Ciao Milano

How many stories start with me being at the train station at 6 AM? For variety's sake, I'll back this one up to the day before, when I decided to go to Italy for a day and take the slot of a friend who couldn't go. Amid a small flurry of text messages my name was added to the list and hers removed; I and our mutual friend A. were to go to Milan for one day.

Fast forward, 5:30 AM: my phone rings. The person calling me must either be from a different time zone or A. (the latter proved to the be the case; her ringing to say she was feeling poorly and couldn't come). This leaves me alone on a trip to which I was looking forward but without vast quantities of enthusiasm. But I am capable of going places by myself, so instead of also jumping ship I went alone.

Now, here we are, 6 AM at the train station. I have a row of seats to myself. My book and I keep each other company through Switzerland. It was nice to see mountains, rising up above the lakes and plains. I furtively took pictures out of the window, hoping the dirt on the windows and my camera's tendancy to take fuzzy pictures would not collude to spoil my shot. My "experience" of Switzerland includes the highway and two truck stops, but the view was great, the seat reasonably comfortable, and the book above averagely interesting.

The scenery changes noticeably on the other side of the Alps. Sitting in the back I didn't necessarily notice when Switzerland became Italy, and as no one checked our passports I have no proof, either :(.

Milan, 12 PM: We get out at the Castello Sforzesco, a large 14th century castle which is now an art gallery including Michelangelo's last sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà, and Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Trivulzianus manuscript. We trailed on over to the Duomo like kindergarten kids on a field trip. The Duomo is either the 2nd or the 4th largest cathedral in the world, depending on your authority. (To blatantly plagerize wikipedia: "Built from the late 14th well into the 19th century (and in a sense, never completed as work continues), the Duomo di Milano is one of the world's largest churches, being second in size within Italy only to Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome, and being the second largest Gothic cathedral in the world, after the Cathedral of Seville in Spain." This makes no logical sense; if Sevilla is a larger Gothic church than Milan, shouldn't Sevilla beat Milan in the overall rankings? Or are we just considering the size of the gothic portion of the cathedral?)

So, Cathedral. We went in, did what you do in every church or cathedral (avoid the beggars and, in this case, have your bag and wardrobe checked by the police, circle once respectively, stare at the ceiling, see if there are interesting graves, leave). Slipping through the world's most expensive shopping mile (so we were told) we made our way to the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, housing one of the most famous paintings of Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper, which was neither open nor had tickets for the fresco. Good, okay.

By this point I was tired of following around our group leader, who managed to herd his charges at a snail's pace while remaining 20 yards ahead of us the entire time. I co-opted another group member and we hightailed it for something to eat (it was now 3 PM, and I had had breakfast at 5:30, so I was kinda hungry). Lunch was pizza for her and something else for me, wich turned out to be a mini pie of rucola and zucchini. My companion was an American from D.C. in her second year at FR, taking politics courses and someho still unknown to me.

We spent the remainder of the day cruising through town, slurping our gelatos, babbling in mixed German and English in a café, sipping our cappuccini, searching for some place that sells affordable wine (without avail...all we wanted was a supermarket, none to be found), cannolis (we did succeed here), a sew on patch for her backpack (also successful). We passed several other old churches, a ton of cool stores, cafés très charmés, gaggles of tourists, art dealers, and aggressive men wanting you to feed the pigeons so you can pay them to take your picture.

Footsore and weary we sat awhile in the piazza in front of the Duomo for some of the best people-watching I've had in a long time. Italian people are beautiful, and you can easily sort them out from the tourists. I admired the men, impeccably dressed, with gorgeous shoes and tailored shirts, usually understated, always with the proper sunglasses. The women as well, stylish, in skirts and heels with matching handbags and perfect hair. I envied some of them for their taste and style, and did not envy others for their shoes and fashion sense. Increasingly I saw younger girls, probably around 13 or 14 dressed in a fashion even too daring for me, and already acquiring extra padding around the middle, unfortunately accented by the unhappy combination of tight clothes and an improperly placed belt. Fast food conquers Italy?

Completely beat we made it back to the meeting point about a half hour early, chatting with some fellow group members. I discovered an acquaintence among my fellow travellers and talked a bit with someone I had never met, who proceeded to sit next to me and explain at great length abstract concepts I was too tired to follow until I asked him if I could stretch my legs out. I promptly fell asleep, though I kept waking up with the fear that the bus would crash. Which it didn't.

I dragged my battered feet home, arriving chez moi at quarter past 2 AM, which isn't bad for a return trip to Italy. If only I could have taken a month's supply of gelato with....

The 100th post...

As a special feature, we offer you this special presentation:

post number 100.

Unfortunately, I can't claim to have anything deep, meaningful, particularly witty or even necessarily particular in any form whatsoever. It's like watching the preview for a cool movie, then going to the theaters to discover...they took every single funny part out and put it in the preview, leaving nothing undiscovered (ex. Schultze gets the blues or Saving Sara). The disappointment is almost as shattering as discovering the easter bunny and santa claus are part of a cruel adult conspiracy to give you stuff. Except without the chocolate.

Right now, right this very second, there are probably about eight or ten things I should be doing instead of typing this. But seeing as I am not at my house and am unable to clean my room (pity; it is desperately in need) which is my usual method of avoiding responsibility, I am evoking my long-dormant creative impulses and hoping to come up with something sounding like English.

Incidentally, the word "Englisch" is one of those words I can never pronounce quite correctly in German; or rather, it is one of those words quite similar in both languages that I forget which one is pronounced which way. "Post" is another example. And English words stolen by the perfidious Germans "party" "muffin" "to go" and the infamous and incongruent word for Cellphone "Handy", which doesn't exist in English but should. These words are ones I, strangely enough, insist on pronouncing in a highly inappropriate German fashion (imagine what German must sound like to result in the clichéed accent in English... vas do yoo zink?), which results in "moffin", the unholy cross between baked goods and a Jim Henson character. The Germans, for some incomprehensible reason, continue to pronounce the word more or less in the American fashion. Blast.

And a summary of my evening last night:
Kinds of berries:
- Raspberry = Himbeer
- Strawberry = Erdbeer
- Currant = Johannisbeer
- Blueberry = Heidelbeer
- Blackberry = Brombeer
- Wineberry = Keine Ahnung
- = Josterbeer
- = Stachelbeer

I work lots. I like to complain about how much I work; it helps me feel justified for the fact that I am completely and thoroughly at fault for my current situation, and my obsession to take on too much stuff should not be rewarded with pity. Please, I take cash or money order. And ice cream.

But I won't be working for too much longer, which is good because I am increasingly find that the time periods in which I am supposed to be working and the time periods in which I absolutely have to be somewhere else are tending to coincide with unfortunate and increasing regularity. Sleeping is an activity for which I have little time and less patience, and increasing necessity.

In case I have given you an improper picture of my life, let me qualify by saying that I spend most evenings either out with friends or with Boyfriend, or both; my refusal to give up on my social life may eventually affect my grades (except for the part where I take everything pass/fail). My work is fun and varied, and I spent yesterday morning translating a presentation on Urban planning from German to English for a cadre of 19 Northern Irish, which was a lot of fun and makes me wonder how I can incorporate experiences like that into whatever my future career may be. If only I could speak French.... I am otherwise translating documents, working on project descriptions, going on tours, chaperoning foreign guests (the week before I spent two days with a group of Koreans, which was a lot of fun even though only one of them spoke English). There's always lots to do, and the documents that make it my way constantly impress me as to the variety and depth of the projects perused by the organization.

I feel like I am towing a metaphorical ticking clock around with me on a string (which has, strangely enough, had an inverse effect on my punctuality), like the Fall of the House of Usher except not. And except for the part where my ever-well-meaning professors compensate for the multitude of public holidays--or are living out some form of scholarly sadism--by planning numerous block seminars at inconvenient times, scheduling recitations for 8 am on Friday mornings and generally inhibiting me taking a weekend that stretches from Friday to Tuesday. Or they forget to inform me until two days prior that their class is now three hours earlier than planned, of course at exactly the same time that I am supposed to parler en francais.

My sister is coming this weekend and I am happy. I haven't seen her since last summer, I think, and it will be at least a year before I see her again. Bloody atlantic, making travel so difficult....

"Procrastination is like masturbation... at first it feels good, but then you realize you're just screwing yourself." While this would have been a much more attention-grabbing intro to the Oral Interp speech I competed with in high school (I tried to be all motivationally and such, comparing procrastion to the more socially acceptable acoholism) it does remind me that I have about 50 pages to read before tomorrow, and class in a few minutes...

Le fin

It took me awhile to piece together how it all worked out.

Amid much flurry of activity, arrival and departure, my appartment went from empty to full to empty again. I had left my place shortly after 8 for a doctor's appointment, to return at 9:30, expecting my mother to be gone and my boyfriend to let me in. Instead I talked to my somewhat confused roommate, whom I was not expecting to be there at all, who had seen neither mother nor boyfriend. It turns out roommate #2 had returned some time between 8 and 9, helped my mother to the bus stop, and left again, and boyfriend was still sleeping and had missed the whole thing.

Backing up, we spent the afternoon and evening with my friend A., whom we met for coffee and eventually went to dinner with. We spoke English, with A. doing a wonderful job of carrying the conversation though she always claims not to speak English. We went to dinner for Flammkuchen, gateau flambée, a kind of thin-crust pizza with cream instead of tomato sauce, and in our case with pineapple, mandarin oranges and coconut. We ate in a restaurant with separate menus for drinks, food, absinthe, and whisky, where the men's restroom features a grate over a pit in which there is the model of a human skeleton and where metal hands extend from the wall in the ladies'.

Our morning was spent walking in the woods, enjoying what makes FR green besides the politics. Our previous several days in FR included taking long walks, bike riding, touring the town, going to market and going shopping, more walks, more biking, more visiting the town, eating ice cream, playing guitar, sitting in cafés and basically enjoying life in a beautiful city in the spring. It was relaxing and wonderful, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Vignettes and vinagrettes

Le pain de la France

is a complicated subject. There are rules involving bread, and you had better not screw it up. At the beginning of the meal you are given bread, and you place it on the table, not on your plate. You may eat your bread, by tearing off chunks, with your appetizer but not your soup (in southern France--in northern France, you tear off chunks of bread and float them in your soup, or place slices of stale bread in th bottom of your bowl before serving the soup) as well as your main course. Between appetizer and main course, and between the main course an the cheese, however, you are not to eat your bread, because that would signal to your host that you haven't had enough to eat. You eat bread again with your cheese. In Northern France you also mop your plate with your bread after each course until it is clean.

Vocablary list of the day:

le livre de recettes (recipe book)
la cuisinière (stove)
la casserole, la marmite (pot)
le micronde (microwave)
l'evier (sink)
le robinet (faucet)
le dessus (countertop)
le four (oven)
le frigidaire (fridge)
le tiroir (drawer)
le placard (cabinets)
la porte (door)
la table (table)
la poignet (handle)
le feu (burner)
le bouton (control)
lq passor (collander)
le lateau (tray)
le panier (breadbasket)
le balaï pour ballier (broom to sweep)
la pelle (dustpan)
la boîte (box; container)
le presse de jus (juice press)

Things I like about France:
1. The food. Mmm. I must have eaten 8 kilos of cheese by now...
2. The people
3. Eating in separate courses
4. Roundabouts
5. French language
6. Bakeries and fromageries
7. Drinking tea or coffee from a bowl
8. The historical sites and places
9. The ocean
10. The temperature in S. France
11. Gardens
12. The metro
13. The style
14. Watching people make glass
15. Walks on the beach or by the sea


Things I don't like so much
1. French driving
2. French motorways
3. Toll roads
4. Lack of bike lanes
5. Crazy motorcyclists
6. The price of fruits and vegetables
7. Not speaking French very well
8. All of the people living on the Cote d'Azur
9. The tourists (what, who, me? Are you kidding? I'm no tourist)
10. The odd parking restrictions

You may notice a theme: food=good, sea=good, traffic=bad

Things I want to cook when I get back:
1. Beignets d'aubergines ou de fleurs de couragette
2. Asperges au vinagrette
3. Graitn de pommes de terre
4. Vinagrette
5. Champignons a l'ail

Dreams of another place

In Saint Paul we stood in a walled city, admiring an old fortress turned art colny, streets of white stone pristine, restored, and far cleaner than they probably ever were, even when new. The shops of art and jewelry, lavender sachets, herbier de provence and t-shirt à la StPaul au americain reflecting the expected tourists (middle-aged yuppies, contradiction in terms?) rather than the history of the place. You see these touists, a balding man with an expensive smile, a pauch in his waist and a over-browned, over-made-up and under-satisfied (un-self-satified?) companion, perusing the art and jewelry, exclaiming over the quaint handmade whatchamacalit or the rustic somethingorother. Or else, perhaps not in St Paul but certainly elsewhere, flocks of Asian tourists like ducklings following their mother (and conveniently posing for portraits in front of particularly old or impressive buildings), grungy backpackers with bags dangling like an overloaded packhorse, groups of American teenagers, hungover and/or exclaiming loudly (all this stuff is, like, old or something. I totally saw this awesome shop back there, where you can buy like handmade stuff).

I try to pretend that I don't belong to them, or to any other hastily generalized group. I don't like speaking english when around such locals as exist, though it is obvious I am not from here, will never be from here, and in a place like St Paul, or Venice, or Breckenridge, there probably isn't anyone at all who is actually from there. I try to pretend like I belong, but to where, and to whom?

And what, may I so politely ask, is wrong with being a stranger? I know everyone hates tourists--and I incude myself in this--but is it so wrong to visit such places, to be someone on a trip who can still appreciate the small differences and local delights? To disparge the endless stream of tourists touring every church in Europe, those who do a kamikaze tour of fifteen european capitals in three weeks and those who fork over money to take the elevator up the Eiffel tower or visit the Mona Lisa is easy--yet what does one do, when one tours? What does it mean to be a tourist? To sit in taxis and airplains, trophy mugs and t-shirts like war booty piled in overstuffed suitcases, picking destiations based on Michelin ratings, film credits, or 'must sees' seems rediculous to me: the modern crusaders plundering an imagined history, collecting places visited like commemorative plates. Historical sites abound, and we go, and we look, and we don't understand: it is 'just another church' to us, differnt from the last but we don't know how, yet we do not understand all that this building has represented for its community nor the history and the violence it has withstood throughout the century. To us, a fortress on a hilltop surrounded by luxury villas does not represent a contradiction any more.

As we sat on the shore listening to the waves, enjoying the peculiar sound they make when receeding over pebbles, like fingers on a washboard, I realize the reason you go somewhere, anywhere, is to change the default set of activities. People are creature of habit, slaves sometimes to their routine, everything timed and measured and predictable. Hobbies as well are predictable, and there is a finite set of choices of things to do in a given environment. Travelling allows you to experience completely new things, of course, but adds activities like walking on the beach, exploring old buildings, or visiting a museum to the set list of possibilities, and removes the old standby of work *(hopefully). I do not have to visit every church because it is there, but the option exists for me. I do that which pleases me. It helps to be somewhere completely different when trying to find oneself.

Vignettes of my trip....

Learn at least please, thank you, excuse me, help, and I'm lost in whatever languague. After this point, the best you can do is point, nodd, smile, and look desperate.

Never wear white tennis shoes. Those who wish you ill will spot you at a hundred yards, And those, such as myself, who find such tourists amusing, will also spot you, and secretly laugh maliciously. Also advantagous are multiple pairs of (comfortable) shoes, in case of inclement weather, necessity of matching outfits, blisters, dog poo, or any of a number of eventualities. Hate your feet, hate your life.

Being cold = catching cold. Watch out.

The bread in France is good. For a whitebread country, pretty damn fantastic. I didn't try the bread much in Spain but what I did try wasn't good. On the flipside, as a whitebread country, I would ocasionally trade my as of yet unexistant firstborn for some Schwarzbrot or Dinkelvollkorn.

You drink hot drinks from a bowl. Not a cup. I find this strange, somehow cool, and dangerous in that one serving is the size of half a can of coffee.

Meals are eaten in courses. First your vegetables, then your meat and hot foods, next salad, then the cheese, then the fruit, and sometimes even a dessert. Word to the wise, don't fill up on the first course or you won't make it to the cheese course without exploding.

And the cheese is fantastic, which it should be given that there are 375 different kinds and none from the region of Antibes. Too hot for cows, I guess.

Ask and ye shall receive, and try it first in French. Switching into English when at first they don't understand does not make it easier for them, and not even for you.

Beware of people who talk to you for no reason.

"So I speak English too." "So I see." "I learned it, you see, but it was a punishment. You know this one? A man is arrested by the police and they tell him, you have two choices. Either you go to prison for three years or you learn English. Okay, I learn English, he says. So they put the headphones on him and after ten minutes he says, wait, wait, I take it back, send me to prison!"

A toilet may consist of a hole in the ground. Beware while flushing.

French motorway are not for the feint of heart. Navigation may be tricky, and roudabouts are your best friend. Just keep going round and round and round and round until you figure out where the hell you are. Oherwise you end up on a tollway interstate to somewhere, with exits every half hour.

Je ne sais pas, où je vais, ou ça j'avais jamais bien su. Mais si jamais je le savais? je crois bien que je n'irais plus.....

Well then...

To you, my dear reader, I would apologize for my unforseen absence. Perhaps I will write one of these days a more detailed report of my activities, but for now, a summary must suffice.

When last I wrote I had arrived in Paris. Mum and I had a day to ourselves to explore the city, and we cimbed the Eiffel Tower before most of the tourists arrived, and spent most of the rest of the day wandering around, looking at old buildings, enjoying Paris and each other, cruising bookstores and the like. I had an extra day to repeat the experience, as mom went to Belgium to visit a man she had never met and will probably never see again. So I did Paris tout seule, which resulted in various unforseen and entertaining--if odd--conversations, in French, with random people who started talking to me in the street or in the gardens. As I went to collect mom from Gare du Nord I was informed by loudspeaker that the metro was not stopping at that station due to security concerns, so I exited at Gare de l'est and walked, fearing bomb threats or worse. There were no visible problems that we could see, only police cars, and we managed to miss the later--or previous--riots.

Wednesday we went to Honfleur, first meeting our hostess in Beauvais, all of which required navigating our rented car on the French motorway. Honfleur is an absolutergeous city on the Norman coast, and we spent our time there taking walks, more walks, walks on the beach and through the town, getting rained on, eating bread, and taking it easy. Our host, a loquatious and friendly tiny frenchwoman, lent us her vacation appartment in Honfleur for the week, and we took a day to drive along the coast to see the tapestry in Bayeux.

Yesterday we flew from Paris Orly to Antibes, on the Med, which we just toured this morning. Southern flair and palm trees, turquoise waters, luxury yachts and warm weather have greeted us, and I am eagerly anticipating the rest of the week. Our hosts are a lovely couple who raise roses for a living, live in a huge house with their daughter and her companion, and have a separate house where interns live which is, for our stay, entirely at our disposal. The young couple speaks excellent English, the woman speaks better or similar English to my French, and her husband speaks only French and is just an absolutly lovly person with a smile to light up a room.

So there you have it, that's what we did.