When I Was Young and Single

     Summer is coming. When I think of summer, I think of traveling. When I was young and single, I traveled quite a bit. One of the best trips I went on was a summer study course through Trenton State Collcge, which is now the College of New Jersey. It was eight weeks long, with one week in Paris, six weeks in Florence, and one week in Germany. I took two courses and got six credits, which went toward my Masters degree.

     At that time, I took photos with my little Kodak Instamatic camera. As you can see, any cellphone nowadays takes much better pictures. Technology has made great strides since that time. 

   

     The cost of the trip was a little over $1000, which was a lot in those days. Especially when you consider that my salary as a teacher was about $8000 a year. But I was still living at home with my parents and I was quite thrifty, so I was able to save enough money for the trip. The cost of the trip did not include any beverages. 

    Healthy and strong, I climbed to the top of Montmartre and the Duomo. I walked everywhere. 

        I spent so much time in Florence, I didn’t feel like a tourist after a while. Learning about history and art while looking at the work of the artists who created stunning masterpieces made an impression on me that I never would have gotten from a book.  

     My high school French was not very useful and I did not learn Italian. Fortunately, there were other people in the study group who knew how to speak those languages. 

     Rome was the only city where my usual sense of direction was confounded. But I put my feet in the Trevi fountain, saw the Pieta, and the Roman Forum. 

    I liked Florence better. It wasn’t that big. I’ve never been a fan of big cities. Even cities like New York City, which isn’t far from where I live. Although, at least in Manhattan the streets go either north and south or east and west. That makes it easier. 

    

     That’s me at the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was very strange to walk up to the top. Since it leans so much, sometimes the stairs weren’t really going up. 🤨

    I was very fortunate to have such adventures and see other countries. I thought of setting book in Florence. I started one but never finished it. Maybe one of these days I’ll get back to it. 

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