Wanderlust woman having a lucky travel streak this Friday the 13th

I don’t know where all the hoopla and superstition about “Friday the 13th” started but they never asked me because it’s ALWAYS been my lucky day.  I have never suffered from paraskevidekatriaphobia; therefore, I thought I would make this an extra lucky day by using it to springboard my first post on the new blog.  I asked fellow Wanderlust Women for their lucky travel anecdotes this morning but the plea has fallen on deaf ears, so you are stuck with me.

I have enough lucky travel stories to fill a book, well, OK, at least enough to fill this post.  So, here goes:

1.  Miami, FL – this lucky bit dates back to high school but it’s the first I can remember.  I was visiting the University of Miami, scouting schools for myself.  I had an absolutely gorgeous senior showing me around and there were signs of “party school” everywhere.  As I was exiting the grounds with Mom, there on the ground in front of me was a $20 bill.

2.  Freeport, Bahamas – There was once an airline called Bahamas Express and it transported frozen New Yorkers down to Freeport for the day (hey, it’s only a 2.5 hr flight).  Anyway, Mom and I decided to hop over for lunch and some conch chowder.  It was cold and freezing this February in New York and lunch in Freeport sounded much better.  Well, the package deal included the airfare, ground transfer, lunch voucher and the first $10 to gamble in the hotel’s casino.  We hit for $250.  The trip paid for itself.  Now if that’s not a lucky travel story, then I don’t know what is?

3.  Chicago, Illinois – The Windy City is another daytrip for me and Mom (BTW – are you guessing who gave me the travel bug by now – she’s the Queen of Wanderlust Women).  Well, even though we’ve been there ALOT, we still do hokey tourist things when we visit.  This brisk Saturday morning we were on the top deck of a tour bus as it was pulling away from its first stop.  Lo and behold, I see Jon Bon Jovi walking down the street (I didn’t know the band was in town!)  Well, I get all excited and Mom screams for the tour bus to stop.  They did so only because she was standing up in the open air deck.  She tells them we just saw a friend and must exit (I personally think they were glad to get rid of us).  Now, by the time the tour bus let’s us off half-a-block away, Jon is nowhere to be seen and it’s not like he can really hide, you know what I mean?  Well, Mom heads off toward Michigan Avenue and I  stop in the Water Tower gift shop to ask if Jon stopped by?  When I come back out, Mom is holding Jon hostage on the corner of Michigan Avenue.  I’m lucky he didn’t call the cops on her.  You see, Jon does know me but he’d never met my Mom before.  Yet, being Italian, I think Jon knew better than to argue with an Italian mother who asked him to wait for her daughter.

3.  Amsterdam, The Netherlands – My semester abroad led me to travel Europe afterwards.  The school arranged for us to stay in hotels, hostels and in Amsterdam with a local family.  Well, no one in this home spoke English, or so we thought.  Wendy, my fellow traveler and I, had a very quiet and uncomfortable dinner with the locals and were then shown to our room.  I had heard the Dutch were much more liberal in their mores than we stuffy Americans were but there were no curtains on the windows.  Wendy and I gasped in horror.  What to do about undressing was followed by thoughts of the sun blaring in at dawn.  We said as much to each other in the privacy of our room and made do with a bad situation.  We spent the next day touring the sex shops and drugs dens of the city (I mean what else do 2 college girls on the loose do?)  By the time we got back to the house, there were curtains on our windows.  Hmmmmmm, I guess someone spoke English afterall – just not to us!

4.  Driving Blind – As a journalist I am often left to travel into unknown territory and at odd hours.  I’m used to it and not much scares me…………however.  Picture it – a flat tire on a desolate suburban highway.  There are no lights and I do not have a cel phone.  I decide better to stay in a locked car until dawn, about 5 hours away, rather than risk walking in the pitch black to find help.  All of a sudden, off in the distance, I hear a car blaring at me, playing salsa music louder than any Bronx bodega on a hot summer night.  It slows down as it nears me and I begin to quake, looking at the pom-poms which line the rear window and the bobble-head taco-bell dog stuck to the dash.  I cannot see who is driving because it is too dark but fear I am about to get to know the driver and/or passengers much better than I really want to.  The salsa-mobile slowly rolls down the window and I see and hear a man who asks me not to be frightened.  He asks if I need help and says he will change my tire for me.  He does and to this day I am grateful.  I bought a cel phone the next day and now I call 911 whenever I see a driver needing assistance on the road.  Oh, did I tell you – his name was “Angel.”

5.  Capri, Italy – My last bit of great travel luck happened on the boat from Capri to Sorrento.  It was a boat ride that changed my life in ways I still am thankful for each day.

Sometimes lucky shots drop good fortune in your lap but other times they just happen and you don’t count them as lucky.  It could be a new friend you meet along the way, a beautiful double rainbow in the Scottish hills or the best meal you’ve ever had.  I truly believe each thing we experience along this journey of life is a bit of luck, good or bad, because if you had not journeyed you would never have been lucky enough to experience it.