I waited in the long line at the Athens Main Post Office to pick up my mail. Back then there was no air conditioning, so the line of mostly twenty-somethings rocked gently back and forth waving improvised fans to keep cool. We were a United Nations of slightly unkempt travellers, all waiting to collect our mail from the one window that dispensed Poste Restante. German, Swedish, Dutch, French, English, Australian, Japanese: all these languages and more were burbling quietly through the marbled space.
Before smart phones, mobile phones, and email at Internet Cafes, when you wanted to communicate with family and friends while you were travelling in other countries, you had few choices. If you had spare money, you could either send a telegram or schedule a very expensive phone call from a special post office location, or possibly from your very nice hotel.
For most of us, however, we did not have spare money or very nice hotels, and our plans were necessarily fluid. When you wanted to meet a friend, the best way to find them was to send or receive a letter via Poste Restante. To send a Poste Restante letter, you only needed the person’s name, c/o “Poste Restante” (or “General Delivery” in the United States), the city, and the country. Each city’s main post office would hold the letters, usually for at least a couple of weeks, until you came to claim it. Mail flowed very quickly back then so you only needed 2-4 days for mail to be delivered, at least around Europe.
When you got into that town, after checking into the youth hostel or wherever you were staying, and having a quick shower and a snack, your next stop was usually the Central Post Office to collect your mail. Then you could find out when and where to meet your friends, and also if your parents had wired you any money 😄. After that you’d go to a bank to restock your funds in the local currency, (at least in the days before a single European currency.)
We used very lightweight single-sheet, folding light blue airmail papers called Aerogrammes that took the cheapest postage with the most space to write. A postcard was fun, but didn’t leave much room to write and sometimes crucial information was covered over by the postmark. We learned to write in very tiny letters using non-smearing ink to have as much space to write our important messages on those thin blue papers. The rice-paper thin distinctive pale blue aerogram signified more then a mere letter: it was a symbol of exotic travel, experiences beyond the ordinary, and a wisp of excitement held within.
Unlike my mother who travelled with either a chaperone, or a group of other ladies, when I travelled at age 20, I was alone for about a quarter of the time with a very fluid schedule. I had no certainty when or where I would meet my friends, but it didn’t seem to matter. There was quite a good information network that flowed among travellers who stayed at youth hostels or similar accommodations for young adults. Messages would be left at those places too and passed along to friends that way.
As long as you had a general sense of when and in what city you were planning to meet up, there never seemed to be more than half a day waiting before finding each other. You would leave word to meet them on day X and perhaps the following day at a cafe in a popular location at 10 am, and maybe again at 4 pm. In Athens it was always in Syntagma Square, the huge public square lined with trees and cafes.
On that first summer day in Athens, I was waiting in line to confirm when my travelling companion was arriving, and where she planned to stay. After our two weeks of traveling, I returned to Athens. Once again I headed straight to the Post Office to find out who was arriving when. I had a couple of days before my next friend arrived, which was fine as it turned out, since I also learned some of my former schoolmates were arriving in Athens that day. I now had some other pals to see whilst I waited for my next friend to arrive.
Which was the way of travelling back then. If you didn’t have your own friends to hang out with, it didn’t take much effort to find some people wherever you were staying who would welcome you to join them.
When I arrived at my very first night at a Youth Hostel in Geneva, Switzerland as I began my two months of travel around Europe, I stopped in the kitchen to see what it looked like. I met a young woman and man, both about my age, and we chatted for a few minutes. And as we had all just arrived, we headed off to go food shopping since eating out was very expensive.
We ended up spending the next couple of days together, picnicking our way across Geneva and the lovely cities around the lake, stopping off and wandering through the cobbled and narrow streets of Lausanne and Montreaux. Oh the joys of a Eurail pass, hopping on and off trains as and when we wanted! And that’s how it went for at least a couple of weeks during my two month trip: somedays I was by myself, other days I would spend time with newly acquired Dutch, Australian or French temporary companions.
I still find it amazing that my introverted and quiet self headed off on my own from London with a goal to meet a friend in Athens ten days later, and only a sketchy plan for what I would do in between. I had a little money, my backpack, a Eurail pass, and a vague idea to travel via Paris to Geneva, and then carry on by train to Athens. I’d checked the train timetable, and knew it was possible, but that is about it. (I wrote previously about my train journey through Yugoslavia, as it was known then, on my way to Athens.)
At some point that summer, I remember sitting in a shared room in a hostel with two other women, and we each spoke two languages, but not all three of us spoke the same one. Two of us would talk for a few minutes, then one of us would turn to the third, and tell her in one of our overlapping languages what we had learned or shared. It was only a bit awkward, and I remember thinking what a wonderful adventure I was having and that this was one of those pinch-me moments I hope I always remember. And so I have.
Thank you so much for reading my reminiscences today! Do any of you remember or did you travel using the Poste Restante to find friends? How about those Aerogrammes? I’d love to hear about your adventures if you want to share.
See you next week,
xoxo Sabrina
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I miss handwritten letters. I miss them very much. Occasionally, I send one to a distant friend. Nothing says I am thinking of you better than that. And we can still do it. But like you say, it takes longer these days for it to arrive. No matter!
How brave you were!! Though I never traveled around Europe quite like that, I did use my home base in Cologne, Germany where I lived for the most miserable year of my life, to meet up with friends in Amsterdam and Spain, take the train to conferences, and one glorious time to visit my parents in Copenhagen. I look back on taking the train to and around Spain with wonder. How did I do that without Google Maps and the internet? How did I do anything without those tools.
This post reminded me of the wonderful letter writing that our friends had with each other. Long, copious messages. I still have many of the letters you sent me. I have many from my mother and postcards from my father. Those letters mean more to me than anything - not only the content to remind us of our younger selves but the care and thoughtfulness that it took to sit down and write them.
Alas, those days are gone.