Tierra de Tortugas

Summer 2013 Sojourn: Aaaah, Paris!

If you're not rich, Paris may be unaffordable these days – unless you're lucky enough to have a friend to stay with. We were just that lucky.

 Many years ago a young Congolese-French girl named Annick worked for my brother and sister-in-law as an au pair. She took care of two young boys while the parents were working. I wrote to tell her we'd like to have dinner with her when we visited Paris this Summer. She wrote back, insisting we stay in her large house in the suburb of Bonneuil sur Marne, southeast of the city. We're accustomed to using public transport, but when we asked which metro train to take from Orly Airport she insisted on picking us up, as it was not far from her home. This kind of warm hospitality was unnecessary, but welcome indeed.

 
 

It was a three-story home, counting the large and very nice attic bedroom where we stayed, set in a modest neighborhood of narrow streets not far from the Créteil metro line.

 
 

Annick and her three young daughters made us feel completely welcome and included us in a family backyard barbecue at her sister's fine home nearby. We were immediately given a special entree into French life that we could only have hoped for, and was far beyond anything we might have expected. 

 

 

 

 
 

We shared peaceful mornings of baguettes and jam, coffee, and juice with Annick before catching the metro to downtown Paris. Since her days as a bright young au pair, Annick finished her Doctor of Laws at the Sorbonne and now works in financial management. We spent our time together learning the ways of daily life in a Paris suburb, and the challenges faced these days by a young black French woman with daughters. Although she and her family are hard-working and successful, there are still issues to deal with.

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But Paris was much on our minds. And even with a fine place to stay, Paris is still expensive. On Wednesday morning we bought a pack of ten Metro tickets and caught the next one to The City, emerging near the Louvre. Paris is as beautiful and vibrant as I remembered, a true world-class city, a center of the arts, literature, and the culinary world. 

On our first morning in the city we indulged in coffee and a nibble at a sidewalk cafe on a busy corner and lingered watching the ebb and flow of daily life. We had plans to be at the Louvre early, but cafe society is captivating and we weren't up to standing in long lines so we lingered over coffee. We decided to follow the advice of an airline ticket lady in Miami who told us to go on Wednesday evening, after the tour groups were gone. It was very good advice. 

 

We would spend our day wandering the streets and the Tuilleries Gardens instead, admiring sculpture over lunch like so many Parisians on lunch break. These famous lanes of horse chestnut trees provide one of the best people-watching locations on earth. And don't people make one of the best zoo exhibits anyway? Lingering in the shade at the Tuilleries is really the essence of summer in Paris.

 

 

 

 

After lunch we crossed the Seine to the Musee D'Orsay, the old converted train station, and reveled in one of the world's great art lessons as we followed the works of most of the world's best artists. Neither of us saw as much as we wanted but there would be no time to return, on this trip. They don't allow photos in the museum, so none are shown here, but after closing we enjoyed some of the street music that makes Paris a special place. 

 
 

   In the late afternoon we recrossed the bridge toward the Louvre and, for the third time, ran into a Roma (also called Gypsies) working their latest scam. They pick up a ring from the pavement and ask if you dropped it. They show you where it says "24 karat gold" inside and insist it must be yours. We never let it get farther than that because it was an obvious scam, but an outraged French couple said when you look at it closely they'll pick your pocket. It might have been fun to go along with because I always keep lots of wadded papers and maps in my pockets and carry no wallet. I've read about one guy who carries a phony wallet with nasty notes inside. When a thief grabs it he reads, "You are the stupidest thief in the world!" I haven't done that yet, but I got a picture of the third scumball and that's him. He was not happy.

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How does anyone describe Paris in ways that have not been written before, in more memorable words? I wouldn't even know where to start. Years of movie-going have imprinted much of this city on my memory, since it's a common theme. And the dusty caverns of my past echo with "Raspberries, strawberries" by the Kingston Trio.

(recent version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKAxV3rNBpo)

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This past Spring, Carolyn and I each read The Greater Journey by David McCullough. This large epic covers an important period of 'Americans in Paris' – but not the Hemingway-Fitzgerald-Stein period we normally think of. He writes instead of 1800 to 1900, a formative period for many young Americans who came to the world's center of learning to study medicine, law, art, and literature. Their names were such as Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Singer Sargent, James Fenimore Cooper (the most famous American author at the time), Augustus Saint Gaudens, and a young struggling artist named Samuel F. B. Morse. Morse would become famous and wealthy after inventing the telegraph, but that was a long time in his future and he spent his early Paris years struggling like other artists and students living in the Latin Quarter (so named because the classes there were taught in Latin).

 These Americans were witness to many of the events that shaped modern Paris, including Hausmann's building of the "Grands Boulevards" that we all consider the norm for this city.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann's_renovation_of_Paris) 

 

The Eiffel Tower, the tallest structure in the world then, was built for the 1889 Exposition. It provoked much controversy, partly due to its cost – over a million dollars! But it paid for itself in entry fees by the end of the fair, and saw its 200 millionth visitor in 2002. Overall, the 19th century was a formative time and we are lucky to experience the results today.

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The airline lady was right about going to the Louvre in the evening. It was far less crowded.  

 

We entered the cavernous entry/shopping area leading to the ticket area, but stood no chance of 'seeing everything' in the world's largest museum. So we went straight to the most famous painting in the place, the Mona Lisa (called "La Joconde" in French).

People jostled to get their photo taken with the smiling lady and I recalled just how small the painting is. On the walls around it and throughout the hallways are other important art works, with students studying each one in detail. 

 

 

As 'last call' ran out over the PA system I found a small seat by a window overlooking the Louvre's massive courtyard. Two stories down, people wandered along the pathways and I saw a small shape scurry from one hedgerow to another. It was one of Paris' famous rats. It was followed by a second, then a third, a fourth, a fifth. By this time I had my camera out and bagged a blurry view of the sixth one. 

But it was time to leave. We were exhausted from a long day of walking, and it was time to meander back through the Louvre's extensive underground, rise to the surface under a warm Parisian twilight where people were relaxing on the grass...

 

...and search for dinner. — PRW

 

 

Summer 2013 Sojourn: European Landing

We lifted off at Miami airport, crossed the Florida coastline in a cloud-scattered afternoon and settled into the rhythm of a transatlantic flight, racing toward the night on an AirBerlin Airbus 330. After dinner, I relaxed with a movie on my own private screen:

"Funny Face," set in Paris, with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn; it was silly, but I had never seen it. After a few hours of sleep, the sun rose over Ireland hidden somewhere far below under the clouds and we awoke in a different, older world.

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We were heading to Paris. We hadn't been to "The City of Light" in 20-some years and wanted to return, to refresh our fading memories of this grand city. But several people also told us Istanbul was definitely a place to visit. We decided to combine the two and figure out connections along the way. A finger-trace across the map revealed a possible pathway through the Balkans and it seemed like a good time to visit there. They stopped shooting at each several years back and things might be semi-normal by now. If we ever wanted to see the Balkans this might be our best opportunity. And after Turkey we may as well wander back through Greece.

 As we worked out the logistics we realized we'd be dealing with 9 languages we don't speak – French, Italian, Slovenian, Croatian, Montenegrin, Albanian, Bulgarian, Turkish and Greek. It's no surprise that Europeans have a hard time communicating since each valley often has its own dialect, or completely different language. We hoped that by the end of a long hot summer most recent conflicts would have abated. If not, we'd change our plans to fit.

 Then Carolyn found us a cheap flight on AirBerlin whose hub city was…Berlin. We would have an 8-hour layover there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin). That made 10 languages we had to deal with, other than English and Spanish. We feel most comfortable in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. But we'd be taking this trip our usual way – no safe guided tour, no tour bus – just us figuring it out in incomprehensible (to us) languages. This one would take us well out of our comfort zone. 

 We drifted downward through puffy clouds over green fields and forests, toward Berlin's Tegel Airport. We passed over groups of modern-ugly apartment blocks, and a KFC sign on a pole, as our wheels reached the runway. There would be ample time for a city tour bus. We'd gotten a few hours sleep during the flight and didn't want to miss a glimpse of the German capital. We could sleep later – to paraphrase the philosopher Jon Bon Jovi, "We'll sleep when we're dead." We're still young, sort of. We'll deal with it.

 

Inside the terminal, a red tri-plane advertised The Red Baron Restaurant. On the streets outside: modernism, Doner Kebap, a new Germany.

 

 

Pictures of the ruins of Berlin, shot from aircraft at the end of WW II, showed block after ghostly block of devastated buildings, with no sign of life anywhere. Today much of the city has been rebuilt and looks newish. There are ugly blocks of deteriorating modernist buildings built just after the war to house the millions of homeless, and they resemble many bad "urban renewal" projects in the US. But there is also new and interesting architecture. 

The Berliners are reinventing themselves as a new people in a new city, replacing the emergency utilitarianism structures of the past with higher quality buildings for the future – the new train station, the Hauptbahnhof, is an impressive sight. And they've rebuilt the few historic buildings left standing after the war.

 

In many ways Germany is a new country, fabricated during Bismarck's Franco-Prussian War of 1870 when he united disparate bickering tribes known loosely as "the Germans." Tacitus, the Roman historian writing in 100 AD of Rome's campaigns in the wilderness said, "Rome has no greater gift than the disorganization of her enemies." He had the Germans in mind. Like most German-Americans, my own ancestors left in the early 1800s, during the endless wars between bickering princes, and harbored no romantic illusions about Germany as a whole. 

 Personally, I've always been more attracted to Latin culture, with its easy pace, spicy foods, warm climates and good wines. This short introduction to Berlin would be a challenge to me. We were lucky the tour was in German and in English – the modern "lingua franca" for the world. My family left the language behind many generations ago, and my knowledge of German is minimal. When I hear it spoken I mostly hear Hollywood Nazi officers or cartoon characters in old propaganda flicks. (Spike Jones: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1583adUqSg) (Donald Duck: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ua0U0KXErpk)

 We boarded the bus and I sat on the open upstairs deck in a chilly breeze, while Carolyn stayed on the lower floor.

 

 

We made several stops to wander and take pictures as we passed the major sites: the crumbling Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Holocaust Memorial, the Brandenburg Gate, the famous (tree-lined, of course!) Unter del Linden and others.

 

Construction cranes filled the sky at numerous locations, as the ever-industrious Germans expand their subway and build new projects in the city's core. With their excellent infrastructure, Berliners have one of the lowest numbers of cars per capita in Europe. And there are shoes hanging from power lines, as in every city these days.

 

On the bus I even met a 'new buddy' who was headed from Florida to Israel to compete in the Macabee Games. I wished him well. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maccabiah_Games)

We were only in Berlin for part of a day and that's not long enough to form a truly informed opinion. Others have said they hear Berlin is a beautiful city, so I'll reserve a firm opinion for later. And I'll ponder it over a glass or two of rich red French wine.

 Soon we were back at the airport, on the plane, and finally heading for Paris. —PRW

 

Summer 2013 Sojourn: Driving through America

The rain pounded heavily on my hat and raincoat and poured down my collar, and the wind drove the rain against my pants and it cascaded through my sandals as I struggled under the hood to free the battery cable from the positive post. It was a typical warm tropical downpour for Miami, a drenching remnant of Chantal, a storm that never got up to hurricane strength but left heavy-laden clouds and large thunderstorms drifting in the southern skies.

 Our reliable 2003 Nissan Pathfinder was parked where we'd leave her for several months but I had to disconnect the battery so it wouldn't drain. In newer cars, there are so many little electrical 'vampires' to keep parts energized that even a good battery will only last about a month before it's dead. That's happened to us before; this time we'd be gone about 4 months.

 

Meanwhile I was drenched. We worked quickly, to catch the next bus (where our seat companion was a little dog in a backpack!) back to our hotel near the Coconut Grove Metro station.   Then we could relax and catch a morning train to the airport. We had everything worked out. Except the rain.

 

We left Kino Bay on June 1st, driving to Miami. It was a long leg to the Mississippi, then a looping S-curve through southern states to visit old friends, and old relatives. Driving is about the only way to visit scattered folks; we can't afford all the airfare and local rental cars. Several thousand miles of sitting behind the wheel, though, was giving me a major case of Assburner's Syndrome. But soon we'd leave the car behind to start walking and taking public transport on the next leg of our trip, through many foreign cities. 

We drove through a large chunk of the 'heart of America' and had tickets for a plane leaving from Miami airport on July 14. There's much to see and experience in a country the size of the US. 

 

A quick recap:

('End of Innocence' Privacy Notice: Due to massive, questionable spying by the NSA and others upon the innocent, and to protect our friends and family, we think it's best not to include names in blogs until sanity returns. We hope you understand.) 

Our first stop was Albuquerque to visit family and old friends – timed to the arrival of a beautiful and happy little girl that Carolyn's son and his wife adopted from China. Now their gregarious son, adopted from Korea, has a little sister to play with. 

 

We also caught up with our rapidly growing grand-niece, and a new grand-nephew. It was a very busy time, but we were to attend a family reunion at Barren River Lake State Resort Park in distant Kentucky, and soon we had to hit the road.

 

We faced that long drive across the 'middle ground' (Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and the length of Tennessee), with a quick stop at the 'VW Ranch' east of Amarillo. I guess it's sort of a low rent comment on Stanley Marsh's Cadillac Ranch on the west side of town. (http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2220) 

Soon we passed through the recently tornado-devastated areas around Oklahoma City. In Moore we saw the hospital that had been destroyed and the path of the tornado that tore out a large swath of homes as it crossed the freeway.

There were three small cars left behind that had been through the 'tumbler cycle'; they were 'well-rounded' and all their innards and glass were missing. And each had been been pasted with a bright orange warning sticker from the police that they would be towed and impounded if not moved(!). Nice to see the local cops can maintain a sense of humor in a tragedy.  

Oklahoma City also seems to mark the beginning of the Great American Hardwood Forest. It's well over a thousand miles from central Oklahoma to the east coast and this forest stretches from around the Arctic Circle to the bottom of South America. Every square inch of it is occupied by greenery, from vast forestlands to huge factory farms run by welfare corporate farmers collecting tax subsidies to produce non-productive ethanol corn. For a desert-rat Westerner like me, used to open vistas, this is one of the world's great wonders. It was also a good place to leave the freeway and re-acquaint ourselves with the back roads, the "Blue Highways," (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Highways) that wander through the countryside.

 A couple days of meandering through endless trees, farmlands, and small towns found us, finally, in Kentucky. The state of Kentucky maintains an impressive collection of State Resort Parks that include boat rentals, swimming, tennis, golf, horse-back riding, a good restaurant, etc. Barren River Lake Resort Park is the halfway point between relatives in Louisville and Nashville, and the family has been coming here for many years.

 

Mostly we spend our daytimes swimming in the lake with the kids and 'enjoying' Goetta for breakfast (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-goetta.htm), and then share evenings over dinner, playing canasta, and endlessly discussing the family. Probably pretty boring for a non-family member, but Carolyn is very patient.

 An interesting side note is the Amish farming community spread through the rolling countryside near the Park, and through eastern Kentucky. They are a source of artisanal cheeses and vegetables, and Kenny's Cheese has the good stuff (http://www.kennyscountrycheese.com). But Carolyn and I could not go until Sunday, when the Amish shops are closed.

We drove the winding back roads hoping to find some other source, but there were none. Instead, we topped a rise and drove slowly through an 'American Diorama' – a huge Amish gathering at an old farmhouse. I wanted to take a pictures of this interesting 'native tribe,' distinctive in their black and white garb, the women in Martha Washington dresses and bonnets, the men in Abe Lincoln beards, the unsmiling children in smaller versions of the same clothing; but stern glares suggested we'd best keep on moving down the road.

 After Barren River, we followed winding route 31E north to Louisville through farms and small towns, past Lincoln's birthplace near Hodgenville. It passes through Bardstown, (http://www.visitbardstown.com/tourism/) site of "The Stephen Foster Story" pageant, and crosses the well-known Ky Bourbon Trail. (http://bourbonbuzz.com/distillery-map/). It's a favorite scenic route for many locals.

 

I spent many wonderful summers with my cousins in Louisville, and it remains one of my favorite cities. In recent years, this historic river city has worked to revive its inner core and re-embrace its historic riverfront. And sprawling Cherokee Park (designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of NY's Central Park) is one of the world's finest parklands. 

From Louisville, the road led through eastern Kentucky with a side trip to the small town of Carlisle, home of Barbara Kingsolver. We stopped at a small restaurant on the main square for lunch and asked about the town's famous resident. "Oh yes, she usually stops in for lunch," said the young waitress, "but I haven't seen her today." Probably just as well for us. What unstupid thing would we say to her anyway? Still, it must be nice to live in a quiet place where fame is not a hinderance. Or even better, goes unnoticed. Or as Hemingway once noted (in Death in the Afternoon), "Madam, it is always a mistake to know an author." I even forgot to take any pictures. 

After a night in a very modest and cheap hotel nestled in a West Virginia holler (the owner was in the Army with Elvis!!) and coffee in charming Lewisburg,we made our way through the lush Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to visit friends in Washington, DC. 

It's nice to have friends in strategic places, and we had a couple of days to revisit the capitol and wander the Mall. 

 

 

 

The new WWII memorial was an impressive sight and reminds us that many have gone before and seen horrible things that most of us have been fortunate not to witness. Our friend, born in Goa, even introduced us to "feni," (39) a cashew-based liqueur popular in the Goan community. How can life get any better?

 

Onward and southward to New Bern and Whortonsville (aka: "Who-ville") on North Carolina's Pamlico Sound to visit our swamp rat brother-in-law.

 

 

Then through more small towns, to gracious old Aiken, South Carolina (45) to visit yet another cousin, her husband and family, and help them count birds in the backyard. And even a squirrel or two.

 

 

While there, we finally caught up with Carolyn's cousin who owns a few horses in the area, noted for its large horse farms. Brunch in the historic and charming old Wilcox Hotel was one of those 'southern moments' out of story books, and not a common event for this western lad. 

   

Carolyn and I have both read "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil," so Savannah was on our travel list from the start. (http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-504) 

 

   

  

Jim Williams' torrid affair with his young boyfriend, whom he later murdered, tore the lid of gentility off this old city and gave it a new identity. Anyone who has dreamed of a southern city with spanish moss dripping from massive spreading live oaks was probably dreaming of Savannah, and a dash of scandal adds spice to the scene.

"The Lady Chablis," the female impersonator featured in the book, still makes appearances in the city, but we arrived between shows.

 

 We settled for lunch at Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House, and a treat it was. Lunch begins at 11am and we had been warned to get there an hour early or risk not being seated. Everything was served 'family style;' it was plentiful and delicious, and we were well braced for the next leg of the trip to visit our niece in St. Petersburg.

 

One never knows what to expect with our niece except that it will be very interesting. We started getting frequent joyous e-mails saying she had various friends who would be glad if we stayed at their houses. She never mentioned her house. We figured we'd just rent a hotel room somewhere instead of foisting the undeniable pleasure of our company upon unsuspecting folks who don't even know us.

 

In the end, she found us a decent and very affordable motel (summer in Florida is the off-season), just a block from the beach, and a classic Florida beach-side bar with a raspy-voiced guitar player. Life is good. 

 

Her house was never mentioned because she and her boyfriend were living on his 27' sailboat (an O'day 272) in a little backwater slough where the manatees and dolphins cruise. It sounded appealing, but would have been cramped with the four of us. The motel was a better choice.

 After a couple of fine days we drove down "Alligator Alley" to Miami, our final destination on the US leg of this trip. (Our ship returns to Miami in November, but that's another story.) The driving was soon over, the car was parked, and we hauled our bags – one rolling bag and one backpack, each – up the stairs to the Miami Metro and caught the train to the airport. 

 

Next stop: Berlin.