June was my last of five months traveling through Europe. The trip started in early February 1978, several days before my folks flew to Paris to visit Danica. She was studying at the Sorbonne for a year abroad. I arrived in Luxembourg and made my way south to meet them.
Our first three weeks involved a rented car on a circular route around central Europe. At age 24, I was once again riding in the back seat with a sibling, as Dad drove, and Mom mapped the route along the south of France into Italy.
Our primary stops would be in Croatia (at the time still part of Yugoslavia), to visit relatives on the Kombol side. After seeing kin in Pula, Rijeka, and Fužine, we traveled north to Zagreb, where Dad met his first cousin, Zdenko Kauzlaric, and wife, Ljubica, for the first time. They had one son, Dubravko “Woody” Kauzlaric, a second cousin and the same age as me, who became a lifelong friend. Twelve years later, Jennifer and I visited him and his wife, Zlata, in Zagreb while on our honeymoon. Then, several years later, Woody and Zlata emigrated to Washington, settling in Edmonds.
After Mom and Dad left, I began my solo travels with one-month stays in Paris, rural Wales (including a side trip to Ireland), London, back through Paris and Amsterdam, then concluded with a getaway to a tiny island off the coast of Spain. By the fifth month of traveling alone, with no set destination, nomadic wanderings had become indistinguishable from a daily routine.
My budget was a frugal $10 per day, not including travel. It worked best with several-week or full-month stays, rather than two- and three-day stops in ten tourist dens. After finding free or very cheap accommodation, I was better able to immerse myself in one locale, limiting expensive travel.
Heading south to Barcelona
In late May, I left Paris on a train bound for Perpignan in southern France. My strategy was to hitchhike to Barcelona from there. It was a 120-mile trek, but thumbed rides were tough to snag. Most pick-ups dropped me a few frustrating kilometers down the road. By the first night, I was still in France. I decided to save money by sleeping outside a small village. Dumb idea! As thunderstorms crackled in the distance, I high-tailed it back to town and fortunately found a small hotel. Though it was late, they served me a simple dinner. After which, I watched the evening skies fill with lightning as buckets of rain poured down.
The second day of thumbing rides was more successful. I found myself in Tossa de Mar, just north of Barcelona. I chose a nondescript pensione and settled into my second-floor berth. Like typical cheap motels, their tiny rooms opened to an outdoor passageway. I took a walk, planning to find a cheap dinner. Passing by a room with an open door, I greeted the young man seated inside. The sandy-haired guy was about my age and welcomed me in. He introduced himself as Paul Nielsen from Denmark and spoke near-perfect English. He’d recently left the Cannes Film Festival and was traveling south to Barcelona.
We talked of earlier travels, likely destinations, and cultural differences. He popped a question about American baseball, saying he didn’t understand the sport or its appeal. I slowly explained the various positions, players, and rules, but words alone couldn’t capture the game’s essence or its flavor. Baseball is, after all, the only sport where defense controls the ball.
I decided to illustrate a mock game as a radio broadcaster reciting real names of players from a team I still admired, the Detroit Tigers. To fully simulate the real experience, I announced as if I were a broadcaster in an imagined booth. I further choreographed the pitcher’s wind-up, a batter’s stance, the mighty swing, a sharp drive to right field, with a slide into second for a two-out double. My mimicked broadcast lasted for 10 or 15 minutes, all the while answering Paul’s questions and clarifying the sport’s nuances. By game’s end, we were laughing out loud and planning our next adventure.
Paul had a fancy camera, so we walked down to the pensione owners’ apartment, where he took photos of the sweet old couple who spoke only broken English. In a letter from Paul that I received a year later (with photos he’d later take of me), he related how he’d printed and mailed the couple his 8” x 10” prints and, several weeks later, received “the biggest box of candy and cakes I ever saw.”
Spain’s second-largest city, Barcelona, is situated on the Mediterranean coast in the far northeast. It was my intended home for the next month. That was before Paul interjected and sold me on the charms of a little-visited island off Spain’s east coast. I’d never heard of Formentera, an island about the size of the Enumclaw plateau. Paul described it as a forgotten outpost populated by ex-pats, laidback travelers, working-class Spaniards, and a handful of hippies. It was the polar opposite of the touristy atmosphere in Ibiza, the party island with noisy nightclubs, or Mallorca, the biggest island in the chain.
Paul suggested I spend a few days checking out Barcelona, then head to Formentera. We promised to meet on Las Ramblas, a one-mile pedestrian boulevard lined with shops, restaurants, and nightclubs. If that failed, our backup plan was to reunite in San Francisco Xavier, the island’s largest town. Despite its grand name, San Francisco was little more than a village with a café and store. Paul advised me to lodge with a widow who rented rooms in a two-story building located across from the town’s central café.
The next morning, I hitchhiked to Barcelona and found a room in a hostel off the Las Ramblas. I spent three days in this Catalonian city, admiring the strange architecture of Antoni Gaudí, whose inspiration came from mimicking nature’s patterns. I marveled over this imaginative Cathedral with soaring Gothic spires, not realizing it was Gaudí’s La Sagrada Familia, his greatest project. Construction started in 1882 and was still not finished when I returned to Barcelona with my wife, 48 years later, in 2026.
After three days, I miraculously bumped into Paul while strolling along Las Ramblas. He’d been delayed by a case of the clap from a girl he’d hooked up with in Cannes. He was going to see a doctor, but promised to join me in San Francisco. We shared an evening meal. Then I boarded the ferry for the 12-hour ride to Formentera that sailed each night at 10 pm. I slept on a deck chair under starlit skies.
On Formentera, I made my way to San Francisco and spoke to the widow who rented upstairs rooms. Paul had stayed with her before. Her pensione was a nondescript two-story, adobe-walled building a stone’s throw from the town’s lone café. Using the three years of Spanish I’d learned in high school, I secured a room for the next several weeks. It was a decent-sized chamber with two beds and a small window. The outside shower and the toilet were downstairs and behind the premises.
The island’s population was small, somewhat less than 5,000 inhabitants. There were few hotels of size. Tourism was limited owing to a lack of destinations. Cars and trucks were rare, as most people used bicycles to get around. Life slowed to a crawl on Formentera.
Paul arrived a few days later, and we spent our time leisurely hanging out at the small café, watching World Cup soccer on a small black-and-white television. It was 1978, and the quadrennial World Cup soccer-fest was underway. When important games were broadcast, dozens of men and boys crowded around the bar to cheer or groan at each missed goal. It was my first exposure to this worldwide sporting spectacle that has eluded most Americans until of late.
Discovering coffee’s profound pleasure
My love affair with coffee began in that Spanish café. At 24 years, I’d never enjoyed the taste, nor adopted the habit, having drunk but a few cups beforehand. All that changed when I discovered coffee’s profound pleasure after ordering a café con leche. The hot, scalded milk tamed the pungent taste of strong espresso, so I began ordering them with increasing frequency.
Outside the café, chess games were regularly played. Having been on our high school chess team, I naturally joined in. Each morning, I played a few games, with the caffeine from coffee enhancing my concentration. With each successive win, I gained a reputation among the local talent, and every morning, a new challenger appeared. After a week or so without a loss, a game was arranged with one of the town’s best. A crowd of onlookers hovered about. Over 90 minutes, we battled until a natural draw was reached. We exchanged handshakes as locals patted us both on the back. Afterward, we approached the bar together and ordered two cervezas. It was an idyllic life.
In time, Paul and I met a Norwegian, also pronounced Paul, but spelled Pål, who had a bed in a nearby room. The three of us became fast friends, riding bikes, swimming, snorkeling, and taking long walks through the surrounding countryside. We explored together and had a jolly good time just goofing off. Formentera’s nightlife was practically non-existent, so we planned an overnight excursion to Ibiza Town, the capital of the island, Ibiza. On the appointed afternoon, Pål the Norwegian turned up sick, so Paul and I hopped the short ferry ride there.
Ibiza Town was party central. Crowded streets overflowed with hipsters, shysters, dropouts, and every kind of reveler. Following an early dinner, we found our bearings and wandered in and out and through dozens of clubs and bars. Everywhere we turned, neon signs and garish lights held the night in perpetual motion as we tripped the light fantastic. The partying never really stopped, though it slowed in the wee hours. The summer solstice was nearly upon us, so days were long and nights were brief. By sunrise, we were still awake, walking along the castle walls, while gazing down at the blue Mediterranean sea. Exhausted, we caught the first ferry back to Formentera and slept until late afternoon.
I wrote one postcard home from Formentera.
June 23, 1978 — Dear Mom & Dad – This postcard has been a couple of weeks in the making, but nice weather and the slow pace of island life have prevented its completion.
Formentera is the most rural and least inhabited of those islands known as the Balearics, situated halfway between Spain and Italy. I’ve been living in this small pensione (with no running water) with this Danish guy and this Norwegian, both of whom speak impeccable English.
Our days are divided between sitting in cafes, playing chess, long bike rides, snorkeling, and several other non-strenuous activities. We live in San Francisco, the largest of the very small communities on this island. I miss you a lot and will enjoy recounting these times I’m having.
– Bill
Time to head home
After five months traveling through Europe, I missed my family. I missed my friends. I missed my American life. As July approached, it was time to head home.
I was also aware of a creeping idleness. My carefree lifestyle, albeit frugal, had been funded by a year of working at Seattle Trust & Savings Bank. I was reminded of the short story, “The Lotus Eater,” by my favorite author, Somerset Maugham. The tale follows a London banker who abandoned his conventional career at a young age to live a life of leisure on a Mediterranean island. However, years of indolence and escapism erode his willpower. Constantly choosing the easy path atrophied the muscles required to overcome life’s difficulties. By trading meaningful struggles for hedonistic detachment, he eventually lost his spirit to live.
I set a goal to be back for our family’s annual Fourth of July celebration. Before leaving, Paul offered to take some pictures of Pål and me. I said goodbye to Paul early one morning and ferried to Barcelona.
I boarded a northbound train, arriving in Paris the next morning. I met Danica, and together we saw Bob Marley & the Wailers at the Pavillon de Paris on the final performance of their three-night stand. I then flew to London and picked up the custom-made pin-striped suit I had been fitted for, a month earlier at Aubrey Morris Tailors, 24 Highbury Court. I still have that suit.
The following morning, I boarded a plane for Seattle, arriving at Sea-Tac by late afternoon. I telephoned home, and an hour later, my parents arrived. When Mom saw my new suit, tanned complexion, and dark sunglasses, she quipped that I looked like a rock star. Back home, she took my picture upstairs in the bedroom. It was good to be home.
A month passed. One Saturday night, while Dad and I were watching TV, the phone rang, and he answered. I overheard the conversation. The laborer at Palmer Coking Coal’s Black Diamond washing plant had just quit. Dad looked at me, and before he had a chance to ask, I replied, “Sure, I’ll do it.”
Monday morning, I was back at work on the picking table, the starting position at the mine – separating rock from coal. It was the same job I’d left over three years prior. As a teenager, I started as Palmer’s Saturday office boy, then college summers doing grunt work, and my senior year on the afternoon shift at the picking table. However, that Monday marked the beginning of my final employment stint with Palmer. It lasted 44 years.
Links to prior essays – travels through Europe, 1978
This is the sixth in a series of essays that I’ve published about my 1978 travels through Europe. Below are links to the other five:
