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Transcription: [00:37:35]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Oh, and I like shark fin soup.

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
Yes, the shark fin soup.

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
But, in Japan, we always, we said to each other "Now, this is one trip in a million.

[00:37:43]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
And so, we'll probably never do it again. So, when we were in a country, even in Europe, we lived as they did,

[00:37:50]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
stayed where the Europeans stayed." Well we said "Now that we are in Japan, we are going to stay

[00:37:54]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
where the Japanese stay." Well, this is outside of the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. When we to Kyoto and Nara and Nyko, and we stayed in the Japanese inns where you sleep on the floor and it is wonderful. It's comfortable.

[00:38:07]
{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
Very comfortable.

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
It is. But the funniest thing is, you have this little girl that comes in and your sitting on the floor eating dinner, and she individually gives you individually each bite of food you are going to take. You can imagine how long dinner takes.

[00:38:20]
{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
You mean she feeds you.

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
She feeds you, that's it.

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Yes. And Americans want to get, get on with the business. You know, we want to eat our dinner. [[laughter]]

[00:38:27]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
And she would sit there, and give me a little tiny piece of meat and really I mean a little tiny piece that I could barely, and you have to eat with chopsticks, I could barely get it up on the chopsticks.

[00:38:36]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
But, uh, then she would give me a couple of little pieces of rice, and this went on.

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
And dinner would go on into the night.

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Yes.

[[LAUGHTER]]

[00:38:43]
{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
That, that happened every time you ate in a Japanese inn?

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
In Japanese inns, that's the way they did it.

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
Yes, yes.

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
We couldn't, well naturally we couldn't convey to them, because out of, in the provinces they do not speak a word of English.

[00:38:55]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
So when we would speak to them, and say "Well now" course it was ridiculous to try. But we would say "Why don't you give us all of it at once and then you can go". They'd laugh and laugh and then their friends would come in and sit and watch us as we'd eat.

[00:39:09]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
They were fascinated with us. So all we could do was get laughter back at everything we said.

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
Oh, we amused them greatly.

[[LAUGHTER]]

[00:39:15]
{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
Well, I gather that you didn't have any problems at all. Financial, social or otherwise.

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
No.

{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
You just lived in foreign countries for three years, just the two of you.

[00:39:23]
{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
Yes. That's true there were no great problems, it was a wonderful, exciting experience and I'd love to do it all over again.

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Mm, hm.

[00:39:30]
{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
Why did you come back?

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Well, now that.. [[laughter]]

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
Where else was there to go?

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Yes, we were at the end. Yes

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
We were in Tokyo

[00:39:36]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Of course there is Africa. I could maybe sing. I'm going to ask Jeanne, of course I haven't asked her before this, but maybe I should now. She can't say no, maybe she can get me a booking with the Pygmies in Africa. They maybe would like a singer down there.

[00:39:48]
{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
You could probably spend...

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Oh, I think we could manage it. She could speak Oukawake, or whatever that is.

[00:39:53]
{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
As a matter of fact, the English people did want her to come to Capetown, um...

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Johannesburg

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
Yes, in the south of Africa

{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
What did you do? How many cars did you have all together?

[00:40:02]
{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
Well, actually we had two. We wore out one. Our first year in Europe we had a little Renault. And we actually wore it threadbare. The tires, it was nothing left.

[00:40:10]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Fourteen months it was and we drove 40,000 miles in that little car. And it nearly wore us out too, because it is not like a Volkswagen.

{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
So you sold it.

[00:40:19]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Yes, we did. And did you know that, can you imagine, each one of us lost $125 on it. In other words, reselling it we got $250 less then we paid for it fourteen months later and we had seen all of Europe,

[00:40:32]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
which is quite a recommendation. People should buy their little cars over there, instead of rent them. And never take an American car.
[[LAUGHTER]]
You can see why I'm redoing all of American...

{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
Oh, it's too expensive - to take one.

[00:40:45]
{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
Oh, yes.

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
And the little streets there are so narrow. It is very difficult to manipulate an American car in the little narrow streets.

{SPEAKER name="Lisa Chickering"}
But, you'd be surprised how many Americans take their cars.

[00:40:53]
{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
But, they're expensive to buy and they're expensive to transport.

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
Oh, it is much wiser to buy a little car over there.

[00:40:59]
{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
And, what did you do with the second one?

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
We sold that.

{SPEAKER name="Martha Deane"}
You drove it how far?

{SPEAKER name="Jeanne Porterfield "}
About twenty four...