Innocence Abroad

A few necessary observations, before you begin . . .

Innocence Abroad has been published only in a small author's edition which was quickly sold out. Since I have not the time for being a small publisher, nor the patience to pound on doors seeking a larger one, I offer it here to one and all. Be it merely remembered that the book is mine, and not for anyone else's profit. So stands my 'copyright' as of April 14, 1996, my three-score-and-nine birthday.

Except for the first chapter, which employs a flash-forward motif, the tale develops in chronological format, within four clearly defined stages:

1. The preliminaries to going abroad (chapters 2-3)
2. The winter in London (chapters 4-5)
3. The early spring circuit of Britain (chapters 6-8)
4. The mid-year journey through central and east Europe (chapters 9-23)

Several of those chapters (4, 6 and 7) seemed too long for an easy online read, so they've been split in two, accounting for the variance in their chapter numbering. Illustrations and maps were plentiful in the print version, and I will eventually get around to putting them up here, too. A preface in the original edition has been omitted from the online version, but may be added later. In its place, and immediately following these preliminary words, is an introduction especially designed for web readers not familiar with the trail that both led to this journey and enabled it.

While I recommend a sequential reading of the chapters, I shall facilitate a more random selection by providing the necessary chapter links, here, together with a brief summary of each. I think there are just three things you need to know, to make the tale understandable if you choose your own routing. 

• GN stands for Good Neighbors, the pseudonym I use for the international friendship organization that provided much of my lodging while on the road - at no cost except friendship and 'good neighbor' responsibilities.
  
• It was critically necessary to remain within a budget of $100 per week during the road stages of the journey, and as close to it as I could while in London. Traveling 'light' in financial terms is a fine art, so I make frequent reference to budget matters, and share what I can of how it is done.
   
• I also speak often of "angels" along the way, by which I mean someone who popped up with the right bit of help at the right moment -- seemingly out of the blue. It happened often enough that I began to think of them as real and true angels.

You may proceed directly to the introduction and then follow the chapters in sequence, or . . .

Here are the chapters of Innocence Abroad for your selective choice:

• 1. Three Mutineers and a Warden's wrath. In Delphi, Greece, October 5, 1991, a closure adventure at the end of an incomparable summer.
• 2. Everything sprouts in February. Sprouts and visions, doubts and problems...how it all began.
• 3. California vagabonding. Getting my feet on the road again . . . rediscovering the magic of a hitch-hiker's way.
• 4a. London high: dodging for lodgings. Getting to know London . . . not exactly your typical tourist exposure.
• 4b. London high: yearning for earnings. On the prowl for a job, until . . . my moment of truth arrives, and there's no turning back.
• 5. London lowdown The joys of a nitty-gritty London winter, as my finances rumble down toward ground-zero. And the quite amazing last-minute rescue.
• 6a. Footloose, foolhardy and freezing in Britain (heading west) Off to make a circuit of the Big Isle, by thumb and rail: a first week that starts and finishes in the rain.
• 6b. Footloose, foolhardy and freezing in Britain (heading north) Through Wales and into Scotland, to the limits of my endurance, and then beyond. A magical quest in Hawick, and an angel's rescue in Dunfermline
• 7a. Scotland, from Tongue to Nose... How to use a Scottish Rail Rover Pass as it was never intended: eight days of travel out of four, instead of four out of eight.
• 7b.....and back to London Completing the circuit of Britain, with barely the time left to prep for the challenge of the Continent.
• 8. Week knees at the pit stop A brief linking chapter to the main stage of the great adventure.
• 9. All the way out on the limb Alone and afoot on French soil . . . damn the language problem, let's go for it! St. Malo and Rennes, Vitré and Chartres.
• 10. Parisian dalliance A full week in Paris, with three (very) different hosts . . . too much of the Eiffel and not enough of the Musée d'Orsay.
• 11. Navigating between disgrace and disaster I couldn't possibly miss the First European Earthsteward Gathering . . . and couldn't afford the cost of it, either. An angel-finish to a harrowing dilemma.
• 12. Broken Dreams in Amsterdam A second 'quest' challenge, some neat people encountered, and hitch-hiking once again, toward Berlin.
• 13. The banana peel route to Berlin An unintended detour deep into east Germany (Leipzig), with barely enough negotiable funds to get me on to Berlin.
• 14. Bumming Poland with backpack and chauffeur I get serious about seeing eastern Europe . . . assisted by what practically amounts to a private chauffeur, who can't stop turning up along the way. The unsuspected charisma of Krakow, plus a rarely adventurous night in Prague.
• 15. I didn't know I hadn't been invited Dresden: discovering the charms of a 'bombed-out' city. With added and sundry wonders in Weimar, Erfurt, and Kassel, where I pursue the last and best 'quest.'
• 16. The perils of high summer (I) Hitching on the autobahn again . . . into the angst-ridden days of summer's crest. Wurzburg, Darmstadt and Frankfurt: mixed blessings, one and all.
• 17. The perils of high summer (II) Nürnberg, and some brief relief from summer's woes . . . until I find myself enmeshed in a tachycardia attack on the autobahn! But Providence intervenes, and I go on to visit with a young pen-pal of many years, but never personally met, in Munich.
• 18. My Holy experience in Domazlice A little man who goes far out of his way to get me settled in a rural town. Then a return to Prague, and sundry unsettling adventures thereabouts.
• 19. Abandoned on Freud's doorstep Pushing my luck about as far as it would go, in Vienna . . . but still, things manage to work out. And then, on to Budapest, to meet a longtime behind-the-iron-curtain friend, for the first time.
• 20. "Hey, Irv!" ... Recognized in deepest Romania Difficulties aplenty, getting into Romania, but I must visit my GN friend, Georghe . . . and it proves a visitation to my own past world. The chapter title references another of those absurd, in-the-middle-of-nowhere occurrences.
• 21. The Great Train Robbery Truly, one of the great adventure passages of my entire life: through Bulgaria with my finances cut to the quick, a mid-city night without shelter in mysterious Sofia, and a railroad ride that I didn't pay for to the Aegean port city of Thessaloniki.
• 22. Island hopping on the Aegean The search for an affordable place of winter settlement, which carries me to the islands of Lesbos, Chios and Oinoussai.
• 23. Becoming a Lesbian That's right! I never thought it could happen to me, but I became a Lesbian for that winter. This is the book's closing chapter, and it reports only on how that finally came about . . . a tale of exquisite serendipity. You'll also find, here, some closing philosophical observations.

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