Luxembourg seemed to have it all. It was picture-postcard beautiful and livable at the same time. The place was stuffed with pubs where no one cared how old you were; cafes where people actually went to drink coffee this was way before Starbucks ; a big, central train station where you could hop a ride on a whim to anywhere on the continent; and city transit buses that people actually rode on. It was also a needed break from Miami U. After going to school there for three years, I had yet to find my crowd.
Even though the school I attended in Luxembourg was actually a Miami branch campus with mostly fellow Miami students , I found it much easier to meet like-minded people and make friends. When I look back on how events conspired to land me in Europe for most of my adult life, the first step on that journey was obviously my decision to go to school that year in Luxembourg. To set the stage for that trip, it's worth keeping in mind that relations between East and West at that time were not exactly cordial.
In fact, history seemed to be moving in the exact opposite direction. Just that previous December , the hard-line government in Poland under General Wojciech Jaruzelski had declared martial law in an effort to crush the independent-minded Solidarity trade union. There was real fear at the time the Soviet Union was plotting a military invasion β like Hungary in or Czechoslovakia in β to shore up Poland's regime.
Czechoslovakia, for its part, had suspended issuing entry visas for visiting foreigners I suppose for those reasons, it never crossed our minds to go to either Poland or Czechoslovakia.
Still, the four of us myself and friends Doug C. I guess most students were dreaming of Greece or Italy for spring break that year. It's hard to imagine now, but Eastern Europe really was off the map back then. The only exception I can recall was from one of our favorite teachers at the center, a European history professor named Emile Haag.
