Backpacking through Europe in 1994

Day 41 • October 17 - Part 1, 1994
Last Days in Tours, France

I had been in France for over a month by this point, living with Olivier and Rachel in Tours. At first it felt exciting and new, but after a while the constant translation in my head, the different customs, the food, the jokes I didn’t understand, and the feeling of always being slightly outside of everything started to wear on me.

One night it all came to a head.

We were drinking at their apartment with some of Olivier’s friends. At one point the guys started taking their pants off as a joke — teasing me about being “shy” as an American. It was meant to be funny, but in that moment it felt like too much. I was drunk, overwhelmed, and suddenly everything felt foreign and strange. I left the room and broke down crying. I remember thinking I just wanted to be back at The Dome, playing Sega with my friends, where I understood the rules and didn’t feel like an outsider.

Rachel came and talked to me. Olivier apologized. It eventually became something we laughed about later, but that night it was very real. I was homesick in a way I hadn’t fully allowed myself to feel until then.

The next day was better. We went to Futuroscope, a high-tech theme park outside of Poitiers with massive IMAX screens, simulators, and 3D shows. It was the kind of place that could only exist in France — strange, creative, and oddly wonderful. That day reminded me that even when things felt hard, there were still new experiences waiting.

**Olivier and Rachel**
This is my host brother Olivier and his girlfriend Rachel. Olivier had lived with my family in Nebraska a couple of years earlier as an exchange student, so staying with him in Tours felt like a natural extension of that connection. Rachel was warm, funny, and patient with me from the very beginning.
This photo captures a quiet, ordinary moment between the two of them. I took very few pictures during my time in Tours compared to the rest of the trip, but I’m glad I took this one. It reminds me of how much their friendship and hospitality meant to me while I was so far from home.

My Photographs of Olivier & Rachel

French Coffee Was Serious Business

This close-up shows one of the small daily rituals I noticed while staying with Olivier and Rachel. In France, coffee wasn’t something you just grabbed and drank quickly. It was slower, more intentional. People sat with it. They stirred it carefully. They took their time.

Even something as simple as having coffee at the table felt different than what I was used to back home. I remember being struck by how seriously they took these little moments — the good cups, the real sugar, sitting together instead of rushing off. It was one of the many small cultural differences that made me feel like I was truly in another country.

Olivier Was Loving This

This is one of my favorite photos from my time in Tours. Olivier was in the middle of laughing at something — probably at his own joke — and I caught him right in that moment. He had such a big, genuine smile, and you can see how much he was enjoying himself.

Olivier was naturally funny and full of life. He had a way of making everyone around him feel comfortable, even when I was struggling with the language and feeling like an outsider. Moments like this — just sitting around the table, drinking coffee, and laughing — were some of the best parts of staying with him and Rachel.

Strategy Session

This photo shows Olivier and Rachel sitting at the table with me trying to figure out how to make the most of the time I had left with them. I was getting close to leaving Tours, and the three of us were brainstorming ideas for what we could still do together before I moved on.

They had so much they wanted to show me. At the top of the list was taking me to Futuroscope — a high-tech theme park near Poitiers that was famous for its massive IMAX screens, 3D films, and motion simulators. In 1994 it was considered very cutting-edge, more about immersive cinema experiences than traditional rides. I had never seen anything like it before.

Olivier Wanted a Photo of Me

This is one of the very few photos of me from the entire trip. Olivier grabbed my camera and insisted on taking a picture of me standing in their backyard. I almost never photographed myself — I was usually the one behind the camera.

It meant something that he wanted a photo of me to remember my visit. Looking at this now, I can see how young I was and how much I was still figuring out.

Seal Ride

While walking through a small festival in a park with Olivier and Rachel, I spotted this young boy on one of the children’s rides. He was riding a spinning seal that was balancing a ball on its nose, and he looked like he was having a great time.

I liked the energy of the moment — the motion blur, the concentration on his face, and how completely absorbed he was in the ride. It was one of those simple, everyday scenes that felt worth capturing.

A Quick Kiss

Olivier and Rachel were very much in love, and they didn’t try to hide it — even in public. While we were walking, they stopped for a quick kiss. It was sweet and natural, like it was just a normal part of their day.

I remember noticing how comfortable they were showing affection in front of me and in public. It wasn’t flashy or dramatic — it was just real. Being around that kind of easy, open love made their home and their company feel even warmer while I was so far from my own.

One Last Moment

Right after that quick kiss, they stayed close for another moment. Olivier had his arm around Rachel as they stood together in the middle of the busy market.

I didn’t take many photos during my stay with them, but I’m glad I captured this one. Being around their easy, open love made my time in France feel warmer and less lonely. Saying goodbye to them a short time later was harder than I expected.

I still hadn’t found my journal, and I hadn’t purchased a new one yet, so I was still writing my thoughts on scraps of paper.

Day 41 / 10-17-94 / Part 1
Tours, France

Wow, I’ve been in France for over one month, today I’m leaving for Denmark and I haven’t written down one thing that I’ve done. Well, I have some time to kill now so I’ll try to remember the highlights.

The first week was very hectic. For starters, it was so good to see Olivier again that I wasn’t thinking too much about anything else. Rachel was with him, and the first thing that struck me about her was how French she looked. Long, dark, tousled hair, dark eyes, dark eyeliner, sexy black dress that revealed a little too much of the black lingerie underneath. As Olivier put it, “She is quite attractive!”

We went back to Athee su Cher (the street where they live) so I could shower and change (I hadn’t in over 48 hours).

I slept in the afternoon and that evening Olivier and I got drunk and talked about old stories, like the first time my Mom farted in front of him; or when he got stuck in Lincoln, Nebraska (about a two hour drive from Kearney) in a blizzard (and couldn’t get back) and Brandy (our dog) shit all over the house and he had to clean it; or when he had sex in our hot-tub. I couldn’t believe it. I lived there for nine years and never did, yet he did in the nine months he lived with us.

Anyway, another reason the week was hectic is because Olivier had the week off from work, so he and Rachel wanted to do a lot of traveling. First we went to a farmhouse with no hot water or toilet to visit Rachel’s grandmother. The next day we went to the village of Angers, and the following day to the town of Poitiers to visit two of Olivier’s friends.

We started the drinking before going to a bar – one of the few slang words that is the same home and here: “prime”!

There was karaoke but I wasn’t as big a hit as I was back home at Ravenna or the Palm Garden Lounge.

After a few hours we returned to the flat where I had my first breakdown.

We were all quite drunk and they were teasing me about American’s shyness with public nudity. To make matters worse, they (Olivier and his two guy friends) took their pants off – and left them off! I was quite embarrassed and asked them to please put them on. They refused, and egged me on to do the same.

After about 15 minutes of this I snapped, left the room and started crying. It was the last straw – I was sick of everything being so fucking foreign. I hadn’t understood anything all week: Directions, Plans Being Made, Food, TV, Newspapers – Nothing!

So I just Exploded. Luckily, Rachel chased after me and calmed me down, and Olivier soon followed and apologized. Everything worked out ok and now it’s the joke, but that night I would’ve given anything to be back at the Dome playing Sega.

The next day was much better. We went to a place called Futuroscope, a huge theme park dedicated to sight and technology of movies. They had an IMAX movie theatre, an OmniMax theatre, a 360 degree theatre, two different 3-D shows, and a “Magic Carpet” Theater with a screen in front of you and below your feet – which does wonders for the effect of flying – and three excellent simulators.

Possibly the best though was that I checked out a headset that translated everything into English for me.

When we returned to Tours the following day I was introduced to Olivier’s favorite watering hole called Donald’s Pub. It’s actually a pretty cool place, and reminds me of a cross between O’Mally’s and Copperfields (bars in my hometown), except of course everything costs five times as much. $5-$6 for a small beer. $2 for a Coke. $4 for a shot. $1 for a coffee.

It was this first night there that I met two girls who would become friends of mine, Karine and Corrine. After trying out my new French pick-up lines on them, we spent the night talking.

Looking Back from 2026

A few hours after that market photo was taken, I would be leaving Tours.

Saying goodbye to Olivier and Rachel was harder than I expected. They had taken me in, fed me, laughed with me, and made me feel like part of their life — not just a guest passing through. Even during the rough night when I broke down crying, they handled it with kindness and patience. I was grateful in a way I didn’t fully know how to express at the time.

Tours had been a kind of home base for me in France. It was the place where I could speak English, sleep in the same bed for more than a couple of nights, and feel like I belonged somewhere. Leaving that safety net behind felt significant. From this point forward, the trip was going to feel different. I was heading back out on my own, with less money, less structure, and a much longer stretch of unknown ahead of me.

I remember feeling a strange mix of emotions as I packed my bag that afternoon — sadness about leaving people who had been so good to me, but also a quiet excitement about getting back on the road. The “across Europe” part of the trip was about to kick into a higher gear.

Looking back now, I’m grateful I had that time in Tours. It gave me a chance to rest, to be cared for, and to experience what it felt like to be welcomed into someone else’s normal life. Those weeks with Olivier and Rachel were some of the warmest, most human moments of the entire journey.

And even though I didn’t know it yet, the hardest and most meaningful parts of the trip were still ahead of me.

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