Seeing Europe for the first time is the trip of a lifetime
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- October 21, 2018
- 1399
My coffee sits in a tiny cup and saucer as I watch the sun come up, pouring over the hill from the seventh floor of my Airbnb in Budapest, Hungary.
I am on the trip of a lifetime through Spain, Hungary, and Greece, my appetite whetted for sights and sounds I’ve only dreamed of so far in the half century of my life.
Several months ago our daughter — our eldest who has achieved mogul status in her designer clothing business she built from scratch — texted me these words: “Mom, I’m taking you to Europe for your birthday.”
My mouth fell open, and after I recovered, I could only utter, “What?” She told me no one deserved to see Europe more than me, especially when I was about to turn 50.
I should mention here that her and I share a birthday, sweet bundle delivered to me on my 22nd birthday: ebony hair and eyes, full of verve and spirit from the moment she arrived after a difficult birth. We were young and ready to take on new life, if you ever can be.
After the shock of her statement wore off, I said yes. How could we not? The gentle and fierce push and pull of parenting had brought us to this point. We graciously accepted, and last week my husband and I boarded a red-eye flight that landed in Iceland for a layover, then onto our first stop in Barcelona, Spain.
There we met up with our daughter, who had arrived before us. The next night I turned 50 on a rooftop in Spain at an exclusive dinner party, the lights twinkling all the way down to the port. Moments like these come few, are quick and fast, and I let the magic weave a spell on me. Beautiful Spain.
As I write this in ancient Budapest — our second stop — the view from my window overwhelms me. A dream of mine has been to travel through Eastern Europe: Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary. I can see a beautiful castle perched on a hill looking toward Buda, as I’m ensconced in my Airbnb in Pest. Solid ornate buildings line the very clean, expansive streets below me.
The history here threatens to overtake my senses, as I’m a history buff through and through. The thought comes to me that I’ll never see everything I want to see in my lifetime, but because of my daughter — early comer, born on my day of birth — I’ve been given a push to start, to go, to not wait because these minutes we breathe are far too short to explore this big world we so take for granted, never dipping our toes much further than our backyards.
But here I am, readying to leave this wondrous place and fly to Athens, Greece, where we will spend the last leg of our trip. We will embrace our other daughter, who is still in Athens working at a refugee camp, and we will inhale the history and sights of that old city. And when I arrive home to my tiny house in Berlin, to my cat and my very own bed, I will smile. And I will long for this city that nestles itself on either side of the sparkling Danube.
I will cull through the thoughts on my first trip to Europe, sifting gently the bookmarks in my brain: the rooftop dinner party, the way the wine tasted in my tongue, the Gothic quarter of Barcelona and the architecture that made me gasp, the pulsing music we danced to and my first taste of real goulash, the dungeon labyrinth we meandered through under the castle by lantern light and the taste of sublime desserts, castles and diverse languages and local beers, the thermal baths in Széchenyi, and the wonder on my face — now tucked deep in my heart — to pull out on a gray day.
Fifty feels good as I pull it on, letting it take shape on my skin. I know who I am and am not searching for myself. My words are clear and calm, and I know what I believe.
There is a certain freedom that aging well brings us, and I feel that, sitting just beyond the acceptance of this new decade. I will not be content to sit easy when an entire world awaits me. So I’ll go.