Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 16: Lessons learned, corners turned, bridges burned (finis)

Throughout this series, I’ve offered songs that I associate with the time of my first trip to Europe, and yes, I know quite well that this little ditty by Starship has come to be regarded as the “worst” pop number ever. But it remains that upon my return to America in 1985, it was ubiquitous for months on end. So it goes (or went).  

Previously: Euro Pilgrimage ’85, Ch. 15: Soviet times in Leningrad and the long trek back to Luxembourg.

All transcendent things must come to an end. It was late in the evening on August 8, 1985. In fact, it may have been past midnight, making it the 9th, not the 8th. In short, I was back home again in Indiana, after three glorious months in Europe.

Now what?

It felt more like a death in the family than a triumphant return home, and exhilaration competed mightily with sadness for available head space. Had the Icelandair jet possessed a fogged-up rearview mirror, Luxembourg City would have disappeared far too quickly into it, with the European continent receding into cloud-blanketed expanses of ocean and ether.

More often than not, I’ve allowed my subsequent trips to Europe to conclude with a moment’s melancholy at the westward departure. Actually the first journey’s in-flight bleakness didn’t last very long, primarily because there was far too much to think about.

Ten or more hours later, allowing for the obligatory Reykjavik shopping layover, I stumbled somewhat groggily out of the cursory customs checkpoint into the teeming arrival hall at Chicago O’Hare. There, waiting to meet me, were John and Kevin ― troopers and true friends, following through just as we’d agreed back in May.

As a bonus, the brothers were holding a cheesy, hand-lettered cardboard sign: BAYLOR TAXI. In this primitive rotary dial era, it had not occurred to any of us to prepare contingency plans in case of problems, such as a flight delay or cancellation on my part, or a flat tire on theirs.

In fact I hadn’t phoned home, even once. European pay phones in 1985? Don’t get me started. From Greece to Ireland, and Pecetto Torinese to Tampere, they were utterly mystifying, not to mention overly expensive ― and recall that I really hate to use the phone.

I’d dropped only a handful of post cards into letter boxes; postage was reasonably priced and the procedure somewhat easier to unravel, but the entire point of visiting Europe was to get away from America and Americanism, and this is exactly what I’d managed to do. Whether anyone back home appreciated my stance or even noticed it, I didn’t care one jot.

The object was to break away. Hurdles real and imagined were cleared, and the first pilgrimage was finished.

Once again, with feeling: Now what?

At times, clichés are all we really have, so I can attest that even while passing through customs at O’Hare, I definitely knew things weren’t going to be the same for me again. Once wasn’t enough. The three-month baptism was finished, and I was a dofferent person.

There’d have to be another journey, and while the details weren’t clear as to exactly how I’d be rearranging my life for as many as 18 months until sufficient funds accumulated to fund the next escape from our stifling collective Reaganite compound, the imperative was rock solid.

At 25, in 1985, the verdict was established beyond reasonable doubt, and it was exceedingly likely that I’d become a European travel lifer.

So it has transpired.

My friends drove five-plus hours straight home from Chicago, stopping only once for us to devour sliders at an pre-buffed and polished White Castle along the way. This seamless reversion to American-style form was the first broad hint that in spite of being a new European man, bad habits still would worm their way back into my world.

This was to be expected, after all. The point to my life became keeping eyes fixed on the prize, and doing what was necessary to survive in the interim. Consequently, the grind resumed.

Within days of returning home, I was filling shifts at the liquor store. Soon school was back in session; teachers immediately started taking off work, and substitute teaching began anew. Money trickled in, and the budget once again could be written in black ink.

After a few weeks, there was sufficient revenue to develop those rolls of slide film still hidden in the lead-lined pouch, and at last I could see where I’d visited. Bills were paid, bar tabs settled, and a faint dribble of cash stashed under the mattress. It was proof positive that when the stakes mattered to me, I could be highly motivated.

Fiscal restraint meant at least a partial return to inexpensive mass-market beer. Unsurprisingly, American mass-market lager no longer tasted very good.

Eventually it would occur to me to drink less and drink better, but not quite yet. There were too many troublesome hormones requiring sedation. Choking down the cheap beer, I grinned and rationalized, accepting these cost-cutter hardships and keeping the focus on 1987 and the expected sequel.

Anyway, I worked at a package store, and employment had its discounted privileges. When all was said and done, Bass Ale and St. Pauli Girl tasted surprisingly good when the employee discount enabled periodic splurges. And yet Christian Moerlein, which was created in 1981 in Cincinnati as Hudepohl Brewing’s “super premium lager” equivalent to Michelob, actually tasted closest to what I remembered overseas and became a go-to choice.

Thirty pounds disappeared from my frame during three months across the pond. The medical experts would say it’s too much, too fast, and accordingly, a loss unlikely to last. They’re absolutely right, and by the spring of 1986, I’d found each and every of those lost pounds, and added a few more for good measure.

It all came down to food and drink. I’ve never been a problem drinker, but eating as stress relief is a different thing entirely. Excerise was lacking, too. When the daily formula is to work two jobs, drink, sleep, rinse and repeat, physical self-care isn’t much of a consideration. Most of my issues were almost entirely psychological. Simply stated, it became “get back to Europe, or bust.”

Far more than high school and college graduation dates, the year 1985 marks the first great dividing line in my adult life. My story has two parts: what came before the European journey, and what happened after it.

Later there would be numerous other narrative junctures involving the usual suspects and vicissitudes: thru-ways, dead ends, lovers, careers, wins and losses; all the things that go to make up one’s lifespan. There’d also be 47 more trips to Europe (through August 2025, with a 48th scheduled), perhaps bearing out the sheer depth of the obsession that blossomed in 1985.

So, what did it all mean in 1985? What has it continued to mean since then?

Four decades later, it’s a question I’m still trying to properly assess. I can see more clearly now than before. In some ways the available answers are uniformly embarrassing, in the sense that in spite of the many qualifications and evasions I might deploy to wiggle out from self-examination, the mere fact that I took a trip to Europe in 1985 seeking to jump-start my life speaks directly to privilege, not privation.

It’s a reminder of how lazy and formless I’d been up to that point.

In 1942, my 17-year-old father ran away from home to fight in a world war. I was spared this tough choice, and by the time I was 17 military service was voluntary. He and I seldom agreed during my adolescence, but my parents sent me to university ― for a philosophy degree, qualifying me to become a Ranking Beer Guy, although only in time. Frank Zappa nailed it.

I didn’t go to work in a sweat shop at age 12, didn’t endure domestic violence, and didn’t have many hard decisions to make. In short, I hit the damn lottery. It was easy to glide through youth, such that there was ample time for me in my early twenties to decide at long last to get my act together and set off on a quest, purely elective, to “find” myself.

Most humans on the planet have few, if any, of these luxuries. I know this. And yet this life is the only one I’ve ever had, and all I can do is live it as best I can.

Europe in 1985 is where and when I grew up, insofar as I’ve ever grown up, which remains debatable at the age of 65. Europe was the exact opposite of my undergraduate default experience of muddling through, and far more of an advanced educational seminar than a non-stop party.

Europe is where things began making sense to me, more so than at home. Honestly, I was as surprised as anyone to learn that I possessed the requisite genes, previously dormant, that enabled me to plan ahead, work hard, save money, and challenge myself.

This is the ultimate point, because at first, I got it backward. I kept thinking that a tenure in Europe was required to gain the experience necessary for growth and self-knowledge, and of course being there proved to be enormous, and yet what changed me the most, more so than three months in Europe, was the two-year period preceding the trip.

Europe changed my life. What I didn’t notice at the time was my life changing in order to get to Europe. Finally, I cared about something, and finally, out of nowhere, a previously dormant work ethic emerged.

Who’d have ever guessed it?

Lacking any better way to end this tale of an inaugural journey, here is an attempted coda, subject to future revision: three personal legacies of Euro Pilgrimage ’85, as assessed 40 years later.

Food, cooking … and beer

Moussaka, pastitsio, clam sauce, blood sausage, curry.

Mettwurst, Serbian bean soup, Wiener schnitzel, pickled herring, beef tartare.

These are ten random culinary high points as experienced during my first trip to Europe. In large measure, I’d never been exposed to foods exactly like these, and the fact of such a bounty being available to a budget traveler like me was impressive, making white tablecloths completely unnecessary.

Frommer was right. Travel could be undertaken without breaking the bank.

Coming from a background of largely flavorless meat and potatoes, this was revelatory, but since few of these meals were readily available in Southern Indiana, the time had arrived for me to start cooking. Moving forward, at least until the Louisville metro area dining scene began diversifying a decade later, the only way I’d get the food I wanted was to augment the usual supermarket selection with specialties from Lotsa Pasta (a pioneering food store in Louisville) and prepare them myself. Cooking remains a calming, rewarding and fulfilling pursuit.

Meanwhile, beer as career wasn’t a goal in 1985, and my first European trip wasn’t about compiling or rating brands and styles. All this came later, and my beer understanding remained decidedly imperfect. However, the importance of first-hand experience with the prevailing beer cultures in places like Germany, Austria, Ireland and Denmark cannot be overstated. A flame was lit. Taken together with knowledge gleaned from follow-up trips, the makeup of the future Public House was being sketched, even if I didn’t know it yet.

(Related: “I got food, but I’m not a foodie.”)

Languages

In 1985, I’d been exposed to almost as many languages as countries, but the problem with constant movement was a reduced opportunity to make sense of them in detail.

Upon return, I vowed to learn a European language, and began stockpiling books, instructional cassettes and VHS videos.

Alas, it came to very little in the end; four decades later, I still lack proficiency in a second language. However, I know a few words in two dozen languages, and prior to my second journey in 1987, managed to teach myself the Cyrillic alphabet, which at a minimum made Moscow’s subways navigable. It is my goal to never allow a day to pass without thanking the cosmos that English is the planet’s second language.

The lifelong lessons of urbanism

I grew up in the Southern Indiana countryside, then went to Europe for the first time and spent nearly all of the journey exploring cities.

Granted, it took a while for these urban lessons to be absorbed, but the conversion was heartfelt. Ever since, I’ve inhabited a neighborhood (New Albany) of a larger city (Louisville), albeit lacking the amenities in infrastructure that made European city life what it was, and remains.

Shouldn’t I be able to board a bus, switch to the subway, and be in downtown Louisville in minutes without once considering the use of my car? Why our endless, ugly American sprawl?

Can’t we fill in those tragic empty spaces where the downtown buildings used to be?

I must stop now.

The older I get, the more normal my European interlude in 1985 seems to me. Rather, it’s the long trip unfloding since then that seems strange and circuitous. While religion isn’t my jam, rest assured: I’m very, very thankful for all of it — good, bad or indifferent.

Here’s the list of what came after.

It’s my first attempt ever to make a list of 47 trips to Europe (as of August, 2025), with links to some of the pieces I’ve written about them at my web site, the Food & Dining Magazine web site, and my former blog NA Confidential.

I hope it is readily apparent that this list (a) is as much for my use as yours, in the sense of being a reference guide; (b) it is incomplete and subject to continuous updating; and (c) relax — there will not be a quiz. I’ll continue updating this list, and eventually make it freestanding.

There are two travel gaps worthy of an explanation. The years 2010, 2011 and 2012 conincided with the NABC Bank Street Brewhouse years, a business gamble that ultimately failed and left me stranded in SoIN for a while. The COVID pandemic explains the years 2020 and 2021.

1. 1. 1. 1. 1985 The Euro ’85 Pilgrimage Compendium
         2. 1987 (I) Complete list of links to the 1987 European summer travel series … (II) Sofia, Bulgaria in June 1987 (III) Those first ever draft Pilsner Urquells in Prague, 1987 … (IV) In 1987, it was almost “impossible to find bad beer” in Czechoslovakia … (V) Pilsner Urquell pilgrimage, locked gates, and a taxi driver’s day off … (VI) A clash of titans (with Elephant Beer) in Copenhagen
         3. 1989 (I) Uncle V’s beery introduction to Southern Bohemia (June 1989) … (II) In Ostrava, the beer of the people at the factory gates … (III) Moscow skyline in twilight, 1989 … (IV) Beer, zakuski, vodka and ice cream … (V) A working lunch in East Berlin, August 1989 … (VI) Sharing a few Pilsners with a future war criminal … (VII) Yes, there was lots of beer in East Germany … (VIII) A placid traditional Danish lunch in Copenhagen, 1989 … (IX) Beery Copenhagen days and Oktoberfest nights in Munich … (X) That infamous Madrid episode, and a necessary curtailment
         4. 1991-92 (I) Euro beer travel 1991, as history ends and begins again … (II) Vienna’s “Old Whisky Malt Waltz,” a precursor of beer revolutions to come … (III) Herzlich Willkommen in der Weltbierkulturerbe-Stadt Bamberg… (IV) In 1991, a smoky Bamberg sojourn with Happy Helmut … (V) Košice comes into view and the Zlatý Bažant flows (VI) One fine evening in Košice with Pilsner Urquell at the Zlatý Dukát … (VII) Andy Warhol, the Tatras, Magic Johnson and wonderful Mamut … (VIII) Christmas in Košice, 1991 … (IX) I’m off to Spijkenisse with a beer list in my hand (1992)
         5. 1993 A “special vacation” with Kölsch, Altbier and Roggenbier (also, Denmark and Slovakia)
         6. 1994 (1) The birth of Samichlaus at Zürich’s classic Brauerei Hürlimann (1994) … (2) New Albanians on beer holiday in Old Albania, 1994 … (3) Cerveza in the afternoon at Pamplona’s Fiesta de San Fermín
         7. 1995 Prague, Urquell & the Doppelbock Viscosity Tour (Euro Beer Travel 1995, Part I)
         8. 1995 Czech and Slovak beer & Hungarian Bull’s Blood wine (Euro Beer Travel 1995, Part II)
         9. 1995 Those glorious Belgian beer cafes (Euro Beer Travel 1995, Part III) (also Germany and Denmark)
         10. 1996 Smoky treats, a 9-hour, 9-brewery, 9-beer Bamberg stroll (also France and Spain)
         11. 1997 Spring Break with the classic Central European brewers
         12. 1997 Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania (background and a few photos here)
         13. 1998 Motorcoach group: Down a rabbit hole, deep into the Belgian beer paradise
         14. 1998 A “tight” 1998 European summer (San Fermin & the French Alps) … We just had to get to Merry Old England
         15. 1999 40 Years in Beer (Book II), Part 75: My shoes are filled with Volga mud (Russia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Germany)
         16. 1999 Motorcoach group: Ultimate Road Trip IV (Continental Beer Paradise), Belgium, Germany and Czech Republic
         17. 2000 Beercycling: Belgium, France and the Netherlands for the first beer and biking adventure
         18. 2001 Derbyshire and the Midlands, London, England.
         19. 2001 Beercycling: Belgium, Germany and Austria
         20. 2002 Motorcoach group to Hungary, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic and Austria; My earnest pursuit of Żywiec Porter (1987 – 2002 – 2018) …
         21. 2002 Motorcoach group: Dusseldrof, Belgian breweries and the hop fest in Poperinge
         22. 2003 Beercycling: Frankfurt (Germany) to Vienna (Austria) along the Danube bike route, then by rail back to Bamberg via Salzburg
         23. 2003 Galway and environs in Ireland, first and only rental car
         24. 2004 Beercycling: (I) Tour de Trappiste … (II) Orval exemplifies true religion, Trappist (ale)-style.
         25. 2004 The final motorcoach group trip to Czech Republic and Germany; a pinnacle
         26. 2005 Beercycling: Haarlem, Amsterdam, Brugge, Poperinge
         27. 2006 Beercycling: Germany, the Prague – Vienna Greenway, Austria
         28. 2007 Belgium (Poperinge) and Netherlands (Haarlem)
         29. 2007 Germany (Bamberg and Cologne) and Netherlands (Haarlem)
         30. 2008 Beercycling (final): Belgium (Poperinge) and Netherlands (Haarlem)
         31. 2009 United Kingdom: The Dolphin (Plymouth UK), one of my favorite pubs in the world
             Denmark (also Copenhagen)
         32. 2009-10 Bamberg Christmas 2009 (scroll to the very end to begin reading
         33. 2013 Hip Hops: England 2013, or one man’s cholesterol panic is another’s nostalgic repast
         34. 2014 (I) Poor but sexy Berlin … (II) To Leninplatz and the Imbiss, 25 years later … (III) A Spezial reintroduction to Bamberg … (IV) Sightseeing and Schlenkerla … (V) Grudging goodbyes to Bamberg … (VI) Deutsche Bahn disintegrates, but we nimbly fall back on Kölsch (VII) Daisy! … (VIII) Time again for the hop festival in Poperinge … (IX) Pairings, tattoos and a meal to remember … (X) Is the hop plant satanic? … (XI) The story of hops in parade format … (XII) A final Belgian evening in Mechelen, with Opsinjoorke … (XIII) The unkindest cut of all
         35. 2016 All the Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland links are here, in one place
         36. 2016 (I) Sicilian interlude in Catania … (II) Malta (Valletta)
         37. 2017 (I) Back in Poperinge for hop festival Saturday … (II) 2017 Poperinge Hop Parade, Part One: One must pour the proper foundation for maximum parade enjoyment … (III) 2017 Poperinge Hop Parade, Part Two: The procession itself, and where to dine afterward … (IV) Time for remembrance at Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery outside Poperinge … (V) Out there in the fields, or a visit to De Plukker Hop Farm Brewery outside Poperinge … (VI) Renewing friendships in Haarlem … (VII) Shopping, strolling, beaches, herring, bock and madras. Just a second day’s reintroduction to Haarlem … (VIII) Haarlem on a Friday night in September: One church with beer, another without, and a relaxing dinner with friends at The Warehouse … (IX) A farewell to wonderful Haarlem
         38. 2018 (I) Your courtesy compendium of links to the “Portugal Trip 2018” and “Focus on Portugal 2018” series … (II) Edibles & Potables: The Portuguese oasis of Madeira … (III) Hip Hops: I’m here today not to bury Super Bock, Sagres and Coral, but to praise them
         39. 2018 Gdansk, Poland
         40. 2018 Bavarian Christmas 2018 (Munich, Bamberg)
         41. 2019 (I) Link compendium for Baylor Family Croatia, Slovenia and Trieste 2019 … (II) Menu Items: Štruklji, Jota and Pelinkovac — or, what I ate and drank on our 2019 winter break … (III) Jan Morris and Trieste, but mostly Jan Morris
         42. 2022 Edibles & Potables: Eating quite well in Portugal, from bacalhau to Lucifer’s fingers
         43. 2022 Hip Hops: Off to Greece to get my Fix
         44. 2023 Edibles & Potables: Let’s go Dutch in Arnhem (Netherlands, Denmark)
         45. 2024 Edibles & Potables: Cuisine Nissarde — or, what to eat in Nice during Carnaval
         46. 2024 Edibles & Potables: Eating and drinking near Diocletian’s digs (Split, Croatia)
         47. 2025 A brief recounting of the Balkan getaway in February, 2025 (Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro
         48. 2025 Valencia and Palma de Mallorca, Spain (upcoming, Oct. 2025)

After this, who knows? I’d like to go to South America and Japan. After 40 years, it might be time to expand my horizons.

The only time I ever feel patriotic about being a Hoosier is when listening to those 1980s albums by John Mellencamp.

Meanwhile, two more photos. In 1986, prepping for Europe in 1987, I took to exploring my own surroundings in Louisville and Southern Indiana. It wasn’t the same, but the diversion was useful.