Great European Roadtrip

It’s time for another move.

I left my parents’ home long ago for Cambridge, Massachusetts, to acquire an education. When that didn’t work out, I moved to Cambridge, England, in search of a profession. Later I moved to Madrid, Spain, for the quality of life. This time it’s Zürich, in pursuit of a woman. I’ve mostly traveled light and done my moves by way of anticlimactic commercial flights. Maybe it’s thanks to the quality of life in Madrid or maybe it’s just my advancing years, but in collecting my possessions before this move I found that I had accumulated an embarrassing amount of chattel. Too much for RyanAir, EasyJet or even SwissAir. This move called for something different. This move calls for:

THE GREAT EUROPEAN ROADTRIP: A George & Lucas Production

George and Lucas in Toledo, summer 2010. Credits: Lucas and George, of course.

This is no solo effort. My friend Laura in Madrid kindly let me cache my things at her flat while I took a side trip across the Indian Ocean last month. And when I mentioned my transport conundrum to my long-time Cambridge housemate George, a Shakespeare scholar, he raised his eyebrows and said, “Well, I’m not doing anything that week.”

So now he is. And so am I. We will pause from our lives in the jet set. Instead, we will drive Europe’s blacktop. We shall not travel light. We shall not rush. We shall meander from Madrid to Zürich. We shall savor the cheeses and wines of half a dozen river valleys. And, for reasons my attorney advises me to omit from the public record, we shall return our vehicle to Madrid. Then, on the evening of 7 April in Barajas, we shall reconsecrate ourselves to the jet age and return home in the belly of an Airbus.

Of course, there’s a catch. George doesn’t drive. So our team consists of one man who cannot drive legally and one man who cannot drive at all.

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