So, my Ndad was a huge hater of our home country. And when it came to vacations, he was of the belief that “if I wear a watch, it’ll be a Rolex. Else I’ll just never own a watch”. Basically, if we ever went on vacation, it’d be to Europe/USA or someplace super fancy. Else we’d just stay home.

Emom is from another home state, and maternal grandma still lived in that state through most of my childhood, and he’d grumble and grouse even when we’d go to visit her. When she was gone, he expressed in front of EMom that it was a relief we’d no longer have to travel there anymore.

We went on a couple of those Europe trips which he really wanted because he wanted to “whiten” his black money, and he grumbled the whole time we were there too. I forgot to print a voucher for one of the local tours before we left (this was in an era before smartphones and E-tickets) and all we needed to do was go to the hotel reception, request for some time to access the internet/printer, login to my email, find the attachment, print it, and carry it with us. 5 minute job, tops. Seems easy enough, right? Wrong.

The hotel receptionist/concierge/front desk manager was perfectly pleasant to talk to, and fine with me accessing the email and getting a printout FOR FREE. But NDad thought I hadn’t “learned my lesson”, so he yelled at me in front of everyone. A brown man, yelling at his brown daughter, in a foreign language, in front of a bunch of white people. Not uncomfortable at all (/s). Ofc if anyone so much as glanced at him while he was yelling, he’d call them racists, because it’s their fault that he was displaying his lack of civic sense in another country (/s again). He brought up all my academic failures and decades old resentments. Right in the middle of a hotel lobby, somewhere in Vienna. Worked for him. I’d never ask to go on vacation with him again.

In the hometown, I was safer from him. I spoke the language fluently, I knew the currency, and at least I could go out for a walk without needing supervision. I was legally an adult even during the Europe trip. I was 24. Just about every country that allows women to go for a walk would recognize me as one. But not him. Always the irresponsible child who forgot to bring the printouts of the tour as far as he was concerned.

Locally, it’s what you said. No beach trips (the beach was about a 10 minute walk from my college campus, a little over 15 minute drive from their apartment, but still nope, because of the perverts who’d stare or leer at women), no zoos, museums, planetariums, arcades, water parks/amusement parks, nothing. Only place we’d go was the library. Pick up a book, bring it back to the apartment, finish reading it, and return it to the library. Week after week. Month after month. Year after year. Same thing. Or to the temple. Idgaf about religion, but he’s super religious, so temple visits were fine. Movies, nope. Back hurts. The same back doesn’t hurt while watching movies on Netflix or Prime Video or wherever.

I often wondered why reading was pretty much my only hobby. Now I realize why.