An old friend, long misremembered

[elfs]

Thirty years ago, when I was just ten, my parents took me on a trip around the Mediterranean. The trip lasted ten days and was one of the strongest memories I've carried with me all these years. We went to many places that have long since ossified into romanticized memories of what Greece and Italy were like back in 1977. I remember clearly Korfu, and Venice, and many of the other places. I remember smacking my head on a hanging sign of a butcher shop and getting back to the hotel so bloody my mother fainted. I remember that was the one summer I really got along with my sister.

I had a bit of a flashback this evening. I was doing research for a story (Sterlings: Polestar) when I came upon a webpage for the Stella Solaris. It wasn't until I came to the view of the dining room and the Purser's foyer that a wave of flashbacks hit me. I had been in those rooms. That was the ship.

The Stella Solaris sailed until 2003, when she was sold for scrap and broken at Alang, India. She could have sailed until 2010, at which point the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) would have dictated a massive retrofit of lifeboats and survival gear. Even then, the hull and engines seem to have been in great shape, but the ship, with her 660 passenger cabins, was no longer economical compared to the money-making 3000+ passenger monstrosities that ply the sealanes these days.

I feel saddened by that. Even in 2001, with her disco-era patina still on clear display, the photographs show an elegant and airy vessel, and I regret having missed a second opportunity to travel on her.

Comments

Spacial Flashbacks can be really cool

[rkda.livejournal.com]

At 45, I sometimes get this deja vu feeling when I am in a place I have not been to since before I was 10 years old. I can often remember my way around neighborhoods and buildings that I once used to inhabit. It is both kind of spooky, and kind of cool. Enjoy your fond remembrances of your childhood =))

RKDA