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Show (T 3Li ft$ by Teri Gomes Traveller's advisory Author's note--It's late ... 11:30 p.m. Friday night. I have promised my editor a "one for the road" column while I accompany the Park City glitterati to Courchevel, France. I begged to be given a little box which read "Teri Gomes is on vacation, her column will resume next week. This is one of her favorite past columns. " My editor assured me, there are no favorite past columns ... The last time I traveled overseas I was 17. It was one of those well-executed "see 11 countries in 22 days" trips. Seven of us went with the language teacher from our high schoo', Franco Cosco. (Yes, Italian.) We rented a V.W. bus, took rolls and rolls of uninspired pictures and we drank at lunch and dinner because it was legal for teens to drink in Europe. It was a memorable trip. Franco, to my rigid dismay, had an affair with one of the well-endowed students on the trip. In Czechoslovakia we were detained for hours by the border guards on the Fourth of July. Since our trip ended in France, I remember being terribly tired, buying a few berets at a French department store and committing an enormously gauche fax paus. After an elegant dinner in Dijon (one of the few non-pork meals of the entire trip) the waiter brought around what uncultured I took to be a huge (if somewhat flat) cake. I took a generous slice. My language teacher watched with great amusement my huge bite of Brie cheese... This time, some 15 years later, folks will expect my photos to be "inspired" and that I will keep a detailed journal of the "diggings and doings" of this crazy Park City group. I am more concerned, at this writing, that I have taken all the wrong clothes for a glamorous world-class ski resort. So, I have decided to take most of my wardrobe, such as it is. This is important in case I decide to stay a little longer say, until middle age. I have my passport in hand with a photo which could be used to hang on post office walls. Perhaps the French will be impressed Park City has hired what appears to be a rehabilitated con to work for them. Ugh! Leaving home at age 17 only meant waving goodbye to Mom at the airport. Leaving at age 32 means arranging piano1 lessons, dentist appointments, confirmation classes, skating lessons, etc., for two kids and one husband. The kids will be fine. Since I have been accused of never mentioning my husband in this column here goes the undoing of that tradition. For those of you who know Don, call him (every morning, he needs help waking up) and ask him out for a lunch or a beer or a trip through Alpha Beta with a friend. If you are a fellow Rotarian, call and ask him to lunch Tuesday (he might overlook the regular meeting otherwise). If you see him, say, at the post office, ask him little questions designed to make him think... "Hey, are they wearing plaids and stripes together now, out in Park Meadows?" "Does your car run better with the emergency brake on?" "I think a guy who wears open-toe sandals in the winter shows a lot of flair!" You know, stuff like that. . . I promise to bring back something to strike a vein with everyone... who sleeps in whose room (just kidding, guys!) ... No really, everyone has asked for special things. My son wants a SWISS army knife. I can't convince him it's probably just as Swiss and cheaper at Wolfe's. My daughter wants "something French and tancy" whatever what-ever does that mean to a ten year old? And an unnamed male business associate has asked for a French hooker. (How would I declare that in customs, really?) For you select, few readers of this column 1 do promise to bring bacK details of our sister city and how the local troops behaved. Until next week, aurevoir... |