A Free Trip, For Real!
My parents were good about taking us on yearly vacations to the beach or to camps out on the levees and we did lots of camping and fishing and all of the amazing adventure things one can do in the wonderful state of Louisiana. They also bought us a set of encyclopedias called “Lands and Peoples” which was my absolute favorite thing to read. I’d read all of them more than once by the time I finished high school. It fascinated me like nothing else.
That made me want to go places. Anywhere. Just go.
My first trip out of state besides going to Texas to visit my dad’s relatives was a trip I went on with my best friend’s family. This was also the first time I’d gone anywhere without my family.
Keep in mind this was before the internet, and at the birth of what would be the telemarketing explosion. It was also when people took to the road instead of hopping cheap flights as they did not exist. Also, the speed limit was 55mph.
We were in the summer between 10th and 11th grade, about sixteen years-old, and my friend picked up the phone to hear a woman go on about how she won a free trip to Florida for a family of four. Nobody believed her until the official Free Trip to Florida Certificate came in the mail. It was legit and she was the luckiest girl in town. All her parents had to do was go on an airboat tour in the Everglades to look at some land. No obligation.
This was great, my friend was interested in going to the University of Florida in Jacksonville and needed to check out the place.
So she convinced her parents to drive us there, a twenty-seven hour drive each way. We had ten days to do it all and no idea whatsoever what it was like to be in a tiny car for so long.
For me, it was liberating to be away from my parents and my boring life in a small town.
We found two little boys to take a photo of us, notice how they cut the heads off the parents
We didn’t drive straight thorough but spent the night in about three cities along the way. One of those places we stayed had a vibrating bed which I guess was an early form of the massage chair you see today in one of those mall stores. To operate the thing, we had to put a quarter in this little gadget on the bedside table and it would give you 10 minutes of buzz. We didn’t have any quarters, so I managed to hack it by disconnecting the meter and plugging this high tech mattress directly into the wall socket. The world of travel was already opening my eyes to new and exiting things.
So we were laying on this circus bed and my friend’s eyes rolled back into her head. I’d seen this before, my dad had epilepsy, and this girl was having a grand mal seizure. I rolled her on her side and woke her parents. They panicked when they saw my friend’s face was blue, called an ambulance, and we ended up spending a few hours in some Florida ER. It was quite an awakening as this was her first seizure.
The next day’s drive got us to Ft. Lauderdale. Gigantic hotel with about twenty floors and five swimming pools. Paradise.
Paradise
Nope. Not really. We had no idea one of the worst hurricanes to hit Florida was barreling down on the place starting the day we got there. We never stepped foot in any of those pools but got to watch a storm from the seventeenth floor. But hey, the hotel had this awesome arcade and that was all the rage back then.
When things quieted down a little with the storm, we drove down to Miami because her parents wanted to see the beach where all these famous movies had been filmed. It was a bit run down and underwhelming. Empty. This was before Miami got hip again and there was another storm going on, the Cuban refugee crisis.
That was the one where they let loose a bunch of convicts and mental patients from Cuba to the US.
We were scared when we watched the news with all these stories about how over a hundred thousand undesirables were set loose right there in South Florida. Maybe we should have watched the news before we left Louisiana. We just all looked at each other and said, “We’re not leaving this room.”
You know what was even stranger? Not a single one of us complained or even seemed to be bothered by it. We laughed the entire time, you see, this was a family of comical geniuses and I was one damn lucky kid to be a part of it.
I don’t think people are like this anymore. Whatever we desire, we can get to it in an instant. Food. A place. Information. There seems to be less interest in the journey itself, and all of this makes life pass by too quickly for me.
“You’ve had your fun, now pay for it!”
Remember the post about the time we went to Turkey, The Real Rulers of Istanbul...[are cats]?
In nearby Greece, it is The Dog.
They are everywhere. Some, very few, have collars. They are all friendly and healthy looking and very much a part of Athens as well as the one island we went to, Santorini.
They don’t bark or beg, we tried to feed one of them some leftover gyro, but he refused. I guess they get just as tired of them as we do.
We’d be walking around touring the place and a few would tag along, then they’d inch their way ahead of us as if to say, “Follow us, we’ll show you all the good stuff.
And we’d end up in a place like this…
…their favorite restaurant.
That’s pretty much how relaxed this trip was, just wander around and discover.
Going to the Greek Isle of Santorini (Thira) was like jumping into a post card rack. This was the first time I’d taken my digital SLR on a trip so I was pretty much smiling the entire time. Just about every minute on that island was a photo op. We were all smiling. Blane was happy because the dollar to euro was better than it’s been in years, Kara found a bunch of caves to discover, and Spanky got to see many of the things she learned about in her humanities class (but that was more in Athens).
Our hotel offered a free boat ride and volcano tour, something we thought for sure would be a let down. It being free, you know.
So when we got to the port (800 steps down a cliff, thank you treadmill) and we were sure this was our boat:
But it was this one.
Out on the water, I saw blues like I’d never seen before. Suck the breath out of you blue.
The beaches there are black sand from the volcano,
and I’m thinking that might be what gives the water that deep blue color.
On the way back from the port, we rode the donkeys back up the cliff.
Notice I’m wearing my coat. It was a little chilly, but not too bad.
At the top of the cliff we watched the sunset every evening.
Other days we drove around in our rental car.
Discovered all sorts of things.
Seaside villages…
And timeless looking things, such as this old donkey…
Notice the lack of tourists? The season didn’t start for about a month so we had the place to ourselves.
So. Perfect landscape, gorgeous blue waters, tourist free, no rain, no dogcatchers…
I told the girls it was all too good to be true, that any minute some guy would crack a whip at us and say, “You’ve had your fun, now pay for it!” and turn us into donkeys like in this scene in Pinnochio.
Then we got to talking about all the stray dogs and how they won’t eat gyros… and Spanky asked, “What kind of meat won’t a dog eat?”
DOG!
We were a little drunk that night. I had this little bottle of ouzo (a Greek liquor) in my backpack and Spanky had this hacking cough. It was late and all the drugstores were closed, so I thought, grampa’s cough syrup.
We all had a little of that.
After this part of the trip was over, we flew back to Athens where Sophia met us at the airport and escorted us to our hotel which was not too far from her house. Unfortunately one of her twins was ill, so we didn’t get to go out that night. The next day, Sophia met us at our hotel and escorted us back to the airport where we had some coffee and a long visit before catching our plane. What an amazing girl, that Sophia.
We didn’t turn to donkeys, but Blane, Spanky, and I ended up sick like dogs after we got home. Probably picked up some bug in the airport. We’re all better now and our fun has been paid in full.
Greece is the word
I’m sitting here looking over the photos from this trip and I don’t even have a clue as to which ones to put up here because I have never taken such a stunning set like this before.
I still can’t believe we’ve gone there and come back. It doesn’t even seem real. The entire thing was like a dreamscape.
Where to begin…
First, we went to Athens to see my friend Sophia whom I know from an online writer’s workshop. Sophia is a brilliant writer who never fails to make me laugh until I cry. It’s the strangest thing, I always knew I would end up meeting her. I’d only seen one or two photos of her, so I wasn’t sure if I would be able to spot her out from a crowd.
When we did meet, it was pouring down raining, a little chilly, and we’d just gotten off the train to her suburb. We’d forgotten our umbrellas at the hotel, but I had a cowboy hat over my head (I’d brought it as a gift for her husband) and Sophia spotted it, ran straight to me and engulfed me in one gigantic hug.
We all went to her house for the evening and her mom cooked us a big fat Greek dinner that was outrageously delicious. Her mother didn’t speak English, but she spoke French, so we were able to communicate just fine. It was the strangest thing, I felt as if I’d already met her mother a long time ago. I felt as if I’d met Sopia as well, but I’d “known” her for three years via the workshop.
Sophia’s husband speaks a lot more English than we expected and is a kind, hilarious, and amazing father. The twins were a riot, seven month-old little giggle babies! You just look at them and they explode in laughter. They are also the prettiest little girls in Greece.
One other thing we had to do in Athens was visit the Acropolis. It is beautiful at night with all the spotlights and is amazing up close during the daytime. Here are some architecture students from Germany studying the angles of one of the temples.
There are no straight lines in the columns of the Parthenon. It amazes me that the Greek architects of 2600 years ago knew that the human eye tends to warp straight lines, so they tapered the columns so that the eye would see them as straight.
Hell, I’m tired. I’ll do a Big Fat Greek post tomorrow with some pretty pictures, I swear. Blane has the flu or something and I feel as if I’m off my game as far as writing a blog post that is remotely entertaining and since Greece is so amazing, it deserves better than what I can deliver today.
Just want to let you all know I’m alive and well and back home.
I’ve got a couple of photos over on my Flickr page. Keep checking back there, I’ll try to put up a new one every day.
Spring Break Neck
My kids are going to kill me for what I’ve done to their spring break.
A week from tomorrow we will be heading to Greece. A few days ago I scoured the internet looking for tickets that would get us to the Galapagos Islands and somehow ended up with tickets to Athens. Sorry, giant tortoise, maybe next time…
We wanted to go someplace warm but not a place where the spring break crowd would be (I speak for everyone but Kara who wants to be a part of that pack, but I have power over her for now). Someplace far, far, away. I was supposed to look for tickets a long time ago, but I don’t know, I don’t like planning things too far in advance. Or maybe I just don’t like committing to anything. I hope I never figure out the whys to that and remain flexible and open to stuff at the last minute until they lay my body into the ground. I thrive on that shit, new things coming at me really fast.
So hell yeah, Greece, let’s go.
I’ve got a buddy who lives there who I’ve been dying to meet, Sophia, a girl I met in Max’s online screenwriter’s group. It’s strange, I feel as if we’ve already actually met in person. It also seems as if she lives over in the next city, not on the other side of an ocean.
It’s a short trip, just one week (that is short for visiting Greece), but I am sort of looking at this thing as an intro. We’ll be in Athens for a couple of days, then head out to one of the islands. Funny thing, I didn’t book the Galapagos thing because it involved too many flights, but ended up with the same situation, too many flights. There are no straight flights to Athens from here, so we stop over in Amsterdam on the way there and back. Another flight to the islands. By the time this trip is done, we will have taken seven flights.
My kids are going to kill me.
Before that, though, we get to see this:
Man o man.
See, if I’d booked this three months ago, I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night waiting for this trip.
I love my life. Even if my kids are gonna kill me.
Without a Guide
Despite his alcoholism, my father was a brilliant man. He was in the Army Intelligence, so he had to be smart. It was that part of him I patiently waited to come out day after day. Walking home from the school bus, I used to wonder, What I am I coming home to today?
He wasn’t abusive, it’s not that. He did tend to have depression and would sometimes accuse us of things we did not do or complain about things we did not do enough of. The thing is, the alcoholism was a mask that went between what was an amazing person and the rest of the world. He would turn into this obnoxious and embarrassing person. Sober, he was a quiet and pensive man with an endless amount of patience.
That was when I had a real father. He had worked all over the world and knew so much about so many different cultures. I was fascinated with this. Still am. He was the sort of person to step off the trail or go past the “end of road” sign and explore The Beyond without a guide. He especially liked seeking out nomads in the deserts of North Africa and in the jungles of South America. I greatly admired his fearlessness with regards to the world and The Unknown.
This is a photo someone took of my dad in Tunis
At home however, the things he did know caught up with and devoured him. Too much time to think about them, I guess.
One trip he never talked about was that two year hitch in Korea. The War. We always thought that was the thing that made him drink.
If my father was working Stateside, he was extremely unhappy and restless. He was always mumbling, “I want to work overseas.” That was his mantra. But we never thought he was trying to outrun us. He wasn’t.
One time, he tried to take us with him. When I was fifteen, we were inches from moving to Spain. Everything was lined up, he had a place there, and the details sorted out. He was working in Libya at the time and the plan was for him to meet up with us in Spain during his off days. At the last minute something happened between the US and Libya and the entire thing was called off. Americans were forced to leave Libya, so he lost that job.
So I never did get to travel abroad with my father. Not physically. Through his stories and thousands of photographs, I did. I also inherited his restless spirit, that need to explore new places, new people, to get the flock outta here.
After I became a nurse, when I’d get new issues of my nursing mags, I’d skip all the way to the back, to the ads about traveling nurses. I looked at all the different places I could go and daydreamed. There’s been a worldwide nursing shortage for a long time and I worked with a lot of nurses who did this thing.
All I could do was dream though, Blane always had the higher paying job, so his career plans trumped mine and eventually I stayed at home to raise the kids and quit nursing.
This I want to go overseas thing became my mantra, but not until after my father died. I didn’t need to have a job abroad to travel. We could just go there. And we did, many times. Always took the kids with us, too.
I can’t say I took them to all these places because that is what I wish my father had done with me. I don’t wish I had a childhood like them.
I’m glad I didn’t go until I was an adult and wanted to explore all these new places. It is very different when someone takes you somewhere versus you taking them along.
I still have these daydreams about being a traveling nurse. I haven’t worked in the field in years, but you know where I see myself one day? On a medical sailboat (it exists) that travels the world giving immunizations to people in remote locations.
Not all of my dreams are nomadic in nature. I also fantasize about sitting at a typewriter in a cottage somewhere in the English countryside writing a novel. About what, I don’t know, but the image is in my head along with one of me in a wooden house near the French Quarter doing the same thing.
None of my “visions” have me here where I sit writing this blog post. Not one.
That is a a photo one of the girls took of me on this trip.
They Grow Lemons in Portugal
One of the best and worst trips we’ve ever taken was the one over the Christmas/New Year’s holiday of 2000-2001.
It was one of those things where we were sitting around wondering where we could go real cheap at the last minute. I found some flights to Portugal leaving on Christmas Eve, arriving on Christmas Day.
Flying on Christmas sounds awful, but it was great actually. We had the plane to ourselves and stretched out across all the seats and slept all the way there. It was supposed to be a seven hour flight, but since air traffic was so light, we made it there in five hours.
I’d wanted to go there ever since a relative of ours (a travel agent) mentioned, “Portugal is such a beautiful country, I don’t know why no one ever goes there.”
Portugal is also the bargain basement of Western Europe. Everything from hotels to transportation and goods is inexpensive.
The people are friendly, helpful, and it didn’t matter that we didn’t know how to say more than about three words in Portuguese.
And there were so many lovely things to see.
Problem was, it rained almost the entire week we were there. And it was unseasonably cold. I had promised everyone sunshine. They grow lemons there, weather’s gotta be good, right?
Look at those mad kids!
We brought jackets, but they didn’t seem to keep us warm enough. Especially that night we got stuck at that castle.
We’d gone all the way up the mountain by bus to get to there. Mostly what I remember about the ride was looking out the window and seeing the tires right at the edge of the road, and then nothing. As in, steep drop that seemed to have no bottom.
After touring the castle and grounds, we stood out and waited for the bus, the last one of the day. The scary part was there were way too many other people waiting in line.
So we kept waiting for what would certainly be a fight to get on that bus. We waited, and waited, and waited. It got dark, it got cold, and this creepy fog rolled in along with some drizzle.
An hour and a half goes by, and no bus.
All this time, no one in the crowd could (or would) speak a word of English. There were no phones and the castle and grounds were locked up at that point.
When the bus finally did come, people were shoving to get in, but you know what? It was already full when it rolled up. Maybe two people got on, and the bus didn’t even make a complete stop when it did get there. I just remember the driver saying something to the stranded and panicked crowd as he drove off.
What he said, I don’t know.
One girl, a lone backpacker who looked as if she hadn’t bathed in a year stuck her thumb out to hitchhike. It seemed hopeless as there weren’t many cars coming this way. It was the top of the mountain, why would anyone come here?
But someone did drive by and she got out of there.
So we had some choices. Walk five or so miles back down the mountain, stay with these people and hope another bus was coming but risk death from exposure, or hitchhike.
We stuck our thumbs out and the next car that came along (tiny, tiny, tiny) stopped. We piled in there, all five of us, and left the rest of those tourists up there.
The driver was a skinny college-age kid, someone we could take down in a minute if he tried anything crazy.
He turned out to be a really cool guy who spoke great English and was a drummer in a local rock band.
The last day or so there, the weather had cleared up a bit and there was this amazing fireworks competition over the river. Three countries competed with back to back shows and it was all choreographed to classical music. I’d never seen anything like that in my life before or since.
Why was it one of the best trips?
Because of all the rain, we spent a lot of time in the hotel room watching cable news that was in English. Over and over they kept reporting that the American economy was “going down the drain.”
At that time, we had our savings in the stock market. All of it, and I was day trading with it like a gambler spinning a roulette wheel.
Get back home and what was our news reporting?
The exact opposite. We took everything out the market and by the end of that month, the market crashed with the dot com bust.
That trip saved these angry childrens’ college funds.
I just noticed Spanky’s giving me a thumbs down!
I wish I had a photo of the lemon trees. They are everywhere and this time of year, they are full of gigantic lemons.
Big Boids
If you want to see something really freaky, check out my video of the birds we saw on Queen Bess Island (near Grand Isle, Louisiana).
I think there were more than usual going to the island because a storm was approaching. The video is a little shaky as I was shooting while the boat was moving. We got in and out really fast because of the storm.
It seemed as if we had boated into Land of the Lost. Birds were flying just a couple of feet from us. Pelicans are the state bird of Louisiana.
Neon Flower Times Two
We all went out to watch the fireworks the city does every year. It seems like it used to be a bigger show that lasted longer. They also moved the location which is so unfortunate because we used to sneak past the police tape and lie down on the bleachers in a nearby soccer field and watch them fall right over our heads. We had the whole place to ourselves.
This year we weren’t exactly sure where they were launching them, only knew the general area. So we followed the people and I looked everywhere for anyone with a tripod setup. Maybe they would know the best spot? I didn’t see anyone like that so we just parked ourselves in a field where a lot of people were gathered.
I brought my Canon and tripod along with the zoom lens.
Exposure: 6 sec (6)
Aperture: f/8
ISO Speed: 200
I also had Blane use the Panasonic point and shoot (no tripod) and he took some shots along with me (I’m trying to get him interested in the hobby). He had it set on the fireworks mode. I love the way this one turned out.
Exposure: 0.25 sec (1/4)
Aperture: f/3.9
ISO Speed: 80
With image stabilization on, it didn’t allow longer than a quarter second exposure.
Hope you all had a great Independence Day.
I’ve been really busy with the kids out of school for summer and haven’t had much time to blog. I’m collecting lots of fun stories to tell you later. We have three more big concerts lined up to go to before summer’s out (Metallica is one of them, taking Blane Jr. to that one). We still don’t have any plans to go out of town but would like to go somewhere at the end of July.
Maybe a road trip in the RV? Blane Jr. just bought one sort of like ours (used, from his grandmother). Maybe we can get on the road and see some of America together this summer. Colorado? California? Florida?
Wanna Dance?
One of my best friends, Helene, is the Parisian I talk about here from time to time. I met her about eight years ago while renting a vacation property she owns. We became such good friends that I see her at least once or twice per year. She has even come here to visit us once. She’s like a sister to me.
When I am in France, Helene always passes out great advice about things we should do to experience off the beaten path French culture. She often takes us to some of these things.
Last summer she took us to small festival out in the country. It was like a barn dance with live music, a fireworks show, and a huge bonfire at the end of the evening. What surprised me most about that evening was how the dancing was exactly the same as Cajun dancing.
Lately, Helene has been encouraging me to take dance classes. She started taking them about two years ago and says this is one of the best things she has ever done. A few days ago she sent me some video links of this French guy, Thierry Desequelle teaching country line dancing. You’ve got to go see this:
You don’t need to speak French to understand the guy, mostly it is just counting steps. Go see.
If you want to see more of his dance lessons, there are tons of them here.
My Whacked Travel Tales All in One Place
I made a page with links to most of my travel posts and put it in the sidebar.
Check it out if you have time.
I’m going through my photo albums and have a lot more stories to write (The US, Belize, Mexico, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Wales, World Cup France, Tour de France…)
When in Rome
After a disappointing day and an evening stranded in the suburbs of Rome, the girls and Blane (the father) didn’t want anything to do with me, not even ring in the New Year. Just as the taxi dropped us off at the hotel, Blane (the son) and Angela showed up.
Fresh blood.
So Blane and the girls go to bed and Blane2, Angela, and I hit the streets of Rome. We haggle with a street vendor for some champagne and sit on the sidewalk like hobos, drinking right out of the bottle. Angela laughs about how angry her mother would be if she knew she was drinking. The way I see it is she’s twenty and the drinking age is what, twelve, in Rome?
When in Rome, do as…
We raised our bottle and toasted her mother at exactly midnight.
I really did believe the ATMs would magically begin spitting Euros at midnight. The way it worked in reality? The machines were empty. No euro, no lira, no nothing. We needed more booze for the celebrating. Fortunately street vendors were taking all sorts of currency that night.
The city was in a great mood. A bus paused near us and everyone on that bus was dancing. People were hanging out the windows yelling for us to dance. So we did, right in the street. We danced with a bus.
Next day, I’m hungover in the train station, splayed out across my backpack, afraid to move. The lines at the ticket counter are twenty-five deep. People all over. Chaos. We have no idea which trains to take to get to Barcelona. Angela admits she didn’t listen to the Italian travel tapes so she can’t go ask. I have to do it, not that I know Italian, I’m gifted at improvising sign language. She at least holds my place in line while I try to keep from spilling my cookies.
Watching travelers leave the line, it doesn’t look hopeful. The station agent is having a good time with the language barrier. It seems people are asking stupid question after stupid question and this guy loses it with every single person. I notice a pattern. First, he rubs his face and rolls his eyes. Second, he rears his head back in frustration. Third dumb question, he jumps out of his chair, throws his hand up in the air, and walks in a circle while mumbling something like, “Mamma Mia!”
I’m at an angle where I can see him go over to the cube next to him and laugh about it with his collegue. It’s just an act.
When I get my turn, I go with it. When he throws his hands up in the air, I do the same. When he shouts “Mamma Mia!” we shout it at the same time. This makes him laugh. Hard. It gets us out of Rome and on to Milan in reserved seats. No fighting for trains.
Milan was just a waystation and what I wanted to share about being there was a couple of photos. I can’t find them, so another day on that.
We took a night train to Barcelona from some mountainous area in France. Night trains through Spain are shockingly expensive. We do like to budget travel, but since we lost a day in Milan, we had to splurge on the night train to get back on our schedule.
What I remember most about Barcelona is beautiful people. I don’t mean on the inside, but in the shallow way. Perfect noses, eyes, skin tone, the hair. They are stunning.
The people watching was downright entertaining. Have you ever seen the shell game scam? They were working it big time, practically robbing tourists. We decided to have a little fun and get into some mischief.
Here’s how it works: A guy has three shells and hides a ball under one of them…mixes them up and someone in the crowd has to chose which one the ball is under. Somehow he gets people to bet on whether “someone” will find it or not. So there is a ton of money on each shuffle of the shells. We noticed the “someone” was not really a tourist, but a comrade of the shell guy. We also noticed they had two or three other comrades in the crowd looking for cops. The magical thing was watching how fast these four guys disappeared after they won their money.
We kept seeing the same scam over and over, just different people working it. We were traveling with a set of two-way radios to keep track of each other in case we separated. They didn’t work worth a crap -but- we did have some fun with them. If we saw a shell game scam, we’d get in the crowd and pretend to be undercover agents. When we’d whip out the radio (acting inconspicously, of course) it would magically make the con artists disappear.
We did get on the other side of the law while there.
Our hotel room had this horrible sewer smell in it. We insisted they change our rooms and were promised they would but when we got back that night, they didn’t keep to their promise. We got into a big fight with the management and told them we were checking out. They insisted we pay for that day because we had not checked out by noon. The management said they were calling the police. We huddled, came up with a plan and took off running. Two couples and two little girls.
The plan was to separate. Each couple take a kid and run in a different direction. We also turned our jackets inside out so they wouldn’t recognize us that way (Spanky had a honking dalmation pattern on hers).
It was a good thing too, just a minute later we saw a cop car talking to a group that looked like us, two couples and two little girls.
Suckers.
Traveling with Good and Bad Angels
A few weeks ago Dr. Gorgeous asked me where I would want to be for the holidays if I could choose anywhere in the world. “Rome,” I told him, followed by a snicker.
We’d been there at New Years in 2002. It was a big trip with all of us and Angela who was Blane2’s new girlfriend at the time. I’d gotten rail tickets for five countries and we’d do it with backpacks. I’d speak the French and Angela would take care of the Spanish and the Italian. Just travel Italian. I gave her my tapes which I hadn’t listened to in years.
We did Paris without a hitch. On the Rivera, I nearly got my ass beat by a gypsy grandmother. We were sitting on a bench, people watching, mainly the legless man on the sidewalk with a cane who would tap the ladies on the butt as they walked past him. Some of the women would look back, spot him, then laugh. Others would give him a tongue lashing. One woman beat him with her purse. But he was a funny guy, he had a toothless smile and his face was animated. Before long there was a crowd watching the reactions of his “victims.” Then, as all street acts go, he passed the hat.
The gypsy part was a side drama. A girl (about nine) had four little kids sitting around watching her dance. By force. Every time a kid tried to get up and leave, she would shove them back into their “seats.” They might have all been from the same family or together, but oddly, there were no adults with them.
Spanky, around the same age, grew tired of the bullying and upstaged the kid with a sound she used to make. It was an odd sound, like something a fish would vocalize, if fish could talk. The kid cussed and threatened Spanky in French, which at the time, she couldn’t understand.
I go and try to break things up and the gypsy kid curses me lower than a dog, tells me her grandmother is a monster and will beat me unmercifully, that I better watch my back for the rest of my life… I told her to go get her, I was ready for a fight and she said, “My grandmother will get you when she is ready, and you are not.”
Not the first time I’ve been cursed. On to Italy.
The train sitch is a disaster that time of year in Italy, something we didn’t anticipate. We’d been there in the summertime. Piece of cake. During the holidays, however, everyone is traveling to see family. Since we don’t make plans, we had no seat reservations. We had to Mad Max fight for our seats just like the others. When a train pulls into the station, mobs of people shove into the doors and stuff the trains. Since there were six of us, two of which were little girls, we had to be cautious. Lots of trains left the station without us.
Once on a train, we shove into a compartment, two to a seat, with other stinky and weary travelers. Each stop we pick up more people. Soon there are people sitting on the floors, in the aisles, practically hanging out the windows. Some people outside our compartment have a guitar, drum, and tambourine, and start playing some music. Next thing you know, everyone on the train is singing to whatever they are playing. The Italians don’t get worked up about being stuffed on a train, they make the best of it.
We finally get to Rome, find a room and rest our exhausted bones. We only came here for a couple of days. To see the Sistine Chapel, spend New Years Eve here, and welcome the new euro when it comes out at midnight. We get a tiny amount of lira from the ATM as we want to use Euros on the very first day of issue.
We get to the Chapel and it is closed for New Years Eve and New Years. We weren’t going to see it. So Blane2 and Angela go on their own to do some things and we take the girls to do the usual, Trevi Fountain, Colluseum, etc. When we get tired, I suggest we get on a bus, any bus and just ride to the end of the line, get another bus and ride back. Simple. Cheap.
I am known for bright ideas and although they frequently get us into trouble, I have this crazy optimistic outlook and the ability to convince everyone that this time things will not fall apart. I also have two angels watching over me. One is a practical joker and the other is a hero that comes in at the last minute to save the day. Everyone knows this and in the spirit of adventure, they are always willing to do what I say might be fun.
Poor bastards.
The bus takes us out to the suburbs and when we try to get back on, the bus driver says the bus is finished for the evening, we’d have to find another way home. We get off the bus and what’s the first thing we see? A cement fence with a six feet tall swastika painted on it.
Great.
Funny thing, too, this suburb is high up on a hill and we could clearly see Rome below us, beautifully lit. Miles away, however.
We walk and walk and just see houses. It gets dark and a little cold. There are no businesses open, no pay phones anywhere. Not a human in sight for what seems like hours. The homes look so warm, in fact we are certain they are lit by candles. And food. We could smell it everywhere.
Finally we find a restaurant but no one speaks English. No problem, I whip out my phrasebook. Find out this is a private family function. We tell them we are lost as all hell and just want to get a taxi out of there. They tell us it will cost a fortune.
A fortune we don’t have because we only had a few lira, remember, the euro doesn’t come out for a few hours.
The kind people in there had mercy and fed us one of the best meals we’ve ever had. When the taxi driver got there, they bargained with him to take us to Rome for about one fourth his normal price and to take American dollars.
I’ll finish Rome and get to Milan and Barcelona tomorrow.
Edited Note: The story continues here.
You’re Standing in Quicksand -But Wait- Let Me Get a Picture of This!
About five years ago, I took the girls on a month long journey through France. The exchange rate was great and I was convinced the Euro would rise, so I wanted to buy a second home in my favorite country. It would be an investment. A fun one. I just didn’t know exactly where in France to buy. So this trip was to find THE place. Actually, we took about 4 or 5 different trips that year and hit just about every major region of the country.
We did this month-long trip by car. This was the time we went to Normandy. Although it was an off the beaten path type of trip, we did swing by Mont St. Michel, a heavily touristed area, yeah, but it was something to see because this place has one of the highest tide differentials in the world.
The first thing we noticed was how much this place looked like Hogwarts. I guess everyone knows this now, but for us, then, it was a discovery. There were other things to discover in a place like this.
On the other side of the Mont, we went out for a walk. There were warning signs posted about how quickly the tide comes in. I’d read it travels as fast as a galloping horse, but the sign said it was at the pace of a brisk walk. Which meant my kids would have to run from it.
Hard to believe that hours earlier this beach was under thirty feet of water. Equally difficult to comprehend that it would be underwater again in a few more hours. Walking around “under the sea,” there were jellyfish and other forms of sea life scattered about, left behind by the tide.
This is about how far out we walked before heading back.
Another thing we discovered was quicksand. Somehow we missed those warning signs. Not that I would have believed them anyway. What I understood about quicksand was what I’d seen in the movies: It’s in the jungle, it looks like liquid mud, and all that is left of a bad guy who falls in is his safari hat.
Look closer. Here, I’ll zoom in for you. My kids are sinking.
The more they moved, the more they sunk. I don’t have a photo of them up to their knees because I was busy pulling them out before the damn tide came in.
Don’t believe it?
Look at this dude:
photo: Claude
It’s at the same place we were.
Quicksand is not as scary as made out to be in the movies. You can learn more about it here.
Here is Mont St. Michel while the tide is in.
Photo: Puzzlehouse
Besides finding “Hogwarts” and quicksand, I found out a lot of things on that trip. Things I could not learn in a book. Mainly that my daughters did not want to be raised in France. I also realized that while the countryside and its people are amazing, it is not for me. Paris is THE place.
Just not for now.
Some people might think I’m crazy to travel to a foreign country alone with two little girls. It was difficult at times because they were at the age when they were at each other’s throats so much. That’s the only trouble we had.
I’m not afraid of the unknown. The only things that scare me are the things I do know. And the girls? They are the same way.
This post was highlighted in Best of Holidailies.
Thanks, Holidailies.
What the FCUK?!
We’ve been seeing these t-shirts over the last few years in England. My kids would point out every one of them.
Tricky on the eyes isn’t it?
FCUK, short for French Connections UK is actually a hip clothing store which also has its own hair care and frangrance lines.
The Tubes are completely taken over with the smell of FCUK.
Which isn’t bad since that stuff is really good.
I never thought we could get away with those FCUKing shirts in this country, never in my wildest dreams thought they’d open a French Connections shop here, but I did spot one while in New Orleans last spring.
But… FCUS?
Doesn’t translate, does it? That tricks the eye and FCUKs with the head.
While in Target this evening I saw something unusual. A lip enhancing gloss called—
Sexy Mother Pucker.
Made by Soap and Glory.
Sxe is such a sellout. I mean, sxe sells.
I think I’ll go clean out my spam folder.
Booted
On my first day at Liv’s house she kept saying we needed to nip into town so she could get some eyedrops. I looked at her eyes and they seemed fine, but she kept saying they were not okay.
We get to Boots drugstore, an amazing place (so amazing that our Target stores here in the States have a Boots aisle). Liv shows me No 7 Protect and Perfect Serum, a face cream so damn good that Boots couldn’t keep it on the shelves when it was highlighted on some tv show there. They were fully stocked when we went and there was a sign that they were no longer limiting it to one per customer.
I had to get some of that, although at $30 per tube, it was a painful decision to put it in the basket. When I realized it was “buy 2 get one free”, I ended up committing $60 for 3 tubes. Don’t know why it is, but that took the sting out of it.
Lest I forget what we went there for, I wandered off on my own to find some eyedrops for Liv. The eyedrop section made my eyes bulge. The choices were mind boggling. There must have been about 20 different types of drops. Why so many?
Upon closer inspection, I realized that my eyes were also fucked up and I must buy some of this stuff.
How stupid of me to neglect my eye whites? I’d been chasing down tooth whiteners since those things came out and here are the Brits alrealdy past that and working on bright eyes to match.
There are the types that promise to make them bright, brilliant, or dazzling…
Or if you want that special touch, drops to turn them blue…
I tried both of these products. Did they work? Well they made my eyes sting for starters. Then my eyelids turned red and itchy. I think my eyeballs were brighter, especially with the contrasting redness around them.
And what about that No 7 Serum? So far, it has made my skin feel very dry. This is similar to the effect of using Retin A for the first time. I hope once that outer layer of skin sloughs off, I’ll experience the “perfect” part of the deal.
Sometimes it’s fun to put skepticism on hold and just believe in these little miracle products. For a few days at least.
Kitty in the City
So I get off the plane at Gatwick and instead of going straight to my friend’s house what do you think I did? I’ll give you a hint. I had to pass through London on the way there.
I got off the train and put my luggage in storage for the day and had myself a walk about. I got there early in the morning and called Liv to tell her not to worry about me for dinner. I got on one of those double decker buses and went upstairs to the very first seat and plonked down for about an hour of sightseeing. I meant to get off near Picadilly but got tempted by the Houses of Parliament and got off there. From there I wandered into the Westminster Abbey. Stayed in there for a couple of hours.
Then I just walked and walked and walked until it felt like my muscles were going to fall off the bones. About ten hours of it. I’ve noticed that boots are big this year. So are leggings and fedoras. All the guys have this windswept hair style that looks much like this chicken hairdo I’d shape on the kids when they were babies.
When it got dark I hopped the one hour train to Liv’s and dozed off while this guy with a Cockney accent chatted away. He sounded just like the Geico gekko. I dreamed that little lizard was sitting on my shoulder talking to me. It was quite amusing.
Pack Light
My best friend’s son is getting married so I’m going to a wedding in England and I should be packing right now. My plane leaves in less than twelve hours and there are still a million things to do. I even have a closing (I’m a Realtor) just before my plane leaves.
Normally I’d find someone else to go to that closing. We do things like that for each other in the business. This house is Blane Jr.’s house that he and his wife are buying, I can’t miss it. I want to be there when they hand over the keys to first time home ownership.
Since I usually pack light, really light, there isn’t much to do, right? Well, this time I am packing heavy. I have a few things to bring to England and I’d like to have a big suitcase with a lot of space to bring back a lot of stuff. I don’t usually do round trips to from the same European city. I do open jaw flights. England, if we go there is usually what we hit first, so we never get to bring things back from there. Since this is roundtrip in and out of Gatwick, it’s time to bring back some goods.
Here’s my dog Scrappy in my suitcase while I was trying to unpack from my last trip. The dogs get really low while I’m gone (so they say).
You would not believe what I want to bring back. It’s stupid, really. But there is this Palmolive Spa bath soap that I just love and they don’t sell here. Also, I collect Denby dishes and want to bring back some of that too. I’ll check my luggage for one of the first times. There and back. Not a problem, I am by myself and don’t have to worry about so many bags, whatever.
This is only the second time I leave my kids and go on a trip alone. The first time was a couple of years ago. Same place, went to England. Not to visit this friend, it was work related. I didn’t enjoy myself, either. Even though Blane stayed home with the kids and the youngest was 12, I still worried. And missed them. This go round, I miss them already. I’ll be packing a heavy heart. (whaaaa, blubber, pout, sniff…emo…)
The night before my trip I always stay up all night. That way I’m tired and sleep on the flight all the way there. It works like magic. Sort of.
This is a short trip. I’ll be gone about 6 days. The first two days of it, I will be completely stupid. That is how jet leg affects me, makes me dumb. I don’t have problems with sleeping there, but shit I have trouble answering simple questions. Especially if it deals with numbers. Fortunately I also laugh like a clown maniac while in this stupor. The long plane ride messes with my equilibrium and adds to the wildness.
So if you hear of some London cops picking up some stumbling drunken looking clown American woman… Put a file in the cupcake you send me.
4-3-2-Pop
Okay, as promised, a little bit on Parisian sounds.
Paris is called the City of Lights. It’s a reference to many things, one being the Lumiere brother’s first public showing of moving pictures. But mostly it’s because the city doesn’t sleep (I think New York City already has that title). So if you have a room in Paris that is on the street side (versus the back, or garden side) and it is summertime, you aren’t going to get any sleep. Most hotels do not have air conditioning, so your windows will be open or you will suffocate.
It is noisy.
Mostly with buzzing cars and motorbikes. I don’t know why they are so loud, but they are and when the traffic is light at night, they rev those little engines to go faster. It reminds me of bees, multiplied by about a thousand. I’m a heavy sleeper, so I can do streetside. I like waking up to the street sounds of Paris.
Falling asleep in Paris, you’ll hear people walking below, heeled footsteps, and often singing. People in Paris love to sing.
Speaking of singing and sound, we did catch a My Chemical Romance concert at Le Zenith. It was the only concert of theirs we have gone to that was exclusively theirs (versus a festival), so we got to hear them for two full hours versus about 30-45 minutes.
We were shocked when we got to the arena because it was so small and the upper levels were curtained off. There were only about two to three thousand people there. Unheard of. It was like having our own private show. Anyone was allowed to go into the pit and the French didn’t crowd us. Or mosh. Or throw bottles. Quite a pleasant experience. It is no doubt the best show I have ever been to or will probably ever see.
They played every song from The Black Parade in the order that they are on the CD. They also wore those marching band costumes and called themselves “The Black Parade” during that half of the concert. They even played some B-sides from that album. After that, they said they were leaving, that their friends “My Chemical Romance would be out to play some old school stuff, if you’re into that kind of shit.” While they went backstage to change, a lot of people got confused and thought the concert was over. So while they leaving, we were able to inch closer to the stage. MCR came back and those suckers lost their places.
I know. Where are the photos? Well. Those bastards at the Zenith confiscated every camera and held them until the concert was over. Zenith’s policy, not MCR’s. I am bitter about that, bitter. My best opportunity for some amazing concert photos and, fuck, no camera.
Life is funny isn’t it?
You’ll just have to settle for Metro (subway) photos. There are lots of adverts on the walls which Parisians frequently complain about. Most of the time they are entertaining and tastefully done. This is Paris, they lead the world in taste.
The Metro is one of my favorite things about Paris. It’s been around for about a hundred years. It’s hard to imagine people zipping around town in these underground tunnels 100 years ago. These days it takes minutes to cross town in this thing. Above ground it doesn’t seem to take more than a five minute walk from anywhere in Paris to get to a Metro entrance.
The tickets are only about $1.30 each if you buy them in books of ten. Considerably cheaper than London’s underground which is about $6 per ticket. Both are even cheaper for the locals who get Carte Orange (Paris) or the Oyster card (London). Tourists can get them, but station agents are reluctant to sell them to visitors.
I have always loved this warning sticker in the Metro cars.
Wait, wait. This one too. I am a sick puppy. But hell, if you fall on the tracks I might save your ass.
Here’s a video of what it is like to walk through the Metro tunnels and ride the trains under Paris. It was done by some Parisians so you can hear their lovely voices and laughter.
I hope you watch it.
Here is a drawing in the guestbook at the home where we stayed just a few miles outside of Paris. A guest from Denmark or Holland did this with an ink pen. Amazing.
Beautiful Things
I asked my French friend once, “Paris est belle ou beau?” (Paris is beautiful (f) or beautiful (m)? She answered, “Paris est beau.” What that really means is Paris is a masculine word in French. I would have guessed feminine. No doubt about whether the place is beautiful.
Everything there is beautiful. To the eye, the ears, the nose, the palate, the fingertips. And some.
There is lavendar everywhere. Did you know that it chases away scorpions? In the south of France there are beautiful rolling hills of blue, so much of it you can smell it in the air.
They say in France a baker is either a good at making pastries or bread, never both. There are bakeries everywhere to tempt you.
If you take it “to go” they always wrap your pastry in lovely paper, just like this:
And speaking of pastries, can’t you just smell the wedding cake?
I stumbled upon this wedding and watched the guest throw confetti on the bride and groom. I love the way the confetti looks on this gown.
In the Montmarte district, I saw this window and wished I lived there.
Even when things are weathered, they still look amazing.
And who would think Contact paper could look so good on something?
This light fixture in this clothing store, I have to have one.
It won’t go anywhere in this house, but I’m going to make one of these. I will.
See these patches of grass on the table?
Those things are everywhere this season. Decorating store windows in England, Switzerland, and France. This is real grass here in Paris, the other countries had plastic grass. Don’t know what’s up with that, but maybe we’ll be decorating our store windows next year with that stuff.
Oh yes it is…
Not just the regular Coke Blak, chers, they do have that, but also an extreme version of it. The bottle is metal, not glass as it is here. Heaven this place, heaven.
The most beautiful thing about Paris is this:
My daughters buddying up and walking real close to each other like the Europeans do. They never hang out like that at home.
I will give you the sounds of Paris in another post. I am off to my dreams now. A bientot (later).
Chat Noir
No matter where you go or live, there always seems to be a house that is spooky. A house where everyone says “the witch” lives and kids take dares to run across the yard. We saw one in France so I took the opportunity to tell the kids a creepy story about a French witch in that house.
And then a black cat came out. Of nowhere. I poked the camera through the wrought iron fence and took this photo. It wasn’t until I uploaded it that I realized I took that photo through a spider web.
So I sit here creeping myself out with this photo and decide to zoom in on the cat’s eyes. That is not red-eye. That cat’s eyes are glowing. I did not Photoshop or enhance it in any way, just crop and zoom.
Hell, while zooming in why not look in the windows?
You see that ghostly face?
Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
