My first trip overseas

My first trip overseas was something that I had in my mind since I was a very young person. Having been raised in a family that had its roots primarily in the UK it made totally sense to meet the part of the family that I had heard about since I was a child, and together with that, having the chance of a lifetime to see where my ancestors came from.
One of my best friends, whose family comes from Italy, said that on his main voyage to the land where his blood comes from, as his family is ready to depart back to Argentina he turned around and told them that he was not going with them. I can understand the feeling as I felt pretty much the same way when it was time to get on the plane back home. But let’s not jump ahead of ourselves.
First destination, London, or should I say Watford, specifically Leavesden, Hertsfordshire.
My mother had the opportunity to visit my aunt in England in 1975. They hadn’t seen each other in 17 years. My aunt and uncle had moved to the UK at the beginning of 1958, when I was less than a year old. I had no knowledge or memory of them. When she came back I remember vividly telling my father as she got in the car at the airport that she wanted to go back. If you would’ve asked my mother then if she wanted to move to England she would have turned around and got back on the plane with the clothes that she had on her back.
What really did for me what was the fact that when I was working in 1976 my boss and a friend had traveled to Europe. I spoke with both of them and I was drooling as they were talking about London. I thought I need to do whatever is at my reach to get there.
In 1977 an ad came out in the newspaper with an opening at Braniff International. This would allow me to get to the place I wanted more than anything else.
Getting there became more of an adventure than I bargained for. Braniff did not fly to London directly so I found myself on a British Caledonian flight that went from Buenos Aires to Rio and then on to London. There was a small catch, when you work for an airline you get great discounts, in many cases free, but you fly subject to space, which means standby, or putting mildly you fly if there is an empty seat on the plane. And so the flight had seat from my hometown to Rio, after that it was full. British Caledonian had 2 flights a week from Buenos Aires to London, 3 from Rio, so it would mean staying in Rio for a couple of nights. On the flight I starting a conversation with a flight attendant, she introduced me to another one, he lived in Rio, had me over the weekend in his apartment. He lived on Avenida Atlantica in Copacabana. It gave me the chance of going out by myself, to the movies, etc. Then Sunday came, and back to the airport, hopefully on my way to my final destination. Fat chance. When I got to the Galeao Airport there were other people in my situation, they worked for Aerolineas Argentinas. The flight was coming from Santiago de Chile and I discover that it had weight issues, probably based on cargo that had been loaded in Santiago. What the hell did that mean? It meant that it would only take paid passenger, no standbys. This time I had a bunch of people who knew each other, and we were all in the same boat. So back to the city, this time I shared a room with one of the people who was trying to flight out. The next morning we started looking at what airlines were flying out, and with whom we could a “pass” to get out of Rio. In my debut trip I knew absolutely nothing about all this. It was my third day traveling and I had not gone very far. I came along with them to TAP, the Portuguese airline, they ask for some papers, I run over to the airline for which I worked and they were happy to oblige. My travelling partners were not as fortunate. So off I run to the airport again. And “viola”, I’m back on my way. The plane was almost empty, after a short stop in Recife, came the crossing of the Atlantic. After a somewhat bumpy flight we landed the next morning in Lisbon, Portugal. I had made it to the continent. In my mind I had passed the 50% mark, I was getting closer. When I land in Lisbon I go to the ticketing office and they tell me that the Lisbon-London flight was full, and they tell me that they could put me on the Paris flight, I thought not ideal, but I can live with it, as I had a London-Paris-London ticket in my pocket, the only trick was that I was arriving at Orly Airport in the south of Paris and my ticket was out of Charles de Gaulle in the northeast of Paris. I don’t believe in luck, but I do believe in God, and there was no doubt that he was looking over me. As I walk out of the terminal and onto the bus that would drive us to the plane a young guy comes running out of the terminal and asks me if I am British and starts talking in English with me. So we sat together on the plane, we chatted about Paris, the locations of the airports, etc., etc., etc.
So we land at Orly and when we go and pick up our luggage I get news that I did not want to hear, they had left my bag in Lisbon. So this guy says why don’t you come and stay with me, I live with my parents in a suburb of Paris, called Saint-Gratien, not too far from Charles de Gaule Airport. So he paid the tickets from the airport to Paris and then the train to the town where his family lived. His father owned a Renault dealership. His parents, although not fluent in English, made a tremendous effort to talk to me in English, and if not they would have the son translate to me. The next day first thing we did was check to make sure the bag was on its way to Paris, and then we drove to Paris, we went to the Arc of Triumph, the Eiffel Tower, and the Latin Quarter. We had something to eat and then headed to Orly to pick up my bag, and from there to the other airport. What can my opinion be of the French people? You be the judge.
I finally got on the plane that would take me to the place I had heard about since I was a child. There was just a 35 minute flight separating me from Gatwick Airport. I remember taking off, the land ended, and a few minute later I started seeing the White Cliffs of Dover, this was England. My exhilaration was hard to control.
I had never been to England, but my internal compass guided me all the way to Watford Junction, the closest place to my where my relatives live. To be honest I remembered my mother mentioning Euston Station from where the train would take me to Watford Junction. My sister in 1975 ended up taking the underground that goes to the Watford Station on the other side of town. My last hurdle was the public phone at the “Junction”. When I picked up the phone there was no dial tone, and when I tried putting the coin in it it would not allow me, so I tried the next one. Same result. Out of frustration I went back to the porter to find out if all the phones were out of order, so in his “cockney” English he asked me for the money and what number I was trying to dial so I noticed that he put the money in once they answered at the other end. He gives me back the phone and I hear a female voice saying Garston 76752, the voice sounded like my mother’s voice but with a poshy English accent, so I figured it was my aunt, I then told her that I was at the train station. A few minutes later I see a car pull up to the station, in it there were 4 people, my aunt and uncle, and my parents. The reason the four were in the car seemed to be quite simple, my parents were worried, it had taken me 5 days to get to England, and my aunt and uncle because they had never met me. So they were happy to see me, and I must say that I was relieved to have finally made it to the place I had set myself to get to a few years before. When we made it to their house my cousin Ian, who was only 10 years old was wearing the Argentine soccer uniform, as Argentina had won the world cup a few months before, and he felt very proud to feel that his parents were born there.
The next day my parents and I went to London, I had finally got to the place I had dreamed about since I was a young boy. It was everything I had hoped for and more. Immediately I felt like a fish in the sea, I felt like it was the place I belonged to, and like I had always been there, and I was just coming home.
These are memories that will always live with me, like my wedding day, and the birth of my two kids.
I will write about the rest of my first trip in a separate blog.