The Travel Bug & A Bit of History

You might ask yourself what a nice Jewish girl from the Bronx is doing going to the Amazon. It is really against everything you learn growing up as a young Jewish girl - with exception of my two great aunts, Hannah and Belle.  Every Saturday my brother and I would go to our grandmother's house,  not far from Yankee Stadium. We could hear the roar of the crowd from her apartment.  If we were lucky, Hannah and Belle (grandma's sisters) would be there to tell tales of their great adventures.

These were very independent women for their time.  Careers and no children, they worked together, traveled together and though husbands came and went, they were inseparable.  It was a time before airplanes, and travel was done mainly by ships and trains.  And when air travel did come into its own, they were pioneers on some of the very first Pan Am flights.  Coming home after circling the globe, they brought back with them stories that were captivating from places we had never dreamed of. Not having cameras, they would collect postcards.  If they weren't traveling together, they would send each other postcards.  I am now the keeper of this collection dating back to the early 1930's. I treasure them dearly and hope the act of collecting postcards isn't lost altogether our too techno world.

Listening to Hannah and Belle in grandma's kitchen must have certainly threw a switch inside me.  I started flying early when my mother would put me on a plane by myself to go down to Florida to stay with her sister.  My first real adventure came when I strapped on a backpack and hitch-hiked across Europe.  Fondly remembering throwing 3 coins in the Fountain of Trevi on my 21st birthday.  That trip was a real ice-breaker.  I went with very little and came home so full of knowledge and self-assurance that the world was there for the taking.

At heart, I am basically a homebody.  I enjoy having a nice place to live and enjoy being at home.  But there is always a voice inside of me saying "where do we go next?".  So more than anything it is wonderful to see the world but always great to come back home.

Next time... The real travel bugs!