I was in Europe the first time the day I was born.
Charmed, I know, but I was only there a very short time.
Unfairly, my parents had already been in German for four years by the time I arrived.
And – a season before that – they had lived in Spain for four years too.
See we flew through Europe ever summer during all those years in Saudi Arabia, but I didn’t get to really see the place until I was 13.
Mostly we flew through Frankfort or Paris, but one random time we ended up in Rome.
I got caught and corrected by security trying to touch Italian soil while we refuled on the tarmac.
Most of it is a blur now but I can recall more it if I sit and ponder. Pictures help too.
And funny, I’m helping my middle with an Anne Frank book report right now too.
Understand: Travel changes you.
When I was sixteen, he took Kathy and Rosey and me to Europe with him, my first trip abroad. We visited Anne Frank’s house in Amsterdam, which made an indelible imprint. I found I was more a natural traveler than anything else, and that trip began a lifelong series of sojourns to Europe, and more generally a life circumscribed by travel.