European Vacation Eight - The Failure of Words

This day. This wonderful amazing day. This day will be gone soon. Vanished. Living only in my memory and in the photos we took and our shared oral history. Days do that. Just as seconds minutes and hours leave forever. This was a day I would have held on to. There were moments that wanted to be kept. Stored in pocket or backpack to be pulled out later. There were views that defy description as we took the ferry from Le Spezia to Porto Venere. It was perfect weather. Blue skies above and vast white continents of clouds in the distance. The temperature was mild we never felt heat nor cold. The air was like a soothing balm. The ferry ride was smooth and relaxing except for all the oohs and aahs it illicited as we enjoyed the views. Islands. Mountains. Castles and churches of medieval origin jutting from the rocks reaching proudly to the vast skies above. A sleepy village with rustic narrow streets and shops and clothes drying in windows and wonderful people smiling.

Porto Venere dates back to Roman times which is to say over 2,000 years ago. I live in a city back home that is all of 150 years of age. We visited the church and the fort that overlooked the sea. Built in the 12th century. We walked on rugged stone steps. Stopped and marveled at how each new view surpassed the last. Wondered why we didn't couldn't live here. Could one ever tire of such sights?
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I could not be a food critic. The eating part I'd be fine with but the other business about describing it....It would just be a serious of adjectives. I don't know how to tell you about the magnificent food we've had thus far in our two days in Italy. Every morsel has been a delight. Panna cotta that I could bath in. Gelato that I could smother myself with. Fish -- and you see here comes a cliche -- baked to perfection as are the potatoes. Pizza that puts to shame what the best places in the Bay Area create. And the salads. My god. A simple slice of tomato is heavenly.

I worry sometimes about enjoying myself so much. I worry that the scales will eventually balance with suffering of some sort. But then I think that's nonsense that there are no such rules governing our lives. And goodness knows I've endured pain enough. But most of all I tell myself to enjoy now. Savor it. It will be gone. Like life itself we embrace it while we can. I can today. For however long it lasts. There is still tonight's dinner to come.....

European Vacation Seven - Au revoir Francais Buon Giorno Italia

Said goodbye to a rainy Paris. I could live in this city. On the one hand I'd put on a ton of weight eating all the pastries but on the other I'd work it off by walking constantly. Four days with one spent going to Normandy is barely enough to scratch the surface but we dug into pretty well over the course of a fortnight in 2008. Seeing a great city for the second time is like seeing a great film again. The first time you just got to know it now you get to really appreciate. Like a great film Paris would improve with each viewing. On the minus side Parisians aren't as obsessive about picking up their dog poop as Bay Area denizens are and many have not gotten the memo about the hazards of smoking. There is enough to outweigh that many times over on the plus side. The metro never kept us waiting for more than three minus and those waits tended to be closer to 60 seconds. You can get anywhere on the metro it is accessible and easy (reminds me of an old girlfriend.....stop it!).  It is a great city to eat in to appreciate art to fill out your understanding of history and to walk walk walk.

We dropped in on the Eiffel Tower which I find to be a magnificent structure. Still haven't gone to the top so I'll just have to come to Paris again. As we left it was raining and Paris is beautiful in the rain though less so when you're lugging suitcases to a taxi stand. We boarded an overnight train to Milan, I'm writing this from the train station as we await the train that will take us to La Spezia. We got to soak in more gorgeous French countryside before it got dark. We also ate in the dining card where the food was I'm quite sure edible as I ate it but not with much joy. I'm certain we'll make up for it with some fine meals here.

I'm very tired but very happy to be in Italy and have already tried out my rudimentary Italian as we ordered coffee. To be honest the missus and I are having the time of our life.

European Vacation Six - A Day in Three Parts

Yours truly waiting for a car to take me to the 1920s'

PART ONE - WOODY’S STEPS

Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris -- which I watched for the 6th time the day we left Berkeley -- has steadily climbed the list of my favorite Allen films and currently ranks third. So it should come as no surprise that I had to visit “the steps.” I refer to the steps where Owen Wilson’s character Gil is picked up at midnight and taken by car to the 1920’s. I know I should have been there at midnight to see if I could get a ride back to visit with the Fitzgeralds and Hemingway and Josephine Baker and Salvador Dali and Jean Cocteau and Man Ray and Pablo Picasso and T.S. Eliot. But I settled for having my picture taken there and taking a photo of the street the car drove up and realizing I was standing on hallowed ground where once stood Woody Allen himself. There were others who came to the steps in front of church of st etienne du mont. And I’m sure there will be for years to come.

From there the missus and I strolled around purposely and aimlessly at the same time. We had places to go but were in no rush to get there and a circuitous route was just as good as any other. In a foreign city I am always happy to not know exactly where I am and to just wander about. Paris is made for such meanderings. At one point we found ourselves in the Luxembourg Gardens which is a gorgeous and clean park that feels relaxed and content. I couldn’t help but notice the building there that housed Nazi headquarters during the occupation. I contemplated Nazis stomping around the area and what a horrible affrontery it had to have been to Parisians. History is everywhere.

PART TWO - VIVA LA CINEMA

Our next journey was to the Cinematheque Francais. Somehow I hadn’t thought to go during our last stay in Paris. We bought very reasonably priced tickets for the museum. For a cinemaphile this is a must visit. The French played a crucial role in the early advancement of cinema both from strictly artistic and technological standpoints. The museum pays tribute to the early pioneers of film. There are original cameras and projectors and clips from early films. There is tribute paid to early British and American cinema photographers as well. The collection includes more recent items too such as “mother’s” head from Hitchcock’s Psycho the robot regalia from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis  and a self portrait drawn by Charlie Chaplin. Upstairs there was an exhibition dedicated to the great French director Marcel Carne whose Port of Shadows in a personal favorite.

PART THREE - AN INTERESTING DINNER AND SHUT OUT OF THE DORSAY

We returned home for a rest before heading out to dinner and a museum. We found a nice little restaurant over near Hemingway’s former abode. Our nearest dinner companions were studies in contrast. At one table there was an American couple and my heart bleeds for the poor husband. What a scene his wife made about the dessert. She called the waitress over to complain who then called the manager. It had no taste she insisted and went into great detail about all that was wrong with it. The manager took it away after explaining where the ingrediants came from and assuring madame that they served it daily with no complaint. The manager returned later stating politely that neither she nor the chef could find anything wrong with it. The woman was determined that she admit there was something off about it. She went on and on about the dessert to her poor husband who seemed to get smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter and more and more embarrassed by his not so darling wife. When the bill came she complained about that though her husband pointed out that the issue at hand only amounted to three euros. The woman asked for a menu probably to check the prices again. I felt like hissing her when she left.

At the other table in our vicinity sat four Finns. It looked like mom and her three grown children. They were having a great often laughing once to the point of tears from two sets of eyes. I could only pick up bits and pieces of their conversation but were so proud of them in contrast to the ugly american. Mom returned from a trip to the bathroom to sympathize with the manager about the rude guest. I swelled with Finnish pride. Our people would never do such a thing. But our people are also very shy and while we will stare and watch it wouldn’t have done for me to reveal myself to the Finns. Oh it would have been okay if I’d spoken to them but as a Finn I could’t bring myself to interrupt their evening.

After our enjoyable meal (no problems with our desserts) we made for the D’Orsay Museum. It was a special night in Paris with free admission to all museums. Their website said that they would be open until 1:00 but when we got their at 11:00 they were closing. Damn! We had gotten our evening off to a late start because someone had taken a very long nap (guilty). No museum but more strolling about Paris much of it along the Seine. Then back to the Metro and home. Today we had several “long” waits for the Metro by which I mean three minutes. Three minutes as in 180 seconds. Oh Paris Metro you’ve spoiled me.

European Vacation Five - Beaches

Omaha Beach

It’s simply too much to process. The enormity of what went on there and a lifetime of reading about it thinking about and watching it dramatized. Today I stood on Omaha Beach the bloodiest sector of the D-Day landings of June 6, 1944. It’s a pretty beach that suggests nothing of the blood that soaked it 69 years ago. Young men were slaughtered while others bravely charged on some to glory some to their deaths. They faced German guns. The cacophony was hard to fathom on such a peaceful day.

It is an awful thing war. But there it is running roughshod through the history of humankind. So there’s no denying it. It is the worst of human folly and its lessons go continually unlearned.

I do not like tours. I like to see and discover for myself. But seeing all I did today without a tour would have been impossible. So there I was stuck listening to the endless chatter of our well meaning tour guide she of an encyclopedic knowledge that even surpassed my own.

The day started about five hours after the previous one ended. An early morning scramble to the train station and then a two hour trip to Caen. From there I was picked up with others from my tour and taken to the Memorial museum. As museum’s go it was pretty good though. Any museum that has Adolph Hitler’s suitcase is worth seeing. Of course there was much more than that including displays photos maps and the ever present over priced gift shop.

We were there too long especially with a mediocre lunch included. Finally we were in a van and going from site to site. Honestly this was one of the best parts of the trip riding around and seeing the gorgeous Normandy countryside which featured Roman walls ancient houses and castles and cows and sheep aplenty. Occasionally a human could be seen. It was difficult to imagine that this was once a battleground. I’d heard a lot about the famous hedgerows that were so vexing to allied troops. Seeing them it was clearer why. They were tall thick and deep. Impossible to see through or over and hard to cut.

We saw German bunkers one of which was atop a cliff that U.S. Rangers somehow scaled -- at great loss of life. There were bullet holes still in walls and a ceiling that showed evidence of a flamethrower attacks that roasted some German soldiers. Grisly but historical.

Omaha Beach was the highlight but the American cemetery was touching as well. To see the vast row of crosses and walk about reading some of the names is a powerful experience. 

It was a good day for me. Hard to conceptualize. Hard to find a place for in my consciousness. So much beauty and so many reminders of such a horrible and such a valorous event.

I listened to The Beatles and Amy Winehouse on the train ride back. The wife met me at the train station and I fell into her arms as if I was returning from battle itself rather than a historical battlefield. I can be so overly dramatic.

European Vacation Four - Bargain Hunting on the Champs Elysees

From the Arc de Triomphe

Today I encountered a former student from the language school in San Francisco where I teach. He’s from Korea. We met on the top of the of the Arc De Triomphe in Paris France. Of course. So that business about it being a small world?  Actually true. Last time I was in Paris I saw a former student from my middle school teaching days. I could go to Mars and see a former student.

I think its impossible to get a bad meal in Paris. Or so much as a bad morsel. I had a plain old ordinary omelette for breakfast. It came with a plain old salad and plain old bread. It was to die for. Breakfast had been preceded by a pilgrimage to the apartment building where Hemingway lived (Ernest. Writer. Papa.). It was followed by a pilgrimage to Shakespeare Books once owned by Sylvia Beach and frequented by Hemingway and James Joyce and Gertrude Stein and pretty much everyone else of literary note who has passed through France.

From there it is less than five minutes to Notre Dame (the original one not the Fighting Irish one). It is celebrating its 850th birthday which makes it about 500 years older than any building you’ll come across in the US and only slightly younger than your average supreme court justice (rim shot).

A long stroll -- very long -- eventually took us down the Champs Elysees where you can spend a small fortune on a ball of string. We window shopped at Cartier’s and please don’t tell the wife I bought a huge diamond ring for her. Then it was to the Arc De Triomphe which I was most impressed with my last visit. This time the better half and I decided to go to the top. This required a long long walk up up up a winding staircase. Two heart attacks later we reached the top. It was worth it. The views are c’est magnifique. And of course it is where one goes to run into a former student who is from Korea.

Took the metro back to the apartment. Our trip required a transfer. That meant two trains to wait for. Total combined wait time was somewhere around one minute. From my limited experience on the Paris Metro this is the norm. Years of dealing with public transit in the Bay Area has made me a bitter angry old man with suicidal homicidal tendencies and prone to fits of rage (okay none of this is entirely true but...). I love you Paris Metro.

Went to a crepe restaurant for dinner and every bite was ecstasy. By the time I finished dessert my mouth had had multiple orgasms. 

Now I face the prospect of a very early wake time next morning followed by a very long trip sans the wife to the beaches of Normandy and the site of the D Day landing. I’m in. 

European Vacation Three - Southerners on a Train

View from our apartment in Paris

Ahh the glamour of European train travel. London to Paris. Nothing could spoil it save perhaps being surrounded by a group of young Americans from somewhere in the South. No no no no. We’re not supposed to be listening to Americans. Certainly not one with twangs and most certainly not the motormouth seated just behind us. He was one of those people who has nothing of interest to say so covers it up by talking incessantly. Wife forgave me for drowning him out by putting on my iPod.

But here we are. Paris. Nearly 24 hours on the road and what a road it is. Crossing as it does the North American continent the Atlantic Ocean and the English channel. A quick cab ride from the train station and we are Phil’s apartment. Phil the old high school pal of mine who owns an apartment in Paris -- he lives in Northern England. Phil would be a dear and highly respected friend even absent a spare apartment in the Latin Quarter. With one he is a god.

Not surprisingly I’m quite tired and more than a bit frustrated that I can’t connect to WiFi and so must wait to check email and post these fascinating glimpses into my European vacation. Hope they’re worth the wait.

European Vacation Two - Crash Free Flight

The flight did not crash. This is my favorite type of flight. Floatation devices were not necessary as the unlikely event of a water landing did not eventuate. In fact we landed at Heathrow 40 minutes early. Thank you favorable winds. 

I slept talked to my wife and read a book about the Italian Mafia. The one that very much exists today. The book is poorly written and I’m half sorry I bought it but it is fascinating to learn how pervasive the Mafia is in its various incarnations in Italy. Especially Sicily.

I breezed through customs with my European passport and dutifully waited for my better half. Our luggage was not lost. This is a constant fear of mine but only when I travel. I don’t think about lost luggage when at home. Imagine.

Took the tube to St.Pancreas/King’s Cross Station where we will soon board the Euro Star. There’s no problem getting around because there are not only helpful signs but actual helpful human beings who stand around waiting for you to ask a question.

With time to kill we dropped off luggage had a coffee then strolled around a bit. I love walking around London. In a few blocks we saw the quaint the ancient and the ultra modern. We’ll be staying in this area on our way back so more on it later. Maybe there’ll be sun. I love fog but it would be nice to see London in the sun which I’ve not done in decades.

Travel is exhausting. Travel is exhilarating. Exhilaration is exhausting. Exhaustion from exhilaration is less exhausting then other types of exhaustion. But I’ve heard it leads to repetitious writing. I don’t believe it. I do believe our train leaves soon. It is 5:45 GMT. Boarding call....

European Vacation One - Red Stewardesses

At the airport. It’s about 30 minutes before boarding. I’ve loved airports since I was child. They are glamorous. People are going far away. To exotic locales. No one is flying to Cleveland. They’re going to Tahiti or Paris or Buenos Aires. I used to get dressed up when I flew before I realized that comfort was more important on a long flight as evidenced by the causal attire of most of my fellow passengers. I love going anywhere that requires a passport and now I have two. One U.S. and the other a European Union passport which I have as a consequence of my Finnish citizenship.

Went through security which is a bit of bother. When I was 19 and had shoulder length hair I got a thorough searching at Heathrow in London. I must have looked like a drug mule or someone stupid enough to be carrying a bag of dope. I was always variously smart enough or lucky enough to never get busted despite all manner of chicanery on my part.

Having gotten to the last checkpoint I was searched. The young man had looked at my passport and made a bad attempt to pronounce my last name. However he finished by saying “kiitos palio,” to which I replied “ole hyvaa.” The Finnish thanks very much and your welcome, respectively.

SItting here watching the stewardesses for my flight walk by. There is a constant and very loud and very annoying intercom announcement for some guy named Lee offered in two languages both of which seem to be the official language of Gibberish Island although I think one is supposed to be English.

My god the stewardesses keep coming. It’s Virgin Atlantic and none of them are. Okay that’s a cheap shot. They’re pretty young women in bright red suits and way too much make up. Living in Berkeley and working in San Francisco I don’t see a lot of make up. My wife and older daughter both eschew it and young daughter is adroit at using it in moderation. Likewise the cat.

The wife is taking a walk something that’ll be a bit difficult once we take off. This trip is our 25th wedding anniversary gift to one another. That occasion was actually last June so we’re a better late than never 11 months behind. Oh for the love of god Mr. Lee is being paged again. 

Twenty minutes until boarding. I’m going to try avoid watching an in flight movie. The screens are like matchbooks. I’ve got a book of course and sleep would be a good idea. We arrive in London at 2:00 pm tomorrow local time. Was watching the rain in London earlier today live on the telly as I took in Arsenal (my favorite soccer team) beat Wigan 4-1. Wish I was there for the match despite the rain. 

Okay put away laptop. Hard to write when Mr. Lee is forever and constantly being paged. Oh and here’s the wife....

European Vacation Preface

What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. - T.S. Eliot

Flight leaves in nine hours. To London. Then Eurostar to Paris. Few days there then to Italy. La Spezia via Milan. Later to Rome then to Bologna with day trips to Florence and Venice. Finally to London including seeing a play starring Helen Mirren. There will also be a one-day trip to the D Day landing site.

Watching Midnight in Paris (2011) now while the missus finishes the packing. Makes me want to write like Hemingway or Fitzgerald. I don’t suppose I ever will or for that matter ever come close. But I probably write better than Barney Schultz.

Barney pitched in the majors in the early 60’s. I’ll always remember his big mug because I always seemed to get 20 of his baseball cards when I was kid -- and only one Willie Mays. His cards seemed to always be just that big homely face. I see where he’s still alive at 86 and there’s nothing to indicate that he is a better writer than I am. So there’s that.

Midnight in Paris also makes me want to live in Paris. Then again it doesn’t take much to make me want to live in Paris. Thinking about Paris makes me want to live in Paris. Maybe I will. Then again this first trip to Italy may make me want to live in Rome or Florence.

I love plane flights. They mean new places. They mean a break -- oh wait Gil Bender has just suggested the idea for Exterminating Angel to Luis Bunuel. Brilliant. In addition to its many charms Midnight in Paris makes the point that we overly romanticize past time periods. I constantly come across bloggers who wish they lived in the 30's or 40's. They must love cigarette smoke Jim Crow laws and closeted gays. I think the 70's were great but I wouldn't want to go back. Then again if someone built a time machine there are a lot of places and times I'd like to visit.

I better see if the wife needs any help. Hopefully not but I’ll feel good asking. I’ll try to write everyday during the trip. Posting will depend on internet access.

I'm ready to go.