Jim Byers' Valentine's Day Travel Blog: How an Italy Train Trip Changed My Life

Jim Byers’ Valentine’s Day Travel Blog: How an Italy Train Trip Changed My Life

February 14, 2021 Jim Byers

This story first appeared in the Toronto Star on Dec. 30, 2010 as part of a series of “my first” experiences.

It was my first trip to Europe, and it was a remarkable visit. But I remember it more as the trip when I met my wife.

I had recently graduated from UCLA in my home state of California, and had planned on backpacking around Europe with a buddy. He couldn’t make it, but a friend convinced me to strike out on my own, and off I went.

I met lots of nice folks in Scotland, England and France. I particularly remember hanging out at a college residence on the left bank in Paris and talking politics with a group of a dozen or so Italian girls, all of them decked out in white flannel nightgowns. Ahem.

I made my way south to Provence and then got to Rome, where I met some American girls and toured the Vatican and the Colosseum and drank tons of cappuccino and ate cheap spaghetti carbonara. We spent three days or so in Rome and had planned to meet the next morning at the Termini train station for a trip to Florence.

When I got there I couldn’t find the girls. So I hopped on the train and figured maybe I’d see them. Or not.

I was early enough to get a seat in one of the compartments on the train, which quickly filled up. I noticed three girls boarding, but there were no good seats left so they plunked down on those aisle-seats that fold down and look terribly uncomfortable and force everyone to squeeze past you and your mammoth backpack, all the while trying to fend off Italian ticket-takers and Italian men.

One of the girls near me was quite nice, and there was another one at the end that was pretty cute but quiet. When the train stopped, we got off and set about finding one of those hotels that all the kids from North America were staying at in the summer of 1979, on, I believe, Via Faenza.

I was walking slowly, as was one of the girls/women in the party, the quiet/cute one at the end, named Barbara. We started talking and she found out I knew that: A) Canada was NOT part of the U.S.; B) Canada had a Prime Minister, not a President; C) Canada’s Prime Minister was a Conservative; and, D) Canada’s leader was Joe Clark.

She was impressed. I even knew a Joe Clark joke I had once read in the L.A. Times. “Why does Joe Clark carry a turkey under his arm?” Answer: “Spare parts.”

Notice I didn’t say it was a GOOD joke.

Anyway, we all hung out and toured the Uffizi and ate gelato. We went our separate ways at the end of three days with no romance to speak of; just some nice memories and a pretty solid dancing experience to “Can’t Stand Losing You” by The Police at a packed North American ex-pat place called The Red Garter.

She got back to Don Mills and I went home to a little town called Castro Valley, Calif. She ultimately got a letter from another guy from California, stating how nice it was to meet her. It seemed a nice thing to do, so she thought she’d write to some people she had met. My name, for some reason, came to mind, and I’d provided my address. So she shipped off a letter.

I remembered her well, although I don’t think we had any pictures of each other from that trip, this being pre-digital times when we only had Instamatic cameras and it cost $20 to develop a roll of 24 photos, and this at a time when $20 was an entire day’s pay and, yes, that makes me feel pretty old.

Outside the Rome train station where we met.

I wrote back. I think the only picture I had of myself was an old drivers’ license, so I swear to the lord above that I sent it to her and how crazy is that? She wrote to me, again, I think.

A little time went by and it was New Year’s Day. I called to say “hi,” and it was like we’d never left Florence. I hung up with a smile on my face.

A few weeks later she went to a friend’s cottage and sat by the fire and wrote me a letter, asking if perhaps I’d want to visit Toronto some day. Being a red-blooded male, I thought this was a good opportunity and responded. Quickly.

I arrived June 29, I think, 1980. We went for a bike ride at Wilket Creek Park and got caught in a southern Ontario rainstorm and went down to the boardwalk near The Beach. We had dinner with her fabulous family.

The next day she took me downtown to show me around. We went for a cappuccino – very decadent at the time and only available in the heart of the city, not at Lawrence and Victoria Park – in a little place at Village by the Grange.

I took a sip of coffee, put my cup down, and looked up at her.

“I think we should get married.”

She didn’t bat an eyelash.

“I agree.”

Just like that.

We watched a July 1 concert at Queen’s Park (where someone stole my sports jacket from the back of her orange-red Fiat Strada, I’ll have you know) and visited Montreal and wandered the streets of Quebec City. This caused a wee bit of tension with her parents, who wondered who the stranger was that was sharing a hotel room with their daughter.

She came out to my home in Northern California and I took her to Carmel. She was stunned that my mother, a travel agent, had booked the room for us to spend a night in sin. (My folks were pretty liberal that way, but then again, we ARE from California).

We met again in October at a UCLA-Ohio State football game in Columbus and drove past fiery red, orange and yellow trees on the QEW on the way to Toronto. I had better job prospects here than she did in California at the time, and, to be honest, she had little desire to move. So I said I’d relocate, what the heck. We quickly found out the only way that would easily happen is if I came on a fiancé visa.

So we sat down at her place, a second-floor flat in a lovely brick house with turrets that still sits right behind the Castle Frank subway station, and decided we’d simply have to make our engagement official in order to be together.

I’ve been to a lot of amazing places since then, but that 1979 visit to Europe is still the best trip I’ve ever taken. Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart!