Avoiding Prison & Other Noble Vacation Goals by Wendy Dale Page A

trip to see his aunt and uncle in Mexico, a week in (what was then) Czechoslovakia, even a last minute flight to Poland.
    The last time I had seen him, he had been waving good-bye to me out the window of an Amtrak train, the beginning of a journey he planned to take by land to the farthest tip of South America. From what I understood, he got as far as Guatemala, had a revelation that more or less dealt with how much he disliked squeezing into overcrowded buses filled with livestock, sped to the nearest international airport, and hopped on the next flight to Europe. From there, my knowledge of events gets kind of confused, but there was something about reading a Middle Eastern guidebook in a bookstore in Germany, Peter’s subsequent journey to Jordan, and finally a trip to Lebanon—a place he had yet to return from.
    He had been living in Beirut for the past three years, which made it a lot tougher for him to drive over to my apartment any time he suspected I was in need of a good time, so he had resorted to calling me up every few months or so and insisting I come and see him. I had continually rejected the idea, not because I was against it on principle—I was as fun-loving as the next twenty-five-year-old subscriber to
Scientific American—
it was just that as a person paying her own way through college (subsequently followed by being a person paying her own way out of student-loan debt), my financial circumstances had ruled out jet-setting as a potential lifestyle choice.
    â€œWhen are you coming to visit?” he’d ask at the end of every phone conversation. By now, the question had become so routine that he put it to me more out of habit than in the hopes of receiving a sincere reply.
    â€œNo time, no money,” I’d automatically answer.
    But this time when the phone rang, just weeks after my return from Honduras, for the first time I gave Pete’s query some actual contemplation. Going to Lebanon—what would that mean? I imagined myself sitting in a Middle Eastern café, sipping thick coffee, gazing out over the Mediterranean and picking the tabbouleh out of my teeth, gracefully sliding my chair out of the way of any wayward bombs. Later, we’d ride camels through the desert (I’d call my camel Sandy), the wind blowing through our hair, our billowing white tunics flowing behind us. We’d camp with a group of nomads. We’d eat dates we collected ourselves. It would be glamorous, exciting, and just a bit risky—exactly the qualities that were discouraged among the employees of Hughes Aircraft.
    There was just one obstacle. If I remembered correctly, Peter had once mentioned that visiting Lebanon was sort of illegal. When I asked him about this, he explained that this was true only if you were the kind of person who happened to take seriously the advice of the U.S. State Department, and given the disdainful way Peter spoke this phrase I was sure this was the type of individual that I definitely didn’t want to be.
    There were ways around these restrictions, he insisted. The U.S. government didn’t have to
find out
I was traveling to Beirut. I’d buy my ticket in London and the Lebs (as Peter affectionately referred to them) would be more than happy to allow me into the country. All I had to do was go to the Lebanese consulate in Los Angeles and bring along some official-looking papers (that Pete would provide me with) that declared I had legitimate business to conduct.
    â€œAnd if that doesn’t work,” Peter advised me over international phone lines, “just flirt your way in.”
    Peter was from a respected upper-middle-class family. His father was a judge, for God’s sake. If Peter said it was okay to break the law, I had to believe him. So armed with several passport photos and a few documents in Arabic that Peter had faxed to me, I made my way to the Lebanese consulate wearing a short dress and a big smile, feeling for the first