March 11, 1970
Dear Mother, Dad, Serena, John, and Mary,Greetings! This is the last letter you will be receiving from me in Europe for awhile -- maybe even for this year! I really haven't contemplated the possibilities of returning at least as to when. I have been getting lots of ideas as to where I would like to go, the kind of people I would like to go with and what I would want to do. All three seem like rather deep subjects and since I discovered that with the stamp I have left which I am going to put on the envelope of this letter, I can write seven pages. And if you see that there are seven pages to read you might not want to get into the deep subjects on the first page.
So I will let my mind wander for awhile and write about other trivial matters. There is a cat sitting at my feet right now. It isn't our cat, it just wandered in the door a few minutes ago when I went out on the porch to hang my green shirt (which I just washed) on the clothes line to dry. Because I couldn't get the cat back out the door, I guess he will say awhile. If the cat came in because he is hungry he won't find much food. All we have left is some instant coffee and two apples. Sad? Not really, we planned it that way.
We had a real feast last night eating up all the food as Alan left this morning and tomorrow morning Ann and I will be moving on too. That is sad. This morning was rather tense as Ann and I were trying to act not too relieved that Alan was leaving. He claims we ganged up against him and it is a valid claim. After living together for six months we are pretty much used to each other and this past week it was usually the two of us against him. Of course, I tend to be biased and add that it took at least as much effort on our side to endure him as his efforts to put up with two females.
The cat has now climbed on Ann's bed so he may be removed soon. I think Ann is writing a letter too, yes, I asked her and she said she was. Now that Alan is gone we can't play cards as it was his deck of cards. I brought a deck but when we got them out to play with, there were only 28 cards. At some point between then and Christmas I removed all cards numbering two through seven and left them somewhere else. That was a real smart thing to do. We were going to go to the beach today and finish off our sunburns. But the sky is rather purplish gray, the wind is very strong, and the sun is nowhere to be found. None of those make for a good sunburn. We can't really complain as every other day we've been here, has been beautiful.
I was going to try to make it through the time here without buying a book but I broke down the other day and bought one. It is in German though to add to the challenge of reading it. I wonder how the selection of books in German is in the states? I know K's library has lots and so does the bookstore but most of those are the difficult or at least not so much fun and entertaining kind that people read to get all the good German literature. I will have to check out the Wilmington libraries when I'm home.
Ten more days . . . . It is unbelievable and I'm not sure I am ready for the culture shock of coming back. It is about the same feeling as between high school graduation and starting college. I'm not quite sure what to expect. I'm filled with lots of anticipation, a little bit of dread and other mixed emotions. Gee, wonder what kind of feelings come with graduation? Probably lots of relief that you finally made it. Time for a break, I am going to read for awhile.
Con't. I never did get to my book -- found too many other things to do. Siesta was finally over so we gathered up all our old milk, pepsi, and one mineral water bottles and returned them to the store. We also made a few last purchases like apples to take with us tomorrow and a new TIME magazine. We had also been doing well controlling our calories today until we both got hungry. So we splurged and bought some 3 peseta pastries. It isn't a splurge, it is more of a habit -- we've been doing it every day. But they taste so good! Remind me a lot of Grandma's cinnamon pies.
Instead of reading the book I got out Ann's colored pens and played with them. It is alot of fun getting all the different colors down on a piece of paper. And the psychoanalyst could have a good time telling me what they all mean. That reminded me of Dick which reminded me of psychology and then I thought of Marianne. (I hope you aren't having too much difficulty tracing my thought patterns.) Is she still in psych? At FSU? Does she graduate this summer? Maybe I can get to Florida some time between quarters to see her.
I haven't heard from Pete Cheyne lately so I don't know if he is still in Florida or not. I guess that is all in the future though. It seems like lately I have become much more involved in living in the present and only time for an occasional thought about the future. And anything which happened more than five minutes ago is filed away as memories to be remembered when I get old and/or bored.
If you will excuse me once again I am going to try reading TIME.
Friday, March 13, 1970
Greetings once more. Ann and I are sitting in Wimpy's across from the Paris Nord train station killing time before we have to catch our train to Münster. Excitement is . . . . We just reread to each other the letters we got yesterday in Malaga -- she one from her family and me one from you. It seemed rather ironic as you had something in yours about this exciting experience coming to an end and here we sit bored to death. I take it from your letter that you will be in New York so I will look for you there. I have about reached the point now where I feel like I hope you will grab me off the plane, take me home, put me to bed and take care of me for a week. Please disregard this whole paragraph -- no, don't do that, I do want you to meet me.
I'm just a little tired right now. I will probably be very tired then too. Well, we just had some excitement as they brought us the bill and it comes to more than we have money to pay for. Ho hum. Why is life so cruel? Excuse me while I run across the street and change more money. I'm back again. At least now with more money we can afford a second cup of coffee. Or maybe we will get a candy bar instead. The time at least is going by. We leave here in about 30 minutes, arriving in Münster at 5:20 AM so we will have some time to kill there before we can catch the first bus home -- or what used to be home for tomorrow we will only be visitors.
Saturday, March 14 7:30 AM
Here I am not yet in Münster. We didn't feel like getting off at 5:20 in Münster so we stayed on the train and came to Bremen. In an hour we catch another train back to Münster arriving at a much more decent time. I'm feeling better today as I slept well on the train last night. The passport checkers and the conductors don't even bother me much any more. It isn't necessary to fully wake up -- only shove the Eurail Pass and the passport at them -- and that has become instinctive. Try waking me up in the middle of the night sometime. I would probably try to show you my passport and continue sleeping.
There certainly are lots of interesting people in the Bahnhofs (train stations) early in the morning. The most obnoxious are last nights drunks that haven't made it home yet.
LATER, about 3:30 PM
We made it home finally and I found a letter from you. I also realized you probably won't get this until too late. I'll offer my apologies if they are worth anything. It seems as if things have been happening so fast lately. I guess communications from my end have been lacking. I'm still going from one extreme to another about leaving here. The idea of coming back to the States is frightening because I know I'm not going to fit in the same hole I left. At the same time I'm anxious to make my new "hole". I guess I only dread the adapting period which I'm going to have to go through, unless I were to stay here interminably, which I know I can't do. All the other kids have left except Ann and I so it wouldn't be the same anyway. It is rather nice to be back here for the day -- we're being treated as if we never left and it was an ordinary Saturday. Everything has been jammed into our suitcases -- now the big problem is getting them to London. Ugh! And I don't even have that much junk. I may end up leaving 90% of my worn out belongings, including the suitcases, in London. HA! That would be pointless though as by then the worst pain will be over.
I'll relieve you of reading and save all the rest to tell.
Love,
Catherine
P.S. If you do get this in time . . . I did tell you I'm coming in on big PanAm at 12:45 next Saturday?
P.S. to Serena -- I'm sure whatever you fix will be fine and since I will be home a week you will have a chance to fix me almost anything. I eat anything in whatever state it is put before me and I usually enjoy it but I'm looking forward to coming home to some "just plain meals, at a decent mealtime." Lately seems I've just been eating whatever can be obtained when hunger strikes. What usually happens is that there isn't any food available then so when there is food you eat as much as possible and hope it keeps you going until the next time there is food.
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