Travel Biography - Week 10.

Some Figures:

Here, I would like to give some facts and figures about my whole life on the move so far, that is, up to when this was written.

The total number of weeks spent travelling alone around Italy - all of them surface journeys, without flights: up to 10 weeks. This includes 1973, 1975, 1981, and 1982.

Israel: 23 weeks, including 1976, 1993, 1994, and with Alex in 2000. 

North America: Canada - 2 weeks in 1977, USA - a total of 16 weeks, including 1977, 1978, 1995, 1997, and 1998.

Singapore: 5 days, a stopover on my way to Australia, 1997.

Australia: 40 days, 1997. Part of the Round-the-World backpacking trip.

In addition, there were several shorter breaks to France, Holland, Belgium and Germany. These tended to span the 1980s, particularly between 1983 and 1989. Some of these breaks were indeed on my own but others were with friends. Those were the days when we as committed Christians were single adult men who were yet to marry our future wives. They included Tim Kingcott, Keith White, Gareth Philips, and Paul Hunt. On one occasion, we loaded our bicycles on board the train at London Liverpool Street to ferry to the Hook of Holland, and then to cycle around these three European countries. But more on that later.

I cycled with friends in the mid-80s.

Cologne, Germany 1985

1977: Knocking on US Ambassador's Door...

Going back to 1977, and after watching the TV detective series Starsky and Hutch based in Los Angeles, I felt intrigued by this pair of casually-dressed cops tracking down dangerous criminals and either ending their lives in a shoot-out or taken to Court to face justice, I developed a desire to visit this Californian dream city to see for myself.

But, having suffered a disappointment when my application for a US entry visa was rejected, instead, I bought a four-week return flight to Toronto with a travel company, Jetsave, a rival of Freddy Laker's budget transatlantic airline. The main purpose of this coming trip was to visit Niagara Falls, a consolation after missing out on Los Angeles due solely to visa bureaucracy. Unlike the USA during the 1970s, no visa was required for entry into Canada for British visitors.

But having bought the flight tickets, I couldn't calm the desire to push ahead in getting a USA entry visa. And so, having asked my employer to write a more affirming letter assuring that I worked full time for them without any hint of a future closure, this time, I would visit the embassy in person with the correct documentation.

By taking an unpaid day off work, I boarded a train to London with my passport and required documentation. However, as soon as I alighted and made my exit at Marble Arch Station, the heavens opened, and I was drenched to the skin as a heavy shower fell over the city. Undeterred, I made my way to the imposing building facing east onto Grosvenor Square, in the heart of Mayfair.

The US Embassy in London was the largest of the kind in the UK, possibly in the world, before it closed in December 2017 to be relocated to Vauxhall, on the south bank of the Thames. From the visitor's entrance at the South Wing, a long queue snaked out to the street, and I knew that I had a long wait before I would be seen. But at least the rain stopped. During the wait, I saw at least one smartly-dressed gentleman exit the embassy with his passport in his hand and a frustrated look on his face. I felt cautious about what to expect.

Aerial view of the old US Embassy, London.

The staff member took my passport and appropriate documentation and told me to return later in the afternoon. I left empty-handed but with a greater sense of expectation. I spent the rest of the day browsing the stock at one of Oxford Street's largest department stores, Selfridges. It was during those days when those Pong retro tennis, soccer and squash could be played on the TV, the forerunner of the PlayStation. On one shelf was a whole row of video games with two or three fully functioning for a demonstration display. I stopped to take a closer look at one of them, this one was selling for only £17.00. A staff member in his thirties, his clean white shirt complete with a black bow tie and a look of dislike on his face, approached and turned off the machine in front of me.

How pathetic! I thought. If I can afford a holiday setting me back several hundred pounds, then surely this gadget was well within my budget if I wanted to buy it. I now wished I did, merely to put this smart Alek in his place. Instead, I just sauntered off to have lunch at a cafeteria in another department store further along the street.

It's incidences such as this one at Selfridges that have got me to wonder how exactly tourists think of Londoners. As all he knew, I could have arrived from the Continent, or even from the Middle East, or from any part of the world, only to be treated with such rudeness by a smartly-dressed store employee. This was not the only occasion. In the past, I have seen other customers receiving unkind remarks from inpatient shopkeepers, especially in London. But at least one issue was in my favour. I was alone on the top floor which was empty of other visitors. Hence there was no feeling of embarrassment of being humiliated in front of such onlookers. However, my evaluation of the average Londoner was put to the test - quite a contrast to my childhood experience described in Week 1 of this Biography.

 

Around tea-time, I approached the US Embassy and walked straight in. There was no queue this time. After giving my identification, the passport was handed back to me. I was nervous as I opened the old blue/black document. Inside was a beautiful-looking coloured stamp taking up a large proportion of the page. I've got it! Uncle Sam has, at last, opened a door to me! I was excited! Let the posh salesman keep his precious games console for all I care. I had something far, far better!

Hence, the plan for 1977 was to be rearranged. Now I can visit both Niagara Falls and Los Angeles on the same trip. Actually, by first refusing to issue a visa, Uncle Sam did me a favour. My initial plan was to fly to Los Angeles, spend some time there, and then fly back home. Instead, my plane will land in Toronto and take off from there a month later. I had four weeks to travel around the continent.

In this Biography, I detail two trips across the Atlantic Ocean during the 1970s. This one I like to call America Part 1. The following trip, a year later in 1978, will be America Part 2, as both were so similar that the two complement each other. 

To find out about interior transportation, I called the Travel Agent where I bought the airline tickets. I was given the Greyhound Bus route map that covered both Canada and the United States. And the availability of the Greyhound Ameripass, a book of vouchers. Whenever I need to board a Greyhound bus, the driver tore off a voucher. Furthermore, if the book runs out of vouchers before the time, a new book is issued il gratis at any one of its terminals by showing both the old book cover and passport. The Ameripass has the value of one week, two weeks or one month. I bought the month's value.

North America Part 1.

Visiting the New World was just as big a contrast from the Middle East as chalk is from cheese! With the Holy Land the centre hub of the three Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Islam and Christianity, the region so steeped in ancient history - with plenty of ancient remains and present-day features to both delight and educate the visitor, North America, especially the USA, is all modern. With many freeways and wide streets accommodating long, endless lines of motorised traffic, most cities are built in a symmetrical grid layout, each town looking very much alike. As Simon & Garfunkel noted in their song, Homeward Bound, their lyrics narrate the wandering soul, suitcase and guitar in hand, searching for his destiny, and passing through one town after another, all of them, to him, looking the same.

Therefore, after spending so much time admiring the historic and religious centres of Italy and Israel, what has America have to offer? What was it that stirred my desire to step into the New World? Well, celebrity worship was one motive, with my admiration for Starsky and Hutch being the initiators. Of course, I had no expectation of meeting them in the flesh whilst I was there. I knew much better than that! It was just the case of being in the same location. Add to this the romance attached to California - featuring in movies and popular songs. Maybe the album of the Mamas and Papas, California Dreaming, just about sums it up. Also, the home of Hollywood studios which can be visited by the public, the famous Disneyland has appeared in holiday brochures, and that too had stirred my curiosity, indeed, bringing out the boy in the man.

Pong Retro Tennis Video Game of the 1970s.

It was when my maternal grandparents were staying at Mum's house when the time for departure came around. whether deliberately planned by my parents or just a mere coincidence, the day I took off for Canada happened to be on the same day my grandparents were flying home to Turin, Italy, and from the same airport, Gatwick. Thus, I felt it was silly to turn down a free lift, and like with Israel the previous year, Dad and I embraced before checking in, and I asked him to wish me good luck.

After check-in, which was much more straightforward than the previous year's version for the Middle East, once again I was on my own as I waited in the airport departure lounge - after my grandparents were already called to their boarding gate.

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Next Week: America Part 1 gets underway.