Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the book was pretty much about me! Well, teen-aged me, anyways -- the good girl, who always did what her parents and teachers expected of her. The me who got to go on a "once in a lifetime" trip to Europe with her Girl Scout troop, but was ashamed to admit, even to herself, how disappointed she was in Europe-as-seen-from-a-bus.
Fortunately for our heroine, she, like me, meets an Adventure Boy, who whisks her off to Paris for "just one day', and she discovers just how exhilarating it can be to let go of the reins now and then, and to make the most of life's little "accidents." She finds out that, sometimes, getting lost is the best thing that could possibly happen to you!
Our heroine says:
"It's funny how on the tour, we often saw sights like this as we whizzed by on a bus...I'm driving by them now too. But somehow, it feels different. Like, being here, outside, on the back of this bike, with the wind in my hair and the sounds singing in my ears and the centuries-old cobblestones rattling beneath my butt, I'm not missing anything. On the contrary, I'm inhaling it, consuming it, becoming it."
There's even a scene in the book where she takes a job at a cafe in order to earn money to get back to Paris. She is back in the kitchen scraping dishes and loading them into "Hobart", which is precisely what I was doing when I met my own real-life Adventure Boy -- the one who once took me on a month-long jaunt through Europe with no tours, no itinerary and no reservations. Just a tattered copy of Europe On Ten Dollars A Day.
If you're interested in hearing more about my tutelage in the art of "Slow Travel", you might want to hop on over to my other blog, Miss Becky Goes Abroad, which has become the repository for all these tales.
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2 comments:
Sounds like a good read.....will have to check out your other blog as well, didn't know you had one. xox
I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Will have to find "If I Stay" and get it read before the movie comes out.
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