Reprinted from The Stars and Stripes, Saturday, February 10, 1990:
 Gilinda Granger says she and Petty Officer 2nd Class Steve Rogers know each other better thanks to her port-to-port trek. |
NAPLES, Italy — Gilinda Granger's pockets contain the same sorts
of things most European travelers carry. But mixed in with the
pfennigs, francs, kroner and lire are a few fragments of concrete.
"They're my pieces of the Berlin
Wall," she said, smiling.
The shards are some of the few souvenirs
she's allowed herself during a six-month, shoestring-budget trip around
Europe as one of a dying breed of women called Seagulls.
Seagulls are the wives — or in
Granger's case, the girlfriend — of Navy men who follow the fleet
from port to port. While flocks of Seagulls followed ships throughout
the Mediterranean in the '60s and '70s, Granger was alone as she
pursued the combat stores ship San Diego.
Her fiance, Petty Officer 2nd Class Steve
Rogers, an electronic warfare technician, thought Granger's plan to
trail his ship on $600 a month and a Eurail pass was a "pipe
dream." He knew he was wrong when he saw her on the pier at the
San Diego's first port of call, Naval Station Rota, Spain.
"I was really happy," Rogers
said. "I was also amazed she was there and glad she was
OK."
Since then, Granger has only twice missed
meeting the San Diego on its arrival at more than a dozen ports
throughout Europe. In both cases, the ship docked early.
The San Diego's port visits were as brief
as an hour or two in some cases or as long as a week or more. Rogers
took leave while the ship was in port at Trieste, Italy, during the
holiday season. During the San Diego's briefer port visits, the two
explored whatever city the ship was visiting. Sometimes, when Rogers
had duty, Granger visited him aboard the San Diego.
Finding affordable lodging proved to be
one of her biggest challenges.
"The guide book I had listed hotels
... that cost $15 to $25 a night," the resident of Williamsburg,
Va., said. "That was way more than I could afford."
Because her $470 Eurail pass entitled her
to two months of unlimited travel, she rode night trains, combining
transport with lodging. At one point in the trip she spent 18
consecutive days on trains.
Before she began using the rail pass,
Granger spent a month in Spain following the San Diego from port to
port on buses and airplanes.
"I've kept a running tally of the
types of transportation I've used on the trip," she said.
"I've ridden 89 trains, three planes, 27 cars, 26 subways, 46
buses, 10 taxis, six boats and ferries, and no skateboards," said
the former promotions director for a Williamsburg radio station.
"During the weeks I was constantly
using the trains, I had the schedule in my head."
For one eight-day stretch, she rode her
hotel on rails from Barcelona, Spain, to Paris to Copenhagen, Denmark,
then down to Strasbourg, France, and Vienna, Austria. It was during one
of Granger's marathon train rides that the Berlin Wall came down, and
three days later, she visited the once-divided city for eight
hours.
quot;I don't keep up on international
events, so I didn't think being in Berlin at that time would affect
me," she said. "But it really moved me."
Granger found the celebrations and
conversations with East Germans who were experiencing freedom for the
first time so exciting that she had to share her thoughts with her
family. So she took a night train to France because she understood that
calls to the United States were cheaper there than in West Germany.
During her travels, Granger also found
out that sometimes she didn't need money at all — provided, of
course, that she had an American Zippo lighter. A Zippo lighter costing
$5 in the States can sell for as much as $45 in France or, as Granger
discovered, can be traded for a hotel room.
Other popular barter items were ship ball
caps. "I always made sure I had a couple when I was
traveling," she said. She traded the caps for such things as taxi
rides.
Sometimes, it took more than currency of
any kind to survive.
Granger's last $40 was stolen in Madrid.
She took the train to Rota and called the Red Cross. Volunteer Barbara
Bennison let Granger stay at her home until the San Diego pulled in
three days later and Granger could get more funds from Rogers.
Granger made other friends on the road.
The morale, welfare and recreation office in Palma on the Spanish
island of Majorca helped Granger find a room there for $10 a night and
a family to stay with in Malaga, Spain.
When she arrived in Naples in early
January, the USO there referred her to the Naval Support Activity
Family Service Center. "They hooked me up with a family through
their lend-a-room program," Granger said. "I stayed with Lt.
Dave Price and his family."
The Price family treated Granger well.
Being able to stay with English-speaking people and watch American
television — things she had done little of in three months —
made her time with the Prices especially enjoyable, she said.
Soon, Granger will have plenty of
Americans to chat with. She left Naples for Spain in late January and
will return to the United States in mid-February. The San Diego will
return to its home port, Norfolk, Va., a few days later.
Granger and Rogers plan to marry in
April, but Granger said they know each other much better thanks to her
experience as a Seagull.
"During the six-month cruise,"
she said, "our relationship has gone through 10 years of
experience."
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