5. The Aurelia Voyage

To a young, relatively impoverished college student, the week-long voyage on the Aurelia was simply heaven on earth. Perhaps it was the full schedule of camp-like social and cultural activities that were scheduled for the students on the boat - well, probably not as I attended very few of those - except for a showing of The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, the insurgent interpretation of Jesus' life by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Perhaps it was the lamb chops for breakfast, or the always full lunch and dinner tables. Perhaps it was the nightly happy hours, before and after dinner - in those days, mixed drinks went for about $1.50 (they were a bit watered down, I will acknowledge). Perhaps it was the langorous feeling of total freedom - Shall I take a nap, or should I sit in the lounge and read, or should I go out on the deck and watch the ocean (something that one will do much less frequently than one would imagine, given the utter monotony of it).



The Aurelia was a student ship: All of the passengers were students on their way to Europe, but not all students were equal: At the lowest level were students travelling to Europe for the summer. These students travelled in large groups, in fairly regimented formations, eagerly participated in shipboard activities (since the week on board the Aurelia was a much more significant portion of their European experience). The next level consisted of students who were spending the entire year abroad with college-sponsored programs in Europe. Thus, a group from Indiana University was travelling to Strasbourg because their school maintained an office, a coordinator and a liaison with the university there. However, although they would be soaking up the Europe atmosphere for a year, the courses they would be taking would be confined to those offered by their own program there.



The pinnacle of "Cool" were students who were travelling to Europe for independent study, unfettered by American ties. We were in that group (as far as I know, we may have been the only people in that group on this passage). One of the most pleasant sensations on this trip, from the standpoint of a not-quite-junior student, with a bit of the sophomore still clinging to the mind, was the sensation of being superior, especially to the younger summer students, those who would be spending most of their vacation in special summer institutes, learning a smattering of local language and culture and taking motor coaches to see the local scenery.



About four days out, we ran into a North Atlantic storm, the kind immortalized in all those World War Two convoy-against-U-boat movies. While we were never in peril, the constant pitching and rocking of the relatively small liner did take a bit of sheen off of our once-in-a-lifetime experience. Most of us kept to our cabins, and the breakfast lamb chops didn't seem as delicious when the plates were careening up and down the tables.



My year in Europe was marked by a number of epiphanies. The first of these occurred on June 17, the day before we arrived in Europe. It was the last day at sea, and, after a particularly exultant after-dinner happy hour, a lot of the Fordham people ended up stuffed into one of our cabins, where we talked until the very wee hours. We decided to go topside, and as we arrived on deck, the sky was just beginning to lighten. As we looked up, we saw seagulls! We were approaching land! Then, scanning the horizon, I saw a fishing vessel, tiny, bue growing as it approached the starboard bow. This was the first human encounter we had had since setting out, and as it came closer, I had a surreal moment. Looking at the Fordham classmates, arrayed along the deck and close to unconsciousness, and back at the fishing vessel, I felt like I was in the final scene of La Dolce Vita, in which the dissolute partygoers who have been celebrating all night stagger onto a beach where fishermen have captured a huge fish, who is still alive and who stares at all the onlooker. Well, what can I say? I had just seen La Dolce Vita for the first time the previous spring, and had just learned the meaning of the term "Fellini-esque," so I was ripe for this kind of epiphantic transference.

I dragged my self down to the big lounge and lay down on one of the couches for a dawn nap. I had fitful dreams, involving some authority figure bellaboring me with instructions as if I were a young student in a tour group ... and awoke to find myself in the middle of a tour group of young students, being given final instructions prior to debarcation. I drowsily sat up, soimehow attracting almost no attention , and looked out the windows to see the Englich countryside passing by. We were arriving at Portsmouth.

Of the rest of the trip, there was little to remark. The Aurelia docked in Southampton, where about a third of the students got off. After about 3 hours, we were underway again, landing at Le Havre in late afternoon. From there, after all customs formalities were completed, we boarded the boat train for Paris, and a little over two hours later, we arrived at the Gare St. Lazare. We had arrived in France.