We’re publishing a guest post today by Russell Davis, a blogger who has made a point of travelling to all 27 countries in the E.U., completing his quest during lockdown. His final trip – number 27 – was to the tiny principality of Luxembourg. Unfortunately, it was a bit of a nightmare. Here’s an extract:
The Luxembourg trip started off okay. I flew from London City Airport (a place where in one toilet four out of five hand basins are designated unsafe to use), to the tiny country’s tiny capital in a tiny plane provided by Luxair, which was considerably more pleasant than Ryanair last month. I stayed at the somewhat overpriced Novotel Luxembourg Centre.
The country’s tight rules had been tightened up further on November 1st. This followed seven deaths over the month of October where Covid was mentioned in a nation of 633,000 people. A further three people, so fewer than one in 200,000, succumbed to it during my three-night stay; the grand Covid death total for Luxembourg over the last two years is 855. Consequently, my hotel was awash with paranoia: every time you went to the hotel restaurant (called Red Square, ironically) you had to show proof that you’re double-jabbed; masks are mandatory everywhere; the remote control in my room was in a sealed envelope to protect me from harm; hand sanitiser is the most common furniture and there are instruction sheets on how to use it, perhaps in case guests mistakenly apply it to their feet. But this is a hotel where the breakfast baked beans have carrots in them and room service come to tidy your room at 8.40am. Carrots! 8.40am! Not good.
Worth reading in full.
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Lovely story, well done!
Seconded.
I was siding firmly with your Grandma the whole time, especially the bit about you forced to wait between connections in a desolate train station in the wee hours to catch a dawn train. Been there, done that, ticket office closed, cafes closed, railway officials gone home, no money for a hotel, pestered by a collection of drunks and druggies in Spain, as I sat very determinedly reading a book and trying to look as fierce as possible, while staying wide awake, which seemed to put them all off. I do not recommend it.
I’m so glad your Grandad quietly got in touch with his friend up north, to make your Grandma a bit happier. I’m sure they were all on tenterhooks until you were safely home again. I was, just reading it!
I hasten to add that I wasn’t a teenager, but middle-aged, and it was still scary!
So well done to you— you show great promise as a writer, Jack Watson.
When I was 16, I hitch-hiked from Scotland through England, France, Germany, Greece to Turkey, then hitch-hiked back through Roumania and a bunch of other countries back to Scotland. But I guess those were different times.
No mobile phones to keep in touch and help sort any unplanned events.
Great piece Jack. Your parents trusted you visiting my home town to see your favourite band. They were right. The obverse of the trend towards ‘adulting” children is the infantilisation of young people more than capable of looking after themselves.
Age 6, I daily comutted ‘solo’ from Parsons Green (Fulham) to South Ken to school. In uniform, with satchel! Felt so grown up.. but couldnt reach the straps to be a ‘strap-hanger’.
1962.. different world.
Also, 1976, hitch-hiked across Fr, Sp, It, Gr with no money.. relying on oddjobs and generosity of strangers, for 6 months. Not brave enough to try Turkey…
Age 20, do no big deal really..
When I was 15 I made a solo trip from London to Paris and back to meet the family of an exchange student who had spent time with us on a school trip. I was nervous, yes, but survived and I still remember it fondly nearly 50 years later
“I am not yet 16, but, encouraged by Kirsty Allsopp’s son’s interrailing adventures in Europe, I wondered how hard it could be. I had never been out of Hull on my own and had never changed trains on my own ”
——–
Well done and I’m glad you achieved your aim.
But as a recently-retired female, I find your story rather sad and an example of the infantilisation and coddling of young people which does nothing to build their confidence.
I was brought up in NE Kent, on the borders of London. During the school holidays, when I was age 12, my father (a MET policeman) came home with two Red Rover bus tickets and a bus map of London so I and a friend could spend the day riding the buses up to central London and back. He showed me the three buses we’d need to catch to get to Oxford St.
In turn, when my eldest son was 13 and wanted to go to London with a couple of friends I sat him down, made sure he could read the underground map, and let him go.
At age almost 16, a young person is only two years away from being officially declared an adult. If they’ve never left their home town and travelled alone anywhere they are not being properly prepared for adulthood.
Cities of Europe – London: We Live by the River – BBC iPlayer This is on the BBC archive – 2 boys on the buses in London. Unbelievable that this would happen now. Note how well the adults treat them.
Your post is unjust. You are conveniently forgetting that all countries of the West have been INVADED by millions of Muslim Men of Military Age and often criminal backgrounds who have wreaked havoc amongst our children and teenagers.
You cannot compare your situation half a century ago, or your son’s, with the dangers facing children today.
Things are NOT THE SAME.
All the more reason for them to learn to navigate their surroundings and further afield …. because at age (almost) 16 in just 2 years time they’ll be expected to be competent to do it.
My sons went to a (very good) comprehensive senior school in Surrey. They’d attended state infant and junior schools and by the time they got to the senior one, they knew how to deal with the “rougher” and more disruptive pupils.
The kids who went to private prep schools and then to the state comp for senior level (because the senior fees were too high) didn’t know how to deal with them …. and were (a) bullied and (b) struggled to adapt.
Good for you Jack. Your type of adventure would have been fairly commonplace when I was your age. I left school at 15 had a full-time job and a couple of holiday on my own,
On one occasion my family, mum, dad and sisters, when on one holiday whilst I went in the opposite direction, much to the chagrin of my elder sister that was not allowed the same privilege.
I hope your adventure has given you the conference to do more. Well done.
Well done Jack great story there’s hope for the younger generation yet!
At 67 years old I shudder at the thought of catching a train as I’ve had so many bad experiences over the years. Having said that, when I was 15, I would happily travel from London to Wolverhampton and then catch a bus. I think you become more risk averse as you get older- like your grandmother (I’m a grandfather)!
No, it’s just that THINGS HAVE CHANGED. Our once “High-Trust Societies” everywhere in the West have been ruined by Mass Third World Invasion.
A relative regularly used to hitch-hike 60 miles to and from boarding school from well under the age of 16.
That was in the days when email did not exist and there were no websites available to any old snitch to find out about how to snitch on people and then snitch.
There was only the telephone directory and landline phones.
Smart phones? That was in the days of Dick Tracy fiction.