For Thursday, October 15, 1998 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 735 words

The son also rises

Our 21-year-old son, Adam, has just returned from three months in Europe. We picked him up at the San Francisco airport last Wednesday.

I mentioned his pending departure back in May when he emailed us from Santa Cruz to tell us that he was quitting school to wander the earth. Unable to settle on a major, and reluctant to spend any more of our money on college until he had a goal (bless him), he chose to spend a year in search of himself and some good times.

His original plan was to reach Ireland and land a job for four months. When he arrived, he took a tour of Ireland, visiting Dublin, Galway, and Cork, and decided he liked Galway best. He settled down, found a restaurant job and an apartment. There he stayed for six weeks, living as an Irish lad.

Fate, however, conspired to change his plans.

After six weeks, his employer let him go. He didn't need his services anymore. At the same time, his landlady evicted him. Her daughter wanted the apartment.

Being not ready or willing to start again from scratch, Adam decided instead to move on. He met a friend named Ian who offered to show him around London. Adam slept on another friend's couch for a week waiting for Ian to finish a part-time job. The next week they packed their bags, put their hats on, said, "Good-bye, Galway," and caught a bus out of town.

After 10 days of living in London hostels, Ian went back to Ireland and Adam traveled to Amsterdam where he intended to spend a day and ended up spending a week. Hmmm.

From here he traveled south to Paris, where he met up with Erica, an old Santa Cruz friend. He also made contact with Jennifer Seeman and Jason Cabrol, old friends and former students of mine who happened to be in Paris.

It was about this time that his money ran out. All we bought him was his one-way ticket to Europe and a phone card. The rest was on him. He called home for funds and we cashed in some of his TransAmerica stock that his grandparents bought him when he was born. This greased his wheels enough to spend one more week unemployed.

He booked a six-day tour of the Scottish highlands. He knew his European adventure was coming to a close, and he wanted to go out with a bang. He took a bus to Edinburgh, where he met up with Haggis Tours. With about 20 other tourists, he traveled around the countryside taking pictures and sleeping in hostels. He stood in Loch Ness, saw a lot of sheep, and toured the Glen Ord distillery. He even bought his first souvenir -- a fine bottle of single-malt Scotch.

Then it was over. He returned to London and booked a flight to San Francisco. Right now he's in his bedroom hanging up posters, looking for a job, and probably wondering what I'm saying about him.

The wife and I have never been to Europe. This was Adam's third trip. We're jealous. We've decided we're going next year. Along with the Wild Wests -- Ron and Jane -- we've booked a tour with Rick Steve's Europe Through the Back Door. It's called an Open Jaw BB&B tour (bed, breakfast, bus). Rick's bus takes us to ten cities in 22 days. He finds us rooms, then leaves us alone for two days in each town to tour independently. It's a real low impact, skeletal tour option.

It's called Open Jaw because we don't end where we start. We start in Amsterdam, then tour Belgium, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and end up in Paris. The airline reservations are on us.

What's most exciting to me is that we are only allowed to bring one small travel bag per person. I'll probably have the most fun watching my wife pack. She's a five-suitcase-per-person traveler. I'll shoot a roll of film here at the house of her jumping up and down on her over-month bag.

Come duct tape or bungee cords, we've already sent in our cash deposit, so it's a lock. We are going. Adam's enjoying being the expert, giving us pointers on how to behave. Most of his advice involves finding good beer and women. I'm not sure how much of that we'll be able to use, but it's fun to listen to.