Europe – Situation Normal

We spent two-weeks in Portugal having arrived into Lisbon and then immediately grabbed a taxi to our rented apartment one hour north in a small town called Caldas da Rainha. From the moment we arrived we could feel the happy vibes of Portugal. We immediately found the people to be kind, helpful, and lovely. Almost everyone smokes, but that is the by far the worst of the attributes of this culture, in my opinion.

We took ourselves out for a wee stroll around the area and found a small place to have a bite to eat. The fish soup I ordered was delicious. Afterwards we made our way back to our apartment and it wasn’t long after a hot shower that my eyes were closing indicating the need for some sleep. Well, we fell asleep around 6 pm and did not rise again until 10 am the next day!

This would be the moment we experienced breakfast in Portugal which consisted of a mouth-watering fresher than fresh pastry coupled with a delicious double espresso-type coffee in a small-ish porcelain cup (sorry folks, no plastic-lidded disposable cups in Portugal. In fact we encountered very little use of disposable products at all. Thank heavens. The tap water is perfectly safe too and truthfully, I have always preferred the use of real China, porcelain, ceramic, glass. Everything tastes better that way.) We paid about .85 euro per coffee and .85 euro per pastry. A real bargain was realized as we sat on the cobble-stone patio and savoured the delicious-ness of our first meal after many hours.

After that we headed toward Obidos, a medieval village and World UNESCO site which is incredibly well preserved. A taxi stopped for us and our lovely driver said his name was ‘Cliff’ and channelling dad from me came, ‘my name’s Cliff. Drop over.’ He didn’t get it. Oh well. He chatted away in English as we just marvelled at it all. We spent a few hours climbing up ancient stone steps and along ancient stone walls. We marveled at the ceramics for sale and stepped into and out of little boutiques where not a soul touted us to buy a thing.

Then, feeling completely wonderful with the day’s experiences, we walked the 5 km back to our little, well equipped apartment.

The highlight of the next day was grabbing a taxi and heading out to see Fatima (where it is believed that in 1917 St. Mary appeared to three peasant children.). The area is now a huge and well maintained shrine for the millions of visitors it received annually.

Following that, we asked our driver to take us to the beach community of Nazare, which of course was breathtaking. We started with a large view from a cliff overlooking the beach then we walked down to sea level with burning thighs. Later, the same driver came to take us back to our awaiting hot showers and beds.

It was time then to move on to our next little home. We used an Uber to get to Aveiro (the Venice of Portugal) and found our reserved apartment which was all new and gorgeous with a view of the river we would later have a tour of.

I had absolutely loved our previous locations but I think Aveiro had just become my favourite place to stay. (Hubby had brought a small laptop along and we were able to easier make apartment bookings online with certain key filters like distance from centre, air conditioning, wifi and configuration of beds vs bedrooms and bathrooms (as Hubby’s sister was along with us).

The next day we grabbed a taxi and went to see Costa Nova, also nearby. This beach nearly made me cry with it’s beauty. It has a kilometers long perfectly preserved board walk which we traversed for about 8 km or so. It helps to preserve the beach due to keeping folks off the dunes. We also walked the couple of clicks out to the two lighthouses and marveled at the many fish swimming near the sea wall.

Hubby age almost 60. I love this pic of him – he looks so relaxed!

After Aviero, we made our way by train to Porto where we once again found ourselves in a gorgeous 16 foot high ceilinged new apartment with all the bells and whistles to ensure our stay was comfortable.

Porto was extremely gorgeous as it is a city built on a steep hill overlooking the gorgeous Douro River.

There are several bridges leading to Gaia, a twin city with a large monastery watching over all. We walked and walked and walked and ate and ate and ate.. The hilly cobblestone streets were fascinating, colourful and thought-provoking. Most of the housing and apartment buildings had clotheslines outside of windows with colourful clothing flapping in the breeze. We rode on a boat and we crossed the bridge to Gaia. At one point I had a bit of panic attack due to the crowds in the late afternoon but hubby helped to calm me down and we got back to our apartment and then could just relax and let the day slip away.

Our next destination found us in Coimbra which is the home to one of the oldest Universities in Europe, founded in wait for it, 1290. Yikes. Again, built on a hill, we climbed some seriously inclined cobblestone streets in order to get up to the campus and see the view. While walking, I realized that many women wear sneakers, even with nice dresses. This would be due to the challenging surfaces of their streets, I would imagine.

If given the opportunity I will certainly return to explore more of this incredible country which completely stole my heart.

We were spending all kinds of time together, working and exploring parts of Europe but, it wasn’t turning into romance. So… I did something about it.

So we began our careers together as young platoon commanders and it was busy – the learning curve was vast and challenging and not without sweat and tears. We attended daily meetings and orders groups. We went to gun-camps and field exercises together. We did physical fitness tests; challenges like rappelling off the jump tower (where my friend Dan, with his ultra confidence in me and enthusiastic persistence locked eyes with me until I took the step to certain death and / or broken legs) and out of a helicopter (ditto); and long marches. We had TGIF gatherings and formal Mess dinners together and soon we started hanging out as friends. We would drive to neighbouring countries, cities, towns and villages. We would check out various restaurants and go for hikes or to a soccer match. We would find English movies to watch in various Movie houses. One of our favourite places to go was Strasbourg, France. It was so beautiful and medieval. We also loved going to the baths at Baden-Baden.

We would stay at the baths for a few hours and walk on the crooked cobble-stone lane ways until we found a little bistro. Famished from the baths.

At Christmas time, feeling that I had just finally settled in, I thought I may not go home back over the pond. I would just stay and catch up on work and have a quiet time, solo. My apartment phone rang. When I answered it my eldest brother Matt’s unmistakable voice asked my why I wouldn’t be coming home. In his deep, slow drawl he said, ‘Marnie, I almost died a few months ago. I’ve just re-learned how to walk. You really need to come home. We’re going to have a big Family Christmas party. You can stay with us. Come home, okay?’

My biggest brother had had a near fatal car accident outside of town up at the lake. He was driving his new convertible and somehow it flipped, throwing him a distance. He landed on his head and was knocked out for days. When he came to, he couldn’t speak properly and he couldn’t walk. He and June persevered, as they would, being who they are – tough and hardworking. They pulled through. June ran the business while Matt did physio and recouped mentally. He would later tell hilarious stories about his time in the hospital. How he would jumble his words and meaning and sayings. Of course, all the nurses loved him. He made everyone laugh.

So, of course I went home and I enjoyed every minute of the catching up and the hyper-ness of being with all the personalities of my big, wonderful family. Silently observing as we all fell into our various roles: the little sister (that was me), the big brother, the joker, the musician entertainer, the nurturer, the best friend to all…we all had a place in the woven fabric of our big family.

***

Out on a field exercise once we had to do the Junior Officer Challenge. It was twenty-four hours and 75 km with eighteen mini-competition posts along the way. Fifty Junior Officers started out. We nick-named it the Okey-Dokey Challenge. The other female officers and many of the male officers dropped out — mostly due to wicked blisters and injuries. Dean and I did the whole thing together. I was the only woman to finish. The picture here is of us at the last ‘competition’ – wine tasting. Dean and I were seated on a bench, side by side. Luckily, I got to do it again the following year but, not Dean. He had been posted to CFB Baden as the Quarter Master of 3RCR. So, that year, I did most of it with a former RRMC milcol colleague, Scott Spinner (not his real name), also from Barrie.

All this time we were spending together though, didn’t turn into romance for Dean and I. Then I found out that my Dean had a girl-friend back home in Newfoundland. Geez. What would I do about that? I was in love with him.

Then it hit me: make him jealous.

That is what I did.

I started dating gorgeous specimens whom I would meet around base or at the Officers’ Mess. Each hunk I met and dated, I made sure to introduce to Dean: Pete, Greg, Chris, Fraser – all nice guys. Dean would prickle slightly when I would bring a new guy to him to meet. This went on for about eighteen months.

One Friday, I had made a date with Fraser — a gorgeous, sweet-natured, blue-eyed, muscled helicopter pilot and I was to meet him later at the Mess. Mid-morning, I was in my office when in walks Dean and sits down. He then did something he had never done before. He asked me to go to a soccer banquet with him later that evening. Bristling, I asked him if this was a date. ‘Yes’, he said.

What?! I was so mad. ‘You asshole!’

He looked at me with shock of his face. I asked him if he thought I had nothing going on on a Friday night. I told him about my date with Fraser and that no, I couldn’t go to his silly banquet. I was seething.

Later I was with Fraser all I was doing was talking about Dean and how much he angered me. How could he really expect me to be just available to him, just like that. I went on and on. Fraser looked at me and gently but firmly said: ‘Marti, go to the banquet. Don’t worry about me. Just go.’

Off I went. The banquet was in a restaurant just up the street from my apartment. After the banquet, Dean and I walked the cobble-stone street to my apartment, arm-in-arm.

We have been together ever since.

This is in Switzerland on a hike just after we started dating exclusively

That was 1990. It is now 2022 and we are about to celebrate 30 years married. I am the luckiest girl in the world.

After we started dating, we began to go away on weekend or week-long trips. We went skiing in the Swiss Alps, staying at a chalet. The Alps were beyond belief. We would ride various lifts up to the peak, spend a couple hours skiing up there, then ski down to a chalet for lunch and a beer – the scenery from the chalet was enough to bring tears to your eyes. Spectacular. After refreshments, we would ski for a couple more hours in the middle of the alps and then ski down to the base where we would find the lodge and end our day. It was blissful.

Another trip found us in the Austrian Alps on Officer Adventure Training. (Well subsidized!) The Austrian Alps were also spectacular. This time we were staying in a quaint village that looked like something from a painting or a Christmas card. So picturesque with its crooked, old stone buildings, shutters, balconies, cobble stones, wrought iron and of course, the layer of pure white snow on every surface and not a flat roof in sight.

Another trip we went on together was to Corfu, Greece. We had two weeks at an all-inclusive resort and we had an amazing trip. The trip ended with the two of us exchanging identical rings on a hill in an olive grove. We were now engaged to be married. Oh happy day!

In Greece, we met an older couple named Mary and David from Scotland. They made the mistake of inviting us to their home to visit some day. Well, we went. We flew into London on a military air craft. We saw Les Miserables, a Tottenham soccer match and we walked and explored parts of London. We went to Harrods and stayed in a B & B. Then we took a bus north to Glasgow. Mary and David handed us a shot of whiskey as we arrived at their house. For the next couple of days, they toured us around the countryside to see ruins of Castles, Inverary Village,

boutiques and tea shops. In one shop, I bought a lavender coloured kilt of fine wool that I later wore to be married in. Dean bought a fine deer-stocker hat. We went to the pictures one night and then it was over. We headed back to London and flew back to Germany. One regret is that we did not get over to Ireland.

Capt MMV — My little brother took this picture of me in my dress tans. Taken outside my apartment in Lahr-Schwartzwald, Germany 1990

Somewhere in there, my younger brother Luke came to Germany and stayed in my apartment with me for a number of months, sleeping on my roll-away cot. I look back on that time with regret because I feel that I didn’t spend enough quality time with him while he was there. My attentions were focused elsewhere and I was sometimes rather stressed with pressures at work, which came out in tetchiness with him. Luke was able to pick up a serving job and use my bike to get to the Caserne where the cafe was. One nice time we had was to head down to the Bondensee in Switzerland where we had a bit of time together by the water. I was doing my dive licence at that time and needed to conduct a deep dive. Because the visibility at depth was about nil, it was fairly intense and I had to talk to myself the whole time to stay calm. After getting my SCUBA licence, I never dove again. It just wasn’t something that I liked doing, after all. While I was deployed on exercise for several weeks, Luke went home to Canada. I missed him bitterly after he was gone. He had met a very sweet lady who herself was ready to head home and I thought they would be together forever, but, alas, one never knows.

It was about this stage in our young relationship that Dean and I started to discuss the idea of getting out of the army. We would make our own way out on civvie street. We had no real idea what we would do for jobs, but, we knew for certain that we did not want to be ‘in’ any longer.

We were honourably discharged from the Canadian Forces in March of 92 and moved in with Dean’s parents into their 800 square foot house in Newfoundland. A few months later we started another adventure…travelling all over Canada and into Alaska in our 1976 VW Van named ‘Betsy’ that we brought home from Germany.