1989 memory
In 1989, I drove from Israel to Ireland with my parents, we drove home through Syria, Turkey, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Austria, Germany, France, England, Wales and finally to Ireland. We drove in January and Europe was a winter wonderland. I still remember the pristine snow first encountered in Turkey, I’d never seen anything like it. I remember mackerel in a baguette eaten from the fishing boats tied up on the Bosphorous Straits. I remember the desolation of Bulgaria and driving through in a day. I remember Budapest, grand cafes, goulash and the outdoor ice rink and my excitement when my mother bought a pair of ice skates for me which I still own. They sit in the hall closet. I remember the grandeur of Vienna, Demel and the first McDonalds I had seen for nearly two years. There were other very impressive things about Vienna, but that McDonalds really sticks in my mind because I don’t think there was one in Cork at that stage (we made do with Mandy’s), it was only Dublin that had one. For the trip home, I had a sort of camel skin money belt bought in Cairo that was concealed if you wore it under a jumper. While we were staying in Vienna, I left my money belt in the bedroom of our pension. I was being taken ice-skating that day at the outdoor rink and I didn’t want to lose my money belt. It had treasure in it, namely, one hundred dollars and some other small things. I came back from my day’s ice skating and the next morning I went to collect something from my money belt, lying, apparently untouched on the dressing table in the bedroom. My dollars were gone. I still remember the heartbreak of losing such a vast sum of money, some saved from babysitting, some given to me by my parents. I remember my mother being incredulous and telling me I must have lost it somewhere, that it couldn’t have been taken in the pension. I was adamant it had been. I was adamant because I hadn’t spent any of it. It had come through five countries with me and I hadn’t lost or spent any of it. I was saving it for the more “western” countries, the communist eastern bloc didn’t have much that had appealed. In Turkey, there had only been woollen socks and gloves bought from rock villages built near Ankara. So there I was in Vienna and my first taste of the west in two years. About to lose my head in the shops. My money was gone. Not just some of it. ALL of it. Desolation. Not such a nice memory of Vienna. It just came back to me.
