A lazy weekend on the French Riviera...

Who knew world travel was so rough, eh? After dropping my parents off at Milan's airport for their unfortunate reentry into the real world, we took the "screaming kid special" train to the little town of Menton, France. Waiting in Menton were our friends Lene & Cedric (who we'd stayed with in Lyon) and Cedric's parents France & Michel (who were nice enough to open their home to us sight unseen).

Despite the fact that Cedric's promises of nothing but beach and sunshine on the Riviera were quickly nullified by rain and thunderstorms for most of the weekend, we had a blast. We spent Saturday afternoon touring Monaco and the Monte Carlo casino. For me, I was finally able to see one of the minnows of Europe (we'd narrowly avoided Luxembourg and Andorra so far). Of course this minnow is filthy rich, has its own royalty and is home of some of the richest professional sports names in Europe (thanks to the minimal income taxes paid a la Florida and Texas). Preparations for the fieldtrip were a bit improvised; to meet the dress code in Monaco Becca had to borrow a top and shoes that were a size too small from Lene (prompting Becca to utter "I'm practicing for China") while I was somehow able to make the cut with what I had in my bag.

After spending the entire drive from Menton to Monte Carlo touting my superior packing abilities, we arrived at the casino only to find out that it didn't open until noon (and that it cost 10 euros to go in, above any of our budgets). We then headed off to the side casino where the four of us were able to turn 20 euros into 55 in just over 30 minutes at video poker. Thankfully the blackjack tables (and their 25 euro minimums) weren't open otherwise I might have tested my luck to disastrous results. Add in the fact that Lene was practically giddy every time one of us cashed out and it was a good time. Plus we can all now say we took on Monte Carlo and won :-)

Sunday we visited the Riviera town of Nice to visit some of L&C's friends. Nice enough town though the highlights were Cedric's go-kart style of driving and finding out that everyone locks their doors when they enter Nice. Evidently the local crime de jour is to come up beside a car in a scooter, open the back door, grab the person's bag in the back seat and buzz away. Got a chance to admire the waterfront both here and in Menton though in amongst the various storms

The rest of the time was spent eating good food, having great conversation (including me being France's testing board for her rapidly improving English), learning the card game belote (highly recommended though not late on a Sunday night) and just enjoying the french life a little bit more. Many thanks again to the whole crew for a wonderful weekend and just a ton of perfect French hospitality.

Who says the Riviera is all sand and sun?

Brian

PS Promotional Hamsters Cheap Here.

Beating the house in Monte Carlo and other adventures...

Quick note to let everyone know that we're alive and well.  Currently hanging out at a undisclosed location working on updating the blog, catching up on sleep and getting ready to head up to Denmark for a few weeks of Asia planning/hanging out before heading for the warmer climes of the subcontinent.  We should have a ton of pics, blog entries on our adventures in Italy and the French Riviera and other random musings up this week. 

 

In the meantime a story that shows how two type A's can actually change, at least a little.  Becca and I were taking the train from Milan to Menton, France and after having 3.5 hours of two screaming kids next to us, reading my latest book  was not in the cards.  Instead I decided to start perusing through our SE Asia guidebook the parents brought over.  Within about 10 minutes, I'd had a revelation: why spend two plus weeks in cold rainy Scotland (where it is currently getting dark at 3pm) and England when we can use that time to explore somewhere like India or China that we might not have otherwise given ourselves the time to properly see?

 

So as we're leaving the train, the following conversation takes place:

 

Me: "So I had an idea..."

Becca: "I bet I know what it is because I was thinking the same thing..."

Me: "I say we scrap the UK because it's the easiest place in Europe to visit from the States and we can always go back and use the extra time in Asia"

Becca: "Uh... ok.  Not what I was thinking."

 

With that, a little bit of contemplation and a swallowed cheap plane fare to Glasgow (thank god for Ryanair and their 0.01 Internet fares) we've changed our plans. 

 

Why isn't all travel quite this easy? 

 

Brian 

Look! More old rocks!

We spent five days or so touring the Provence region in an effort to get some good food as well as tour some Roman ruins. Why Roman ruins in France? Mostly because the current plan is not to make it as far south as Rome, etc. However for the non-history buffs out there the Romans made it as far as England (before the Scots told them to feck off) so France has plenty of cool ruins to check out without the hassle of Rome.

First stop was the town of Arles. Got the chance to see the ruins of an old Roman theatre as well as a mostly intact arena (where the gladiators used to battle and which let becca take lots of pictures of arches). The town itself wasn't much to look at; in fact with its scary deserted bus station it gave the impression of a town long past it's prime. Our innkeeper was nice though and gave us some good info on how to identify rental cars. Evidently in France the last two numbers on a plate correspond to the region the car is registered in. However, for rental cars, they are either 60 or 76. That way we could identify cars if we needed to hitch our way home from Les Baux.

Les Baux you say? During our stay in Arles, we decided to take the bus to St. Remy (thankfully we found somewhere other than the abandoned bus station to get info) and then hike from St. Remy to Les Baux. It was only supposed to be a three hour hike so we grabbed our day bags and headed off. Two hours later, we still weren't sure we were headed in the right direction, it was raining on and off (coinciding with whether I took my raincoat off, leading to much cursing and general rock kicking) and things were generally not going well. Having infrequent trail markers didn't help. Nor did finding out that the trail markers we thought we saw were actually land boundaries in that area. Did lead to a humorous story Becca was told about the Germans someone had to finally set straight because they kept hiking in a circle around his property...

Thankfully we were able to organize ourselves and finally get to Les Baux. Spent the afternoon visiting the castle in a windy rain. Educational but not terribly nice weather-wise. I think this sums my sentiments up exactly. We did enjoy seeing the ruins of the castle though and learning about life (and punishment) high up on this rock plateau. The weather brightened as the tour finished up and ended up being nice the rest of our stay in Provence. After a "more expensive than planned" dinner at our hotel (the only place open in town in the evening), we spent the night and had a much more straightforward hike back to St. Remy the next day (though it did involve climbing a chimney through a cliff by a lake).

Of course, that day being a Sunday instead of being able to take the bus straight back to Arles, we had to take a bus back up to Avignon and then took the train back down to Arles. Of course, being the efficient travelers we are, we then had to head right back to Avignon the next day for two nights and a visit to Pont du Gard. We enjoyed Avignon quite a bit; a bit bigger than Arles and infinitely more infrastructure which allowed us to be able to do a little more preparation for our visit to Italy.

Pont du Gard was easily the highlight of the Roman ruins for me (if you want to work on your French, click here). We visited the museum first and were glad that we did. It was highly interactive, complete with videos, surround sound, touch screens and the hi-tech like. Very educational as it explained the building process, the Roman history and the place of water in Roman life in great detail without overwhelming us.

Armed with more information than we could possibly hope to remember, we went out and visited the actual site. An impressive structure; amazing how in almost 2000 years some structural methods are sounder then than today. We climbed around the Pont du Gard and even hiked up into the hills to explore some of the additional parts of the aqueduct.

Bus ride back was eventful as Becca was able to successfully negotiate safe passage for two fellow English speaking travelers to their destination after our bus driver let their connecting bus go (though not before almost running into it). Ended up that another fellow bus driver was going to drive them to their destination in HIS OWN CAR after the bus ride ended. Don't see that everyday, eh?

All in all a good visit to Provence. Got a chance to see some amazing history in the Roman ruins and get a little hiking in on the side. Apologize for the randomness of the entry but the mind is still recovering and in need of some more R&R...

Brian

Hey! Hey! Anyone who isn't jumping isn't...

Lyonnais!

(Qui ne sautais pas n'est pas Lyonnais!)

Thanks to the go-getter attitude of our friend Cedric*, we attended our first true professional European football match last night. From the depth of the Czech D league we were treated to the penthouse of Champions League football (the all-European club competition) with the home team Olympique Lyonnais facing their Greek counterparts, Olympiakos.

Here's the actual report on the match, which Lyon won 2-1 on a 88th minute goal by Sidney Govou. I didn't quite feel up for doing a running diary of the match, instead concentrating on actually enjoying my first taste of live international football. Becca and I made some notes though as the game went along and here are our collective thoughts...

• The Greeks were small in number but packed some serious punch in terms of cheering. A multitude of chants (including one apparently to the tune of Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer"), their own drum section, etc. Not bad support for a team that hasn't won a road game in 27 CL matches.
• Stade de Gerland (Lyon's pitch) has an alien ship space-age feel to it. From the outside we weren't sure what to expect though wanted to make sure we documented it. Right then though we realized we'd forgotten the camera. Doh!
• Gregory Coupet, the Lyon keeper has the worst frosted surfer haircut known to man. Even gives footballers a bad name. (not the best picture of it, but trust me...)
• The overall atmosphere was just electric. The crowds was buzzing the entire match, the ends were a constant wave of fans (think the Duke fans but about 5 fold) performing all sorts of (seemingly spontaneous) elaborately cheoreographed and synchronized chants, songs, and dances, and the actual emotion within the stadium went back and forth depending on the score and the buildup of the action.
• Juninho is the man. Anyone who steps up to a free kick with 35,000 fans chanting his name and promptly scores on a world class kick is the man. And if you're wondering why the Brazilians go by one name, Juninho's first name? Pernambucano. Just rolls off the tongue doesn't it?
• Great halftime moment. Cedric and I decide to walk down to the front to get a better look at the field. What's going on? Stadium workers walking around replacing divots created by the players in the first half. The sexy side of Champions League football.
• Regarding TV, all three of us agreed that watching live gave you a much better perspective to the game as a whole. Instead of seeing a break or some spectacular play come out of nowhere on TV, watching live you can see the buildup, the players rotating around the field, etc. Definitely gives you a better feel as to who is dictating play and why sometimes it seems that the TV guys have no idea what they're talking about. It's because in some cases they're literally watching a different game.
• As he came over to our section to take a free kick, having Juninho acknowledge the crowd chanting his name with a little smirk and a thumbs-up none of the players on the pitch could see.
• Five flares on the evening, all successfully put out by the match stewards, who immediately went up into the crowd, took it away from the offender, and dunked it in the barrell of water they had at the base of the stands for just that purpose. Well actually, the match stewards took care of all but the Greek one, but a) no steward in his right mind was going to wade into the crowd of rabid Greeks to fetch it, and b) they had the smarts to put it out themselves fairly quickly. And here I thought the random flares was only an Italian thing...
• Becca has a crush on Fred. Who's Fred? This is Fred. (though Becca just told me he's cuter in person and with the longer hair) So if you start seeing Becca in pictures with a Lyon jersey...
• Becca really liked the way the ref handled the game. It was a physical match but handled it with equal parts humor and an "I saw that. You do that again and you're getting a card..." attitude. Seemed to work really well and kept the match from turning into a hack fest.
• The lineup announcements were hilarious. The last name of each player was thundered out by the crowd both at the beginning of the match and during substitutions. As a result... Sylvain... WILTFORD!!!
• Seeing the Olympiakos fans after they scored the scored the equalizer was unreal. I don't think I've been more impressed/frightened at a group of people's general activity ever. Half expected them to just spontaneously combust. All in all though a pretty well behaving group of away fans.
• The crowd control at the game was quite good. They were pushing us out of there post haste after the match. Kind of disappointing since we wanted to take a final look at the field and such but given the fact that they had to get everyone out so they could let the Olympiakos fans go home it was understandable.

All in all an amazing experience. Lyon is a legitimate contender to the European crown this year (and entertaining to boot) and getting to see them live was a significant upgrade from FK Slavoj (though that was just as memorable for a number of reasons). I've been to a World Series, numerous NFL and college football games, NHL games and all sorts of other sporting events and the passion of the crowd for this match dwarfed them all. (The WS game would probably have had it beaten had it been in Boston and not St. Louis.) The best part? The crowd support was completely self generated. No crappy music, no jumbo tron telling you when to cheer. Just two seriously passionate fan bases letting their associations known.

Hopefully the Siena-Chievo Verona match in Italy in a couple of weeks is half as exciting...

Brian

PS The title is in reference to the prevailing chant from the Lyon fans. By the end of the night, we were definitely jumping along.

*We emailed Cedric originally asking if he could look into availability of tickets for the match. On the assumption that they were either a) sold out or b) way too expensive we hadn't heard anything so we figured we were out of luck. Instead a day or two later we got an email from Cedric informing us that we were all going to the match! He ended up getting us great affordable seats that we a lot closer to the action than I ever assumed we'd be.

Would you like some adultery with your soup?

Dateline: Avignon, France

Another dispatch from the surreal, you-just-can't-make-that-stuff-up file.

So Brian and I were in the mood for Asian food tonight and ended up finding a Vietnamese/Thai place whose menu looked good (and affordable.) Though it was empty, we had seen some people getting take out from there earlier, so we thought it would probably be ok.

Upon entering, we discovered that the place wasn't totally empty: there was a middle-aged French man sitting at a table smoking a cigarette and arguing loudly with the late twenties asian waitress. They stopped for a moment to tell us to sit anywhere and to bring us menus and then continued right back where they left off at full voice. Somebody else came in to pick up take out, they stopped to take the order and money, then continued while he waited for his food.

At first I was just concentrating on trying to figure out what to order and wishing they weren't being so loud. After a while though, I couldn't help hearing the words. Ok. That's a lie. I was eavesdropping like nobody's business. (though can you really call it eavesdropping when the conversation is going on at full volume about 10 feet from you?)

Anyway, it turns out that the conversation centers around him loving her and wondering whether her father is going to be an issue as they were from different backgrounds and her saying to leave her father out of it, but what was up with his wife...it was all well and good to say that she had special friends too, but why didnt he just leave her? She couldn't understand what the point of staying together was if you fought all the time; why not just separate? And he kept saying that wasn't the issue. Meanwhile, he was also saying something about how even if his wife wanted a divorce, he could refuse her one under French law (though another customer who he asked for confirmation on this point rebutted him). Oh yeah, then the phone rang and she finished the conversation and then came back and said 'and why is she calling here anyway? does she know that you are here? She must, otherwise why would she call?'

Again..you have to picture this happening 10 feet away from us and another table of customers, at full voices; and then whenever another customer would come in for takeout, or one of our dishes was ready, or somebody wanted to order, she would stop yelling; then in a very nice soft voice conduct the restaurant business and then immediately continue the argument where she left off.

Not really what we expected for the evening, but as dinner theater accompanying what turned out to be fairly decent food (cooked by mom hiding in the kitchen) it was a success.

Becca

Under the Aquitaine Sun....

One of the highlights of this last phase of our trip was a chance to visit some close friends in southwestern France, get a little taste of life in small village France, and have a badly needed chance to relax and recharge our batteries.

15 years ago I had a fantastic high school French teacher. Not only was he a great instructor of the language, he was a good friend out of the classroom and became close with the whole family. Some years ago he and his partner retired from their jobs with the Corvallis School District and moved to the Aquitaine, a region in southwest France. They bought a two acre property with a guest house and have since been earning a living giving French lessons to expats, managing properties for absentee owners, and providing a vacation rental.

My folks had visited them a year and a half ago (my Dad's last trip) and had a wonderful time, but this was my first chance to get to see them in their new home, and to introduce them to Brian.

First however, we had to get there. We were meeting Mom at Charles de Gaulle airport and then catching a TGV directly from there down to Bordeaux. There was a little more than 2 hours between her arrival time and the train departure (which leaves from the airport) so we were feeling pretty good about logistics. Just to make things interesting, however, Mom´s flight suffered a series of delays in unloading that left us with 6 minutes to race with her and all our stuff across the airport complex to catch the train. We made it with a minute to spare, however, and had a pleasant ride down.

Ron met us at the St Foy la Grande train station with roses for mom and me, chocolate for Brian, and a thermos of a fruity aperitif to drink in champagne glasses as he drove us back through the countryside to their house. Not a bad life for a couple of weary backpackers. (Note: this will become a theme of the visit)

Their house is a converted 17th Century stone stable. The huge stable doors along the side are now windows that let in the light and open onto great vistas. The property itself is up on a hill and has panoramic views across the surrounding vineyards in constantly changing, beautiful light. After months and months of hassles and a lot of their own hard work (a travel comedy book a la Frances Mayes waiting to be written) they built a beautiful roman-style salt water pool on the terrace. Sometimes when you are out there you just have to pinch yourself. The property also includes a 17th century stone cottage where we stayed (more on that later).

We ate meal after meal of gourmet food until you practically needed to roll us across the driveway. Whether we were at the dining room table or eating out on the porch overlooking the pool, the tables were beautifully laid and made us feel like we were at a resort or fancy restaurant. Again, not such a bad life for a couple of weary backpackers.

We spent the days catching up on each others' lives, playing croquet, eating the aforementioned ridiculously good food, playing cut throat games of Taboo and Hoopla and relaxing by the pool. (All together now: not such a bad life for a couple of weary backpackers.) To try and help earn our keep somewhat, we also spent an afternoon helping Darrell clean one of the properties he was managing (nicknamed the Shabby Chateau). It was a very Cinderella-like moment and an interesting look into how the other half lives sometimes.

By the way, the croquet they play there is not your father's croquet game. Since they enjoy playing so much, Ron and Darrell have invested in professional mallets and wickets . For those of used to the flimsy round wire wickets, this was a brutal reckoning. I recommend trying it sometime; it feels like a different game. Darrell was particularly efficient and ruthless as he stalked us with his poison ball, though he did have suspicious moments of incompetence in the middle to let us catch up and keep it close.

All in all it was a wonderful vacation from our hostel and grocery store/kebab eating trip and a great chance to reconnect with good friends. Thanks again to both of them for hosting us.

Becca

PS As loyal readers know, we sometimes use this space to promote terrific places that we have been to, such as the fantastic okonomiyake restaurant in Amsterdam.

This time we want to encourage you to consider the cottage at Les Boissons as a home base for a vacation in Southwestern France. If you were wanting this region, including the caves at Lascoux, the caves at Pech Merle, the vineyards, walled cities, etc, and wanted a peaceful home base, this is hard to beat. (see below for a further description of the region).

The stone cottage itself has 3 bedrooms, two baths, kitchen, dining room, and living room. You have access to the terrace to relax, to the pool and deck furniture, and to the yard for games. Ron and Darrell are incredibly knowledgeable about the area, the local wines, the local cuisine, art, and gourmet cuisine and are just super nice guys in general. If you want more information about renting the cottage, check this site: http://www.frenchconnections.co.uk/accom/100632.cfm

Info on the region

http://www.frenchconnections.co.uk/for_holiday_makers/guide_to_french_regions/aquitaine.cfm

Road Trip!

After our amazing visit with Ron and Darrell (blog on the visit coming as soon as Becca finishes her other job uploading pictures), the three of us headed to Bordeaux, picked up our rental car (complete with space age starter system) and headed off towards our eventual destination of Barcelona. In the five days that followed we visited caves with prehistoric paintings and amazing geologic formations, a perfectly preserved 13th century walled fortress city, the former home of Salvador Dali, and all the gourmet truck stops in between.

Here's a (somewhat) brief rundown of our car based findings.

Day 1: Drove from Bordeaux to Montpezat de Quezay, France (try finding that one on your maps) where we stayed at a wonderful pension hosted by an artist couple and their three dogs. During the day we took a pit stop to visit the Pech Merle caves where our tour guide took us underground to visit prehistoric drawings and admire the impressive geological structures that abounded. Here's a english version of the tour we took. The hall of discs were our favorite though as far as I'm concerned, they still don't beat Marvel Cave...

Day 2: Drove from Montpezat de Quezay to Gincla, France. Our midday stop was to the aforementioned fortress city of Carcassonne. A beautiful piece of history but it reminded me a bit too much like Disneyland as the entire thing was tourists. Having been to other medieval towns that still functioned as actual towns, to see nothing but hotels and chotchzkies was a bit much for me. The highlight of the day though came from our pension where we ended up having a four course gourmet meal (check out the pics under the Gincla tag) that included a cheese course that had something like 12 different cheeses. Needless to say our waitress wanted us to learn plenty about cheese and our gastronomical systems were out of whack for at least a few days (That that could have been due to these).

Day 3: Drove from Gincla, France to Cadaques, Spain. We took a few hours out of the day to explore the Haute Corbieres region and the Gorges de Galamus. We stopped at one point to hike up some seriously steep hills (and be impressed at how strong Mom´s leg has become) to visit the ruins of Peyrepertuse, one of the chateaux of the Haute Corbieres (a series of mountain-capping castle ruins at the foothills of the Pyrenees built by the Cathars). The drive from Gincla down to Spain was a perfect example of what can happen when one goes too fast on small roads and miss the town signs one is looking for. Some adventurous driving was also had getting our way through the Pyrenees and into Cadaques itself. That's all the info I can give. If you want more, you'll have to buy the book :-)

Cadaques itself is a beautiful town right along the Spanish coast and for me reminded me a lot of what the Italian coastline would look like with tiny towns and lots of beautiful mother nature in between. Our hotel was right on the water with a lovely terrace, though on the day we arrived it was thunderstorming so instead we walked around the bay into town through the rivers of water on the streets and got wet.

Day 4: No Driving! We spent the day exploring Cadaques and relaxing. Took a walk over to the next cover to gaze at Dali's house (it was closed) and toured a fascinating local museum exhibit that was profiling pictures done of Dali by a lifelong friend. (Basic take-away? The man was WEIRD.) The rest of the day was spent hanging out on our hotel porch reading and just generally recharging our batteries.

Becca and I also watched the thrilling conclusion of the 38th annual cricket match between one of the local hotels and "The Rest of the World". The match was held in the center of town on the local boule courts with fielders standing in the streets, in front of local cafes, etc. Despite the fact that half of the guys playing wouldn't know a cricket bat or ball (due to the city surroundings they used a tennis ball) from a hole in the ground everyone was dressed in their whites and with the assistance of an Aussie tourist they pulled in as a referee, it almost felt like the real thing. The game featured at least five languages (and even more countries represented), players spanning 5 decades, and an exciting conclusion with the local hotel winning 37-35. A really cool local tradition that you could only stumble up upon on a trip like this...

Day 5: Cadaques to Barcelona. Pit stop in Girona to visit the Call, the city's Jewish quarter and wander the medieval streets. Interesting to look into a section of town that we've now seen in a number of countries and to contemplate all the things the Jews and Moors and others (like the Cathars) brought to Spanish (and Western European) culture before they were expelled and/or persecuted. Other than that, pretty smooth sailing into Barcelona!

It was nice to get out and explore some areas via car that we wouldn't have seen with the train, bus and foot strategy we've employed so far. It was interesting to see the terrain change over time from the fertile vineyards of France through the Pyrenees to the waterfront of Spain and into the big city of Barcelona. Thanks again to Mom Bloomfield for helping make this part of the trip happen...

Brian

Up North There...

No, not a fictional account of a Minnesotan's favorite pastime: spending the summer weekends away at the cabin.

Instead it's the story of one of our French field trips: three plus days visiting the provinces of Brittany and Normandy, staying in the towns of Dinan and Bayeux.

We started in Dinan, a city with a medieval old town complete with medieval ramparts and one of the bigger cities in Brittany. We spent the day hiking around the old town, exploring the arcades half-timbered buildings. They were built this way because back in the day property taxes were based on the square footage of the ground floor. As a result, the buildings started with small ground floors and expanded outward with the upper floors, creating relief from both the rain and the local tax collector. Other highlights included the mainly still intact ramparts and learning to avoid street signs while walking down the sidewalk.

The only other thing of note was when our waiter at dinner tried to serve us our flambe´crepe and set his hand on fire with what can only be described as a sub-optimal pouring technique. Our bill came on a burn creme covered hand. For the record he calmly served the crepe before running off to tend to the hand. (Crepes and galettes (what you call crepes when they have things like meat and cheese and veggies in it instead of sugary deserty things) and hard cider are all traditional local foods here. We were made sure to have a full on cultural experience when it came to the local cuisine!)

The next day we took the train to Normandy and the town of Bayeux. Bayeux was the first city liberated after the D-Day landings and is used as a central launching point to the D-Day memorials. Upon entering Bayeux, we had the exciting task of finding our hotel in the pouring rain. After a few fits and starts about 25 minutes later (which should sound familar to our loyal readers) soaked to the bone we made it to our home, changed clothes and headed back into town to go check out the Bayeux Tapestry. The tapestry itself was interesting to see though Becca and I had to go through it twice after we found out that despite both having English commentaries, we had two separate ones. After listening to them both, there's little doubt I got the "American" one. :-)

Our second day in town we used the now beautiful weather to our advantage, rented a car (first time behind the wheel for either of us since June) and headed to the various D-Day Beaches. During the day we visited Point du Hoc, Omaha Beach, Gold Beach, Longues and the US Cemetery at Omaha Beach. Seeing the various memorials, old bunkers and various stories being told at each locale was difficult but impressive. Every time it seemed to get repetitive I would do like I did at Auschwitz and try to imagine the particular locale being filled with people during that fateful time. It certainly brought a level of emotion to me that I felt when I visited Pearl Harbor. To see the dedication the fellow troops had for the fallen and their country makes one appreciate the sacrifices people make for their country. The cemetery especially made this hit home; seeing all the crosses and Stars of David remind you of how many lives were lost just in this locale to take one step forward towards regain freedom across the globe.

On a final and somewhat similar note, please remember to do whatever one can to help the survivors of Hurricane Katrina (& Rita). The Red Cross link is on the right but whatever one can do to help is always appreciated. May not mean much coming from someone traveling the globe, but every bit helps...

Brian

A City In Three Acts

Paris.
The City of Lights.
One of those cities in the world everyone knows.
The Eiffel Tower. The Arc de Triomphe. The Louvre. Notre Dame Cathedral.

All the stuff you see on TV or in the movies. So instead of giving you a blow by blow of our visits to those places, it made more sense to talk about the city itself. We visited Paris three separate times (using it has a home base between our visits to Ireland, Normandy/Brittany, and southwestern France). As a result of this, we were never in the city for more than three days at a time yet I felt like we got a better understanding for the city as a whole as we were coming in and out of it over a three and a half week period vs. our normal 2-6 day stay and then heading out on the train. You get to see the normal day to day occurrences a lot more and after a while you feel like you know your surroundings. (Plus, our hotel was in a great location. We were on a quiet alley with a great Italian restaurant just off the Place St. Michel on the Left Bank, just across the Seine from the Ile-de-La-Cite and Notre Dame. Easy to walk to just about everywhere we wanted to go and lots of pretty river views and parks.)

My first impression? For me it goes to the top of my list of cities we've visited on the trip and overall gives Melbourne a good run for its money as a place I´d like to live. This may be an obvious statement for some but take the relaxed attitude of Parisians and couple it with a vibrant city center and you've got a city that just doesn't stop, but does it knowing that life is a jog, not a sprint. (good example: all the chairs/lounge chairs in the public parks and around the lakes).

We loved the fact that there were parks everywhere, and that picnicking was as much (or more) a local thing as something that tourists do. As we walked around town we were just amazed at the number of times we'd turn a corner and find another historical landmark. Of course then we'd walk past a futuristic looking retail store or some other cosmopolitan locale and be thrown right back into the 21st century. (Like Vienna, we liked the fact that the monumemts/historic sites/tourists attractions were spread around and integrated into the city rather than being concentrated into a central area that might be picturesque-disney like, but is crowded and only puts you into contact with other tourists).

Overall just an amazing place and well worth a visit. The knock on Parisians being snobs and rude is overstated. Learn 5-10 words of French before visiting (or during your visit) and always greet somebody before you ask for something (and thank them for it afterwards) and you'd be amazed how much they open up. Just like we'd do for someone that didn't know English in the States.

With that a few memorable highlights from ol' Paris:

-Having a picnic in front of the Eiffel Tower. Not a bad way to start the trip.

-J'ai faim. Je voudrais un sandwich au jambon et une bière svp. (the first French phrase I learned). If you can't figure out what it means, cut and paste it into this.

-Having a lovely night time picnic with scores of Parisians on the pedestrian bridge connecting the Latin Quarter and the Louvre. Chomping away on our Thai takeout while soaking in the boats and surroundings lighting up the Ile-de-La-Cite and the night. Quite beautiful.

-This picture in the Pompidou. My feelings on most modern art summed up quite nicely.

-A lovely much overdue anniversary dinner our last night in Paris at the Italian place next door to our hotel. Looked a bit sketchy from a distance but it served up amazing food and Becca and I got to be semi-grownups for the night.

- Hanging out in and around Notre Dame whenever we needed a break and enjoying the changing views in the day, evening, and night.

- Taking on the Louvre (covered in a previous blog), seeing some new pieces of art, and checking out IM Pei´s pyramid in the day and at night.

- Discovering a scene out of Becca´s childhood memories: kids sailing little sailboats around the fountains in the Tuileries gardens with sticks.

-Just generally spending days and evenings soaking up the ambiance of Paris and feeling ourselves more and more comfortable in our surroundings. Despite our strategy of going to fewer places for a longer amount of time, there are still places that you never quite feel right in. Paris was most certainly not one of them.

For pics of our Paris adventures, go ahead and click here. Enjoy!

Brian

Encounters at the Louvre...

In addition to the incredible works of art (more on that later) we saw at the Louvre, there were a couple of encounters of the unexpected kind.

Given our peripatetic nature, I had been wondering when I was going to run into a fellow Kellogg (my business school) classmate. I am organizing some meetings when I can, but figured that I would probably run into somebody by chance. I don't think I expected it in one of the less popular/famous wings of the Louvre though. But indeed, as we were heading upstairs who should we bump into but Kate Downes, one of the MMM women extraordinaire (a group of fantastic women who I, as a MMM groupie, got to hang out with). It was good to catch up on our lives over the past 5 years and to hear how some of my other classmates are doing. It'll be interesting to see how many more Kellogians I run into along the way.

Even more unexpected, however, was running into Goran Ivanisevic, his wife, daughter, and mother (in law?) cruising along looking at pictures (For the non tennis fans among us, he's a retired Wimbledon champion and well known pro). I was engrossed in a large French painting when Brian suddenly grabbed my arm and hissed: it's him! Once I figured out what he was talking about I went to see for myself. He was moving at a high speed though, and as I didn't want to appear too obviously stalky, I was desperately trying to get ahead of them and be "looking at the art" while I tried to check them out. This went on for two galleries. (Given how subltle you all know I can be, I'm sure you can imagine the comic possibilities at this point)

I started to become fairly convinced, but wanted proof. By then we were in the new room housing the Mona Lisa, where you are not supposed to take pictures. As at the time everybody was anyway, I pulled out my camera, put it on highest zoom, turned off the flash, and tried to surreptitiously capture the man. As the following fuzzy photo shows, I do not have a second career waiting for me as a paparazzi. However later google image searching has convinced me that we did indeed have a celebrity sighting on our hands. Who would have thunk?

the skulker extraordinaire....

And we wonder why Parisians hate us...

Becca and I spent 6 1/2 hours at the Louvre on Wednesday.  Absolutely amazing and left us wanting more but not mentally or physically being able to. 

 

One stunning story to pass on though.  We were at one of the many merchandise kiosks in the Louvre picking up a guide of the place when we heard the following exchange:

 

Salesperson (in perfect English, by the way): Is that all? 

American Woman (packing about 100 euros in books and pointing at a multilingual DVD about the Louvre):  Does this DVD come in American?

Salesperson: Yes, it comes in English.

American Woman: I know it comes in English, does it come in American?

Salesperson (quizzical look firmly on at this point): Yes, it comes in English.

American Woman (pointing to the British flag on the DVD cover): I asked if it comes in American.

Salesperson (getting pretty flustered): It comes in English.
 

The last two lines are repeated at least 2-3 more times before the American woman just gets this look of "stupid French" on her face, puts down the DVD and buys the rest.  Becca and I weren't sure whether to laugh or bonk the lady upside the head with our new guide. 

 

Any opinions on what the DVD language differences would be between American and English?  Leave 'em in the comments section.

 

Brian

The Alps, French Style

After reluctantly leaving the peaceful nirvana of Gimmelwald, we headed off to Chamonix, France for some more hiking and exploring some of the higher peaks in the Alps. After eight connections and a bunch of breathtaking views of the Alps region, we arrived into Chamonix just in time to grab some dinner at a local joint and socialize with our fellow b&b members (half of who work for the owner who runs a mountain bike tour service).

The difference between Chamonix and Gimmelwald was striking. Chamonix's sister city is Aspen, Colorado; although I've never been to Aspen so I can't compare but Chamonix was bustling with outdoor stores, ski shops, pubs and the like. Your typical mountain tourist town built for those visiting first and foremost. Ok but definitely a much different vibe from waking up with cows outside your window. The other surprising aspect of Chamonix was the huge number of British folks working in the various shops, pubs, etc. Becca just gave up using her French after awhile because there was so many of them. In talking with our various b&b mates the best answer we could get was it was a destination for mountain biking and ski bums who get by working various odd jobs.

Allright, on to the good stuff. The first was an unlikely one; as we spent Sunday touring around Chamonix, we saw people finishing the Tour de Mont Blanc. A 155km adventure race that started in Chamonix that included total elevation gains of over 8500m, three countries and alot of tired looking finishers. The winners finished in 24 hours and the rest had a maximum of 45 hours to finish it in (the normal person hikes it in 10-11 days). To see the finishers come down the home stretch was an emotional moment; some finished with their families, some with teammates or people they'd met along the trail and others were quite happy to go it alone. But the sense of accomplishment on people's faces was one Becca and I won't ever forget.

The next two amazing days were spent taking full advantage of the absolutely crystal clear views of the French Alps. Waking up on Monday, Becca and I decided to scramble on to the first train to Chamonix and hoof it up to the lift to the Aiugille du Midi. Leading up to now we'd been told horror stories about the queues at the lift and how important it was to get there early.

Fortunately for us, Monday was the official end of the French holiday so we bought our multi-pass (which gave us free reign over all the various mountain transport for 36 hours) and joined the various mountain climbers for the 7:45 ascent to 3842m. When we got to the top (and Becca was able to get me over the wooden bridge that had a 1500m drop) we were rewarded with a panoramic view of the French, Swiss and Italian Alps, including such famous peaks at Mt. Blanc and the Matterhorn. We also got to watch the extremely geared up climbers walk out and start their ascent of Mt. Blanc all with about 5-6 other people around us. Definitely made for a more enjoyable experience, especially compared to our visit on the way back from Italy where by lunchtime it was wall to wall people.

Italy you say? After I was finally getting settled in to the idea of being up at over 12,000 ft. we decided to go explore Italy via a gondola that is suspension only. Although we though we'd be more scared going across on the this, the trip ended up being very peaceful as we cruised over a number of glacier valleys and got to spy down at all the crazier people who were hiking in between them. I don't think our one-year backpacks are really equipped for anything like that. The view from Italy back to the Aiguille du Midi were very nice which was fortunate since the entire Italian side was socked in with clouds and pretty much MIA. Once these clouds started roaming in our direction, we decided it was time to head back as there were a number of signs reminding us that gondola service could be suspended at any time. Although the clouds ended up holding off, we were happy to be a little closer to solid ground once again. All in all though just breathtaking views of the various jagged mountain ranges and the enormity of the Alps in this area. One would think that Mt. Blanc would stand out at over 15,000 ft. Instead it is simply the largest bump on an huge mountain range that certainly defines the area.

We spent the afternoon and the next day taking hikes around the area. The afternoon was spent hiking from the Plan l'Aiguille (the mid point station on the way up to the Aiguille du Midi) to the Mer de Glace and its cool ice cave they build every year. A pretty hike albeit rocky at times that wasn't necessarily highlighted by the view (though it was nice) but instead by our conversation on the train down by this incredibly precocious 7-year-old English kid from Oxford named Daniel. It's hard to recap it but my highlight was him asking Becca "do you want to feel my muscles" and then flexing his arms followed by his legs as well as his correcting us on a number of various issues all while explaining the biblical background of his first name. I was imagining this is what Becca was like as a child, minus the "feel my muscles" bit.

The second day we took the gondola up to La Flegere (the trip up to 1894m confirmed to us it was a good idea to not hike up). From there we first did a 2 1/2 hour round trip hike from La Flegere up to Lac Blanc (2352m) then back up higher to L'Index (2385m), the station above La Flegere. On the modified chair lift ride back down to La Flegere, Becca's panic attack kept us both occupied as I tried in vain to convince her to go to her 'happy space'. After eating lunch at La Flegere, we hiked another two hours across the 'balcony' to PlanPraz (the station halfway up to La Brevent, located at 2000m). Though this second hike officially only had about 106m of elevation gain, the ups and downs we did on the way there felt like that amount 4-5x over. We were rewarded with a number of amazing views of Mt. Blanc and the rest of the mountain range we'd hiked around the day before as well as the physical satisfaction of having done 4.5 hours of almost all uphill hiking at 2000-2500m. Not bad for a couple of aging wanderers, eh?

Of course we then showed our age by spending the last day just laying low, enjoying the nice weather and having a fabulous dinner of raclette and a bottle of wine, looking at the Alps with the cows ringing their bells in the distance.

The Alps for me was one of the most anticipated part of the trip coming in and it definitely met expectations. The biggest difference between the two sets of mountain ranges is the terrain; the French Alps are much more rocky and jagged vs. the rounder greener landscapes of Switzerland. As a whole, I know my vote lay with Switzerland but we were also glad to have explored both and had a chance to see some amazing sights in each. In all a tiring yet very enjoyable time up in Mother Nature enjoying the beautiful scenery. Can't ask for much else.

Brian

PS To see the rest of the pics on flickr, look for the Chamonix tag.

Sacre Bleu!

Last evening was spent at McDermott's Pub in Doolin, Ireland watching Ireland in their efforts to qualify for the World Cup vs. France.  Unfortunately Thierry Henry, having a stunningly bad game to that point scored a world class goal with about 15 minutes left.  You can read more via the Soccernet link on the right side of the page.  A picture showing our cheering efforts (complete with free hats) will be forthcoming.

 

The only good news of the evening (at least to Irish fans) was that Northern Ireland, who is rated below Rwanda in the world rankings, beat England 1-0.  That brought the loudest cheer of the night by far.

 

Good to see some things never change...

Brian

Alps Update

We're currently in the French Alps just outside of Chamonix.  We just spent the day taking in a picture perfect view of Mt. Blanc at Aiguille du Midi, trekking into Italy on the funkiest cable car out there and then doing a 2-3 hour hike up at around 2300m.  As you could imagine, we're a bit brain dead at the moment...

 

More stories from the Swiss National Emergency, getting gourmet food for 10 francs a night (about 6.5€) and the costliness of the French Alps soon.  In the meantime, know that we're in one piece and spending a ton of time staring at the scenery...

 

Brian