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Once upon a time, in the days of young and foolish when nobody had ever heard of Covid, I took a trip to Europe. The trip began with a chartered flight from New York City, organized by a Ukrainian student organization (I believe it was SUSTA). The flight from New York would take us to Amsterdam; what happened next was up to the individual travelers. Itineraries were self-designed, dictated by interests, or friendships, or whim. The only caveat here was that everyone was expected to show up at the airport a month later to catch the flight back to the United States. The plane landed in Amsterdam; the passengers disembarked and dispersed. My plan was to see a bit of Amsterdam before heading to Paris and then to Spain to meet my cousin Tania, an avid and far-more experienced traveler. Arriving in Madrid, I headed to the American Express office where I was to pick up a message from Tania. As luck would have it, I had arrived on some saint’s feast day, and the American Express office (like most other businesses) was closed. So I found a cheap bed and breakfast joint not far from the AmEx office. That afternoon I went to see my first live bull fight, a somewhat gory but nonetheless fascinating experience that I shared with another American tourist who was staying at the same B & B (bed & breakfast facility) and was happy to keep me company because I spoke Spanish and he didn’t. I met up with my cousin the next day, and we saw the sites of Madrid (from palaces to art museums) while staying at a small pensione that doubled as a residence for young ladies who had come to Madrid to work. The gate in front of the building was closed at a certain hour of the early evening and the only way to get inside was to summon the sereno (neighborhood watchman), a trick accomplished by standing on the corner and clapping until he showed up. From Madrid, we headed east to Valencia. Because we were traveling on a tight budget, we decided to hitchhike instead of splurging on train tickets. We were quickly picked up by a truck driver who asked us to duck every time we saw a car coming from the opposite direction-seems it was illegal for him to pick up hitchhikers while hauling cargo. As we approached Valencia, he asked where we wanted to go. We told him somewhere muy barato (very cheap), so he dropped us off at the port, a district populated mostly by prostitutes and sailors from all over the world. Every morning we would leave our luxurious digs and go into the city proper to visit Déjà Vu All Over Again Reflections on Covid, Cholera, and Callow Youth by Tamara Stadnychenko Cornelison Our Life | Наше життя 14
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