Jan 28, 1963

1/28/2011

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This morning we were informed that the American Navy had arrived. We went down to the dock and there were at least 10 ships. We walked back to The Cosmos and then to the Kit Kat Club for hot chocolate. There the excitement began. We watched a guy go out in the street and talk to two American sailors. He brought them inside and suddenly there were two girls beside them and it dawned on us that he was a pimp. The first words exchanged were “you got any cigarettes?” He was in and out a dozen times and every 5 minutes a new girl came in. Inside he kept playing with one of the girls, rubbing her arm and pinching her butt, all the time talking to the sailors. We were horrified that when they left they went straight into our hotel. Juan and Jesus told us that the girls cost 200 – 300 pesetas for the Americans and 6 for the Spaniards! Our street was full of them, they come out from everywhere when the sailors come to town by the boat full. Finally we left the Kit Kat to buy some food for the trip and were really surprised that the sailors never gave us a second look. (Maybe it was the knee socks, the penny loafers or the sun glasses.)

1 Comment

Janelle Gerber

2/6/2011 11:55:51 pm

Loved your personal pictures and comments. Funny how some things just never change and the pictures are almost universal to many parts of the world we still travel. However, the penny loafers and socks do date you women, a little!

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1962 was pivotal. This is the background:

It was a year colored by the Cuban Missile Crisis, an escalating involvement in Vietnam, the Berlin Wall and the Cold War with Russia, Civil Rights issues, a nascent space program, Nelson Mandela in prison, Betty Friedan's, The Feminist Mystique, the Beatles, Rolling Stones and the death of Marilyn Monroe.

In the face of all of this, Pat, Judy and I blithely took off for Europe with the intention of traveling through Europe and North Africa until our money ran out. We had a travel guide and a book titled Europe on $5.00 a Day. Since we had all read The Ugly American in preparation for the trip, we thought we were very smart to buy a used Volkswagen with Dutch license plates. We dubbed the car "Louie" since a cute guy from Switzerland named Louie had helped us acquire it.

There was no such thing as a cell phone, a computer, Twitter or Facebook. Our parents didn't hear from us for weeks on end. We wrote regularly, but letters took forever to deliver and we only vaguely knew where we would be next. It was a very cold winter and we followed the sun.

Jan 28, 1963

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1962 was pivotal. This is the background:

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