to share with you some photos of places I’ve enjoyed visiting, and to tell the story of my journey in the Year of Covid. Here are just a few photos taken at family events.

Libbie

Now you can see my family photo album of 2021 but I promise future pictures will be about exciting places, not exciting people.

By the time this journey ends in late June I will have visited 11 countries and 22 cities. Sometimes I flew from one place to another and sometimes I took a bus, but mostly I rode the trains around Europe. I am a woman in my early 70s with bad knees and one heavy suitcase.  It’s not a particularly large suitcase (middle size) but it weighs about 30 pounds when fully loaded.  In addition I have a computer bag on wheels that contains my small computer, my slightly heavy camera, a stash of tourist brochures and a tea pot purchased for five euro at the flea market outside my door in Palermo.

Reading this you’ve probably guessed that getting my luggage on and off all those trains was a challenge. The hardest part is that train stations in Europe are usually quite old and that it’s very often necessary to use stairs from the platforms to the street level. Some stations have become more accessible and have elevators (lifts) at each platform but most do not. This post is written to declare that people are good to one another everywhere!

For every train ride I took at least two people helped my with my luggage, getting it on and off the train. In addition, very often men would offer to help me on those stairs. Sometimes young women would give me assistance.  One I remember in particular was a girl scout (on her way to camp) in Lecce who took my bags down the stairs and onto the train. I remember, too, a woman who drafted her husband who was waiting for her on the platform to haul my bags up the stairs.

But the kindness I experienced didn’t end at railroad stations. I’ve written before about the young man who walked with me to the train station in Lecce with my bags. I didn’t tell you about the problem I encountered on the other end of that journey, in Bari. The railroad tracks divide the town and I walked about a mile with my luggage before I found an underpass – with about 40 stairs down and up again.  Luckily, as I stood there wondering if I could handle that, a delightful young man came along and swooped up my bags and carried them for me.  Not just under the tracks but all the way to my hotel, some distance away.

Sometimes a walk from a train station to a nearby hotel became more confusing than expected. In Trieste a young woman I asked for directions walked with me to my hotel. The same happened in Palermo.  My bus from Kiev to Odessa began its journey in Moscow and didn’t show up at 9:00 as it was supposed to do. A very nice young man waiting for the same bus spoke English well and kept me from panicking by verifying that the bus was on the way.

Only once did I nearly miss a train. In Colmar France I stayed in an AirBnB room at the home of a gentleman named Fred. It is a beautiful home and Fred is a fine host. He not only met me at the station when I arrived but also walked back with me when I left. Good thing for me because I had the departure time wrong. Fred ran ahead, carrying my bags, found the conductor and asked him to hold the train for me – which he did! Fred gets the AirBnB host of the year award from me for 2018.

My 2019 award goes to the husband of my hostess in Palermo. Her apartment was so perfect that on the day I arrived I asked to stay another week. That apartment wasn’t available the next week but she has another, in the center of the city, a third floor apartment. I agreed to rent it but asked if her husband could bring the car for my move the following Saturday. Not only did they help me then but Siria’s husband carried all my bags up three flights of stairs in one trip!

People in hotels and AirBnB hosts were often very helpful. A young woman at the desk of the Ibis hotel in Kiev was very good to me, helping me arrange trains and buses and a pedicure. The desk clerks at the Hestia Hotel Maestro in Tallinn were very friendly and helpful. The staff, men and women, at the Royal Street Hotel in Odessa were great! Hotel clerks everywhere were friendly and helpful but these in particular went “above and beyond the call of duty.” Taxi drivers were often welcoming, pointing out historic places and providing information about their cities.

Tourist office employees are always helpful but two in particular became “instant friends.” I arrived at the rail station in Lviv very early in the morning, having traveled overnight on a sleeper. I couldn’t arrive at my AirBnB apartment until 2:00 pm. During the hours that I spent waiting Anya, from the tourist office in the station, helped me in a number of ways. A couple of days later I went to the tourist office in the city center for a map. Oksana not only helped me with information and called a taxi for me, she walked with me the two blocks to the cab. A couple of days after that I returned to the tourist office and found both my “new friends” were working that day. Together they got me into another cab and on my way “home.” They are very bright, friendly young women who represent their city well.

Holidays stand out in my memory. On the afternoon of Christmas Eve I became very ill suddenly with a high fever. When she returned from work I asked my AirBnB hostess in Venice for aspirin. Instead of giving me that she called a doctor in the neighborhood who came to see me quickly. He wrote a prescription which Sylvia took to a pharmacy immediately. That medicine made me 100% better by Christmas day.

I was pretty unhappy in Rabat, Morocco on New Year’s Day. A young woman I met there, a physician, took me out for a long walking tour of her city. We visited the old fortress and the kasbah. She made a bad day good for me. (That’s my “guide” in the Kasbah at the top of this post.)

I’m sure I’m forgetting to mention people who deserve my personal Award for Good People. There were so many people who helped me. I think discovering the kindness of people everywhere was the best experience of my long journey.

Libbie

On August 11, 2001, my husband George and I departed for a journey around Europe that lasted until the following July. It was sometimes challenging, sometimes tiring, always interesting and the greatest experience of my life (other than some important family times).

While we traveled I kept a diary, recording not just the places we saw but also my reactions to some of our many experiences. We were in Belgium on 9/11. We were in England for the Queen’s 50^th Jubilee. We caught a glimpse of Pope John Paul II. And we met many good people.

Just before we left George gave me a digital camera, still a new gadget then and something of a novelty. How I loved that camera! The pictures I took with it look terrible now because the quality was so poor but I took thousands of pictures on that trip!

After 15 years I’ve finally combined my diary with some of those photos and the great many postcards, ticket stubs, maps and brochures we sent home as we traveled. Together, in large binders, they take two-feet of shelf space. I tell myself they will delight me when I’m a (really) old lady so I’ve created these scrapbooks for that future me.

I’ve just read the last paragraphs of my diary for the first time in quite a long time. I had no memory of these words or the experiences they describe. They were written in the months after 9/11 and the beginning of America’s war in Afghanistan. They were written nine months before the Iraq war began. I’d like to share them with you.

“Our excellent adventure is nearly done. We have had a wonderful trip. We have seen so many famous, historic, interesting and beautiful places. We have met so many good and interesting people. Four people we met yesterday and today represent the best part of our trip, and I want to record them as representative of many others.

“We ate at a Pizza Hut in London last night, and our waitress was a young woman from Poland. She was delightful and she was happy that we had been to Poland and especially that we had been to Gdansk as her home is near there. She is earning a master’s degree in Linguistics. She said her life’s dream had been to go to India, and she went there for a month last year. She is a very happy person and we really enjoyed talking with her.

“Then we went to the left-luggage room at Charing Cross station, where I had parked an extra duffle bag I had to buy yesterday for all the souvenirs and junk we are hauling home. The young man working there began quite a conversation with us. He said he is from Lille, France, and that his mother is from Martinique. Again, he asked a hundred questions about where we had been, what we had seen, what we liked best. He was so much fun to meet because he was so genuinely interested in what we had to say.

“This morning I talked for a while with Yolanda, the young assistant manager at the hotel where we stayed in London. She is from Barcelona, and she liked hearing about our trip. She told me a bit about her career and we talked about how great Barcelona is, and about Spain. Each of these young people was so interested in our trip – it was fun to tell them about it.

“Next we took a cab across London to catch our train. It was driven by a man about 40, a Muslim Pakistani, very religious but very knowledgeable about Judaism and Christianity as well has Islam. He said people harassed him after September 11 but that has stopped. He said the politicians make all the trouble, that God teaches us all to be good to one another which is what he believes in. He opposes what the terroristic fanatics have done, and I think he probably represents the vast majority of Muslims.

“Four people in less than 24 hours who represent the hundreds of smart, interested, kind, well-meaning people we have met on our journey. That has been the best part and the most important lesson we have learned. From this trip I learned that all people are alike, that we all want the same things, that this is a small planet.”

Tomorrow the best president of my lifetime will leave the White House and the most unfit will become President of the United States. Like most of my friends I am worried and frightened. I’m going to work at remembering the last lines in my long diary: “All people are alike, we all want the same things, this is a small planet.”

Libbie

My apologies for the long delay in adding something to my blog. The election and its outcome, visits to my family in another state and a varied assortment of holiday entertaining and minor illnesses all combined to interrupt my plans and my good intentions. But a new year has arrived and with it, more good intentions! I’ll be more faithful in updating blog in the year ahead.

Of course I’m planning exciting travel in 2017! And I’m making plans for this blog, plans that I hope will interest you. I spend the summer at Fruit Hill, the farm in Ireland where I stayed for six weeks last spring. I’m also planning a visit my family members in Florida and to (finally!) make my first trip to Disney World. I’ll be going to Alexandria Virginia first, if all goes as planned, and I look forward to time in Washington DC’s neighborhoods and museums. I’m looking into volunteering with young children or refugees and will be writing in the future about my search for the right place for me.

That sounds like a list of New Year’s Resolutions, doesn’t it? I look forward to sharing my travels – both past and future – with you in 2017. Are you making travel plans? If you are, please share them with us in the Comments section below.

Wishing all the best for you in 2017!

Libbie

The picture shown above won 2^nd prize in the “intermediate photographers” category of the first photography competition I’ve ever entered. It was taken at the Palais Royale in Paris.

Although I flew home last Friday I’m still feeling the effects of jet lag and waking up in the middle of the night. That’s making me slow and dopey throughout the day and is at least part of the reason why it’s taken several days for me to write for this blog. (Incidentally, I do plan to continue the blog. If you aren’t on the list to receive an email each time I add to the blog you may want to join it now. My posting schedule is likely to be less predictable. Find the link to request emails below.)

My trip was fine! I traveled for more than five months to eight countries and enjoyed making new discoveries every day. As you know if you’ve been reading as I’ve been traveling, I love the history that can be found everywhere in Europe, the great works of art and architecture left to us by earlier generations, the beautiful natural places and gardens, and the many pleasant people encountered along the way.

Solo travel isn’t for everyone. Sometimes I was lonely but I found traveling alone worked well for me most of the time. I thought about putting here today a list of the places I visited and my memories and impressions of them but that seems unnecessary since I’ve really recorded all that on this blog as I traveled. Then I thought about choosing a few photos you haven’t seen.

Most of my photos are taken on my excellent Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ60 camera. I’ve been really happy with the pictures I’ve gotten on this glorified point-and-click camera with a great lens and a 24x zoom. I’m also very happy that I managed not to break it during five months of frequent use.

That camera wasn’t always with me however and when it wasn’t I took pictures with my Iphone 5S. Those pictures were sometimes more spontaneous. In looking through them to pick a few to share with you today I was reminded of days during my trip that might not be remembered as well had I not been able to take photos with my phone. Here are a few of those “memories.” The one above was taken in Killarney National Park, Ireland.

January: Paris. A view of the great dome of the Lafayette department store decorated for the holidays.

February: Lisbon. I took this photo at the bus stop by my apartment in the Alfama district as I prepared to depart.

March: Nice France I like pictures of the narrow passages that wind through the old cities and towns of Europe, and I loved the light that shone on drying laundry here.

April: England A group of friends gathered for lunch in a lovely pub.

May: Ireland A few boats waiting for tourists near Ross Castle in Killarney.

Thank you for traveling with me by reading my posts. Writing to you enhanced my journey and your comments and emails dispelled any loneliness I might have been feeling.

Libbie

To my youngest grandchildren and to everyone else — Happy Easter!  I hope the sun is shining where you are.  Here are a few Easter shop windows I’ve spied in France and England.

Libbie

(Written at the end of the day on December 30)

I’m back in Paris and loving it! Being in Paris is wonderful. Getting here is not!

As I write I’ve been up for about 30 hours. I’ve been dragging about 50 pounds of stuff around, up and down stairs, on and off planes, through mile-long airports. Yes I am exhausted.

Bad weather (and other excuses which changed hourly at American Airlines) caused me to miss my connection to my flight from Philadelphia to Paris late yesterday afternoon. Luckily I was able to fly to Amsterdam overnight and to continue on to Paris this morning on Air France. The difference between Air France and American may best be described by the difference in the food offered. On an 8 hour flight on American they threw boxed “pasta or chicken?” at us around 10 p.m. and around 3 a.m. woke people with half a muffin and one small cup of coffee. On Air France as soon as the plane took off for the one hour flight to Paris they served us fresh, gourmet sandwiches – basil & pesto on wonderful whole wheat bread. I always felt that the American/US Airways merger was good for no one and, after my first experience with the now-merged conglomerate, I’m liking it much less. They didn’t even give away pretzels!

One other thing to remember from today: I (stupidly) took the subway (called the Metro in Paris) from the airport to my first apartment. What I want to remember is that without exception men who observed me struggling upstairs with my luggage walked right on by … women repeatedly stopped to help me.

No pictures today so I’ll send you this link to the ad for the apartment I’m renting for these two weeks: https://www.homeaway.com/vacation-rental/p570176vb?flspusage=fl. The apartment is a studio but it’s got everything I need including a clothes washer. It’s very clean, modern and well-located. It’s even got a five-foot-wide TV.

A bientöt!

After a year or more of planning, my next adventure has begun! Yesterday I flew to Detroit for the first stop: Christmas with my son’s family. Those two beautiful children shown above are my youngest grandchildren. I’m really pleased to be spending Christmas at their house. Their mom is a teacher and she’s taught Sarah and Colin to be very artistic and generous. They’ve made presents for everyone and welcomed me with gifts of art when I arrived. I love being with them!

I’ve corrected an error I made on my last post that invited you to sign up for email notifications of new posts on this blog. If you would like to be notified, please email me at the correct address: in.my.suitcase.too@gmail.com. I promise never to reveal your email address to anyone. I’ll just send a quick email every time I write a new post.

I wish you happiness for the holidays!

Libbie