Globe Corner Blogs

Cool Parents Guide to NYC by Helen Rogan & Alfred Gingold

My parents had never been to New York City. I am not sure why, I guess that it just seemed too far away from the state of Washington and being small business owners they never had enough time to get away except for a long weekend. However, my parents are now retired and apparently have spent a lot of time discovering the joys of HBO On Demand and catching up on the TV show Sex and the City.  My Mom loves the show so much that her only request for her birthday trip to New York City was to on on the Sex and the City Tour. Well, that and to see the Statue of Liberty.

Since I was put in charge of planning the trip for us,  I started to figure out where we could dispose of my father while we went on the tour and when I discussed the possibilities with Mom the conversations went a little like this:

“So Dad can sit at a cafe and read the newspaper while we go on the tour,” I said.

“Oh no!” said my Mom. “Buy him a ticket too.”

“But Mom, Dad doesn’t want to go on the Sex and the City Tour,” I protested.

“Your Father probably won’t even realize that he is on a Sex and the City Tour,” was the curt reply.

“But Mom, he will be on a bus of women, looking at shoe stores and drinking cosmos. He might figure it out. Did you ask him what he wants to do? ”

“He never asked me if I wanted to spend my time looking at Civil War sites across the South. Or go on a golfing vacation in Florida. (Mom hates golf.) He will be fine. Besides, if we leave him alone for 4 hours he will get lost and we will never see him again. Buy the tickets.”

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Rough Guide South India

In a few hours, I’ll be on my way to India. I’ve never been before, and it’s a little hard to fathom. I have not yet stepped off the plane and am already discombobulated and overwhelmed. The big stuff is taken care of: I’ve got my tickets, and my visa is on the way. My doctor has inoculated me against a number of diseases I’ve never even heard of, and I have a giant vat of anti-malarials resting safely in my backpack. (I have placed them there for safekeeping, in case I forget them in a frenzy of last minute packing.  Although it is equally likely that I will forget that I have already packed them and panic when I can’t find them…)

But it’s the smaller things that have been churning around in my brain. I’ve been scouring the travel blogs for any helpful bits of last minute advice for a woman going off to the subcontinent by her li’l ole self. (A blogger on the India Mike forums said she always carries a door stopper with her to supplement a lock; there is another post that lists the addresses of stores in the Bangalore area that sell Cobra brand Mace.)

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Women Travelers by Christel Mouchard

I have only had one “major” problem while traveling by myself. This happened way back in 1998, when I was working as a teacher in Romania. During my two week Easter vacation my sister and I went on a “sister-bonding” trip through Scandinavia. After dumping her off at the airport, I just wanted to get home and relax. Against my better judgment and multiple warnings from my surprisingly travel-savvy 5th graders to “NEVER EVER TAKE THE NIGHT TRAIN FROM BUDAPEST TO TIMISOARA!!!” I decided to go ahead and take the dreaded night train to Romania. The whole thing was a disaster. Once I got to the train station I was unable to buy a ticket for the “Romanian” portion of my trip, due to local bureaucratic peculiarities that were (and still are) baffling to me. I finally decided that I was going to take a chance and try to buy a ticket from the conductor once I crossed that border, and started to settle into my compartment. While stashing my luggage in the overhead compartment, I was suddenly relieved of my purse by a charming Hungarian petty thief. I channeled my inner Powerpuff Girl, chased the guy down, grabbed my purse back, screamed Romanian obscenities that made no sense whatsoever coming from a girl, momentarily incapacitated him, and made my way back down the corridor to a chorus of “bravos” from all of the Hungarian men that witnessed the event, but didn’t bother to help me. As I sunk into my seat, a large majority of these men surrounded me, pinched my cheeks, told me to be careful, asked why I wasn’t married, and persistently tried to sell me their watches.

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