Happily, I soon discovered that TWA had a wonderful program of Getaway Vacations - one price covered all air fares and hotel bills, and best of all, you weren't tied down with a tour group all day, every day. You were free to do your own thing and visit the places you really wanted to see on your own. Perfect. Although I would have loved to travel all around Europe, I settled for two weeks in London and Paris - the top spots on my must-see list - for which the price was about 800 bucks. That seemed quite reasonable at the time. I took with me about $400 in traveler's checks to cover incidentals - and I had my mom's Diner's Club card in case of emergency.
(To put the figures in perspective, my rent at the time was a little over $100 a month, ditto a car payment, and two people could eat very well at home for the same amount - including a restaurant or cafeteria dinner on Sundays, plus the occasional take-out pizza or bag of burgers.)
I also ivnested in a couple of travel guidebooks - one was entitled Europe on $10 a Day, which was a great guide to all the cheap but good restaurants, hotels, and amusement places, and gave helpful tips on how to get around town cheaply. For example, I learned that the thing to do, as soon as you got to Paris, was to go buy un carnet - a book of subway tickets - which would save you a third or more off the regular fare. And in both London and Paris, the subway was a wonderful way to get all around town.
I also leanred that I needed to get an International Student I.D. Card before I left the States - that gave you reduced rates or discounts at lots of stores, shops, and museums. But of course the prime thing was to get a passport, and apply far in advance of your departure date because the State Department was rather slow to fill all the thousands of requests they were swamped with every month. I didn't read that part until about the first of June, so I quickly got a photo taken and went to the downtown post office, where you had to swear you were who you thought you were, were not a criminal or communist, and could recite the Pledge of Allegiance backwards and forwards. I sent the appliction off with a note asking nicely for a little speed in processing, as my trip was leaving in less than 60 days.
God bless the kind-hearted soul in Washington who had pity on my plea - or did he or she just like my passport photo? My passport came signed, sealed, and delivered in good time, well before my departure date. The next thing to concentrate on was my choice of clothing. I bought a couple of new shirts, one neavy blue and one chocolate brown, both made of one of those new fabrics they were trying out in those days - a kind of dense netting that wasn't see-through, but had many tiny holes, which I thought would ensure my comfort and coolness. And it did. To pair with those I had two pairs of jeans-cut slacks (not actual jeans), in tan and dark blue. This gave me the equivalent of four outfits; and the shirts were so light they could be washed in a sink and hung up to dry overnight. Perfect.
To be continued . . .
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