On Genuine Friendship: One for the Europals

Laurel here, taking a moment to reflect upon the people I’ve met in various hostels, ferries, and gringo bars. I don’t mean the dozens of kind locals who helped in countless ways, though they deserve a post too. (Every traveller has stories about this: one of the best things about travel is the way it allows you to be available for kindness from strangers.) I mean fellow travellers, people who shared space with me for brief amounts of time during my wanderings. A former travel partner used to call them ‘Europals’ and that is what they have always been to me, wherever we meet and wherever they come from.

When I was in my teens and twenties I imagined these Europals would be my friends for life. I dutifully took down their addresses and gave them mine. I fantasised about how we would meet again in exotic locales, over many years. Once in a great while we stayed in touch. Stefan, the German whom I met in Morocco, came to visit in NY. And that is about it. PS: language school Europals are in a different category. Some of them I have stayed in touch with for many years because we had the luxury of getting to know each other over longer periods.

Fast Forward a Lot of Years

I used to wish this were not so, to be upset about not having worked harder to stay in touch. (Young People: it was harder in those days – you had to write real letters, and find stamps. Plus I moved nearly every year in my twenties and lost a lot of people in the shuffle.) As I get older, I don’t feel so bad. Partly, experience has taught me that we probably won’t be friends for life. But also, it’s harder to meet people on the road when you don’t sleep in public places. Money has a way of cushioning us from our fellow humans. For some people that is a relief, and sometimes it is for me too. But not always: I miss these connections, however tenuous.

Having recently left everything and everyone I know, I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship. And I realise that neither time nor depth determines its genuineness. Some people, even if they come and go quickly, still leave an impression. So this post is dedicated to all of the people I’ve met while travelling who made my life better or shared moments of humanity with me.

Europals Who Deserve a Shout-Out

While there are probably a hundred more, these are top-of-mind, in no particular order:

• The four British(?) women who worked in Eurodisney and befriended me in the Swiss Alps when I was alone and lonely.
• The American who helped me decipher the address of the place I was staying in Hong Kong, and got me into a taxi.
• Henry from Western Australia, who camped out next to us on the ferry from Cherbourg to Rosslare (or back?).
• The guys on the overnight train in Germany who shared their cheese and beer once they saw we didn’t have any food.
• Abby(?) from Toronto whom I met on a train somewhere in Italy and slept next to, head-to-toe, in the last remaining bed in the hostel we found when we arrived in Florence after dark.
• The people we sat next to at muay Thai, who tried to explain everything.
• The guy in Ghana who warned us that the bus doesn’t stop long enough for you to take a pee.
• The French group we took the horseback tour with in Mongolia.
• The Canadian family who adopted me in Armenia and took me around with them.
• The group of dreadlocked and sunburnt Australians we met in Dubrovnik. They were going to the restaurant the guidebook recommended. We encouraged them to eat where we were going, which was better and also cheaper. And – because virtue is its own reward but free booze is good too – the people who ran the restaurant gave us shots of limoncello to say thanks.
• The couple on a hike in Peru who lent me money when my boots blew out and I had to rent a donkey for the rest of the trip. We shared a few beers with them on the rooftop of the hotel the next day and then ran into them everywhere.
• The guy in Quito who rented the room next door. I took him to the best ceviche place I knew on my last day there, which was also his first day.