there's sand in my latte

I hope you had the time of your life...

2011-06-02T12:37:00.005-07:00

Well it's time. Mike took me aside and in the too-gentle voice one would use with an unbalanced and fragile or potentially dangerous individual told me that it's time.

Time to end the blog.

I knew he was right, of course, but that didn't keep me from bawling like a wounded donkey, which dwindled down into largely incoherent whimpers.

Time passed, and eventually I extracted myself from the floor where I'd been rocking back and forth and after a few more weeks, so there was no misunderstanding that it was my idea, I sat down and began work on the very last blog entry.

And even then it took me forever.

Saying good-bye is hard. We had a lot of them to say when we left Dubai. And I need to say good-bye, and thank you to you as well. Thank you for going on this journey with us. It's been quite the trip. We've braved an awful lot together, and I've enjoyed sharing it all; from camel burgers to washing elephants to exotic potties, the crazy running, the tears, the laughter, and the general inanity of our family fumbling though 10 countries the best we could.

Here is the last story. It is small, but it's meaningful to me.

There are many, many traffic circles in Dubai, and innumerable construction sites. Reportedly, a million Indian men worked those sites while we were in Dubai, not to mention the many other nationalities also employed. These fellows made an average of a dollar an hour, and there was one job that Mike and I always wondered about: the waver of the orange flag.

The flag waver sits or stands along construction entrances, limply moving his flag back and forth as that indescribable heat radiates from both the sun and up from the sand and pavement. The air conditioned cars speed past, noticing or caring of the request to go a bit more slowly, a bit more cautiously. He has no company to make the time pass a bit more quickly during his 10 or 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week.

This seems a soul-killing sort of enterprise to undertake.

Now, the comparably lucky flag-wavers have a bit of shade from an umbrella, quickly faded by the desert sun, or even a wooden shack of sorts. It was one of these shacks that made me happy literally every time we drove past it.

You see, it was decorated. The only one we ever saw that was. And was it ever.

Festoons of cheap silk flowers, mostly red, and ribbons, bits that shined and bobbed from the motion of cars zooming past, and on holidays, spray painted greetings in uncertain English but certain pizzaz on the wall of the shack where drivers could see them.

No one could argue that this fellow has a lousy job. Away from his family, his friends, and yet he made made the best of it, turning his little corner of the earth into something lovely. The embodiment of the sweetness that turns lemons into lemonade.

So, Mike said he thought I was crazy and a silly softie, but I drove out there one last time anyway, determined to thank my unknown friend.

When I pulled off the main road onto the sand he came confusedly out of the shack, looking uncertain but friendly nonetheless. Whyever would this white woman stop her car, was she lost, angry? Would this cause trouble for him?

He was an utterly unremarkable looking fellow, round faced beneath his hard hat, wearing blue coveralls like all the other workers, the same dark skin and eyes. I had never gotten more than half a glimpse of him while driving by, usually hidden in shadow, but this man had made me happy. Happy every. single. day.

I had no trouble smiling at him. In fact, it nearly cracked my face. Someone once said that smiling is the best way to connect with people from anywhere and everywhere, and it worked here. I didn't ask his name, since it might have made him nervous. Instead, I asked him, pointing to the shack where pinwheels were jauntily spinning, some better than others, "did you do this?"

Yes, madam, yes yes, my work madam.

"You have made me so happy!" I exclaimed, and, there's no other way of describing this, his face blossomed into joy. I told him, though whether he had any idea of what I was saying, that he and his beauty had made me smile every single time we drove past him, and that I had thought good things about him each time, too, and that now we were leaving and I couldn't go without saying thank you for his gift.

I said shukriyaa and dhanyavad and patted his arm and said namaste and bowed with my palms together and, hoping and praying that I had covered all possible bases, handed him a 100 dirham bill. My new-old friend was both astonished and pleased, though whether he knew what I was thanking him for, I shall never know. And that didn't matter.

I had brought my camera to take a photo of him, and his cheerful shack. But I left it in my purse. This was not a time to be a tourist. I would hold the memory instead.

And I have.

I expected to cry, driving away from him, to cry at the airport, leaving this place that had had such an impact on me, on all our lives, but I didn't.

Instead, I thought about how that ordinary, supremely wonderful person had frantically motioned for me to wait after he had seen me back to my car. He ran back to his shack to get his flag, and with great pride and dignity, stopped the traffic so that I could go safely on my way.

He waved and waved and waved until I couldn't see him in the mirror anymore.

It's raining...it's pouring...but I ain't complaining...'cause I love the rain.

2011-04-05T14:35:00.018-07:00

Back in the States. For some reason I expected it to be easy. In some ways it was. And in other ways, it wasn't. The easy things are no fun to talk about, so let's move right past them to those aspects that, well, let's say needed some tuning up.

First was driving. I think I mentioned that when we came home last summer suddenly I was the most aggressive driver on the freeway. This time I was determined to be a careful, courteous motorist. Which is a very nice thought.

Archway, Souk Madinat, Dubai

Pretty much the first thing I did was try to flatten a small dog. The idiot woman walking said dog had him on a very long leash and while she was safely on the sidewalk approaching an intersection, small pooch was nearly to the middle of the street. Screeching brakes, nasty look as bit of yelping fluff was dragged backward 8 feet to be gathered into the arms of the owner (of both the look and the dog).

Er, whoops.

But I'm getting ahead of my own story. Before attempting to shorten a canine's life by several scores of seven years, we needed a car. And, to make it easy, we bought the exact same type of car we had owned two years ago, a nice Honda SUV. Admittedly, it isn't half as sexy as the ones we had in the Middle East, but such is life.

To this end, Mike took out about $20,000 in cash and we went and bought the car we wanted. At least, we thought that's what we would do. But the bank didn't have that kind of cash to give us and had to order it. We could pick it up in a few days.

Huh. How odd.

Then the salespeople at the car dealership were giving us fisheye, weren't terribly pleased to have to call in two of their accounting folks to count the pile of dough, and, per law, reported us to the IRS. For having too much paper money.

Again, how very odd. Isn't having money good? Shouldn't they have been happy to have been paid in cash?

Waaaaait, now we remembered. Nobody in the US would carry that kind of money around! Nobody except maybe criminals. And clueless folks who had lived in the Middle East so long they forgot their native ways, adopting instead the ways of their new land.

If you wanted to buy a car in the UAE you would get the cash and, you know, buy it. Why make it complicated? The banks there allow you to withdraw stacks of money without so much as raising an eyebrow, checking only one piece of identification. It is your money after all. So we felt a little silly not remembering that financial transactions are performed differently in the States.

At least now I had the car, and I was determined not to run a stop sign. One does not stop for stop signs in the UAE. I mean, you could, but you'd get rear-ended for your trouble. Since everyone agrees they're superfluous, below notice, and there to indicate an intersection, it's not a problem. I have heard of more than one expat returning to US getting busted by local law enforcement for not giving the octagonal red signs their due.

Back to that fateful morning, I had stopped for the stop sign, a complete, perfect stop. And I had waited my turn, also perfectly. But I had forgotten that in the United States, drivers are responsible for not running down pedestrians, be they two or four-footed.

Now, I'm not saying that it's all right to mow down folks in the Middle East, but it is understood that cars are bigger than people, and if the two try to occupy the same space at the same time, the people would lose. Lose badly, generally, against something made of metal that goes faster and weighs lots more than you do.

Simple physics.

Physics apparently take back seat to the sort of bossiness and self-righteousness that I think stems from watching too much daytime television. There sure are a lot of people willing to tell me how to drive.

They are obviously confused, I don't even let me husband tell me how to drive. Not that that stops him from trying, but, again, different story.

To compensate, I often drive like a nervous old lady. Which probably isn't much better, but keeps me out of traffic court.

I'd also like to say it's not like I wanted to run over that dog. Owner, maybe, but not the dog.

Whoops. Sorry. I forgot that honesty isn't always a virtue.

Moving on: in another session of Returned Can-I-Still-Blame-Jetlag Expat Cultural Misunderstandings 101, I was yelled at for recycling.

No, really, I was. One of the places we stayed while waiting to move back into our house didn't have a place to recycle. So I drove my assiduously collected and sorted bags of cans and paper and glass to a local store, went around the back to the recycling containers and started to dump my stuff in, careful to put the correct items in the correct receptacle. An accusatory shriek cut through the air. "Ex-CUSE me! That's a PRIVATE recycling dumpster!!"

Cue me standing there like a rabbit in the headlights with a half-empty bag of aluminum cans held aloft, looking confused. I had forgotten that here in the enlightened everyone-recycles Pacific Northwest you do indeed pay to recycle. Sheesh.

In Dubai it's free. Encouraged. In fact, if I'd taken my recycling to the grocery store the fellow sweeping the street would have stopped, rushed over, taken the bags from Madame and placed them in the containers FOR her, and most likely refused any coin or thanks.

Now home, I was completely taken aback to be dealing with a banshee who was getting high off self-righteously treating me like a thief. Which did not please Madame, especially after I apologised for my mistake, thanked her for helping me correct it, and even offered to pay for any additional cost my borrowing the container might have incurred, also asking if there was a local recycling center where I could take my detritus.

"How the hell would I know?" she spat, "it's not my employer's dumpster, and I'm not the Queen of Recycling, lady. Look it up in the phonebook."

Gritting my teeth, determined to remain nice, I went into the store she indicated, feeling a bit like a dog who's done something untoward on the carpet. The Chinese fellow who owned the store couldn't make heads or tails out of what I was saying, and I gave up. It was causing both of us more grief than it was worth. I bought something small to excuse my presence in his store and bowed my way out.

Then...in the dead of night...I sneaked that recycling into a neighbor's half-empty recycling container, ready to be picked up the next morning and ran like hell back to the house where Mike was grinning at my farcical attempt at ninja recycling. I tried to appear nonchalant. Which is hard to do when you're panting. He didn't buy the act, but I tried.

Maybe I had a reason to feel a little paranoid. After all, total strangers were watching and waiting for me to make a mistake. Putting their dog out in the street where I would be sure to run over it...OK, maybe that one is a stretch.

Hurdle #2 was food. Ah food. Never far from my mind. While the first weeks of our being back were filled (stuffed, actually, packing on the pounds on top of the European gorge-fest...but that's another blog) with the foods, and especially the restaurant food, we couldn't get in the Middle East. I have to say they were, without exception, fattening: burgers and microbrews and local confections in particular.

Once the novelty of getting those nostalgic foods wore off, suddenly we found ourselves nostalgic for foods we could get in the Middle East but not here. Like...inexpensive and ultra fresh juices.

Orange juice seller, Dubai Creek

When my sister came out to visit us in Dubai, she too became addicted to the juices, and she was only there for two weeks! I mean, even at McDonalds the juice comes fresh squeezed. And the varieties are endless. Pineapple and strawberry and guava and mint, lemon and cantaloupe, watermelon and mango, mangosteen and, and (sob) my beloved chickoo.

I was also missing the ease of Ready-Brek, a powdered oatmeal, just add warm water, stir, and you have a nutritious breakfast for the kids. This is genius, to my mind, and why we don't have it here is beyond me. I have bemoaned, with other expats back from there, the pancake mix that comes in a red box (oh, so tasty), and I had to find a substitute for Thomas' drink of choice, camel milk. With the adaptability of children, he quickly learned to love the drive-thru barista stands, flavored steamed milk with whipped cream in the cup and on the lid and straw an acceptable alternative. At $2.50 it better be.

Pitiably, I have to do my own ironing again and am kind of missing being called Madam.

Good thing I never has a full-time maid. More than one American woman has tried to come back home and realised she can't do a danged thing for herself any more. How embarrassing to admit that, but true. A simple, proven fact: it's not all that bad to be treated like royalty.

But it's also nice for the checker at the grocery store to feel free to have an opinion and to feel free to share it with you, and I can bag the groceries any way I please.

I'm not sure that's a great trade, so I'll pretend I don't miss it that much.

Now, hurdle #3. Return to reality. As in, no, we're not flying to Thailand for Spring Break.

Burmese Elephant Rider, Thailand

I wish.

Thomas still has absolutely no grasp of distances. Being on a plane is almost as normal to him as breathing. He was on at least 20 flights for who knows how many hours during the last two years.

Thomas, Umm Sequim Beach, Arabic Gulf

Adjusting has been harder for him in a lot of ways, especially in that he frets about whether we are going to stay or move again. Understandable, if guilt inspiring. We bounced around when we first got back: at Mike's parents' house...then my parents' house, then back to Mike's parents' house, and then in a furnished vacation home, then finally, 4 months later, back in our old house. Before we could move back into our old house we had to wait...and wait...and wait for our shipping container to arrive. And in that shipping container was Thomas' bicycle. His first big boy bike, and boy, was he worried. We had to check the globe on a regular basic to track its progress across the oceans.

You never saw a bigger smile than when that little man got his bike back, and in one piece, too. Major relief.

The reality for us was trying to not only fit the who we used to be with the who we are now, but all the stuff from those two realities had to come together as well.

It was also an adventure just to reacquire our stuff from the shippers, but just thinking about it makes me tired, so you'll have to use your imagination.

Some things, like the extremely heavy and exotic diningroom table, inlaid with metals and ceramics, best described as massive, well, it doesn't fit this house. Literally. It is nicely wrapped up in the garage and there it shall remain.

Other things, like the Persian rugs, look even more beautiful here than they did in the UAE. How a burgundy red and navy rug can match a cream and pale green with touches of rich purple decor, I don't know. But it does. Somehow, it does.

Water container, Al-Shindagha, Dubai

If I say to Thomas, say hello in Arabic, he obediently replies "Hello in Arabic!" But if he sees a woman in a headscarf he, more often than not, will march right up and greet her, Sala'am alaikum! This leads to some interesting discussions. Which also leads to the real hurdle: how to describe our lives in Dubai without sounding snobby, spoiled or pretentious? Or, just as bad, unhappy to be home.

Burj Al Arab

Even without the worrisome snooty factor, how do you sum up another country? How do you describe two years and what that time and place has done to you?

This is not to say that we don't LOVE being asked.

We do. We really do. Seriously, ask us over, throw out some coffee and we will talk your heads off.

To the casual, curious, man-on-the-street I say: Dubai was luxurious. Hot. Everything was over-the-top impressive. I wore clothes exactly like the ones I'm wearing now, no, wearing a burka or living in a compound had nothing to do with our everyday lives. We travelled a lot. Yes, I miss travel, and the kids were really good at it too. Made lots of friends. Yes, I really miss those friends, but I'm happy to be here with you. It was really, really hot. And yes, it was very beautiful. Did I mention hot? No, not a dry heat.

To you, I can also say that there are days when I wish the muzzein would sound unexpectedly as I walk down the street. And that sometimes the kids cuddle up to the blasting heater as close as they can without actually bursting into flame.

Arabic Coffeepot (dallah) Bab al Shams, UAE

In general, people comment that our kids are far more outgoing than the average American child, more at ease with people. I don't know if that is a byproduct of travel, living abroad, or simply the way they are.

People tell me I'm more confident as well, though my Dad gently but firmly pointed out that I might want to loosen up a little on making sure the dog doesn't smell like a dog, that it wouldn't have concerned me "before".

I've gone back to Fahrenheit from Celsius, not that I ever got particularly good at the latter, and to miles from kilometers. I'd be lying if I didn't say that is a real relief.

We watch the events unfolding in the Middle East with entirely new eyes, thinking especially of our friends there. There are no words to explain how different it is to know people that are doing their best to live in some of those places described in the headlines.

Last, our family agrees on one thing: even though Thomas is reticent to touch a cold wet car handle to open his door, (at least he doesn't have to use a potholder to keep from scalding his fingers!) we do so love the sound of the rain.

And I've yet to run a stop sign.

At least, not one I noticed...

The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle...

2011-03-23T21:04:00.002-07:00

Blue Mosque minaret detail, Istanbul

For a while there, it was uncertain as to where we were going next with spousal unit Mike's work. As you know, we ended up back in our old house in Seattle. Which is a good thing. However, it was kind of fun to look, and look back at the options.

Ooh! There was a job in Turkey! We liked Turkey. Turkey is good!

No, the schools were too far from the jobsite. We'd only see Mike on weekends. Jordan, same story. There are a lot of things we are willing to do, but so far, having Mike miss more of the kids growing up is not one of them.

Petra, Jordan

Madagascar, was the next big job, and several of our friends went. We said erm, no. Staggering poverty and it...just...isn't an ideal place to take kids. New Zealand, oh yeah! Now we're talking.

But we weren't. The job didn't appeal to Mike.

He's so selfish sometimes. (OK, so he's not, but I think I deserve some sort of award for not giving him more of a hard time about it.) Ironically, his boss here ended up going, and asking Mike for expat advice. Go figure.

The job in Trinidad wasn't starting soon enough to work for us. Aw, man, the Caribbean! Shoot.

Calgary, Alberta looked like a real option, enough so that I was asking around and picking the brains of past visitors and residents of the prairie city, and had tracked down the Calgary Road Runners, but the company who was courting Mike took too long and we ended up turning them down. Too bad. I like Canadians. Of course, we probably would have been freezing for the first six months or so.

All this gave our relatives in Seattle whiplash trying to keep up with where we might end up. I think it was as much of a relief to them as it was to us when we decided.

So, we came home to Seattle after all. And in Seattle Mike went to work on a job in...Lima, Peru. Which is where he is now, actually. Don't worry, it's just a business trip, he'll be back. And don't worry, I'll get to go with him one of these times. As far as I know, and as far as we intend, we're not moving there.

Moving away from the land of conjecture, we traded in the Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world for another landscape icon, the Space Needle, less than a quarter of the Burj Khalifa's height, but darned quirky.

And we traded our wall-climbing geckos and garden tortoise for this guy :

an overly affectionate Chocolate Lab named Buck

though we didn't entirely escape geckos. Nor would we want to. Thomas has an Albino Leopard Gecko, happy in her sandy cage in his room. Fair enough, since the dog went to Bethy.

We also traded that land of heat and desert and exotic exploration

for Alpine lakes and evergreen trees:

hiking in the Cascade Mountains

leaving behind the stunning oranges of the desert for greens and blues, our mountains, our tall, magnificent trees. We did miss the oranges, though, which made the pumpkin fields of autumn even more special.

It's funny, I never thought I would love anyplace as much as the Pacific Northwest, would never think that anyplace was as beautiful, call anyplace else home, but Dubai and the UAE will always have a special place in my heart, a place that aches sometimes. My senses miss the spices, the scents, especially of sand and heat, the sharp tang of incense, the accents and languages, and my heart misses the people.

There's no place like home, but what happens when you realise that more than one place can be home?

Thomas, especially, misses Dubai, and asks to go back on a fairly regular basis, no matter how many times I tell him buddy, it's too far. He has no concept of such things. After all, he flew there and back several times, what's one more airplane ride to him?

When folks here ask if there was anything he didn't like about living in Dubai, it's not the staggering heat Thomas remembers. No, he says he didn't like moving away. It was his world and home from ages 2 to 4 years old, and that left its mark on him.

We all love being home here in the Pacific Northwest, but the siren call of travel still echoes...

This is the dawning of the rest of our lives on holiday...

2011-03-14T13:52:00.014-07:00

the fantastic Antwerp Train Station

We left Antwerp in style, that is to say, on the train with a nice bottle of French wine that we savored as the countryside of Belgium and then the Netherlands rolled by, the sun setting in flaming oranges and pinks, fading to violet and then gone in the west, the train swaying gently back and forth. It would be nice to say that we were looking pretty sophisticated at this point, but actually at the station we'd severely misjudged where our ride, train car #18 would be. Far down the line, right?

We'd waited somewhat down the tunnel and when our train rolled in the first car was #14, ours a mere 4 cars back. We had to dash with our luggage once more. Ah well, no fooling anyone. We are scrambling travellers. Not sophisticates. Somewhere, with a chic hat and adorable heels there is a tall, slim woman and her escort who only has eyes for her, striding gracefully onto the train, probably with a pale greyhound on a leash. But that's not us.

In Amsterdam we were allowed to go through the initial security 12 hours before our flight, since we were staying at an airport hotel. This was the space age "Yotel". If you think that sounds Mork and Mindy, you should have seen the room. One reserves online and then checks in at a sort of ATM machine which gives you the card for you room. If you can make it work. Then you go down a white, highly institutional corridor and enter a small, sterile capsule that is not terribly unlike getting on the plane early, though with a bed and shower and no flight attendants.

I took no photos of the Yotel...nothing to see really. Not bad, modern and plastic, though with a floor to ceiling clear glass-wall between the bedroom and bathroom that made me cringe. It was the sort of place that made me wonder if room service, had there been room service, might just bring by a steaming plate of Soylent Green. And we all know what THAT is, don't we?

The purpose of the Yotel was to have a place to rest before your flight, and be able to quickly and easily get to your gate at departure. It was definitely this and beat the heck out of perching in a airport chair or staying in a hotel in the city, worrying about whether you'd be able to get through town and security to your flight on time. In fact, this was one of the better moves we've made as travellers.

However, in a sadistic move, the designers of our "suite" had given us a battery of cute buttons that made the bed go up and down and so forth, and controlled the television, also made it apparently impossible to turn of all the lights at the same time to get some sleep.

For instance, if one pushes the button with footprints on it, the bathroom glows with, what they again sadistically describe as, a "restful purple light." Somebody was laughing when they wrote that one. I think it might have been Dogbert.

Park your bike here. No wait! Don't park your bike here! (park your bike on the windowsill?)

Since we're basically intelligent and patient people, (and persistent to the point of stubbornness), I can only imagine the F bombs (or their foreign equivalents) dropped by sleep-deprived travellers faced by this, that, and then the other light coming on and turning off in no pattern discernible. At least, not to us , at any rate.

The saving grace of that room, which made me willing to bury my head beneath a pillow after finally accepting that there would be some lights on no matter what we did, was the Sage Seaweed all-over body wash. I was willing to forgive an awful lot for that, including the reveal-all glass wall and the drains that, perhaps to be in the same league as airline toilets, made noises not unlike the death croaks of extraordinarily large toads. The wash was delectable and I think using it made me more Earth-friendly and reduced my cholesterol.

In the morning we gathered up our things, probably checked out, and went to stage 2 of security. In Amsterdam the passengers of each plane must go through a secondary round of security where you, your children, and your luggage are x-rayed, your ID and boarding pass are checked again and you are questioned by one or two security officers before you can enter the waiting area before you board the plane.

During the question and answer portion of this process there is an unavoidable furtive feeling of guilt that swamps even the most unimaginative would-be passenger. Personally, my mind goes blank and I turn red. I would love to know how they sort the stuttering innocents whose brains shut down at the simplest inquiry from those rare nasties who would actually wish harm to a flight.

The only thing I had to make me feel anxious were two small souvenirs and I'd put those WWII bullet casings from Normandy into my checked luggage, and made sure they weren't hidden and would be easily accessed should security want to inspect or seize them. After all, my scrapbooking stuff had looked suspicious enough to the international security folks in the States to open everything and give it a thorough once-over.

Those nice boys left me a polite note in apology for that in my suitcase, by the way. Can you believe it? Essentially: sorry for doing our job and keeping you safe. Wow.

Anyway, I wasn't terribly worried about them. I simply have an undeservedly guilty conscience. At least I think I don't deserve it...wait, maybe I do...augh!

After everyone is through security at Schiphol airport there's some more waiting. Eventually the plane is opened and, by section, there is a rush by the passengers to get to their seats.

This I have never figured out, unless it's all about the luggage placement. You're going to sit on the plane for hours, and hours, and hours in a seat that slyly asserts, "you should have sprung for business class, you cheap bastard." ("cheap" being relative, of course.) Your posterior goes numb and your sinuses shrivel up from that desiccating recycled airplane air. Who wants to hurry to that? If accepting all this as your lot in life doesn't make you feel like a bit of a chump, imagine how I felt when I asked the flight attendant which of the proffered meals she would choose, the beef or the chicken. She looked down in my general direction and said, without a hint of apology, "I never eat airline food."

How, exactly, does one respond to a pronouncement like that?

Perhaps it was that I unwrapped and ate the dinner anyway, or that my butt had indeed fallen asleep, despite that I got up and shuffled to the bathroom a good 5 times to Mike's once, and he only went because he was bored, (he's irritating that way), but I was ready to be done with the whole airplane business. The movies were still the same. Trains are infinitely preferable, if not practical on a transatlantic route. Here is what I wrote in my ever-present notebook:

I hate Greenland. It's just like when '3:30 AM' is relentlessly glowing on the nightstand clock when you what you desperately need to be doing is sleeping. Is it morning? Time to get up? No...still over Greenland...Greenland...and, wait for it, more Greenland.

Stupid blanking bleeping Greenland.

I've deluded myself into almost believing that we're on a road instead of in the sky, so when we dip and bump from turbulence it's merely that the roads in Greenland are not the best. No worrying about falling from the sky for me. What does it mean that not only won't the stewardess eat the meals but that has no problem telling ME that she won't?! There are several possibilities here and none of them make me feel very good in my tummy.

A long flight home is a good thing in some ways. After all, it gives me time to disconnect, control alt and delete the luxury of swear words and to reboot to clean mouth Mommy. Hopefully. It's a relief, too, that Mike and I won't have to work any more to make our mouths to French things, which sounds unpardonably dirty but by which I mean that we said "pahr-dohn" so often it was laughable and that my French accent attempts were painful to even my ears.

I can't wait to see the kids. I can't believe our time overseas is really, truly over. It's official: we are tired of travelling, and just want to be home.

Home, home, what a beautiful word.

Bethy and Thomas, 3 days later, at a roadside farm produce stand in the Evergreen State.

Feel like I'm walking the world, walking the world...

2011-03-06T12:10:00.007-08:00

Thoughtful, if prickly fellow

and some really good Antwerp architecture.

Walking the tucked-away backstreets and thoroughfares of Antwerp, full of shops from designer to whimsical to antique, from chocolates to art, you can't help but notice that above the delightful places to spend and spend some more, there are elevated niches on many of the corners. In these niches the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus reside, ever serene, watching over those passing by.

There is something very nice in this.

As I understand it, for centuries in Belgium it was tradition for the priests and local people to process through the streets, carrying the bits and bodies of saints in reliquaries behind richly dressed statues of the Mother and Son like the one below.

In nearby Mechelen, since 1272, probably the largest and certainly oldest procession is held every year to thank the Virgin for freeing the city from plague. 739 years and counting. That's gratitude.

The churches we visited in Antwerp (and many had doors open to welcome us) are packed with religious treasures, ornate and elaborate, and very somber. This is a staggering contrast to the simple, clean and bright look and feel of everyday Antwerp.

Sometimes my largely dormant Cultural Anthropology education raises its nosy little head and asks things like "what does this contrast tell us about the citizens of Antwerp?"

(Usually all it wants to do it try out the new foods. Maybe I should have been a Nutritional Anthropologist like that fabulous lady on Alton Brown.)

Much richness is expressed but also a seeming lack of joy. Faith appears to be a lot of work. I mean, look at the carving that went into crafting the dark wood pulpit (above on the right, a closer view below).

and the altar, grand but also imposing.

Even with all that white and the spacious ceiling and flowers and candles you would never have raised your voice above a whisper, never felt it would be springtime there among the incense. The graves beneath our feet might have contributed to the somber impression, the weightiness of religion.

Back outside, the blue skies and bride-to-be party leaping for a photographer

brightened us right back up and I felt Antwerp-y again. Beer, anyone? Chocolate? To be fair, perhaps it wasn't the churches so much as a funny pre-hangover-esque pang of anticipation, that we knew we were only on our very last day of what had been not just a three week vacation for us, but also at the end of two years abroad in a very different and exciting sort of life.

Now it was time to pack up our bags one last time and to say good-bye.

Or as the Dutch would say, Doei.

Walk this way...

2011-02-23T19:40:00.008-08:00

rooftops of Antwerp

Antwerp differed from our other stops in that we had no plan, didn't go to a single museum or Place of Great Historical Significance. Also we weren't even really sure what the local language was. Flemish? Dutch? French? An amalgam of all of the above? Strangely, this didn't really bother us too much. Everyone spoke English anyway. Convenient.

We'd figured out that Jupiler (not Jupiter, as we'd initially thought it was called) was the beer of choice, located an Irish Pub within half an hour of setting foot in the city, and our hotel room at the Radison Blu was elegantly modern and close to the railway station.

which is stunning, a tourist attraction in it's own right. had we a guidebook we would have known that you can tour the rooftop...but we didn't. Ah well.

We also didn't go to the nearby and famous Antwerp Zoo, one of the oldest in the world,

camel!

nor did we search out anything to do with diamonds, even though Antwerp is the mothership. Some 70% of the worlds polished diamonds are traded there. Eh, diamonds schmimonds.

Instead of doing what we might have done had we been in possession of a guidebook, we first figured out the local train system. After spying it on a map we (OK, I) just had to hunt down Elisabeth Station. It's spelled the same way as Bethy's full first name, you see, therefore I needed a cheesy photo.

There. Perfect souvenir. We walked around on streets like these and didn't worry about what time it was or getting lost or anything else.

Grote Markt, the central square of Antwerp was an obvious direction for even the most oblivious tourist, so we trotted obediently in that direction, following the bells of the Cathedral of our Lady.

We decided on principle against paying to enter the cathedral proper,

which may or may not have been worth the entry fee as it is very grand indeed, as you can see from the door.

Later in the day we paused at the doorway again to listen to a violinist playing a nearly flawless and very fast Bach's violin concerto in E major. This particular piece happens to be my personal nemesis. Mike recognised it instantly even though I haven't tortured him or myself with practicing it for a good ten years. This is no reason not to enjoy someone else playing it.

There was no charge to go into the gift shop, (go figure!) so we went in there and peeked around to see the sanctuary. It was fortunate we did this; had we not we would have missed what we irreverently christened "Holy Rollers" for sale:

These six-sided pieces of wood have a different grace on each side, available in the language of your choice. I think they would be great for kids...roll the dice and say yer grace, children.

The Grote Markt,

where cars are forbidden, is a marvelous place to walk around and admire the Flemish renaissance architecture, such as the 16th century city hall:

Many of the buildings were crowned with multiple gold statues, and the cathedral soars above them all. We watched a wedding party gather, including little flowergirls in their darling, overpoweringly frilly white dresses in front of the Brabo Fountain which stands in the middle of the square.

Now, this fountain depicts a man holding a large severed hand aloft with water flowing intermittently out of the chopped end. Tasty.

Antwerp is a port city and in days of old, the legend tells, a nasty giant charged high tolls to the sailing crews wishing to enter the city. If the sailors couldn't pay the giant, in a very giantish way, took the sailors' hands as payment. Not terribly friendly, and an interesting take on the arm-and-a-leg pricetag.

Fortunately for the sailors, a hero named Brabo took things into his own hands (sorry, couldn't help myself) and vanquished the giant by whacking off his head and in a tit-for-tat move, one of the monster's hands. The statue shows Brabo flinging the severed limb into the Scheldt River, freeing Antwerp to become a major trading center.

Nowadays you can buy a nice giant's hand made out of Belgian chocolate as a souvenir to bring home to the grandkids. Can't you just see the t-shirts? "My grandma loves me and went to Antwerp and all I got was this lousy severed hand."

Actually, depending on the kid, that might be pretty cool.

We heard a clop-clop-clop sound and turned to see a tall carriage drawn by honest-to-goodness Belgian draft horses. It's entirely possible I went a little cuckoo with the camera.

There wasn't even a line to ride, so we climbed happily up to the seats, plopping ourselves down onto buttery leather seats. The team stood patiently, patted and cossetted by small children until the dour-faced, white haired, hatted driver reappeared and with gruff sounds and hand gestures shooed them away, a flock of disappointed little birds.

He may have been cranky to children but, not speaking a word, he gave us each beer coupons after we paid a reasonable amount for the tickets. Taking the reins, he clucked to the horses, and they began to pull us easily along a route they'd obviously traversed before.

If you ever get the chance to ride in a carriage I would highly recommend taking it. People's faces lit up as they smiled and some even laughed delightedly at the sight of the team pulling a carriage over cobblestone streets. We were like rock stars, swaying gently back and forth high above the adoring crowds that gathered to watch and photograph us.

There is something terribly romantic about travelling through a city as someone might have hundreds of years ago. Not only was it a wonderful way to see the area, it was also made it easy to plan where we would explore on foot later.

Antwerp is very, very European, not postcard perfect but darned close, and so unpretentious it takes no effort whatsoever to relax at a streetside table enjoying the view and people watching as you also enjoy a beer and a thick slice of meatloaf smothered in saucy cherries with tiny potatoes.

At least, that's what I did. Also highly recommended.

I'll leave you with this bit of graffiti, one I found funny only because it was next to the "Omlegging" sign, which I believe translates to 'detour.'

Isn't that the perfect Dutch-esque name for that fellow?

A crazy little thing called love..

2011-02-14T21:47:00.004-08:00

It was a little crazy, deciding on the spur of the moment where we were going to go.

graffiti, Antwerp

I mean, we were in foreign lands, not even able to speak the language. I suppose some might even consider us foolish to not have decided where we were going, reserved our train tickets, and carefully researched the options ahead of time. We had picked the brains of some of our better-traveled European friends as to where we should or should not go, but that was pretty much it.

In the moment, it was rather freeing. Mostly we went for what was convenient. There are worse decision-making techniques being employed out there, right?

And you know what? It worked out fine. Better than fine, actually. The train personnel are multilingual and impressively competent in getting you to where you sporatically decide to go (!), and with the internet it was a simple matter of a few keystrokes to find a hotel room.

All we had to do was book it to the train, which turned out to be so long that we were positively gasping by the time we came to the end of a serious foot-pounding heart thumping hustle to our assigned carriage. Hurled ourselves inside and watched Paris roll away.

I didn't have a color-tabbed guidebook now. Heck, I had no guidebook, no printouts, not even a lousy brochure.

Awesome.

Now, Antwerp has an entirely different feel the moment you step off the train. If Paris is an eclair, then Antwerp is a waffle. Not as serious about itself, nor as decadent or elegant but playful, a little kooky, even.

I remember walking onto campus at university and having a certain sensation, a feeling that we all recognize but there isn't a name for. It's a combination of feeling that the world and life and all their riches are open to you, with a sort of dark undertone that you know they actually aren't, which expresses itself as irony, then gleefully topped with the powdered sugar that is a giddy devil-may-care silliness and a willingness in spite of yourself to try things, to accept the unusual, to see in other ways. It makes you walk rather than drive, talk about deep things and not-so-deep things, crack jokes, linger over drink and conversation, and learn.

Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, that's how Antwerp made me feel. Like a university student in my 20s in the summer sun.

In Antwerp, there is chocolate, (Belgian chocolate!) and there is beer (Belgian beer!), and there is plenty of that incredible coffee for discussions.

This could be heaven. Not a quiet heaven, but a lively, fun one. Cherubs instead of angels and cobblestone lanes to wander

with that outdoorsy, healthy feeling that is unique to certain European cities.

It felt...like a place to be in love. How funny is that? We'd just left Paris, which is supposed to be the place to get all gaga and romantic, and we appreciated it, sure, but Antwerp is such an unexpected little gem, a last fling for us before returning to the USA, parenting and bills and jobs and all the everyday things that we, well, have to remind ourselves to appreciate. I suppose it was inevitable to feel a bit goofy.

Which may be why I laughed myself sick over this SUPER SNEL service sign (can't you just hear Colonel Klink shouting it at poor bumbling Schultz?) and then went to find myself and my spousal unit some more lovely beers.

Seemed like the thing to do.

Adieu l'Émile je t'aimais bien

2011-02-07T22:34:00.004-08:00

Hauntingly beautiful grave, Cimetière du Montparnasse

We had one unplanned day, unplanned in that we hadn't decided where to be. We could stay in Paris, get on a train to Belgium, either Ghent or Brussels or Antwerp, or go straight back to Amsterdam to get in one more day there. Pretty much Paris-ed out, (nothing against Paris or the Parisians, here, mostly just tired of being two in a sea of tourists) looking at train schedules, we elected to putter around half a day more in Paris, and then à bientôt to France and off to Belgium.

Over breakfast Mike and I flipped through my well-tabbed Lonely Planet guide book to figure out what to do with our last hours in the City of Light.

Ironically, breakfast, like every meal I've had here, was not what I would call light cuisine. Waist-wise, it was a good thing the trip was nearly over. The jeans were getting tight. That salad, however one might wish it to, does not balance out the cheesy goodness and cholesterol. Again, jet fuel espresso, God bless it, was the only way to restart our hearts and get us out the door.

I had carefully color tabbed the pages of the guidebook, which was bristling with them.

Blue tab meant that's interesting. Green was sounds like a tasty place to eat. Yellow meant it could happen. Orange was it would be great if we got to do this. Bright pink tabs screamed DO IT or DIE.

All the bright pinks were done. So we moved on to the oranges, and looked for something maybe a little different. The catacombes fit that bill and would be...interesting. There is a series of tunnels beneath the city, and the catacombes are the portion that has been turned into an underground ossuary. The cold walls are lined with carefully arranged skulls and other bones from the days when the city's cemeteries were mass graves, overfilled with the dead...no, you really wouldn't want to drink the groundwater in those days.

Morbid and definitely memorable.

So we went hustled out there on Paris' fantastic Metro, off at the Denfert-Rochereau station, and were greeted by our least favorite thing: the sight of a line that literally went all the way around the block. Seriously? All those people were willing to spend a good amount of a beautiful day in Paris to go down cramped, cold staircases through dark claustrophobic passages under the ground, full of bones and slippery from dripping water?

Well, we weren't willing to stand around. Nicely, I had my little tabbed guidebook, and one orange tab and a few blocks away was the Cimetière du Montparnasse, Montparnasse Cemetery, where rich or distinguished personages from were not stacked like cordwood or tossed into big slimy pits, to say the least. This was a classy sort of neighborhood to end up in.

Heroes from the wars, intellectuals, artists, political leaders, scientists and adventurers are all found here beneath grave markers that range from classic to modern, elegant, elaborate, whimsical to sentimental. With all the sculptures, memorials and serene parklike setting it was a beautiful place to walk. I hear folks even come to picnic on the extensive grounds. Practical.

My favorite tomb would have to be that of Charles Pigeon, the inventor of the Pigeon gas lamp:

Immortalised in a life-sized bronze sculpture, with a pencil and notebook in his hand, he is forever in bed next to his wife, an angel watching from the headboard above them.

Giving a full report here, (you can always count on me!) I discovered one of the most primitive bathrooms I have ever been in, which is saying quite a bit as the bar is set pretty low on that score. It was amazing I got out of there neither wet nor soiled. All the glamour is allotted to the deceased, not wasted on the living.

We walked and walked, stumbling across the graves of such notables as the intellectual partners in political activism, polyamorism, existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. (Feel free to add your own -isms to the description, there. I know you can come up with some.)

Tourists had left train ticket stubs and lipstick kisses on this grave, which shows how well those tourists read their guide books. The metro tickets are actually supposed to be left on Serge Gainsbourg's grave in honor of his song "Le Poinçonneur des Lilas," a dark little number about a man in the monotonous and somewhat meaningless job of punching holes in Metro passenger tickets. As he works he fantasises about putting another hole in his head, and then of being placed in his eternal hole in the ground.

Back to today, the misplaced lipstick kisses were supposed to go upon Oscar Wilde's grave, which is in Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (yes, an entirely different cemetery), but I suppose de Bouvier and Sartre would have appreciated the irony and Oscar Wilde certainly would have had a chuckle over it.

The cemetery, in all, is a sort of marvelous outdoor historical museum, full of art and life appreciation moments, and not at all a bad way to spend a morning.

There were a few more wonderfully Parisian moments I have to throw out there:

statue among the lighting and sound setup for a concert

the fantastic Art Deco signage for the Metro

an American musician on the Metro.

Did you know the musicians are held to a certain musical standard and must acquire a license before they may perform on the trains or platform? I approve!

Second menu item down, translated for us as a "piece of the butcher."

Yikes, better wield that cleaver more carefully next time. (I'm kidding, I'm sure it's something much more mundane like a special of the day.)

and what appeared to me to be a perfect moment in Paris,

reading quietly in the midst of the city.

At Paris Nord we boarded what was by then, emphatically not counting the Paris Metro, the 10th train of our trip, this time headed for, what the heck, Antwerp.

Je vois la vie en rose...

2011-01-31T16:27:00.005-08:00

With the victory of Notre Dame (the cathedral, darn it, not the football team!) firmly under our belts and soaring in our minds, there was only one thing to do. I mean, besides eat and have more coffee and more wine. (Those are a given.) The thing to do was to take a train out to Versailles Palace.

Now, having lived in Dubai, which is nothing if not conspicuously indulgent in many, many ways, and having been to the Dolmabahçe Palace of Istanbul, the attempt by the sultan of the time to make Turkey appear opulent (unfortunately for the plan, it cost so much it almost completely bankrupted the country) we figured we're pretty well immune to such things. I mean, how gilded and over-the-top could a palace be?

Let me tell you.

Louis XIV took a hunting lodge and in a political masterstroke had it transformed into a palace fit for a god, the Sun God, actually. A place where he could rule supreme, forcing the nobles of Paris and the rest of France (and the world for that matter) to have to come to him on his terms if they wished to receive his favor. He strikes me as a man who desired to be nothing more than the most powerful king of the most powerful country in the world. Obviously such a king would not only need but was also entitled to the most magnificent palace in the world.

As the longest reigning European monarch in history, (72 years to Elizabeth II's current 58, if you're keeping score, but she still has the larger castle, good for her), Louis XIV the Sun King, had plenty of time to make his palace in his image, and he did a knockout job.

So here came Mike and me on the train, along with the millions of others each year who visit the palace that housed Louis XIV, Louis XV, and Louis XVI, and then finally that little man with a particularly big opinion of himself, Napoleon. The train spit us out into the village of Versailles and it was with no difficulty that we found Versailles Palace itself.

Which, even when employing the panoramic option on one's camera, can't be fitted into one frame.

Just as big as you might expect, living up to the hype and legend, this palace consists of 700 rooms, surrounded by another 1800 acres or so of gardens. The line to get into the palace was proportional, seeming acres of people standing single file in line, a rope-defined maze of straights, corners, and boredom. Mike manned up in a highly generous gesture, asserting that he would have less interest in the gardens than I, and volunteered to wait in that very, very long line. I agreed, only half reluctantly, that we should conquer by dividing our resources, and feeling less guilt than I probably should, went out to the gardens, which are, incredibly, free to the public.

If you like topiaries, symmetry, and statuary, then the gardens of Versailles are for you, my friend. I cannot fathom the army of gardeners that it must require to keep up this level of perfection. Yet we never saw so much as one with a pair of clippers.

I suspect some sort of French magic is employed there to make it work.

Awestruck, I noted that not only are there the topiaries and brilliantly blooming beds of flowers, there are also beautiful urns and statues every few feet, aesthetically placed for the greatest impact, and each one is different. I could easily have spent an hour just photographing details from the urns.

But I had promised to hurry, and I tried, I really did. I honestly only went through the closest part of the garden, and I only took shots of my very favorite statues and scenes. Even so, breathless and overwhelmed, by the time I'd dashed back to where Mike had been waiting he'd was already inside purchasing our tickets. I had wondered about the folks who forked out 30 Euros per hour for golf cart rental to drive around the grounds, but I think that it might be a real necessity for true garden lovers. Or several days to explore and sketch and marvel. And good shoes.

I decided I would have to make sure Mike got out to the gardens, but for now we entered the palace itself.

What a place. The best word to describe it would have to be spectacular.

With honorable mentions to overdone, ridiculous, amazing, and holy guacamole.

While I'm not sure I should approve of the excess, especially at the cost (Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette's heads 100 years later, for instance), if you're going to go the distance, I suppose you had better do it shamelessly. I couldn't help but be pleased that so many artisians were employed to make it happen so many years ago. Gilt, crystal, velvet, marble, artwork, every surface covered with richness. By the time we'd reached the awe-inspiring Royal Chapel, Mike leaned towards me and whispered, this makes Dolmabahçe look like a trailer park.

He was right.

Even with its vast interior, Versailles was crowded, of course, and I was shocked more than once to see tourists actually touching the paintings. Crowd control there must be a nightmare. Just because there were rooms where there were mere inches between the frames, so covered were the walls with portraits of important persons and beloved pets didn't mean they weren't still valuable and irreplaceable pieces.

Much of the brushwork was fortunately beyond reach, above our heads as vividly painted ceilings, and everywhere were motifs of sun and fleur de lys and cockerel. The Hall of Mirrors (Grande Galerie or Galerie des Glaces), is rightly one of the most famous rooms in the world.

Mirrors were a true luxury in their day, and the room, designed to showcase such wealth, is stunning, especially in a historical sense. It was there that Louis XV met his future mistress, the Madame de Pompadour during a masked ball, (ironically, to celebrate his marriage) during which she daringly dressed as Diana, the Goddess of the Hunt.

And they say Hollywood has run out of tales to tell.

William I was declared Emperor of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in 1871, and to really annoy the Germans and rub their noses in it for losing WWI, the French Prime Minister insisted the Treaty of Versailles be signed there in 1919. Today it is still used for State occasions.

I'd rather like an invitation to one of those.

Goodness, what would one wear?

I probably don't need to worry about it.

If you ever want to get a real insight into the thinking of the time, you must look up Louis XIV's Lever , the extremely elaborate ceremony of the king's waking in his bedchamber. Un-be-lievable. From being kissed every morning by his nurse to allowing only the most privileged nobles to address his majesty before he began to dress, (lesser favored nobles might see him whilst he dressed, which was quite the crowd, and then other courtiers would have to wait until he actually got up and left the bedchamber.) Benjamin Frankin, for instance, was personally received in the bedchamber, (France looking for ways to undermine England any way she could) which ended up being a good thing for the Colonies and not such a good thing for the coffers of France, but that's another story.

Either way, here is one of the Royal Beds, one of the rare pieces of furniture still left in Versailles.

Most of the original bits were carted away by the poorer and rather rebellious French commoners whenever the political winds blew that way. We were assured that the curators are doing their best to try and get some of it back.

We wish them luck with that one.

The Hall of Battles was another impressive area, stretching along, enormous paintings depicting the tales of French victories

(yes, there are French victories in battle, all joking aside, now!) next to the Coronation Room which I believe was bombed in 1978 by radical Breton separatists (they don't talk about that on the audio guide) a room devoted to artwork from Napoleon Bonaparte's time.

Napoleon was not only one heck of a military man, he also, we learned, employed artists to paint people in or out of paintings depicting scenes of historical importance should they have changed status in his favor. Therefore his mother ended up being a guest at his coronation after all, and I seem to recall that Empress Josephine was painted out of another painting after their divorce.

The Coronation of Empress Josephine. She got to stay in this one.

Being a god but short and with bad teeth must have made Napoleon a bit cranky, some days. Fair enough.

We were happy enough being mere mortals, walking the marble corridors of history.

Though we were fatigued by so much grandness, I insisted Mike must follow me outside to see the gardens, and to admire the palace from that side,

which he agreed was time well spent.

We couldn't bring ourselves to go chasing down Marie-Antoinette's estate, preferring instead to settle back onto the train with our feet up for the 40 minute ride back to Paris.

We ended up near the Paris Opera house, with a nod to the Phantom.

It really is glamorous, and a good place to watch the visitors and residents of Paris. I can only assume it is quite good for opera lovers as well.

The evening upon us, we drifted tiredly back toward the Arc de Triomphe and our hotel, and found, on the little side street Rue de Surène, a softly glowing and simply modern restaurant that appealed called Le Taste Monde.

Finally, on our last evening in Paris, a meal for the Gods. With exquisite service and an emphasis on wine, little English spoken, but what did that matter in the language of food, we had a simple but memorable evening. Mike even had Ratatouille for one of his courses, which pleased our Pixar movie lovin' children no end when they heard about it.

A perfect ending to the day.

The bells of Notre Dame

2011-01-23T22:52:00.012-08:00

Throughout our trip, every time we went into a cathedral, however grand (and they were, oh, they were,) and Mike went WOW! I would assert, yes, yes, this is awfully special, but wait 'til we get to Notre Dame.

So, now in Paris, I was a little nervous. Had I given Notre Dame too much of a build-up? Would she truly be as magnificent as I remembered? Were my scathing lessons on NOT pronouncing Notre Dame the Cathedral as you would the football team -"noh-trah-daahme" vs (cringe) "nohtrrdam" too stringent?

We'd seen some dauntingly long lines in front of the cathedral the day before, would Notre Dame be so crowded we wouldn't be able to truly appreciate her grandeur in the sort of serene, awed silence she deserves?

Trying to beat the crowds, then, in the first clear morning light of Paris we hurried, as best as we could, through our croissants and beautiful coffees to get to the 4th arrondissement, that beautiful island in the Seine, the Île de la Cité. It is, I read somewhere, the oldest part of Paris, having been occupied for thousands of years, beginning with the Parisii tribe of Gauls. I'd always assumed Paris was named after Paris of Troy.

Guess I was wrong.

No worries, I'm used to it.

It took 200 years, beginning in 1163, to complete one of the most magnificent cathedrals in all the world. Victor Hugo called Notre Dame "a symphony in stone". I all the years that she has graced the Earth, I doubt that anyone could more aptly describe her.

We had chosen well to come early and were there before the lines formed, able to walk in and proceed through the holy spaces at our own contemplative pace. Few scenes, to my mind, compare with the complexity and brilliance of the masterpiece of the South Rose Window, which would take pages and pages to describe were I to to try and do it justice.

Which I'm not going to do to either of us.

Inside the cathedral is just as you would imagine, full of the work of centuries of artists and craftspeople, from paintings and sculptures to stonework and brickwork and woodcarving, and, over all second only to the skies themselves, the dizzyingly soaring architecture of the cathedral embracing and sheltering all.

I learned what gives a cathedral its name, by the way: it is the seat of the bishop, which I knew, but actually holds the chair where the bishop or archbishop sits called, wait for it, the cathedra.

Now that is some good trivia right there.

We walked the long, long circuit around the interior, admiring such things as the nave, transepts, lintels, archivolts, and trumeaus. And when we gazed up at the jewel-like stained glass windows there were terms to ferret out like medallion, lancet, mullions and tracery.

At which point you put down the guidebook, soak it all in, wallow in your ignorance, trust your own reactions to things and call it good.

Also, make donations and light candles for loved ones. It can't hurt.

The number of people inside was increasing exponentially, and we had a second destination for the morning, the towers of Notre Dame.

My record for climbing Parisian landmarks wasn't that great, and I was about to distinguish myself and add to my list of shame. Mike and I got at the end of the line, which stretched a good distance next to the cathedral on the Rue du Cloître Notre-Dame. The first guests hadn't been allowed to ascend the 387 stone steps yet, but we were fine with waiting.

There was a strange fellow who was undoubtedly held in great regard wearing a frightening mask and played pranks on passers-by, to the hilarity of some of the waiting crowd, and to the discomfort of others. The gargoyles looked down and grimaced...but then they always do that.

Another couple stopped and asked if we were at the end of the line, which we affirmed and they happily joined us.

many, many gargoyles

A woman came up to Mike and me and began to speak in a somewhat agitated manner, I believe in French, but I couldn't swear to it. I could understand a few words of what she said, but not enough to quite get it. I thought she was asking where the line began, especially since she was pointing to the other end of the line. We agreed, oui, oui, and smiled benignly at her, happy to help.

She walked away, then came back, and we went back and forth again. Bystanders joined the conversation. Many hand gestures, possibly several languages, and voices raised. We continued smiling and nodding, the gargoyles continued to grimace in their cheerful stony way.

Finally after many and impressively varied attempts at communication, it was finally made clear to us. We had, (in a perfectly innocent mistake, I would like to emphasise) cut and stood in the very beginning of the line, in front of the other good people waiting.

Oops. Er, pardon, pardon s'il vous plait, pardon...

line to enter Notre Dame

We made a good show of apologising to anyone who would listen and scuttling to the other end of the line as quickly as possible.

But after our slice of shame it went well. We waited politely and contritely with the other nice couple we'd invited to join us at the front of the line, Americans on a whirlwind honeymoon.

With the newlyweds we climbed the many, many spiraling stairs in their tight rotation. About halfway up was the gift shop, to entice the winded to pause and purchase. We pressed on, calling encouragement to one another until at long last we stood atop Notre Dame. It was thrilling to see Paris spread out below us this way, the way I think everyone should see this beautiful city.

The chimera stand guard there, mythical creatures looking out with us over the city, naughty and whimsical. These are not gargoyles, as to be a gargoyle, we learned, you must also be a rainspout. The word "gargoyle" comes from from the French gargouille, originally "throat" or "gullet", related to our word gargle. The rain, then, gargles in the throats of the gargoyles. Say that 10 times fast.

The gargoyles not only frighten away evil spirits, but also protect the masonry of the cathedral, rerouting rainwater that would otherwise cause erosion.

As for the purely decorative chimera, who could not love them? To me there is something deeply compelling and humorous about these fanciful stone denizens of the heights.

We even climbed into the belltower, to see the enormous bells that Quasimodo would have rung, had there been a real Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Up there, among the grotesque and amusing creatures, the angels and the heavenly city, I realised, if there is a part of Paris that speaks Paris to me, it is Notre Dame.

She is the heart and soul of the city. She has a long and complicated past, an enduring legacy, imposing and wonderful, serene and overwhelming, with rich treasures and humorous delights and layers and layers of meaning. Undeniably enchanting.

The Paris of my dreams.

C'est moi...

2011-01-17T22:47:00.013-08:00

Paris is always a good idea.
~Audrey Hepburn

Our first full day together in Paris. For most of it, all we did was wander, eat, and then wander again as per our vacation modus operandi.

Modus operandi, as an aside, and a particularly irreverent and unnecessary one, is Latin, not French, and that's one language I'm even worse at than French. Utterly ruined my University GPA one year, I can tell you.

Pardon my aside. Back to the tale. Paris in August is especially nice in one particular way: most of the Parisians have flown the coop, gone on their own vacations. Thus many of the storefronts and restaurants have been closed for the month, leaving behind a Paris that is...a little bit, just a little bit, more peaceful. Slightly more relaxed.

You see? Empty seats at a cafe. We could sit down and have a coffee -a perfect European coffee- any...time...we...wanted.

And we could drift through the city on our own time, admire the architecture,

(those balconies! The wrought iron! Oh, the bliss!)

and since many of the stores were closed, I wasn't half as tempted to buy lovely Parisian wares.

Of which there were many.

More fun than buying tschotskes, though, and considerably less weight to carry, not to mention to later clutter up the house, was taking photographs. Parisians are infinitely visually amusing.

Who wouldn't love this turquoise Vespa scooter sporting the Virgin Mary?

Or this sign, which would have been amusing without the addition of the Star Wars Stormtrooper helmet:

No mini-me kilted Stormtroopers in this area

(What does that mean? No men with little girls? No pedestrians -which didn't seem to be the case, or maybe end of school zone? Don't forget to hold your child's hand when you cross? It was a mystery.)

Or this one, which I interpreted (with apologies) as: "Run away, kids! Happy humping here!"

It is an awfully cute road hump, one must say. Très adorable.

I made Mike wait...and wait...and wait as I drooled on the booksellers' displays along the Seine

and somehow managed to resist buying not only those intriguing tomes but also such things as French pepper plants, which I honestly couldn't have brought home with me anyway. They appealed in their charmingly incongruity...do the French even use hot peppers in their cooking? Did I miss that episode of Julia Child?

Speaking of Julia Child, I also dragged Mike to Shakespeare and Company on the Left Bank, as they say, at 37 Rue Bûcherie, THE bookstore to visit in Paris, in a picturesque spot across the Seine from Notre Dame.

The publishers of James Joyce's Ulysses, Shakespeare and Co was a gathering spot for authors including Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald. As far as I know, none of those distinguished names ever darkened the door of this Shakespeare and Co; the spot where they met was closed down by the Nazis, never to be reopened, after the proprietor refused to hand over the last copy of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake to a German officer during the occupation of France. Or so the legend goes.

Regardless, I had burned through all my reading material on the trains and, feeling it a worthy and carryable souvenir, purchased a stamped copy of Julie/Julia (a romp of a read -brace yourself for the language, which I loved and will not apologise for but may not be your cup of tea, and a fun foodie movie to boot), Meryl Streep beaming from the cover as the immortal Julia Child. I thought about getting Hemingway's Movable Feast as well, but everybody does that, ergo it's especially overpriced.

Unlike many places we've visited, in Paris I never found myself wondering, what if we lived here? What if our residence was right through that door?

I simply couldn't imagine living in such surroundings. To you who have actually done it I tip my hat. Wow. Life in Dubai has given me great resistance, almost an immunity, really, against being impressed by monied surroundings, cars, stuff, clothing, the latest plastic surgery, but while the United Arab Emirates have a varied and fascinating history, with their Bedouin past they do not, for the most part have the richness of historical buildings.

Paris has plenty of that. to say the least.

We especially gawked at the elaborate and very beautiful exterior of the Louvre museum. The statues, the columns, the windows and wonderful symmetry of design on such an impressive scale, well, it was great.

Remember how I said that Paris is a little less crowded in August? This was true, but not so much so that major attractions like the Louvre had lines short enough that we were willing to stand in them. The line to enter the glass pyramid went on forever.

And, frankly, we were more than a little bit intimidated by the size and scope of the Louvre. This is somewhat embarrassing, to be sure, but honesty is still a virtue, correct?

Besides, you're going to laugh way harder at me by the end of this post, unless I am very much mistaken.

The one place I had scheduled for the day, the place I was making absolutely totally utterly and absolutely sure Mike got to go, was up the Eiffel Tower. I'd bought our tickets far in advance, on the same day I bought tickets to the Burj Khalifa, in fact. Two iconic buildings to experience, for very different reasons.

We were scheduled to ascend at 6:30 pm. The thought was to watch the light change and then go to dinner afterwards. Romantic, yes?

We rode the peerless Paris trains and got off at the station where the inevitable Eiffel souvenir sellers were in the greatest numbers, their wares spread out over the pavement, many tiny towers blinking merrily with LED lights.

While we waited for the elevator, again trying not to feel, or worse, look smug moving past the ticketless line to the ticketed line (taunting the have-nots in Paris didn't work out well for Marie Antoinette, best not to push one's luck) I had a serious surge of guilt. You see, I had mentioned buying tickets to the Eiffel Tower to a running friend in Dubai, and he had said something along the lines of "oh, you MUST run up the stairs there, there are plaques at various points showing jaw dropping records set by runners in the past. It's great."

I breezily said that of course I would run up the stairs. Of course I said that. No one is surprised by this.

What might surprise you was that my left foot hurt quite a bit by that stage in our trip and I wasn't actually looking forward to trying to run up those stairs, having checked the height out the day before. I was determined to grit my teeth and do it anyway, and limp a lot more the next day, but then it turned out that the ticket for both of us didn't allow for climbing the stairs, which you would do up a different leg of the Eiffel Tower and from a completely different line.

the wheel that turns to bring the elevator up and back down

So, hoping karma wouldn't bite me too badly, and looking at the elevation gain, a hidden but major sigh of relief, I rode up the elevator with Mike who unsurprisingly had said something along the lines that there was no way he would climb those stairs, what an utterly asinine idea.

Actually, his phrasing probably wasn't that polite, but you get the gist.

We looked out over Paris. Apparently some folks voice their surprise that you "can't see the Eiffel Tower, where is it?" from such a height.

Some people shouldn't be allowed to speak at all, but there it is. One can only hope they don't hold public office.

Looking up the Eiffel Tower from midlevel.

The 1889 tower itself wasn't the steel gray color I remembered it being. As it turns out, they paint it now and then and do indeed change the color. I read that it has 40 tons of paint.

I had lots of time to take creative shots like the one above since we had to wait an hour in line for the next elevator, this one to the top.

Occasionally an employee would remind us, make sure you have tickets to the top. No problem. It was printed right on our ticket, of course, 2nd floor. We had taken one elevator and climbed some more stairs, and now we would take our second elevator to the top.

Looking out over the landscape of Paris, we spotted a rainbow over the Louvre. Can you see it?

The waiting in line for the second elevator got a little old, of course, and it wasn't the warmest, we still adjusting from desert weather, but finally we shuffled our way to the front of the line. Big smile, I presented our ticket to the ticket taker perched on a stool next to the elevator doors.

Oh, non, she said, without too much emphasis, this is only a ticket to thees level.

There was a very long second of total disbelief after her pronouncement. My mind stopped, total blankness that must have shown on my face, then the brain raced. How in hell had I messed this up?

OK, I said slowly, what do we do?

view from the Eiffel Tower. Not the top, though.

First, she said firmly, you get out of line.

We stood to the side, while others proceeded past us, they failing not to look pitying and possibly, though I didn't look to verify either, smug.

When the elevator had left us behind, I implored the ticket taker as to what we should do next.

Now, she said, you must go over zhere and purchase ticket at ze stand to go to ze top. Of course, you remember that zeticket stand is closed.

How we were supposed to remember this, I do not know, but it was definitely closed. In a very French film moment, no one could tell us when it might reopen, either. There were a few folks standing there in a ragged line, looking confused. We could have joined them, I suppose. But we didn't.

To say I wasn't happy would be a major understatement. I was furious, furious with myself, and when I'm upset with myself no quarter is given. All I wanted to do was to bonk my head repeatedly against the cold metal of La Tour Eiffel and see if it made a resonant sort of sound. Poor Mike, who, if anyone should have been upset, it should have been him, tried to console me, but it was no use.

I was pissed off. I'd ruined the party. I wanted off of the Eiffel Tower and off the world and that was it. I nearly stamped my foot. Which would have hurt, and looked really childish, so I sniffed and snuffed and tried not to bawl like a cow.

I didn't even want a couple photo with Mike when he, of all people, volunteered to have one taken. This was a major concession: Mike hates having his photo taken. I refused to preserve the moment and took one of him alone instead, calling it good.

My wise spousal unit must have seen something in my eye he didn't like, because he didn't press the issue and we went back down to ground level, where I continued my self berating until even I was sick of it.

Eventually I got over my pique. I think we had left France by then. Mike spent good time and energy that evening trying to convince me that it was no matter, that he didn't mind, that it was all OK. He's a good sort.

But I couldn't let it go. I'd screwed up the Eiffel Tower, ruined Paris...no, I had no perspective. Even now I'm not smiling about it.

But I hope you are.

After La Tour debacle we went out for our second mediocre dinner. Mike was carefully solicitous of my feelings. I tried, probably unsuccessfully, to look at least moderately cheerful.

I also confessed, via email, to my friend back in Dubai about not running up the stairs. He forgave me easily, not concerned in the least.

There's a postscript to this story. There always is, isn't there? When we got back to the States and I was recounting the tale to my Mom, she protested gently, but Natalie, you told me when you bought the tickets that you never planned to go to the top, remember? You said that you were already going to the top of the Burj Khalifa and that you'd read that going to the top of the Eifel Tower wasn't worth the cost or the wait in the line on the second floor.

Argh.

heart created by some lovely soul in the grass beneath the Eiffel Tower.

Some days I am my own worst enemy, and that, my dears, is the truth.

Paris sera toujours Paris...

2011-01-09T23:50:00.013-08:00

...and then we went to Paris.

Well, of course we went to the City of Love, the City of Light. We were in France. All trains go there anyway. Who wouldn't spend a few days in Paris?

Paris needs no introduction from me. However, it was my privilege to introduce her to Mike, since I was the expert, having been there...once...when I was 11.

Mike, on the other hand, had never been. I wanted him to experience the Paris I remembered from girlhood, a beautiful sophisticated lady of a city, scintillatingly cosmopolitan, ridiculously, indulgently French. My memories undoubtedly fused with movies and things I read in the 25 years between my first visit and this one, making it near impossible for Paris to live up to the Paris I had in my mind.

And of course, the one in my mind was the one I wanted to share with my husband.

No pressure.

Still, Paris is Paris.

First stumbling block: the hotel. I made calls to the B&Bs with the highest ratings on Tripadvisor.com but no one would answer or call me back. This was très frustrating. Finally I booked one online, one near the Arc de Triomphe, on a friend's recommendation. However, when I called to confirm our reservation, the woman on the other end of the line spoke only French, and after I didn't speak enough French to make the cut, or perhaps it was my deplorable accent, well, she hung up on me.

Merde.

I decided to trust in the great god of Expedia, that the stars would align, my faith would not be misplaced and that there would be a room for us, nicely held in our name. So we presented ourselves at the front desk and I held my breath. Please, please please let us not be in Paris without a place to stay.

The Bastille. It isn't actually there anymore.

We belatedly remembered: they stormed that, silly us.

Oh, yes, we had a reservation, said the very cheerful woman, whose name was Anna. She showed us the tiny one person elevator and then led one of us up the stairs to our room while the other took our backpacks in the lift. The room, by Parisian standards, was relatively large. You could turn around in it and everything.

It was, perhaps, slightly dingy, and maybe there were some bits in the bathroom that were broken or didn't work, and the safe, when we tried to set it, beeped incessantly while we fumbled ineffectively until I fetched Anna, who then fetched housekeeping, who turned it off, but overall we were pleased with our expensive base of operations.

On our way out the door, I hesitated at the front desk and made the mistake of asking the friendly Anna (who, I found out later, didn't usually work there. The rest of the front desk staff were somewhat more off-putting, including, one must assume, the one who hung up on me) about getting to the Seine. She talked...and talked...and mothered me until I thought about throwing myself to the floor and faking a seizure. Which would have been wrong. She was very sweet, but in Paris, you pay by the minute for the experience.

We needed to get a move on to get our money's worth.

This is a terrible (and ungrateful) mindset, I know. Begging and pleading our need to escape, we turned in our key before leaving. You must do this, and then you retrieve it each time you come back to the hotel. I found this policy annoying. Hooray, already annoyed in Paris.

Feeling guilty, ungrateful, annoyed, and a terrible desire to dance the can-can, I was hustled by Mike, the ever reliable husband, out onto the streets. Except that they weren't "the streets" they were "the streets of Paris." When we stopped for a coffee it was in a Parisian cafe.

Oh, the pressure to be enamored.

And while I wished the city looked like this:

most of the time it looked like this:

Now, Paris cannot be blamed for being popular. If there are more tourists than pigeons, there is little one can do about it, but for Mike and me, well, we realised afresh how much we prefer places with fewer people milling around.

So...we want to go to amazing places and have them to ourselves. I know. Good luck with that.

It has happened...but it wasn't going to happen in Paris.

While we are discussing our family's vacation preferences, let me illustrate with a "possibly bad parenting -possibly even a bad American" confession: the only time we're taken our children to a Disney institution (OK, so Thomas was still months from being born but I carried him) was to Florida's Disney World in 2005...as Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans. Animal Kingdom was practically a ghost town. We didn't have to wait in a single line for rides or food or anything. Mickey and Minnie were really happy to pose for photos with Bethy, as many as we wanted.

In other words, and with abject apologies to the residents of Louisiana, perfect.

What the heck, though, we were in Paris (is this starting to sound like an existential problem?) and standing beneath the Arc de Triomphe, in the centre of the Place Charles de Gaulle, looking up at that incredible monument. The detail in the arch was astounding, a monument well worth the fuss made over it.

It is the world's second largest triumphal arch* at 160 feet high, 148 feet wide and quite thick at 72 feet deep. (*the one in North Korea was deliberately built to be slightly larger, but the French do not acknowledge such silliness. Or so I have heard.)

Fortuitously, there was some sort of ceremony in the works, so we stood behind and waited. A gendarme band marched and played and the flame of the unknown soldier buried beneath the arch was lit as veterans carried flags with much solemn dignity.

It was enough to bring a girl to tears.

We'd just time for an al fresco dinner from a nearby bistro, which was regrettably forgettable, though the frankly obnoxious Americans around us were less so (merde!) before our Citroën 2CV was scheduled to pick us up at the hotel door. Bonsoir!

Oh, didn't I mention that? I had arranged a "Paris Authentic Sparking Nighttime Tour and Seine River Cruise" for our first evening. I thought it would give us a sort of look at the lay of the land, and the reviews online were more rave than critique.

Sure enough that funny looking little car pulled up, albeit somewhat late, to take us on a shortened 60 minutes of personalised tour, just for the two of us, that would make us "feel just like a real Parisian." It was raining, smearing the lights of nighttime Paris into an even more impressionistic painting through the windshield. Our tour guide, who was an authentic Parisian but did not wear the promised beret, ordered me out of the car within minutes of the tour's start, after I (mostly inadvertently) voiced a comment that could have been considered insulting. You get out of zees car immediately, he hissed.

Apparently he didn't really mean it. Which was a good thing. I would really have been lost, and it would have been awkward for Mike.

If feeling authentically Parisian means that you are whipped around Paris in a delightfully rattling car (that isn't sarcasm, it was charming) to get quick glimpses of famous things before speeding off again and hearing how your driver was set up by the police to take a fall for a planted drug charge and how he had every right to yell at these stupid gendarme who are wasting his time, those bastards, and also to tell us about his mother's cooking, and to stop and ask his friend what is the time for the party tonight, oh yes of course, and there you must have breakfast and now here is your boat please get out au revoir, well, we got the authentic tour.

Strangely, I didn't feel all that Parisian. Maybe Mike did. I'll have to ask him.

But again, should we care one way or the other? Look at the sight where we were dropped off:

Wait, let me move the viewfinder up just a smidge, as we saw it from the Seine, aboard Les Bateaux Parisiens:

Now THAT is a view.

We were a bit bemused at the unceremonious dumping at the dockside, but got dutifully into line with all the other tourists pouring off buses and settled in for an hour of cruising the Seine at night, along the Latin Quarter, beneath the beautiful bridges

and past 18th century buildings that are so very Paris. There was a recorded narrative in several languages that one could listen to, very informative, if, again, very touristy. But to sit back and pretend to know it all seemed the epitome of foolishness, not to mention that the best seats outside were all soaked, so we listened on and off, waved to lovers and musicians and rowdy groups on the riverbanks, and stared in awe up at Notre Dame.

There are few prettier sights than that.

Back on the dock, we decided our Citroën driver had no intention of coming back for us and trusted in Mike's navigational skills instead, walking through the darkness up some long hills back to our hotel. I wondered about being out so late at night, but there were few others at that hour, mostly leggy prostitutes, some of whom were so tall I inwardly questioned their gender, but who, regardless, cared nothing about us. In fact, I felt rather invisible the entire time we were in Paris. I don't know why.

On the other hand, I didn't wear a beret and little red scarf with a striped shirt, so I think we should get points for that.

Regardless, no matter, what with the sparkling Eiffel Tower doing its glamorous thing, 20,000 lightbulbs flashing on the hour, who could feel anything but lighthearted our first night in Paris?

Today was a fairytale...

2011-01-03T17:01:00.011-08:00

Unlike pilgrims of times past, Mike and I braved neither quicksands nor tides to journey to Mont-St-Michel. But we did have to endure the reportedly perennial flood of tourists.

through the portcullis and into the throng

Of which we were part, so one can't really complain. Like all magical places, everyone wants a little piece of it. The narrow streets of Mont-St-Michel during the day are so ridiculously packed we didn't want to fight through them with our luggage looking for our hotel. Therefore the first thing I did was to go to the information center.

I was looking over the maps and couldn't find one in English. The information clerk looked over the desk at me and said something in French that I didn't catch. I sort of stuttered at him (French speakers look away now) une carte de Anglais s'il vous plait?

He looked at me passively for a good 10 seconds and then answered, "I'm not sure what it is you just said, but I think what you want is a map in English."

He handed me one from a pile behind the desk. I scuttled away.

Mike, waiting outside with the backpacks, laughed himself sick.

I needed to be laughed at one more time like I need a hole in the head, but as you know, those moments are the ones that make travel a great time to learn things about yourself.

Speaking of holes in the head, let me tell you how Mont-St-Michel came to be.

According to legend, in the year 708, St Aubert the Bishop of Avranches was visited by the Archangel Michael three times. On each occasion Aubert was instructed by his heavenly visitor to build a church on the rocky island then known as Mont Tombe. You remember the quicksands and tides...this was a daunting task to say the least, so Aubert ignored St Michael.

The Archangel, apparently not appreciating being taken lightly, and not the gentlest member of the holy host, burned a hole in Bishop Aubert's skull with his finger.

This was convincing. St. Michael got his church, and pretty darned quick, too.

Fast forward back to us, 1300 years later. The Auberge Saint-Pierre Hotel receptionist gave us a choice as to how she would lead us to our room...the way with fewest stairs but quite crowded, or the long way with many stairs and not too many people. We went for the latter, with the obvious approval of our receptionist.

Going up through the village was amazing, and also one heck of a cardiac workout. Up stone stairs, then more, and yes more. The buildings were also stone, with a smattering of wood and metal, all straight out of a fairytale. We went past a tiny cemetery, with aged stones and cascading roses, up staircases with more stonework walls. Truly another world which we couldn't have been more pleased to experience without crowds, the main street left behind.

With burning thighs but glad hearts we entered our room through a discrete doorway -the hotel rooms were not in a central location but dispersed around the island, and it was anyone's guess as to which one we would get.

Ours was splendid. With a view over the water and salt marshes, through windows that were straight out of Snow White, and above, heavy dark beams in a creamy high cupola ceiling, our own little nest in a medieval town. Happy campers.

There was also a bit of smugness involved. You see, while 2 million people visit Mont-St-Michel each year, only those who are staying overnight may remain on the island after dark. We'd made a good decision staying on the island in another way; the hotels on the other side of the causeway were, if one looks over the online reviews, uniformly expensive and hideous. Some folks try to squeeze in Mont-St-Michel as a day trip. I think they miss an awful lot.

Once you've spent the time and currency to get there, as I see it, there's no point in being cheap. You might as well go for the gusto...and to save money in others ways, take your photographs, buy only the occasional postcard as a souvenir, and for heaven's sake, carry a nice bottle of mainland grocery-store purchased wine and a corkscrew in your backpack.

St Joan of Arc

We stopped to watch a famous Mère Poulard omelette being made. A specialty of Mont-St-Michel, these are created by separating eggs, whisking the yolks in a copper bowl and then putting them into a special long-handled pan over the fire with some melted butter. When they start to thicken, egg whites that have been beaten into foamy peaks and some Crème Fraîche are gently added, and then the entire beautiful mess is folded into the fluffiest mass of egg goodness you can imagine. You may then eat this omlette if you are willing to fork over 30 Euros for it. About $40.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Makes you appreciate the humble $1.50 street hotdog, doesn't it?

No surprise, those aren't available on the island. There was a gourmet dinner available through the hotel (gourmet in Mont-St-Michel translates to expensive, average-esque French cuisine -which is still relatively good -with less than perfect service). What with the views and the delight of actually being there at Mont-St-Michel, well, we could afford to let it slide this once, and I have to say the chocolate mousse at the end of the meal was exquisite.

As it was, I kept feeling like someone should pinch me to see if it was all real or merely a dream.

hint of things to come

The pièce de résistance of our time on the island, though, had to be put off, with great anticipation, until after dark.

We wandered and wandered the battlements, the gardens, the towers and fortification walls, ever aware of the majestic Abbey above us as the day ebbed, taillights disappeared across the causeway, the footsteps of day visitors faded and were forgotten, the ancient stone silent.

We found ourselves alone more often than not, as though we had the entire Mont to ourselves.

Finally darkness fell over Mont-St-Michel, and after a last glass of wine, we made sure we had our tickets and climbed up and up through the velvety evening to the Abbey. There were stars, and little bats swooping through the air to capture insects attracted by the floodlights, and the intensely medieval Abbey. The air was fragrant with the ancient scents of sea and rock.

Feeling even more like pilgrims in the dark, we finally came to the abbey. It remained undiminished by our proximity. Sometimes when you get closer to something it becomes more ordinary and accessible. Not the Abbey of Mont-St-Michel. Far from it.

Close up, its presence is even more impressive, more enchanting. It felt like a spiritual journey to approach and enter this holy place.

A massive undertaking, the Abbey was built during the 11th-16th centuries, the materials brought laboriously up the rock by means of a giant chain and wheel pulley system Two men would stand inside the wheel, not unlike hamsters, and walk to raise and lower loads. I was rather disappointed that I didn't get a good clear photo of that wheel; Mike standing next to it was dwarfed by it's size and the view down the sheer walls was well worth a swaying moment of vertigo.

Inside the labyrinthine Abbey, I am told you can get rather lost during the day, but at nighttime they have a pathway carefully roped off for visitors.

The thick stone walls envelop you and you get an idea as to how it was, hundreds of years ago, to be a devout monk here. How easy it must have been to worship God with their hearts and minds, rejoicing in the high spaces and forbidding, mysterious beauty of the place.

The path you walk is a masterpiece, combining light and shadows, sound and silence in turn. You come upon musicians in spaces, a piano first, then a flute, a cello, and lastly, in the great apse of the abbey church, a harp whose notes fill the space and are lost an instant later.

You walk almost in a daze, to behold such greatness.

It is not unusual to see tears sliding down cheeks of visitors in the darkness, often unnoticed and unchecked in the darkness.

After the church are the cloisters of the monks, In their dining hall, the Benedictines would have dined in silence, perhaps hearing scriptures read. For us, the ghostly room echoed with the amplified and ominous tick-tock of an unseen clock, a reminder of mortality, perhaps.

My favorite place in the Abbey, even more than the soaring apse of the church, (left) would have to have been the gardens. Framed on all four sides by a arching covered walkway, the monks grew cooking and medicinal herbs there, and you could smell the lavender, even in the black night. Can you imagine how blissful, how rapturous it must have been, so high up in the air, to tend a garden?

Beyond, Brittany and Normandy spread out below us, divided by the Couesnon River. Soon the paved causeway from the 1800s, which is causing silt and mud to build up around the island and threatening to make Mont-St-Michel part of the mainland, will be replaced by a bridge, so that the tides may once again sweep away the buildup, leaving Mont-St-Michel the fairytale island it should remain.

As for Mike and me, it was with regret and a unlooked-for sense of loss that we left the Abbey behind. Hours after we had entered, and well after midnight, we drifted down the stone stairs to our room. I found myself drawn to look back almost irresistibly to the gilded statue of St Michael at the very tip of the Abbey high in the heavens above us.

The rest of our time in Mont-St-Michel was again, as if in a dream, and when we watched the tides come in again in the morning, the presence of the Abbey behind us was nearly palpable. Mike had carefully scheduled our entire vacation around the tides so that we would be at Mont-St-Michel at the best possible time, yet somehow the divine power of the Abbey surpassed even the tides in my memories.

It was a wonderful revelation to me that the realisation of a childhood dream could, in fact, be even better than I imagined. Being an adult, the gradual loss of childish fancies and beliefs has been a hard, cold, and I thought, inevitable reality.

But there are still places beyond the everyday, places like Mont-St-Michel, to be explored and delighted in, that simply transcend the life of one person.

Green grass and high tides forever, castles of stone souls and glory

2010-12-26T10:02:00.004-08:00

Our next destination is a place I'd wanted to visit ever since I was a little girl. I saw a poster of it a long time ago, in an elementary school office, I think it was, and was immediately besotted. This place of my little girl-dreams is Mont-St-Michel, a tidal island of rock with an enchanting village spiraling up to a Gothic abbey which stretches up to the heavens. It just doesn't get any better than that.

What makes this place truly mystical is the tides, which come in at a 17 feet a second. When pilgrims travelled across the tidal flats to Mont-St-Michel they risked their lives, braving not only the tides but also disorienting fogs and quicksands. A destination this stunning and deemed worth peril to attempt through many, many centuries is a treasure indeed.

Our journey would be much more prosaic, of course. A train, and then a bus, and we had no intention of wandering out onto the tidal flats, though one can, with a guide, if you're wise.

I hadn't even realised we would be anywhere near Mont-St-Michel when we first started planning the trip, and when Mike came to me with the idea, I was thrilled. Mike was really rather pleased with himself that he'd be making a childhood dream of mine come true. I'll tell you about inside the walls in the next post, but for now, let me show you the tide. You'll indulge me, I hope. The gendarmes' major task is to keep dumb tourists from drowning or getting sucked into the sands, and as huge numbers of people come every day to watch the tides galloping in, some 10 million a year, the officers have their work cut out for them.

To this end they have the exciting looking vehicle, above, and when the tides are due to come in they escort anyone who even looks like they might want to leave the safety areas back to where they belong. I foolishly tried to peek around the corner of the walled city to see if we could see the tide coming across the plain and got the whistle. And felt both guilty and chagrined.

Of course, I feel guilty whenever I think a store clerk is watching me like I'm plotting some shoplifting, and I really feel guilty whenever we go through questioning at airport security.

You'd think I was either a criminal or Catholic.

With the floods of tourists, we watched the tide that Victor Hugo famously described as moving à la vitesse d'un cheval au galop, "as swiftly as a galloping horse." It was very much as if an enormous salty, muddy river had changed course. It pulled and seethed at the buoys, foaming in waves upon the rapidly disappearing shores.

We backed up, then backed up some more, and still more...

The Gendarmes took to their motorboats, circling rapidly over the turbid tidewaters around Mont-St-Michel, looking for flailing arms or cars foolishly parked outside the safe zones. Apparently a bus had to be tethered once, to keep it from floating away, and when the driver came back he found it a total loss, full of salt water and silt.

I'll bet that was an interesting conversation between him and his boss.

The waters came up and covered everything but the causeway. We retreated and went for higher ground, climbing the ramparts to get a view over the waters, marveling at the swirl of the powerful currents and vehicles massed to view the spectacle that has been drawing tourists since the Middle Ages.

Leaning against the ancient stone, I spied the tiniest hummingbird feeding unconcernedly from bright flowers clinging to the steep walls. He was so tiny that a Frenchwoman beside us insisted that it was a bug, not a bird.

Whatever. I have video footage, and I know that difference between an insect and a hummingbird.

As it turned out, there are no hummingbirds in Europe and I was in for a lesson in humility. The critter we saw was a hummingbird moth, which apparently so closely mimics the behaviors and appearances of hummingbirds, including making a humming noise, that many people are fooled. Me too.

Humility and awe. I was doing well.

Medieval courtyard and crucifix with the shadow of the abbey over the tide.

You're the cream in my coffee...

2010-12-18T22:36:00.009-08:00

The countryside of Brittany was sounding her siren call to be explored and by morning Mike and I were raring to hit the road again, waking up sore, but probably less so than we deserved. This time we looked to our little car with gratitude. We might get lost, but at least we'd get lost in comfort. Carefully noting landmarks so that we might make it back home, we headed out.

First on the agenda: get a good map, cost be damned. I still had to hold out money like a moron (crétin fini) to let the cashier pick out what was owed, still not quite able to understand spoken numbers, but I was getting better.

Then we braved a pharmacy to ask for a decongestant for Mike. Try to explain "antihistamine" in French. If you can do this, I am very, very impressed.

The pharmacy assistant was both kind and persistent and we got it figured out.

Once again, I was behind the wheel, and there was just one place I wanted to go. Poor Mike, he never had a chance.

Mike! Mike! Look at this! There's a place called Fort La Latte, a castle, on the Cote d'Émeraude!

Sometimes a girl simply must be indulged.

Did I care how far it was? No. Was it on the way to other "must-see" destinations of Brittany? Nope, not really, but we didn't have to go to all the places were were "supposed" to go. Who wanted a cookie cutter vacation anyway?

If you wish to drive your car into the French waters of St Malo's locks,

here is an opportune place to do so.

Not to mention that he had to do something to stop me from jumping up and down. Best to agree before I injured myself.

The coastline of Northeast Brittany is covered with wild gorse and purple heather and the water there is blue, blue, blue beneath cliff sides, waves curling up to hidden rocky coves.

A fairytale of a place, this is the soul of Bretagne, a place of lighthouses and fishermen, castles and druids and tales of giants from long ago, megaliths, and always the sea.

To the Emerald Coast, then, to Cap Fréhel with its two lighthouses and numerous carefully piled groups of rocks that I would call Inukshuks, but who knows what the French call them? To the Inuits, an Inukshuk means that someone has been there before you, that you are on the right path. Amongst those piles of stones we looked out over the water for our first glimpse of Fort La Latte, just barely able to make out its romantic silhouette.

I didn't even want to stop for an espresso before piling back into the car and getting over there tout suite.

Created from pink sandstone (yes, pink!), Fort La Latte is truly a vision.

From the 1300s, the castle with the fabulous name is brilliantly perched upon the steeply cliffed Baye de la Fresnaye, separated from the mainland by two deep chasms with drawbridges over them.

Drawbridges! And portcullises!
Call me Buttercup.

And there's a trebuchet.

Mike was pretty happy. If only we'd picked up a pumpkin for chunkin'...not that the French Ministry of Culture would have allowed any such tomfoolery. But it was fun to think about.

Within the castle, there were tours in French, which we bypassed to explore on our own. There were oubliettes, cylindrical prisons for soldiers who really needed a lesson, only one way in or out, though a trapdoor at the top, also a fascinating medieval garden and a beautiful chapel, the floor kaleidoscoped with colors from the stained glass windows,

a grand stone home with impressively large dining hall, (I was thinking you could really go to town and have one heck of Christmas feast there!), canons pointed out to sea, and the oldest part of the castle, the tower itself with its fortifications at each level, which we were allowed to climb and explore to our heart's delight.

At the very top we looked out over the sea and down from the tower into the knot garden with the warm winds smelling of the sea in our faces and hair.

As a bonus, we could imagine Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis (do I have to pick?) during the epic battle from the 1958 film The Vikings, which was filmed there.

Yes, I agree. Tony all the way...with an honorable mention to Kirk. These days sailboats drop anchor in the nearby bay below the castle, and relax in its shadow.

Only in the summertime, mind you. The coast comes by its rugged appearance honestly, enduring heavy storms during the winter months. Being in the castle was a window into the lives of those who lived there, to imagine how they went about their everyday lives.

For our everyday life, we very mundanely had to stop for lunch, and in the spirit of travel chose randomly in the town of Fréhel. The high school aged young man waiting tables in a family sort of restaurant was quite fluent in English, and he wanted to practise his skills on us, even going so far as to making jokes when he brought Mike a burger, faux-apologising that "Zis is France, we has no super-size 'ere" and asking if he wanted "I do not know the word for it in English, we call this mayonnaise, for your pommes frites, erm, french fries?"

I shunned burgers, (this was Bretane, this was France!) and ordered instead one of the numerous varieties offered of Bretagne galette, a sort of buckwheat pancake, which is a regional specialty. It completely eclipsed the plate he brought, the folded lacy tanned edges hanging over the sides. Inside the hearty pancake was a fried egg, peeking cheekily though the middle, ham, and an obscene amount of that same pleasingly pungent white cheese.

With all due respect to our young waiter, I beg to differ on one of his key points: France does have supersize. Maybe they don't call it that, but if the food can't fit on the plate, it's supersized. Again, only by consuming alcohol to cut the fat and then having a defibrillator-esque espresso to restart the system got me going again.

Along the road, looking up as we crossed a bridge, we spotted another castle, this one in ruins, and walked through the trees to find it.

This is Castle Le Guildo, of the powerful Dinan family, and happily it's being restored. Right now the site is largely ruins, rocks, flowers and lizards. The castle was rebuilt in 1200, 1350, 1487, 1650, abandoned altogether in 1800, but the scaffolding tells me better days are coming once again.

It must have been quite the place once upon a time. Plus, it has a magnificent view of where the river empties into the ocean in a bay. We stood on the ramparts of a ruined castle and watched the famous tides of Brittany coming in.

Watching the tide come in doesn't sound like much of a pastime, but if you'd been there you would have watched too. There was a sand flat, with boats stranded all over it. Then the tide came whooshing in, the river began to flow in reverse, the marker buoys pulling in seemingly the wrong direction and where there had been an estuary there was a seething muddy body of water.

We made lots of geeky comments about it, practically high-fived, and went back to the car.

Our last place to visit for the day, Mike had decided (and I, still giddy over Fort-La-Latte happily agreed) would be the walled medieval city of St Malo.

St Malo is the most visited place in Brittany. Famous for its cobblestone streets and beautiful buildings, the allure of being a walled city on an island, and its fun history as a corsair and pirate stronghold, arrrrr.

And it was beautiful, but so packed with tourists we found ourselves heading for the first quiet wood and old book decor pub we could find for a drink.

As we could drink anywhere, and for less, it was kind of silly to have gone all the way out there and fought for a legal parking spot and then fought our way through the crowds and quite frankly we were pretty spoiled at this point and we kind of weren't as impressed as perhaps we should have been by one more cathedral with saint's ossuaries and stained glass windows...

Although it was pretty great, we were flat-out too tired be be all that appreciative. Too many crowds, too much rich food, and too much walking over the last day for comfort.

We idled our way through the entire length of the city, to the beaches at the end, where there were folks sunbathing as though it was the French Riviera.

Dubai has kind of spoiled us as far as beaches go, too.

As there were no pirates to liven the scene, we swam through the crowds and back to the car.

A pirate would have been good. But, one can't have everything.

Along those lines, I never did find out why Fort La Latte is named as it is. Nothing to do with foamy coffee, that 'latte' is Italian. As I understand it, 'latte' in French means lath.

Lath?

It seemed that I was to spend most of the time in Brittany mystified, lost, overfed, and generally footsore. And that I would drag the spousal unit down with me.

Which is, when you think about it, essentially par for the course for being on vacation.

I guess we were doing something right after all.

*wink*

Hey Brittany...

2010-12-13T22:27:00.007-08:00

happy photography accident involving hydrangeas and a raindrop

I promise you,we have come to the end of tearful WWII recollection blogging. If I make you cry again it'll be tears while laughing at the idiotic situations we get ourselves into.

And you know there are plenty of those whenever Americans abroad, and these Americans in particular, are involved.

Two trains from Bayeux, through Rennes, to Guingamp in the Brittany region of northwestern France. While the rest of France is French, Brittany is Celtic. Many of the signs are bilingual, written out in French and Breton or Gallo.

The countryside is wild, with hills and twisting roads and farms dotted with sheep, and fields of poppies and wheat. The charming farmhouses and towns are made of stone, and the hydrangeas, well, they're heavenly.

We came to Brittany for one reason: to relax, as we had correctly thought we might need to, after the emotional WWII tours.

Mike and I were staying in a beautiful, out of the way B&B called Rubertel Chambres d'Hotes, and for a fantastic price. The proprietor showed up for us at the train station perfectly on time in a Jaguar with a right hand side steering wheel. British, you see, and apparently much attached to his car, despite the left hand side driving in France.

He brought us to our new abode, which was serene, to drop off our luggage and then very kindly drove us to the nearby village of Bourbriac so we could get some pizza. An English speaking host and pizza, and not too expensive to boot. This was a good deal for us ignoramuses.

It all went well at first. Heavy wood furniture, chalkboard rife with choices for your pizza and dessert, enough variety of beers, and English speaking expats playing pool as entertainment. In the kitchen the chef was doing some swearing and banging a pot or two, but that added to the ambiance. The waitress and I went a few rounds of my trying to say what I wanted in French and then English and her trying to tell me what I wanted in mostly English, but eventually an understanding was reached.

That is, until the pizzas came to the table. They looked delectable, thin crusted and larger than necessary, but mine, with a wealth of ground beef loaded on it, was entirely raw with the exception of the edges. I mean raw. The meat was red, the crust was still in dough stage. I like my steak pretty rare, but ground beef is another thing entirely.

So I went through another song and dance of getting the attention of the waitress, who was in the process of shoving around the heavy tables to get ready for a large group, and then trying to explain and finally show her the uncooked pizza. She got it, took it away, I heard, quite clearly, an F bomb being dropped in the kitchen, and about 10 minutes later the pizza came back again.

About a third of it was cooked, the middle still nastily cold. I was hungry by this point, and figured, what the hey, I'd eat the cooked part and order one of the lovely looking desserts to fill me up instead of asking a second time for it to be corrected, since no one had come to ask if it was to madame's liking.

Then I asked the waitress for a dessert, to which she gave me a reproachful stare, and made me understand that if one wishes dessert one must ask for it when one orders the main course. Otherwise it cannot be done.

Anyway, the beer and the outer part of the pizza were good, and it wasn't like I was starving to death on this trip, so I let it go.

The friendliest sort of person we met in town was this cat by the Bourbriac Church:

which was fine. It was an awfully friendly cat and told us in no uncertain terms that it wanted to become our pet, American or not. In many ways, I communicated far better with the cat than the waitress, but then, the needs addressed were simpler.

Home again in the Jaguar, and to bed in our spotless room overlooking the garden. In the morning we woke to ridiculously large pastries still warm from the Boulangerie..oh, the agonies of being abroad. Which...the golden croissant or the sweet rolls with apple filling? And tea or dark coffee? And then which of the beautiful homemade jams?

Life can be so difficult sometimes.

The Jaguar being pressed into service one last time, we rode into Guingamp with our agreeable host to rent another car. Walking into a tiny rental place/gas station, I asked the man sitting at the desk if we could rent a car. He looked at me as one might look at the bottom of one's shoe after stepping in something disagreeable and refused to answer. It turned out that he sells petrol; the lady on the phone was the one from whom to rent a car. She, however was very helpful.

We investigated the town, where there was a local farmer's market and a fountain, Notre Dame de Bon Secours Church looking down over all. I will never develop immunity to the allure of the farmer's market, and when it is in a town square of creamy stone and it's French, well...I bought some cherries. And aren't these onions pretty? Makes you want a salad, doesn't it?

We had lunch in a little place open to the postcard perfect town square, though it started to rain so we ate inside where the sulkies (light two-wheeled race carts pulled by a horse) were dashing across the tv screens up on the ochre yellow walls. No surprise, I ordered a salad.

Here I learned something interesting: my salad arrived completely buried beneath an enormous pile of fries and piquant cheese. I had no choice but to have some good red wine to cut the fattiness.

And then a coffee to get me out of my chair.

Those French. They know their wines and coffee. But how do those French women stay so slim?

It's a mystery.

After driving...and driving...and driving up and down countryside roads, through forests and several U-turns, we finally found our B&B again. There I parked the car, giving it a look it didn't deserve (not ITs fault we get so lost!) and resolved not to even look at it until the next day.

Then, on a whim, we begged our hosts to allow us to take their happy bouncy (aren't they all?) Labrador retriever for a little walk. The day was cool and though there were storm clouds on the horizon, it seemed like the perfect thing to do, especially after that lunch.

The yellow lab was agreeable (again, aren't they always?) and our hosts agreed to the walk, joking that they would send out the search and rescue if we weren't back by dark, which was some 3 1/2 hours away, and gave us ideas as to where would be nice for a gentle stroll.

We intended to go the country version of around the block, maybe a mile or two at the very most.

The dog pulling happily at his leash, we passed lovely farms, old farm machinery still in use, old cars,

flocks of sheep, and fields and fields of wheat and poppies.

When we came to a bend in the road I jokingly took a photograph "like Hansel and Gretel to help us find our way back."

When we reached the village of Saint-Adrien to the east with its marvelously old steepled church, 5 km away, we had gone far further than we intended. No worries, we could simply continue turning right as we'd been doing and we'd be home in plenty of time for the several course dinner we'd arranged with the lady of the household.

Right?

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Turning right does not ensure you will get back to where you started unless the roads are on a grid system. Dogs came out and barked at us, Frenchwomen came out and barked at the dogs, dragging them away. I was clutching a stick and some rocks in the vain hope that I could Ninja off the dogs should they try to attack our host's pup. The sky grew darker and more ominous, we were tramping up roads, all of which looked familiar but didn't turn out to be correct. Then we left even the fields and farmhouses behind and were were tromping through some sort of woods, where in the blue blazes were we?

I was apologising profusely at regular intervals for coming up with the idea, Mike was steaming at being lost, though not at me (he is such a forgiving fellow sometime) and both of us were fretting about what was going to happen when our hosts realised we had wandered off with their dog...and didn't seem to be coming back.

If only we'd known how to say nous sommes perdus et ce n'est même pas notre chien: we are lost...and this isn't even our dog.

When we reached a hillside overlooking the village to the west, Bourbriac, even I wasn't happy. Seriously, were we being punk'd here? Were there hidden cameras?

Well, at least we'd be able to call our hosts and let them know we were on our way from the pizza place. Mike sat down on one of the rough hewn benches outside on the porch and I went in to get water for the dog and ask if I could look up the phone number for the B&B. The waitress gave us water in a bowl, but then the chef ala F bomb, who turned out to be the owner, came out. I figured we were in good with him. We were his customers from the night before, and even better, he'd spent time in Dubai and would know well the expat code of helping folks abroad.

Wrong again.

Apparently he forgot the code. He went off on a really pissy and very French tirade. He would help us, but not if we weren't going to buy anything, he had to make a living, he is a businessman and we come onto his property and put our feet up (Mike hastily removed his tired feet from the bench in front of him) and and and...

aaannd we left.

At this point we had been walking for hours. The sun was settling on the horizon, and though the dog was still bouncing along, not really a reliable indicator with a laborador, we were beat, and stressing out over the possibility of being late to the dinner being prepared especially for us.

You remember how we had driven around the wrong way several times to find our way back with the car? What this means is that now everything looked familiar. In a car that can be frustrating. On foot, after miles and miles of walking and being treated poorly by raw pizza pissy man, well, it was exhausting.

When we though we were close enough and were at a critical junction, we split up to cover more ground. I ran up a hill...a long, long hill, and Mike went the other way with the still happy if not-quite-as-perky dog.

I had visions of finding the place and returning in triumph. Nothing doing.

Finally we went down a road that felt kind of right...and there was a man out gardening. I asked him for help, and there must have been something in my voice, because despite my speaking English and even worse attempts at French which should have earned me a major brush-off, he motioned for us to wait and got a younger member of his household, a young man whose very good English was exceeded only by his willingness to help.

He pointed us up the road in the right direction. Then, perhaps 2 minutes later, here came the now-familiar shape of the Jaguar with the steering wheel on the wrong side, slowly rolling along the dusty road, looking for us.

With less protesting than we might usually have offered, we accepted a ride (on behalf of the dog) for the last 1/4 mile.

Mike and I dragged ourselves back up the stairway to our room, and while I showered off the worst of the "relaxing" walk Mike graphed out our route on his laptop. We went 11 miles.

Not exactly the walk around the block we'd been trying for.

The meal was beautiful, our hosts gracious and forgiving, had a good laugh at us, but I nearly fell asleep in the beginning course of smoked salmon and shrimp, and neither of us did that dinner justice. Sad.

The next morning the Lab was jumping up and down again. I guess he wanted another walk.

But our hosts kept him away from us.

Smoke gets in your eyes...

2010-12-06T16:56:00.019-08:00

Our last day of hearing stories and visiting sites from the D-Day landings in Normandy.

I had to work up to writing this post.

Tomorrow is December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day.

Highly appropriate, so let's get to it.

One tiny exhibit in a sea of museums. One small story, one beautiful little memorial. The last part is a bit hard to read: Bill Farmer was killed in the Invasion of Normandy. These existing two pieces were returned to Normandy in September, France in Sept 1998 by Don Furlong.

Our group began that last day at the La Cambe German Cemetery. Such a somber place. Through a narrow passage in a thick wall, meant to evoke both the beginning and end of life, to a field with dark granite Saxon crosses and a hill in the middle, beneath which 300 German soldiers, most of whom are unknown, were laid to rest in a mass grave. On top of the hill is another dark cross, with sad figures of a mother and father sorrowfully surveying the graves below.

Travis, our guide, told us that his French Grandfater had hated Germans until the day he died, so much so that he refused to have anything to do with a lifelong friend after that friend bought a Mercedes. German made, you see. Travis told us he is uneasy every time he comes to the German Cemetery, knowing that there would have been no placating his Grandfather if the old man, now passed away, knew his grandson would go there. "But it's part of the tour..." he sighed, c'est le travail.

German schoolchildren come on their vacations to tend the graves, along with the Volksbund (German War Graves Commission) in an effort to promote peace. Skinhead Nazi wanna-bes who show up are given the boot. By, basically, everyone.

There are sad, sad stones there, far too many of them, really, bearing the legend Ein Soldat Deutsch or as below, Two German Soldiers.

The sign at the entrance to the cemetery tells the tale best:

The German Cemetery at La Cambe: In the Same Soil of France

Until 1947, this was an American cemetery. The remains were exhumed and shipped to the United States. It has been German since 1948, and contains over 21,000 graves. With its melancholy rigour, it is a graveyard for soldiers not all of whom had chosen either the cause or the fight. They too have found rest in our soil of France.

Travis' grandfather notwithstanding, we all agreed it was important to have gone there and remember that there are two sides to any story.

From the German Cemetery to Pointe-Du-Hoc, where US Army Rangers scaled impressively steep cliffs and entered a moonscape of craters courtesy of heavy bombers and the USS Texas dropping and firing the total explosive equivalent of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

After hearing the tale of the incredible bravery and sacrifice of those men, I picked a flower from the hillside and slipped it into my pocket. If we ever get a really good dog, Ranger will have to be his name.

And then, well, we scampered around like kids through the bunkers, looking at the enormous gun mounts and around giant pieces of concrete from the fortifications, blasted far from their origins, and climbed down one of the craters, now eroded to merely half their original depth. It was like a land for giants.

The craters are this big

Can you imagine what it must have been like to be a German under such an attack? Terrifying. It's amazing any of them survived such an onslaught.

We poked around in one bunker, which was impressively defensible (there we imagined trying to take one of these things) and, with the assistance of Travis, had our photo taken while popping up like gophers and flashing peace signs -his idea, which might have seemed flippant, but was honestly felt.

If there was one thing we learned it was that war, well, it sucks. There is nothing romantic or noble about it. Peace is better.

We looked out over the sea and skies and imagined them packed with dark shapes, tens of thousands of ships and planes, bearing down on the coast in the early morning hours.

Then we went down to Omaha Beach. Bloody Omaha Beach, as it is sometimes known.

As I believe anyone who has seen the incredible opening scene in Saving Private Ryan would agree, imagining the young men, brothers, fathers, and sons struggling to get out of the Higgins boats and up the beach and being mercilessly mowed down by machine gun fire, Omaha Beach was indeed the Gettysberg of World War II. 2,220 American soldiers died there.

There we stood on those sands, watching Travis draw out a battlefield schematic of how the beach landings were divided, and how it was supposed to go, and, then of course how it really went.

The beach is very wide, and from the water across the sands would be one heck of a run, even without fear and grief choking you, weighed down by all that gear and horror.

Travis was showing his pique, declaring it beyond rude for anyone outside of the tour to dare sidle up to try and eavesdrop on what we were learning. He would stop dead in the middle of a sentence and glare, in a most unfriendly fashion, until the person would move on. When he did this on Omaha Beach it was with such venom the result was a bit unsettling.

There was no attempt at lightness or humor during this portion of the tour, and all of us later said we felt nearly helpless in those moments, wanting to stay longer and somehow pay our respects, but ending up being shuttled back to the van.

The next stop was a museum there by the beaches, where we learned more about Operation Overlord, cried our eyes out in the dark (well I did, and I saw a lot of eye wiping when the lights went back on) watching a film, first in French and then in English, about the D-Day landings, and also from where I took the pictures of black and white photos in this post.

Throughout our trip Mike and I had enjoyed seeing signs like Do not climb upon the canon and Do not climb upon the bomb, imagining Thomas and his penchant for climbing and anything "boy". Perhaps Travis sensed we needed some release, or perhaps he's merely mischivious, but he pointed out one of the original tanks from the landing, sitting impressively in front of the museum, sporting yet another great sign: Do not climb upon the tank.

It doesn't say you can't climb into the tank, he said slyly, cutting his eyes at the Brit university student, if you get down on your belly and slide down under there then you can pop up into the inside of the tank...go on!

Being young and impetuous, certainly not the sort to shun a Puckish opportunity when offered one, and being egged on by his father, our Brit did just that while we grinned and tittered nervously. His voice was muffled as he clanked and clambered around inside, finally sticking his fingers out the turret to prove he'd made it and then rapidly evacuating the metal beast.

Here he is climbing back out from beneath. It was more than a bit tight in there, he reported.

Our next stop was a German defense position away from the usual tour areas, the Widerstandsnest 60, where there were trenches and more batteries overlooking the beach.

We walked through the long grasses, watching to not fall into the mostly concealed trenches from 65 years ago, and heard the story of the bravery of Lt. Jimmie Monteith. In civilian life a varsity football player and then mechanical engineering student, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his selfless actions on June 6th. Trust me, if you were awarded that medal on that day, you were a man among men. Here is an article about him and the other 3 men honored with a Congressional Medal that day, if you're interested: http://www.worldwariihistory.info/Medal-of-Honor/D-Day.html

Finally, to the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer.

You enter American soil when you, with millions of others each year, visit there. Entering past a large, perfectly manicured lawn for the U.S. President's helicopter to land upon (Travis told us that he'd never dared set foot upon that grass, sure that nice men in Ray-bans and good suits would hustle him off for questioning), and then into the cemetery and memorial itself. There is a reflection pool like the one at the Washington Monument in DC, over black stones, and the green of the burial grounds stretching away beyond.

A mighty bronze statue, Spirit of America's Youth, encircled by a collande, stretches magnificently and poignantly to the skies. We are entreated to Think not upon their passing, Remember the glory of their spirit.

There is a Garden of the Missing, the names of 1,557 men who were killed in Normandy but whose bodies were never recovered. The other 9,387 soldiers buried there are beneath white crosses, and it is both stunning and devastating to look out over the rows and rows. Young lives given, young lives lost.

The contrast between this and the German Cemetery is staggering. Our group drifted apart, walking the rows, looking at names, some looking for one grave in particular, maps in hand, others, like us, wandering with no real purpose through the silence, feeling a sadness and grief that is hard to explain.

I was looking for a grave, but not one of anyone we knew. A random grave, to put the wildflower from Pointe-Du-Hoc, perhaps one of an Army Ranger. What I found was this one:

PFC (Private First Class) Albert C. Jaspers of the 175th Infantry, 29th Division. From Washington State, died June 19th.

The soldiers' birth dates are not given on these crosses. I have no idea how old he was. I know he lived somewhere near Wenatchee, perhaps in Cashmere, WA. I also know the 175th Infantry of the 29th came ashore on Omaha Beach on D-Day plus one, June 7th. They made their way through the carnage, and by that time the bodies of their fellow 29th, easily recognisable by the blue and gray patches on their shoulders, were stacked like firewood.

The soldiers who survived Omaha Beach did so through sheer numbers, by luck, some by being concealed in the smoke from burning vehicles.

Albert Jaspers survived the landing, though how he died, I haven't been able to find out, yet. Perhaps he was wounded during the landing and eventually succumbed, perhaps he made it to the hedgerows and towns, met the Germans he was fighting and French civilians he was fighting for.

The fighting was fierce in those first weeks, and men were lost left and right. There is a raw spot in my heart that I can't somehow honor him, thank him for his sacrifice, any better than we did. Just another soldier.

Albert C Jaspers d. 1944 Normandy

I've ordered a copy of his obituary from the Wenatchee Area Geneologial Society. I'm reading Beyond the Beachhead, the 29th Infantry Division in Normandy, and The Bedford Boys and re-reading Band of Brothers. I don't know why I can't let it go, but it seems important to me.

I talked to my grandma, who is 98, a little bit about this. She remembers reading the dispatches, the black-outs in the Midwest, huddling in the dark with my aunt as an infant in her arms, afraid to warm formula for her baby since the light for the stove could be seen. A terrible time, she says, a terrible time.

On the way back to Bayeux from the cemetery, our young friend from England, who had gamely slithered on his belly to get into a tank and climbed down into hard to spot German bunkers, normally quite talkative and outgoing, was utterly silent. All those men in the cemetery, well, most of them were the same age as he is, and his friends at university as well.

We got back to town and said our good-byes, me with my little bag of sand and photographs, a few postcards, and so much more appreciation for what happened in those days.

Never before have Mike and I undertaken such an emotionally exhausting three days as we did in the beautiful countryside of Normandy.

It was, we agreed, the most incredible, memorable and valuable part of our vacation.

Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see...

2010-11-29T17:03:00.009-08:00

Every morning in Normandy we woke to the clear bells of the Bayeux Cathedral, consecrated in 1077 and one of the finest cathedrals in the world. I would retrieve our clothing, hand washed in the sink the night before and then placed on the metal bars of the electric towel warmer overnight to dry, which worked gratifyingly well.

Then we would walk past the beautiful cathedral and up the slant of a street to a little open air café, Le Maupassant. This was our breakfast spot. There we would be served by a white-haired, bright eyed gentleman of quick, small movements, his reading glasses always perched atop his head.

He would bring us deux cappuccinos with a thick dusting of chocolate atop the crown of foam and then croissants, buttery golden, which he brought to us from the pattiserie next door, and des œufs (eggs) au bacon. He was always cheerful, constantly in motion, and we cherished his sing-song 'Bonjour!' and 'OK, OK,' and 'merci!'

Who wouldn't love the pastry grenouilles (froggies)?

Never underestimate the power of carbohydrates with a good smattering of fat (the French don't make their carbs any other way) to give you the fortitude to face just about anything. These breakfasts, along with the idyllic surroundings and incredible evening meals, gave us the balance we needed for the emotional and sometimes exhausting stories we heard from 1944.

A slightly older tale of war and triumph, nearly a thousand years old, comes from the Bayeux Tapestry, a must-see in Bayeux. So famous it is parodied on The Simpsons in one of their "opening couch" scenes showing the battle between the Simpsons and (ha ha) Flanders who ends up chopped to pieces, the couch restored to the rightful owners. Nearly 225 feet of linen, not actually a tapestry at all, it is embroidered with the story of the Norman conquest of England, of Harold and William the Conqueror,

(look! Camels! Up at the top there!)

one rip-roaring tale of battles, betrayal, kings and successions. Yes, soldiers chopped into pieces, arrows and swords and some fellows no one mentions who seem to have forgotten their clothing. Hailey's Comet makes an appearance, foretelling doom, in this case for Harold in the Battle of Hastings, 1066. Some call it the earliest comic strip, and it's thought that the Bayeux Tapestry was brought out on special occasions and displayed within the cathedral or in Notre Dame in Paris for the education and enjoyment of the people.

During the French Revolution, when cloth was scarce, The Bayeux Tapestry narrowly escaped being used as an ox-cart cover, at which point the French decided it was a national treasure. Napoleon cited it as his inspiration not to invade England, and during the World Wars it was hidden from the invading armies in the Louvre.

We were fortunate that it now resides back in Bayeux, so we paid the thousand year old tale a visit. When you go into the museum they give you earphones and a guide recording -in the language of your choice- and you walk and walk along the Tapestry, as prompted to the different scenes by the narrator, and then go around the corner and keep going, the Tapestry beneath glass and illuminated by special lights to help preserve the colors and fabric.

Back in the day it must have been the highlight of the year to go see the Tapestry, better even than waiting for a Charlie Brown special at the holidays.

Personally, I love the trees (there on the right), and the way the armor of the soldiers is depicted as little groupings of circles. Those curly crowned trees have been adopted as the symbol of Bayeux; you see them reproduced everywhere.

There is a very special tree in Bayeux, one that we hadn't grasped the significance of until later. In Place de la Liberte, arching next to the cathedral is this wonderful old tree with gnarled roots and umbrella-like branches that you can't help but stand beneath and gaze heavenward. What we didn't know is that it is a Liberty Tree, one of the few remaining, planted in 1797 to commemorate the French Revolution.

I heard a lovely story about this tree. Before a fence was erected, I assume to protect the vulnerable roots, whenever the townspeople of Bayeux would walk by it they would pause to kiss their palms and tenderly press them to the trunk of their tree.

Then there is the Cathedral herself. The Bayeux Cathedral is immeasurably grand, ceilings soaring above echoing floors. Entering into such a place gives you a real sense of occupying only a small portion in the procession of time. Like the Bayeux Tapestry, the Cathedral has survived much. Thank heaven, (literally I suppose), it, and Bayeux, were spared the bombings of the WWII.

When we visited the great lady, a pipe organ lesson was taking place, the young man intermittently filling the immense space with sometimes tentative, sometimes majestically thundering hymns and rolling walls of sound.

Along the walls were niches, three sided rooms, each dedicated to a saint or soldier, prayer and gratitude, and candles for lighting. Stained glass windows with their rainbow devotions overhead, graves beneath our feet. There was so much to see, so much richness, art, carvings, colors, that it was difficult to know where to look. We circled around, peering into gold lidded boxes beneath glass, containing bits of saints, be they bones or carefully wrapped limbs,

paused to admire and add to a glowing table of candles lit for peace, and lit another candle for Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. I am not Catholic, but there is something deeply spiritual in lighting a candle in such a sacred place, adding a bit of firelight to the world.

I purchased a brochure from the church shop about St. Thérèse, knowing my Grandma would be interested in it, though the proprietress insisted on giving me the Italian version rather than the English one, so convinced was she that I am Italian. No amount of protesting on my part could secure the correct one.

Perhaps it's my sad, sad attempt at a French accent. Sigh.

Or the hair.

Either way, I donated another few euros for the pamphlet in the correct language at the self-serve station out of sight from the nice lady with the strong will, and figured it was all going to a good place.

Beneath the floors of the cathedral also resides the crypt, a place of mystery and the oldest part of the cathedral. It was quite dark down there, actually, only muted light from outside from one and though I hate to use the flash, especially with a nod to not causing light damage, there were no signs prohibiting it and I honestly couldn't see. So I took two photos to get an idea of what was down there. Here's one.

There was something that resonated with some ancient part of my psyche, seeing that angel, being underground with that being, prickled the hairs on my neck. There was power in that ancient face, something awesome in the old, biblical sense of the word.

Can you imagine how a villager, illiterate and full of the fear of God, might have felt in the Middle Ages, passing through the glories of the cathedral and then entering the crypt among the dead?

We missed so much in the cathedral, simply not knowing what to look for and being overwhelmed regardless. We did stumble across the tribute to a Yale boy, from Chicago named A. Peter Dewey who parachuted into France with the OSS in 1944 and then became the first American fatality in Vietnam (then French Indochina) in 1945.

but utterly missed the stained glass window of the patches from all the British units that were in the invasion.

that little person there in the blue would be me, to give you some size perspective

Every time we went anywhere near the Bayeux Cathedral Mike and I were astounded anew by the artistry, the glorious transcendent presence of this holy lady.

Isn't it amazing that there are places like this in the world, that have survived so much, and endure?

I would love for you, if you're interested, to see a little more of these places that I've tried to describe, and to that end, here is a website with some panoramic views that you can navigate, http://www.360cities.net/search/bayeux Here I finally got to see what the crypt actually looks like, much warmer bathed in golden light. I warn you, however, this is one of those websites that you end up clicking "just one more..." and if you go past Bayeux I'm not going to be held responsible if you forget to, say, eat or let the cat out.

Bayeux Cathedral, nighttime

Send me an angel...

2010-11-25T01:12:00.004-08:00

Stained glass window in the famous church in Ste-Mère-Église depicting the Virgin Mary, baby Jesus, and the Paratroopers of D-Day, the village below.

Our second WWII tour in Normandy, the two day "American Experience," was quite a different experience from the first. New guide and new tour members, this time ourselves, a British father and his university age son who were jolly and thoughtful and a husband and wife from the Midwest who made me think, probably unfairly, of American Gothic. The latter were good, honest people, the sort you'd want for neighbors, but not quick enough, mentally, to meet the expectancies of our guide.

He, we could tell at once, was going to be interesting. Maybe good, maybe bad, but definitely interesting. Half French, half American, with either a snobbery issue or inferiority complex, I never did decide. Perhaps that could be traced directly to his heritage. Regardless, it would be entertaining to spend the next two days with him as long as he didn't turn out to be merely annoying.

We were on our guard immediately, as (I am going to call him Travis because while I am going to poke a bit of fun here, and everything is true as I remember it, I would feel terrible if I hurt his feelings) immediately set about being rather bossy and short with the group. The first memorial where we stopped we were told not to read it, as what would be the point of his telling us if we read it and that we needed to stand here, and here, and to not dally and get back into the van and Wendell (from the Midwest) I already answered that question.

Huh. Quite different from our easy-going Alan. Travis then distinguished himself by saying nasty things about how anyone who drove in a way which displeased him must be "tourists" (!) and proceeded to drive rather awfully in a impatient way himself.

I was starting to think I would have to dismiss him, mentally, as an angry little man (little in personality, not necessarily in stature) when he began to speak passionately about a skirmish, and his entire persona changed. He really got into telling the story, with real vim and emotion, making us see it unfold as it had 66 years ago.

Well, alrighty then!

One of the highlights of the day was to stop in the village of Ste-Mère-Église, where the paratrooper Private John Steele's chute so memorably snagged on the steeple of the village church after his group was misdropped, like so many others. Unfortunately for them they came down directly into Ste-Mère-Église.

The town square was well lit that night by a fire burning in a nearby house. Pvt Steele dangled from that steeple for two hours, wounded and having to pretend he was dead while most of his fellow paratroopers were easily killed by the Germans, many of them in the air or not long enough on the ground to have been able to assemble their weapons and defend themselves.

Today, to honor Pvt Steele and the memory of that night, a parachute still flutters from the steeple of the church, now with a paratrooper mannequin dangling beneath.

Now, it must be said that it is on the wrong side of the church, over the square, when Pvt Steele was actually on the other side, (probably a good part of the reason he survived though he made his way down only after being taken prisoner,) but it was adapted as more dramatic that way for the movie The Longest Day.

Who doesn't remember Red Buttons being deafened by the bells and appalled at the massacre being played out around him? I think the French gave a well-practised Gallic shrug and agreed, who are we to argue with such success?

Apparently the previous mannequin was made of wood, and as it aged it deteriorated and eventually fell from the rooftop, scaring the socks off some poor woman who became hysterical, insisting someone had committed suicide off the steeple of the church.

Hopefully the new Pvt John Steele representative will be a little more durable.

Here is Mike next to the very water pump from which the citizens of Ste-Mère-Église filled buckets with water and passed them along a line to try to put out that house fire. Today there is a wonderful Airborne museum where that house stood, including a collection of all sorts of WWII vehicles, a glider, and the Douglas C-47 plane Argonia which pulled gliders and dropped paratroopers on D-Day, marked by the distinctive three white bands on the wings and fuselage that are only seen on aircraft that were part of the invasion.

We also visited Utah Beach, a far, far better place to land than Omaha Beach should you have been an American soldier on that fateful day.

I gathered up a bit of sand. Here I am being a total tourist.

Yes, I am grinning like a moron, but I was having a good time. Note the French and American flags flying side by side.

We learned something interesting passing the town of Isigny. Travis told us that in France you would get a last name, back in the day, by taking the name of that place and putting a d' in front of it. Like d'Isigny, or, as we now know it, Disney. Neat, huh?

Another memorable stop was Saint-Côme-du-Mont, where we stood in the pouring rain to hear the riveting story of 101st Sgt. Joseph ("Jumpin Joe) Beyrle, the luckiest, or perhaps unluckiest, paratrooper of D-Day. He also came down onto the roof of a church. Through a nearly unbelievable series of events, captures, escapes, and misadventures (which you can read about here: http://battlebus.19.forumer.com/a/jumpin-joe-beyrle-saint-cme-du-mont_post126.html ) he ended up being the only known soldier to serve the US and Soviet Armies in WWII, though for the latter he talked his way into a Soviet tank battalion.

Here are the Brits and Mike gleefully (boys!) examining bullet holes in the church cemetery where Sgt. Joe Beyrle first slid down off the roof, jumped over a wall and charged off towards his objective, all the while making as much trouble for the Germans as he possibly could.

When he finally made it back to the United States, Beyrle married his sweetheart in the same church where his Funeral Mass had been held...almost exactly two years before.

I like a story with a happy ending.

This next story is not, one might argue, so noble, but it has been a theme of this blog to boldly describe Going Places I Have Not Gone Before, and on a tour such as this with extended time in the bus, one with a hopelessly tiny bladder like myself has to go whenever the opportunity presents itself.

We pulled into a gravel lot atop a hillside, Travis informing us that there were facilities and that we'd better go if we needed to. Ducking down against the wind and rain he scuttled over to door #1, claiming the closest stall as his own for the time being. No fool I, (again, some might argue this point at which I would have to do my best imitation of a Gallic shrug), I squinched up my face against the weather and made a break for the other option: door #2.

Now, I, and this blog, have gone in some interesting places. But in all our travels, never had I been in this situation.

I was face to face with the solitary plumbing fixture of the room, an elevated urinal.

I glared at the sexist piece of porcelain. Which, frustratingly, didn't do any good. I really had to go. I decided then and there that I had dealt with far, far worse and no stinkin' French urinal was going to get the better of me. Darn it.

Somtimes a woman has got to do what a woman has, well, got to do. But how to go about getting it done? Without getting too graphic, I turned my back, stood on my tippy toes, dropped trou and gave it my best shot.

Would you believe, with the exception of the lack of toilet paper, it was a total success?

I had already half made up my mind to give Travis a hard time for his lack of full disclosure, but when I emerged and peeked into the stall next door which revealed a regular full-service sort of toilet, well, hell hath no fury like a woman...

Gosh, I'm not sure how you would describe my state.

Travis, our funny, finicky guide, was utterly mortified. "I've never actually been in that side!" he protested in horror, verifying the stall's occupant for himself, looking more sheepish than any grown man ought. I let him off the hook at that point. After all, I would never have known what I was capable of had my...comfort zone not been challenged.

We stood on top of that hill and looked into the valley, hearing the tale of the massacred villagers of Graignes, a sad, sad tale indeed, villagers who had risked, and then gave, their lives after they decided as a group to assist the American paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne who had landed nearby, offering them assistance in many ways, including finding and returning equipment bundles that had fallen into swampy areas, hiding the troops, and helping them escape. They were terribly punished for their courage.

Shivering, we retreated to the cold, empty churchyard to hear how the SS had eventually overpowered the Americans with an artillery barrage, and there where we stood they had executed the priest and those who were tending wounded paratroopers, then killed the wounded as well, some where they lay, bayoneting others, and making others dig their own grave before executing them.

As the church steeple had harbored an American sniper who'd made their lives particularly difficult, the SS killed everyone in the church, including two old ladies cowering in their beds. Eventually the Germans ordered all the villagers to leave the town, and shot anyone who argued, then burnt the town, beginning with the bodies of those in the church.

It was a sorrowful place to be. There were other stories, such as that of 15-year-old Joseph Folliot who ferried 21 troopers who had been hidden in a barn by the Rigaul family slowly to safety on his river barge.

But it was our last stop for the day that turned out to be the most memorable.

It was a small place, not in any of the guide books.

On June 6th, 1944, two medics, Private Kenneth Moore and Private Robert Wright of the 2nd Battalion 501st PIR of 101st Airborne established an aid station in the tiny village of Angoville-au-plain, posting signs around a small 11th century church to designate it a field hospital. Neither medic had much medical training, but they set to work doing what they had to do, treating the wounded.

On that day Moore and Wright decided something unusual, something remarkable. They would treat any and all wounded who came to them for help, Allied, German, or civilian. It would not matter which side the patient had fought for. They also agreed they would not allow any weapons inside the church.

For three days the battle continued in and around Angoville, three times Angoville changed hands during the fighting, but the aid station in the church held.

The wounded kept coming.

Moore and Wright worked undaunted under fire in horrible conditions, slipping in the blood of their patients, running back and forth to a well outside the relative protection of the church walls to bring water, tending the soldiers and others laid out head to head on the stone floor and church pews.

At one point a mortar shell came crashing through the ancient ceiling.

The first time the Germans recaptured Angoville they stormed into the church, their guns at the ready. Wright got up from the man he was tending and stood firm in front of them, telling the Germans they would have to lay down their arms if they wished to enter. Seeing both American and German wounded being treated the Germans quietly exited the church, leaving this medical sanctuary alone, and the order was given that the church was not to be bothered again.

In all of that madness, two young medics, boys really, showed what it means to be truly noble.

Eighty men and one child found refuge in their church hospital . The pews are still stained with the blood of the wounded, despite numerous attempts to scrub it out. There is still the mortar mark in the stone floor and bullet scores throughout the church as witness to those days.

Travis, our guide, openly wept as he told us this story. You see, he knew a woman who had lived in the village, 9 months pregnant that June of 1944. She had lived in the family barn with her family while the Germans occupied the house, starving and freezing during the wintertime, and eventually, distrustful but desperate, accepting a ride in a cart from American soldiers and delivering her baby in relative safety away from the fighting.

That baby was Travis' mother.

There are two beautiful stained glass windows in that church in Angoville, in honor of the medics and paratroopers. The first was crafted and donated by an American who had taken the tour and was utterly moved by the story. The second was paid for by the townspeople of the small and poor, but rich in grace, village of Angoville-au-plain.

That night was the night the Brit father and son, Mike and I sat together, far past closing time in a Bayeux restaurant, talking. We went over the day, discussing how what we were learning was affecting us. Thinking back to the stained glass windows of the day, in both the Angoville and Ste-Mère-Église churches, I wondered if the French had seen the paratroopers almost as if they were warrior angels, coming down from heaven to free the people of France.

Sitting at that table after dark, we wondered how we would do the next day, when we would go to Omaha Beach, where so many died, and then the Normandy American Cemetery, where, we felt, none of us would be able to keep it together.

But all of us would be thankful.

Comin' in on a wing and a prayer...

2010-11-21T02:53:00.007-08:00

We had devoted the next three days in Normandy to visiting and learning about WWII related sites in the region. You may ask at this point, why would you spend your vacation on war? Not only that, but you organised your entire vacation around wanting to see these places.

Marmion Farm

We didn't have a relative who fought there, nor was there a particular grave to visit. But we love history. Speaking for myself, I find that war, with all it's horrors and mindlessness, brings out, distills even, the human spirit to it's most essential being, the finest and worst of what we, as humans, can be.

To me, everyday life is apple juice. It's good stuff. But sometimes I guess I want Calvados. It may make you feel giddy with being alive, it may burn going down, it can make you feel terrible.

War stories are the same way.

We entrusted our three days to two tours with a company called Battlebus, a name which gave me pause when Mike first came up with it, but the rave reviews online quickly silenced any misgivings I might have had.

Our guide for the first day was a tall, gregarious and immediately likable Brit named Alan. His job was to take us in the footsteps of the elite American paratroopers of Easy Company of the 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division. Perhaps you've heard of them.

screaming eagle symbol of the 101st Airborne

Stephen Ambrose's book, Band of Brothers, wove the story of Easy Company from their training in the States through D-Day, then the Market Garden operation in the Netherlands, Bastogne and the Battle of the Bulge, and all the way to when they took Hitler's Eagle Nest and the end of the war, all as told by the veterans who were there. Then Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg (I know you know who those fellows are) made an award-winning 10 part series with HBO and the BBC based on Ambrose's book.

Through the book and then the series, Mike and I had gotten to know some of those soldiers of the 101st Airborne. Know, respect, and admire them; their heroism, their joys and agonies, friendships, grit and resolve.

So, to be able to actually see, to be there in Normandy to hear stories about Winters, Nix, Guarnere, Malarkey, Perconte, Buck, Welsh, Bull, Shifty, Luz, Webster, Toye and Spiers...the list goes on.

Our guide was well up to the challenge. More than. Somewhere between historian and war fanatic, he was utterly excited to share his knowledge with us. Our group of four was bundled nicely into the burgundy and blue Battlebus and we were off.

Dick Winters, along with many others in the 101st, donated his gear (above) to the Dead Man's Corner Museum, St-Côme-du-Mont.

That day we started at a memorial for the C47 aircraft that crashed on D-day, killing all it's occupants including the Easy Company leader, Lt. Thomas Meehan. We also got an idea of why so many of the parachutists drowned, Alan showing us how the fields had been flooded by Rommel. Then Alan took us to the actual crash site of the C47, which he and another WWII enthusiast had found after querying the local farmers and poking around with their metal detectors.

Oh, yes, these grown-up boys go hunting for artifacts, generally with the permission but not always. Alan casually mentioned how they would throw WWII mortars and grenades that they found at one another in moments of irritation or playfulness, and also told us of his friend Sparky who "got whot 'e deserved" when he was shot by a Norman farmer who didn't appreciate intruders digging up his fields and not answering to a warning shout. Not fatally.

The fantastic thing about Normandy is that nothing changes. The Normans are incredibly practical. They use what they have, don't care about money, rebuild what they lost, and the families that were there in 1944 are more often than not still there, farming their lands. For us, this meant that we could see many things much as they had been in 1944. Like...this wall, riddled with bullet holes.

It was, well it was unbelievable, pulling over on some small road and piling out to hear about where individual men had landed or where Spiers had gone off on a crazy Jeep ride through an utterly taken aback German squadron, then drove back through them, and to Marmion Farm where the Airborne from the 101st and 82nd eventually regrouped and found one another, and many of the more famous photos were taken, like this one by Forrest Guth.

Forrest Guth, who by dint of his name wasn't represented in the HBO series, it was deemed too confusing for viewers, took some wonderful photos of those first crucial days, and later wrote a book of his experiences. Here is Mike in the same spot, note the arched doorway.

Marmion Farm also should have its share of ghosts. During wartime the mother hanged herself on a beam there for some undisclosed reason, and then her husband followed suit, leaving their children orphans. Later a German officer hanged himself on that beam as well. Those children still own the farm, but they are letting it slowly fall apart, refusing to sell the place at well more than its value (offered because of its historical significance) but also not wishing to bulldoze it.

Mike with our WWII guide Alan at Marmion Farm

For the men of the 101st, though, it must have been a place of joy and relief to be reunited with some of their fellow paratroopers, after having been scattered all over the area.

We went to so many sites that day, and heard many, many stories from hair-raising to comic, indescribably sorrowful or horrifying, but the place that was probably the most interesting was Brécourt Manor. Dick Winters had become the acting commanding officer of Easy Company after the loss of Meehan, and he led a thrown together group of 13 Airborne to take out four 105 mm Howitzer cannons, machine guns...and about 60 Germans.

The assault on Brécourt Manor is still taught today at West Point Military Academy as a classic example of tactics and leadership for a small force to overpower a larger one. The Howitzers posed a major threat to the landings at Utah Beach, and had they not been taken out, many more lives would have been lost.

To recreate this legendary battlefield, Stephen Spielberg's team went to ask the DeValavielles if they could measure the fields where the battle took place, to give an accurate portrayal of what happened that day. The Chateau owner gave permission, but on one condition. You see, he'd watched Saving Private Ryan and had a real problem with it. A major mistake had been made, one which must not be repeated.

Brécourt Manor, Le Grand Chemin

The cows were wrong. The brown and white Normande breed, like the hedgerows, can be traced back to the Vikings. Spielberg, who I imagine had to hide a smile, promised to either have the correct brown and white cows imported to be used in the series, or to send cows to makeup. Turned out to be the latter, hopefully Monsieur was pleased.

This is the same family whose young son (who lived to become mayor of Le Grand Chemin) had accidently been shot by one of the Americans. Regardless, they put up a memorial in gratitude to the 101st. Shot, yet still thankful. And take a great deal of pride in their cows.

Very Norman, we were told.

We saw for ourselves what incredible obstacles the hedgerows of Normandy presented to the troops, visited museums and heard about more the Battle of Bloody Gulch, and were generally overwhelmed. The more we heard, the more we realised we'd made a great choice to spend our day with Alan.

Alan told us he was having the best time of his life, giving tours, researching and writing a book. He'd had the usual 9-5 sort of life but left it firmly behind; far from bringing him happiness it had instead given him not one but two mental breakdowns. He mentioned living on 31 cups of coffee a day and cigarettes. Now he lives on a farm in Normandy with innumerable animals, what he described as "an outdoor larder," and his wife and their three children who now speak fluent french and understood exactly where their food comes from.

He asserted with pride that his boys know not to touch the grenades they find without help from their Da to help, even though they're perfectly capable of disarming them themselves.

Right.

At lunchtime we visited the home of one of his cronies, where they had baguettes ready for us, and also all sorts of war memorabilia that had been found in the area. There were containers of metal bits found through years of metal detecting, hopefully not being shot at while doing so. One thing I wanted was a shell casing. I know, I know. But I collect sand, you see.

Another quirk. I have sand from all sorts of places in little matching jars, carefully labelled, and I intended to collect sand from the landing beaches here. How suiting to have a shell casing in with the sand.

I cringe here. Do I sound like a vapid tourist? I hope not. These were beautifully rusted, verdigris shells, old and not going to hurt or defend anyone ever again.

The containers were a bit pricey, and full of all sorts of things. I explained that I didn't really want an entire container (I was already wondering if I could even get a single casing through customs) and could I buy just a casing, or two?

The proprietress looked at me, lowered her voice and said "we don't do this, but..." and let me have my pick of two casings from the containers...as a gift. It turned out to be their last day hosting tours lunches; they were moving back to England.

Perhaps I would be able to get the casings home, perhaps not, but I was touched by her generosity.

Alan told us that he had a vet come on the tour and that it was a real privilege to hear him recall the events of those days, remember his friends and the things that happened so long ago. The veteran, he said, had places he particularly wanted to visit, and he also really wanted one more thing.

A glass of Calvados.

I want to end this Band of Brothers post for you with one last thing, a quote by Dick Winters, a hero in every sense of the word.

"If you can, find that peace within yourself, that peace and quiet and confidence that you can pass on to others, so that they know that you are honest and you are fair and will help them, no matter what, when the chips are down.”

Tell the one about the man who saddled up the wind, pegasus...

2010-11-15T00:44:00.013-08:00

Over coffee and croissants at a table alongside a medieval road in Bayeux Mike and I discussed our conundrum: should we spend our one free day in Normandy trying to find Pegasus Bridge?

Opposed: would it really be worth it to go to the trouble and expense of renting a car and braving being lost (pretty much a given) or creamed (possible) on the French roads, just to see, you know, a bridge? I would have to drive. (You may recall that Mike had his license stolen in Athens.) So, while I was nervous about driving, Mike would have to endure much more being the hapless passenger whilst I attempted to navigate an unfamiliar land.

In favor: the tale of the men of the British 6th Division Airborne, glider unit capturing and holding Pegasus Bridge and keeping the Germans from blowing it up to keep it out of the hands of the Allies is our favorite story from D-Day, one told again and again by movie makers and historians, in magnificent works like Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day and Stephen Ambrose's Pegasus Bridge: June 6 1944.

There's a reason Pegasus Bridge is so well known. It's not only an amazing story, it's also an incredibly important place, historically speaking. This humble spot is the first part of France to be liberated by the allied forces. It's also where the first Allied soldier died on D-Day. Lastly, it's a place where the military plan actually went right, where, had it not, many, many Allied troops would have been lost.

Plus, we wanted to see the dent. Here's a little bit from Ambrose:

The (German) pilot dropped his bomb. It was a direct hit on the bridge tower. But it did not explode. Instead it clanged on the bridge and then dropped into the canal. It was a dud.

The dent is there on the bridge to this day. (British Major John) Howard's comment is "What a bit of luck that was," which says the least of it. Howard adds, with professional approval, "And what a wonderful shot it was by that German pilot."

So when it came down to it, our decision was the price of inconvenience vs. a once-in-a-lifetime experience? Oh please. Like we wouldn't go. I told Mike we had to go. Besides, no one was asking us to get there under the cover of night with fellows firing on us. We could handle it.

Right?

I'd already braved a used book store. It seemed like the correct vacation-in-France ooh la la thing to do. Imagine: the heroine enters the bookstore, pausing just inside the doorway for a moment, the light behind her, appreciating the scent of dust and parchment. She greets the booksellers in quiet French and then selects a tome to enjoy at leisure, to the approval of the clerks there who appreciate her taste.

It was a nice idea, to be sure, but what really happened was this: I circled the shelves in the tiny store until I was helped by the sympathetic storekeepers who, after I admitted a book in English would probably be better for me, (a massive understatement) gently and with great pity showed me the two sparse shelves of applicable paperbacks for those such as myself, tucked away in the back room.

After dithering I picked a couple of classics and while waiting to pay was flirted mercilessly with (or maybe it was at) and then discussed at length about by their other customer, a Norman who had the air of a regular, older, with few teeth but obvious village standing. It was all conducted in mostly-incomprehensible to me French, but when someone is looking directly at you and laughing, well, I suppose I should be happy to have given him entertainment.

Or something.

lovely old doorway, Bayeux

We rented the car. One would think that one line is all that sort of activity warrants in description. Not for us. I had remembered to bring along my international driver's license but not my passport. (Insert mental forehead smack here.)

We'd walked to find the rental place so Mike was generous and and loped back to the hotel to get the necessary papers while I was doing my darndest to make conversation and sign paperwork in a foreign language while praying it had been communicated as to what we did and didn't want. Idle conversation is awkward in one's own language, let alone between two people not versed in each other's native tongue. We ended up renting a four door when all we wanted was two, and once behind the wheel, the manual gears and I had a small disagreement. In other words I ground the heck out of the poor thing, causing the rental car office women to stick their heads out to see what the devil I was doing to their property. I slunk away in vehicular fashion as there was no chance of the situation retaining any sort of dignity for me.

The roads in France were just fine. With it firmly in mind that I had been driving for 2 years in the Middle East, I was neither the best nor the worst driver in France. A minimum of wrong turns later we found the Caen River and went into the museum there, which was phenomenal. If you, like me, enjoy great stories of humanity and courage, and all the lovely sepia remnants of yesteryear, you would have loved it, even without knowing the Pegasus Bridge story.

I'll do my best to tell it in brief, though I encourage you to read Ambroses' version.

flags, crosses and poppies left by relatives and schoolchildren
to remember and honor the men of Pegasus Bridge

The British knew that they had to gain control of the road and bridges on the Caen Canal and Orne River to block the Germans from sending reinforcements down to the landing beaches. They also knew the bridges would be wired for detonation.

The plan was audacious: to send a small group of gliders to silently slip behind enemy lines and land scant hours before dawn on D-day in a field so small the Germans hadn't bothered to plant anti-aircraft posts. The British glider pilots did an amazing job that night, with just the light of the sliver of a moon, landing exactly on target.

Men of the British Airborne Glider and Light Infantry Units

The men, under the command of Major Howard (pictured below), stormed out of the gliders and took the Germans completely by surprise.

It was all over in a matter of minutes. With this crucial victory, D-Day, the turning point of WWII, began.

For Mike and me to go there, to read letters from servicemen to their families back home, see the equipment the men carried and the bits and bobs of combat, was a real treat, history made real.

We even got to admire Bill Millin's bagpipes, the very instrument he famously played to lead what Lord Lovat described as the "greatest invasion in history" while in full Highland rig. Per the rather whimsical orders of Lord Lovat he walked in the traditional way three times back and forth on Sword Beach as the mortars crashed, the sands shook and men died all around him, and then piped the advancing troops up the Caen Canal to relieve the Brit glider squadrons who had taken and held the bridge.

Scottish troops, D-Day

Can you imagine how the men at Pegasus Bridge must have felt, hearing those soaring pipes coming, knowing their relief was nearly there, that they had completely achieved thier objective?

After the war Bill Millin reported that German snipers told him they'd been very aware of him but had been so taken aback by this cheeky Scot and his wailing pipes they'd not shot at him, believing him to be crazy.

Sadly, the bagpipes were a casualty. 3 days after the landings they fell victim to shrapnel, but Bill Millin survived to a ripe old age, and donated those famous pipes to the museum.

We got to walk the original bridge, sold for a sentimental 1 Franc to the museum when it was replaced, and to see the markers placed to show just how precise the pilots had been in putting down the gliders, through barbed wire and avoiding a pond. It was phenomenal.

Mike at the site of the one of the Horsa Glider positions,

reading the tribute at a bust of Major Howard.

There was a strange elation and weariness in being there, which we felt again in the days to come. When one feels this way, the only thing to do is experience it, embrace it, and go to lunch. Which we did across from the first building to be liberated in France, the Café Gondree, now owned by Arlette Gondrée who lived there as a little girl in 1944.

I felt a bit chagrined as an American, a guest in this country, to see "Liberty fries" on the menu, remembering sniggering at (if not endorsing), the idea of changing the name of "French" fries to "freedom" fries during the difficult and emotionally charged days after September 11th.

The French of Normandy have never forgotten the sacrifices made by the Allies. There are roads in the countryside renamed and signed with plaques telling the names of individual soldiers who died there. (we know this because of course we got terribly lost on those little roads on the way back,. thinking we should explore instead of stay on the highway.) They also, I think, remember better than any of us can truly comprehend, what war is.

The bridge was renamed on that day in 1944. Pegasus Bridge in honor of the regiment's symbol.

As Mike and I dined there by the river, watching the new bridge lift up to allow an enormous barge to pass through, we were paying perhaps too much attention to the bridge up in the air. Mike managed to completely miss his mouth with his glass of wine and sloshed a good amount of red down his front. The French couple next to us witnessed this faux pas, their conversation died abruptly, their mouths frozen open and eyes wide. The awkward moment hung in the air.

I snarled at Mike in my broadest and most disdainful fake French accent: "American!"

Eyes crinkled, mouths smoothed into smiles and we all had a good laugh over it, nodding and lifted our glasses to one another in an impromptu sort of toast to life's inanities.

Closing time...

2010-11-09T03:03:00.003-08:00

If Mike and I were to sit down and design what would be the perfect vacation destination for us, it would have certain factors:

First, it would have to be walkable. We like to meander.

Second, it would have to be beautiful, vistas along with small things for me to photograph, and if it had an interesting history, so much the better.

Third, it would be populated by pleasant, friendly people, perhaps a bit laid back. A place where you could sit on a bench and read a book.

Everywhere in Normandy there are signs and flags that say "welcome to our liberators"

Lastly, and this is important, it would have to have amazing regional cuisine and really wonderful coffee. Fabulous breakfasts wouldn't hurt either, but that's just me.

Oh, my friends, let me tell you: Bayeaux was all that.

I mentioned Mike and I were on a quest for someplace better than McDonalds to eat. This was not, repeat not a problem. I don't think there was a fast food place within 50 miles -when later we drove past the only McDonalds we saw in all of Normandy and Brittany, the guide pointed out the golden arches and proclaimed "the American Embassy."

Oh, those Frenchies and their sense of humor. Ha. Ha ha.

What we found out was that the French come to Normandy for great food. The first thing we discovered, food-wise, was the best ham I've ever eaten. I ordered a Caesar salad at a casual dining spot with moderate prices and service, but when the food arrived it was buried beneath a pile of succulent chunks of roughly chopped smoky pink goodness.

There were the most beautiful breads, and cheeses...

these at a Farmer's Market, and there also was seafood spread out like crown jewels, fish with bright eyes, crabs, and shellfish, all so fresh that a British woman walking towards us actually plucked at my arm, her eyes round, to marvel, even if only with a stranger, "there's absolutely no odour, only the smell of the sea!"

(Asnelles is the name of the village where these mussels were harvested, mussels are called moule)

So when it came time for dinner, we went for, as I'm sure the French would approve of my saying, the gusto and threw price caution to the wind, looking only to indulge our senses.

The worrisome bit of all this was that I was expected to be the one to translate the menus in the all-French restaurants, and my french, well, yeah, I don't claim to speak it. At all. But since I had more than Mike, it worked out that it was my duty, with the result of his eating some very lovely but quite raw (if beautifully prepared) beef thanks to my ignorance.

That evening we were being brave, dining in a restaurant where absolutely not a word of English was available for lame tourists like ourselves. We figured the wine took care of any naughty bacteria. Did I mention the wines? I could rave for another whole post about French wines, but you know, it's been done before.

Also in Bayeux, we discovered Calvados. This is an entertaining sort of golden spirit, an apple brandy that is the specialty of, and only made in, lower Normandy. The French take it quite seriously, as they do with all things aesthetic, and it was my good fortune to be directed by a nice fellow tending bar to try the sample platter and learn about the different grades. The youngest is still aged in oak barrels for two years, up to what must be a fantastically mellow and smooth (not to mention pricey) 20 year old. I can only assume that last bit, they don't offer such in the tasting platter, but the grades I tried went up steeply in quality as they aged.

Quite the thing, I am sure, to take the nip out of a frosty wintry day. Alongside some sort of lovely tripe stew. I hear that's also quite good, but I held back. The translation of the dish stew of “ tripes à la mode de Caen” stomach, guts and foot, made me feel less adventurous, especially after having endured a sort of self-imposed gastronomic tribute above and beyond my personal preferences and cruelty-free general guidelines. I ate, slowly but determinedly, an enormous slab of foie gras.

It was too plentiful, overwhelmingly rich and guilt-inspiring for me to enjoy, but I can see the appeal. Maybe just a little...not a whole duck-worth...on a cracker, perhaps? The French must go through it like gangbusters; there are entire shops that sell nothing else.

Literally everything we ingested in Bayeux was superior, so it was probably our loss when we decided not to try a gésiers salade (salad with chicken gizzards...non, merci) or risk finding out what whelk and periwinkles taste like. (lâches -cowards)

shutter latch, Bayeux

There was one thing, though, that was beyond amazing. An apple pie at a restaurant named Le Pommier. Apple pie may be all-American, but when it is Croustillant aux pommes confites, caramel de cidre et crème glacée (Chef’s special apple pie with cider’s caramel, and spiced ice cream) dessert is an experience above the usual plane of existence. After we practically arm wrestled a new acquaintance of ours into trying it, he took a bite, stopped, and moaned. "My God. This may sound stupid, but this tastes like...Christmas."

Quite a perfect description, actually.

During our time in Bayeux we ate the most amazing meals you can imagine. The Normans are genius with meats and cream sauces, and I seriously considered writing a sonnet to the butter.

Should you ever have the good fortune to visit Bayeux, here's a list of where I would dine should I die and go to heaven:

Le Pommier -warm, elegant service and the most delicious apple pie in the universe. The second time we ate there, there were no inside places but, undeterred and desperate for one more taste of that pie we took a table outside and shoved our table next to the wall, just out of the pouring rain, fending off the cold with potent cups of coffee.

La Rapiere -have reservations or they will regretfully turn you away. Family owned restaurant, absolutely delightful service of several generations of Norman women.

Le P'tit Resto -innovative cuisine and only French spoken here. Be brave, you will be rewarded. In the shadow of the cathedral. We ended our meal listening to medieval chants being sung nearby by a woman with a poignant contralto.

Le Bout en Train -this one needs a bit extra for its write up. We had walked past it several times and given it the eye. First of all, it was very sleek and modern looking, not at all in line with the classic, old world feel of the rest of the village. Then...the logo and much of the decor was pink. Hot pink and rose pink. And...no one ever seemed to be eating there. We gave it pity and kept walking.

That is, until one of our guides (the same one who pointed out the American Embassy) told us that his good friend is the chef. I had blurted something along the lines of "oh, yeah, that's the pink place that has no customers..." when he initially described the place, which made his face fall. Karmically we owed it a try.

The meal was up to the standards of the town, the tender duck, creamy turbot and succulent herbed pork all fantastic, with Moelleux au chocolat (chocolate cake) that was out of this world, but what really stood out to us, was that although we lingered until nearly 2 am on a weekday over wine, talking, relaxing and laughing, the restaurant had actually closed at 11.

Being French, the staff had never even hinted that we should leave, and stayed, smoking and tidying up discretely.

Graciously allowing guests to enjoy their evening far beyond closing time, well, it was very French. One may be rude, snobbish even, but paramount is the enjoyment of good food, wine, and conversation.

What a lovely country.

Just in time, I'm so glad you have a one track mind like me...

2010-11-04T10:47:00.003-07:00

In Amsterdam Mike and I boarded a train heading south, pausing in the cities, Rotterdam, Antwerp and Brussels, and speeding through the forests and countryside of the Netherlands, Belgium and France, arriving about 3 1/2 hours later in Paris.

Paris was a mess. The trains were running late, the station was overflowing with travellers, some in lines looking disgruntled or resigned, others sitting forlornly on the floor with their luggage and pets and children.

There was a lot of French in the air, punctuated now and then by the Thalys theme, (dum duddy DAH-da,) which always put me in mind of Britney Spears' "Crazy". This was a little bit annoying as I couldn't recall any of the lyrics to that bit of pop drivel.

However, I figured that when one is in Paris, being slightly annoyed with something largely imperceptible to anyone else is going with the flow...as long as you look good doing it.

We decided we would get our tickets and move on, getting away from the inexplicable masses. (We never did figure out what was going on that day!) Mike was fussing about finding and going through customs. Which...were nowhere to be found.

I decided that if the French had wanted us to go through them, they would have made such obvious to even the most dense tourist. Perhaps with the event of the EU, security laden border crossings have become a thing of the past? Welcome to the new Europe.

We went on Paris' excellent and nearly foolproof Metro to find the station where we would pick up our next train. There was just enough time to grab a quick meal, and here I hang my head with shame that our first meal together in Paris was at...McDonalds.

Oh, the shame, the shame. (Then again, french fries in France...salty, hot and tasty...) It was also the most sterile meal I have ever ordered. We used an automatic machine to place our orders and to take our credit card, and picked up the finished product at the counter. I don't think we actually interacted with a real live human being for any of the process.

They weren't pommes frites in paper cones, but it did the job. I felt so damnably American, though. I kept hearing Red Buttons as Pvt. John Steele in The Longest Day: "Je suis American, je suis American".

Onto the next train, where we learned how it works on the trains: if you don't have a seat number on your ticket you might be able to snag one, but more likely, like us, you will be out of luck. They'll let you ride, but you have to find someplace to wait out the trip that's out of the way, and if there's no dining car, you'll probably end up, again like us, in the noisy luggage area between the cars.

We hunkered down with our luggage and an experienced traveller who'd brought a baguette -no McDonalds for him. With some squirming around we found a spot that was mostly out of the blast zone -the opening and closing doors let in the roar of the train- in a niche where no one would step on us and we could brace our knees to stay relatively stationary. Tuning out on headphones to non-Britney Spears music, well, we were good to go.

Mostly.

But it didn't matter! We were on vacation, on vacation in France, and going to the place around which we'd set the rest of our trip: Normandy. The train was taking us, moment by moment, towards Caen and Cherbourg, the landing beaches of D-Day, St-Mère-Église, places we'd long envisioned while learning about the second World War.

It was hard to believe we were really going there.

I demonstrated my excitement by taking half a nap. I'm like a little kid that way.

Mike had done exhaustive research on train travel, towns, tours, and B&Bs for us. Impressive, considering he was also wrapping up his work in Dubai, closing down the house, and dealing with his wife. (Yes, he only has one. I should think that would be more than enough, wouldn't you say?) Thanks to his efforts we'd decided to stay in the small but history-rich town of Bayeux, whose name we couldn't quite pronounce. (Bay-oo? Bye-uh? Beeh-you? Criminey.)

Finally, our carefully-chosen destination. We stretched kinked limbs, emerged into the sunshine, and began to hike towards the spires of the unmistakable Notre-Dame de Bayeux, a Norman Romanesque cathedral; according to the map our B&B was nearby.

When we got to our new home, Le Castel Nobel, I turned to Mike and said, oh, wow.

(photo from Le Castel Nobel Guesthouse website)

We spent less time than we might have admiring the outside of our new residence, being eager to drop off our luggage. Mike had warned me that the reviews of Le Castel Nobel had been stellar with the caveat that the hostess spoke no English.

We found this to be true. Which was fine, we were in France, after all. She spoke twice as much French to make up for our lack, utterly undeterred by the looks of confusion. Our responses were limited to oui, (yes) non,(no) and Je ne sais pas, which I thought translates as "I don't understand" but what actually means "I don't know."

Making absolutely sure we understood how to let ourselves in with the key, demonstrating several times (as non-French speakers we were in the category of obviously stupid but worthy of pity and compassion) our hostess finally showed us up a beautiful staircase to our room.

She never stopped talking. We were smothered in motherly French.

Upon entering our room, and escaping le déluge, I did a slow 360 and said once again, oh wow, Mike!

Luxurious, with a balcony one one side and a charming little alcove for reading looking over the gardens on the other, lovely bathroom with all the trimmings, elegantly decorated, and this was the view out our leaded-glass windows:

Mike did good. We headed out, giddy as kids, to explore a medieval French village that had been spared the bombings, the great Cathedral amongst the wood and stone houses on narrow cobblestone streets, and the River Aure.

And to find something better to eat than McDonalds.

This world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

2010-10-29T02:50:00.009-07:00

this gorgeous coffee (which is what you'll get in any cafe) qualifies as the third "must-do" in Amsterdam.

***************

OK, seriously? I've posted all of twice this entire month when my goal is to post every 3 days? Definitely below par. Let's fix that, shall we?

****************

Things on our escapee/transition vacation were progressing, as Mike and I could tell from our willingness to laugh at ourselves more than usual. Looking for a seat for us in a well-filled open air restaurant and bar in Amsterdam, carefully making his way through the patrons with their drinks, loud conversations and expressive gestures, Mike nearly ran into another man coming the opposite direction. Mike begged forgiveness and went one way, then the other, the other person mirroring his actions.

I had caught up behind him and was trying not to laugh too hard. Mike had apologised to his own reflection in a floor to ceiling mirror. I do believe the gentleman in the mirror was understanding. He was on vacation too, after all.

We can't leave Amsterdam quite yet without telling you about this: according to Mike, and I believe him, there are two places in Amsterdam one simply must go.

The first is the Rijksmuseum. Home to Rembrandts and Vermeers. My spousal unit is particularly enamoured with this enormous painting, the one you see when you first enter the museum:

It's called Militia Banquet and though we thought it was a Rembrandt, it turned out to be by a fellow named Bartholomeus van der Helst in the 1600's. For some reason, this painting is not as famous as similar paintings in the Rijksmuseum like Rembrandt's The Night Watch or Hals and Codde's The Meagre Company (below), but the details really sing to us. The expressions, the way your eye is directed, even the excellent sort of still life in the bottom lefthand corner, are all exquisite.

(Doesn't the main fellow, in the middle there, look an awful lot like Nicolas Cage?)

The museum is one of the best laid-out ones I have ever been in, nothing to detract from the paintings (except for the occasional similarity to quirky and very successful Hollywood actors) and, oh, thank you, thank you, thoughtful seating where one can rest, concealing jet lag as art appreciation.

The other place Mike felt was an absolute necessity was Anne Frank House. I am going to assume you know who she is, and what she came to represent for all of us, and especially Jewish and humanitarian history. I had re-read her diary, and been amazed anew at how wonderful and poignant it is. I expected to feel terribly sad at their hiding place, then...and I did. But there was something else I didn't expect. I came out of there feeling strangely hopeful.

The Secret Annex and museum at Anne Frank House has had more than a million visitors. Every time we went past there were lines around the corner of more people waiting patiently to enter. (I recommend buying your tickets ahead of time online.)

Mike was most moved by the marks on the walls measuring the children's' growth which suddenly stop, I wept quietly over the photographs of the smiling Anne, and her handwriting on pages of her diary beneath glass.

Anne's diary has been read by people from all over the world, more than 25 million copies have been sold and in nearly 60 languages.

Think of how many people that is, all thinking, even if only fleetingly, of a young girl, a girl whose life ended far, far too soon, and of the millions of others lost, like her. What Anne managed to accomplish through her honesty, depth and wisdom far beyond her 15 years, under circumstances unbearable for such a sensitive and free spirit, is nothing short of inspiring. So I leave you with a few of her words:

How wonderful to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway... And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.

It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.

...look at how a single candle can both defy and define the darkness.

- Annelies Marie Frank

12 June 1929 - early March 1945

In the port of Amsterdam...

2010-10-12T10:53:00.005-07:00

Amsterdam. A beautiful city that we had dashed through as a family two years ago (to the cries of "I need a POTTY!!!" when none could be found) and whose airport I knew extraordinarily well, having spent several 6 hour layovers within its admittedly pleasant but still airport-ish confines. Mike had gotten to explore Amsterdam during several of his kid-free layovers and now...it was my turn. We would explore at leisure and go anywhere and do anything we wanted.

In honor of no kids, we started out by having some very fine beers.

Which is a good thing to do in Amsterdam. They are quite fond of beer there. They are also, of course, quite impressively permissive, what with the Red Light District and coffeeshops where patrons (mostly tourists, apparently) openly smoke marijuana and other "soft" drugs are available.

However, Mike and I are boring. Really, terribly so. I apologise for the utter lack of titillating stories. The most exciting thing we did in Amsterdam was eat some magnificent Indonesian food. I also really enjoyed a street book market, where I bought a used Dutch version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Oh, and I bought a piece of Dutch apple pie. It was pretty good, enhanced by watching the bucketfuls of rain that were puring down outside that day while we sat cosily within and had espresso.

appel taart

Honestly, I wouldn't blame you if you stopped reading this blog right now.

I did take a photo of some, ahm, shall we term them gardening pursuits:

Keep in mind that these were smack dab in the middle of the tulip bulbs and other innocuous plants for beautifying one's existence. I'll bet customs agents are not chipper when people try to take these sorts of souvenirs into their home countries.

I did not take any interesting photographs in the Red Light district. It's frowned upon, so if you're curious, I suppose you'll have to go there yourself. The ladies of the night stand or sit in their red lit windows, wearing lingerie and looking largely bored, fluffing their hair or smoking, occasionally gesturing to potential customers.

Comparing Amsterdam's Red Light district to Patapong's in Thailand (both during the day when not much is happening, the nighttime possibly being another animal entirely), Thailand is far grittier and doesn't have a sense of humor about the whole thing. Amsterdam does.

We did the obligatory walk-through one of the streets and called it good. Interestingly, the area is the oldest part of town and quite lovely; the houses are some of the most valuable and sought-after real estate, no one seeming to mind the business being conducted one bit.

If it makes you feel better that you're still reading despite our lack of crazy (even though they were entirely legal, how weird is that?) pursuits, Mike and I did have beers before the book market, and he had beer while I was browsing the book market, and then we both had a beer together after the book market.

It's possible you might see a pattern here. Can't imagine what it might be.

No, you're right, that's not terribly interesting. This next bit would be some hot gossip, but then, I would never tell you that those legs being held down by the Gollem Pub's resident feline belong to Mike, a professed cat non-enthusiast. Not I.

We did almost get taken out by a trolley. Those are really quiet, and they sneak up on you, especially if you're crossing the road looking the wrong way. The bicycles have the ultimate right-of-way, and we pathetic pedestrians learned quickly that we had best keep out of their way. The bicycles there are great, outfitted with baskets and silk flowers and even some baby seats on the handlebars for the parent on the go. Interestingly, almost no one wears helmets.

We laughed uproariously at the Beer Bike, a strange contraption of much hilarity that is pedaled by a group who are also leaning on a bar down the middle of the thing, and well-lubricated thanks to the 30L of beer that comes with a booking. It looked like a lot of fun.

The fellow who jumped into one of the canals (and then had to be hoisted out by his friends to a round of applause from both sides of the canal) also looked like he was having fun, but then, I have to tell you, that water is brown and murky and more often than not smells like horse manure.

wickedly steep stairway, Amsterdam

I would love to see the statistics as to how many have been seriously wounded after falling down the steeply pitched stairs in Amsterdam while trying to get to the bathroom. This seems like an unkind thing to do to your drinking patrons; I was wary of the stairs even when cold sober.

Around every corner was another exquisite view,

or something stand-out interesting; even the graffiti was amusing,

and sometimes whimsically delightful.

All in all, what with the fun and beauty and everyone cycling (even if I was too chicken to attempt it this time around) and with its deep sense of history and tolerance, we found Amsterdam to be a truly great, vibrant city.

Even for us boring sorts.

You really got me, you got me so I can't sleep at night...

2010-10-09T12:28:00.005-07:00

There is something positively delicious about beginning a trip abroad all alone. Makes a girl feel like a movie star. Katherine Hepburn, maybe. I had the trousers for it.

I'd never gone solo on a flight before, and in recent history all flights had been with the kids. Suddenly a trans-Atlantic flight seemed like the ultimate in luxury.

Here's the deal: way back when in 2008, Mike and I were discussing whether to accept the offer to move to Dubai. We decided two things; first that we would make the most of the location and salary by travelling whenever we could, and second that we would take a trip to Europe at the end of our time overseas.

Just us.

Our last month in Dubai, with the "no kid" factor on the table, we kicked around a couple of other ideas...Casablanca and Marrakesh in Morocco, safari in Kenya and summit Kilimanjaro, hike to Kathmandu in Nepal?

OK, so those were mostly my ideas.

We decided to be kind to ourselves, rather than go for exotic or athletic, and went with the original plan to travel Europe. But where? it wasn't too long before everything fell into place: we would travel by train from the Netherlands, through Belgium and down into France. We each had places we'd always wanted to go, and to go together, well, what could be better?

The entire week while I was home in Seattle with the kids and Mike was wrapping up our lives in Dubai (and overseeing all the wrapping up of our stuff,) I had eshewed caffeine, rationalizing that I was going to be tired and headachy anyway. In a bold master stroke of planning, I would deny myself both buzz and wakefulness until I would want to be truly alert...on vacation.

During the week home I had done mundane but necessary tasks like renewing my expired driver's license and got another international driver's license to use in France, and generally stumbled around Walmart finding clothes warm enough for the kids to endure the Northwest summer, it being about half the temperature it was in Dubai.

At SeaTac I kissed and hugged the kids good-bye and had no trouble putting on a cheerful face. They would be happy and safe with Grandma and Grandpa, they were getting a vacation as much as we were. Thomas was unconcerned at my departure but Bethy cried at the last moment. However, I had her letter in my suitcase:

Which says: Dear Mom and Dad I love you, Me and Thomas hope you have a good time at Pairis (Paris) and all the other plaises (places) you are going love Bethy and thomas

Always good to have a signed permission slip, I say. That's like a Pass Go and Collect $200 card as far as I'm concerned.

Getting through security at SeaTac was like a dream. Seriously, bliss. Showed my boarding pass and passport, my one bag and shoes on the conveyor belt, through the scanner, then done and free as a bird to do whatever the hell I wanted.

No one to get lost, no one to feed or take to the bathroom or look after in any way, shape or form except for me.

Talk about footloose and fancy free...!

In a move that really should have solidified feelings of guilt and selfishness for such self-indulgence, but in reality was truly inspired and frankly felt great, I hit up the SeaTac massage bar and got the no-sleep flight kinks I'd acquired on the way out rubbed out of my neck and shoulders before boarding my flight.

I also browsed the stores, having a giggle over the Twilight-themed body sparkle lotion as an alternative to the more usual smoked salmon, coffee, or Sleepless in Seattle nightshirts to take home to your loved ones from the Evergreen State.

Yes, you too can shimmer like a teenage vampire. Officially.

The flight was uneventful. I had already seen all the movies on the flight out to Seattle, (well, sort of) and I wanted to save my book, but I only dozed a little bit, the body still utterly confused about what time it was. I had stayed up until 3:30 the night before, thinking that would make me sleep on the plane.

Nope.

Oh well.

The good travel fairies were on duty and made it so that even though Mike was flying about 3200 miles from Dubai and I was logging 4900 from Seattle, our planes arrived 15 minutes apart at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

I do so love those good travel fairies.

Amsterdam, then.

One of the things we really like about Amsterdam is how the city is so incredibly accessible from the airport. A quick, easy train ride and you're there, with the utterly distinctive buildings, canals and houseboats and the innumerable bicycles.

Of course, even in a well laid-put town like Amsterdam we wandered, slightly lost for a little while, (this is something of an obligation) rolling our suitcases determinedly behind.

Of course we eventually found our hotel, thanks to Mike's unparalleled instinct for direction, and climbed for the first of many times up what we had been assured would be the impressively steep 37 stairs to the reception desk.

We checked in, dumped our gear and of course went on an immediate and highly motivated hunt for a cappuccino into the transparent morning light of the Netherlands.

Who says you can't go home?

2010-09-30T09:52:00.003-07:00

While Mike and I were doing all the preparations to move back to the States, I kept thinking back to the 4th of July.

Now, the evening of the 3rd of July Bethy and I had been sitting on the grass before the Predictor run, she painting my nails (which I endured, much to the amusement of the other runners) when one of my Scottish friends queried So, whatta ye be doin' tomorrow fer yer special American day, it is tomorrow, right? How do all of ye celebrate, then?

I explained that the big things to do are to light fireworks, but that I didn't know where to buy them in the UAE, and to spend time with family and eat, especially hotdogs. Ugh, hotdogs, shuddered the Scot, which I thought a bit unfair coming from a fellow whose country invented haggis.

Bethy asked me then. "Mom, what's the 4th of July?"

(!!!)

Yes, time to take the kids home.

Partial education for her until then: our last Independence Day abroad we held a party for all our American expat friends away from their country and families. One of our guests, a Mexican-American, showed me how to make a Mexican-style hotdog, and I have to share how to make those with you as I may never go back: chopped tomatoes, onions, sour cream and bacon, with optional salsa and jalapenos. Lordy, was that tasty.

Letter from Bethy to her Grandma

The day to get on the plane came. Actually the night, since our flight was at 3:15 AM. We were once again going with the clothes on our backs, three suitcases and three carry-ons, though this time we also had a shipping container to catch up with us later, full of beautiful antique wood furniture and memories of life abroad.

To go with us, I had packed things like Halloween costumes, on the off chance that our container didn't make it to the States in time, and the few long sleeved outfits the kids had. The kids, for their part, chose most favored toys that they couldn't live a couple of months without.

Thomas made it very clear that his scooter HAD to come to come with, and though it folded up nicely, it did take a good portion of the suitcase.

About this time the water heater in the ceiling of the kitchen decided to rust through, dumping copious amounts of water. There is nothing funner than finding coming home to find carefully packed boxes of paperwork and books soaked, and two inches of water on the floor. Makes a fabulous impression on the people coming over who want to buy your refrigerator and oven, by the way.

And then there was the dishwasher...but maybe I'll save that story for another day.

I ended up repacking several times, making sure each piece was under the 20 kg limit as set by our first flight from Dubai to Amsterdam. You see, Mike had found us a flight that only had 2 hours of layover in Amsterdam instead of 6. Awesome, right?

However, the flight was on an Indonesian airline called Garuda. Garuda had been banned from European Union airspace for some time due to their abysmal safety record, but has recently earned its way back in. We told each other this undoubtedly made it a now even more safety-conscious and scrutinised airline than other airlines. Really.

Friends were helpful, saying things like only if I had no other choice would I fly Garuda.

Highly reassuring.

Then there was the question, would the airlines transfer our checked baggage from the Garuda plane to the Delta plane or would I have to somehow get it, check it, and make it back to the security area for our flight, two tired kids in tow? You are required to be at the security area an hour before your flight, leaving me with one hour, assuming the plane was on time...

Did I mention that I was travelling back to the States alone with the kids? That's right. Mike was going to fly out a week later. But that's another story...

Anyway, this was solo parenting through time zones once again. Very character building.

I spent a goodly amount of time and earned a few gray hairs making expensive and unhelpful long distance calls to Delta airlines. I'd already failed to garner much from internet research trying to figure out if there was a luggage agreement between their airline and Garuda. I'd also tried to find a phone number and then someone who spoke English with Garuda, which also came up a big fat zero.

Finally I ended up calling Expedia, where we'd gotten our tickets in the first place. Wouldn't you know it, they called Delta for me, (while I languished on hold, praying the call wouldn't get dropped), they knowing the correct back numbers not available to us mere passengers. After all those calls and worries, it turned out our luggage would indeed be automatically transferred from one plane to the other and I would only have to wrangle the kids and carry-ons. Yes!

It says something that I was excited to "only" have to deal with kids and carry-ons.

Mike dropped us off that the airport around 11, even though the flight was at 3:15, worried that we might need extra time at the airport. He'd had our UAE Residencies cancelled, and it seemed like everything was in order, but you never know. We had decided to keep the kids awake, rather than wake them in the middle of the night, so that they might sleep on the first plane.

Thomas managed to stay awake until 12:15, when they opened the check-in counter (until then we shared our once-again lifesaving portable DVD player with other small children waiting through the ungodly hours.) At the ticket counter the fellow in front of me was told in no uncertain terms that he could not have overweight luggage, and that he could either leave some things behind or buy another suitcase and pay for the additional checked luggage.

He went the second route and bought another suitcase. I felt really sorry for him.

Since we still had three hours to burn, security being expeditious as usual (and the passport control Emirati making sure to tell us he hoped we'd enjoyed living in his country, which I thought was a very nice thing to say), we decided to go and see if a teddy bear Bethy had lost in the airport the last time we went through had been turned in.

Thomas conked out on the bench, completely worn out, as we waited for the staff to go check.

Finally one of the staff came back.

Bethy: "Did you find my Snowy Bear?"

Staff member: "I think it has been destroyed, incinerated as it was not claimed. You understand, put in the fire?"

Yikes! Way to break it to her gently. Fortunately she reacted extraordinarily well, especially since it was something like one in the morning.

The Emirati was not actually heartless, by the way, just straightforward. He encouraged us to stay on the nice seats near security so Thomas could sleep, though I was too nervous about being away from a clock, and our flight to take him up on the offer.

When it was time to get on the flight, a nice fellow from Goa, India who works for the airline came up and volunteered to carry everything but Thomas onto the plane, before the rest of the passengers were allowed to board. This was an awesome deal, except that I couldn't find our boarding pass tabs. I had a passport pouch around my neck for important paperwork and I knew I'd put them in there...and it turned out I had, but, tiredly, I couldn't find them until I'd worked up into an embarrassed panic.

No matter, they were found (in a particularly sneaky inner pocket of the thing) and we boarded, while the fellow from Goa hoisted our carry-ons and told us all about how much he hates Dubai. I think he was mostly missing his family, which which I could sympathise, and didn't mention that we were going home "for good".

Once on the plane something new and unlooked for happened: almost all the passengers gathered blankets and started making out beds out across three or four seats apiece. The plane was largely empty, so they could, the 4 seat center rows being a hot commodity. I stayed put, sure the flight attendants would soon come along, chastise the lougers and make everyone buckle up and sit properly for takeoff.

Not hardly. The cabin lights were turned off before the plane even started its taxi. The safety film was very short and very quiet. By the time we reached altitude all the seat groupings around us were filled with those bunked down, and it was then that I realised that the seats reclined only the tiniest bit. Suddenly lying down across seats with a couple of blankets seemed like a really capital idea...and as I had foolishly waited rather than doing what all those around me were doing, I was out of luck.

I could have found a spot with vacant seats, but not near the kids. There was no getting around it, this was going to be an uncomfortable flight.

So the kids and all the other passengers and the flight staff and possibly the pilots slept well, hour after hour, and I sat there with a rotten crick from that fabulous neck snap up again and again as I'd almost go to sleep, then not.

Late in the flight the kids didn't even rouse when overhead came the request for a doctor or nurse on board to help with some sort of medical emergency. Fortunately for us and the patient, we were only an hour out from Amsterdam so the plane kept going.

By this point I got up and tried to lie down next to Bethy, which wouldn't have worked even had she not been the second squirmiest child in the universe (Thomas being the first), but there simply wasn't space for two on the seats anyway. Drat. Not a wink of sleep for the first 6 1/2 hours, which added up to no sleep since the morning before, putting me at some 27 hours of being awake.

Amsterdam was a bit of a blur, I know we bought some chocolate and got onto the correct flight with both kids, all the carry-ons, and no trouble, but the details are a little hazy.

Now the kids were relatively rested, certainly too awake to go back to sleep, and I was a total zombie. I would have liked to go to sleep, but as far as I could figure there was no way to get away with it. No matter how good of travellers our kids are, they simply can't be left completely unsupervised for 10 hours on a plane. So I tried to watch movies with little success, (I couldn't even tell you what the films were, seriously,) helped the little ones with airplane food, making the TV work, and getting to the bathroom at regular intervals.

There wasn't much of anything for Thomas to watch. Bless his heart, he was patient and good anyway.

Bethy's take on the flight. Note the heart containing our three names, so sweet.

Again, about an hour out from our destination, this time SeaTac International, the intercom buzzed, requesting a doctor and also a Russian translator. I always feel a little guilty about not being qualified to help out in such situations. What are the odds of being on two flights with two medical emergencies? Poor dears.

We got into SeaTac (now at 39 hours of no sleep for me) and they allowed the passengers on one side of the plane to disembark, but not the other. Which, of course, was where we were. So we stayed, and got to see the Seattle EMT squad come in and do their thing. Impressive. After the patient was wheeled out, we were allowed to get up.

Ah...Seattle air. Much cooler.

Then we gathered 2 of 3 of our suitcases from the conveyor belt. 2 out of three...one AWOL.

I wasn't too bothered, figuring it would find it's way home eventually. Then there was filling out paperwork, the loving embraces of patiently waiting family, the drive home...and I think I made it until 4 or 5 pm and that was it...I was utterly done.

No bed has ever felt as good as that one, with the comfortable knowledge that there were other loving adults to watch over the kids. Yay Grandparents.

The next few days while I drooled and stumbled over myself in that inimitable jetlagged way I couldn't decide...should I try to adjust to Pacific Standard Time, or stay -sort of- on Dubai time?

Because, you see, I was flying back to Amsterdam in less than a week to meet up with Mike. He would be coming out of Dubai then. And then the two of us had breezily planned to gallivant off on a just us no kids vacation.

Oh yes.

With a little help from my friends...

2010-09-29T09:23:00.004-07:00

I feel like such a

posting this. Actually, like a herd of them. I am not great at asking for help. But...it's time.

OK folks. Encourage me. I am officially, creatively stuck. I have SO much I want to share with you about leaving Dubai and the trip Mike and I took, and coming home to the USA, and usually I have what Stephen King once poetically (but accurately) described as "diarrhea of the keyboard" (hey, he's a horror writer, what can you do?) but lately, I am not feeling the love.

What's up with that?

I should mention that a huge part of my problem is that I'm off running until further notice...yes, injured again. Me and John Bingham, the Penguin, have the same thing, plantar fasciitis, and we're both sidelined from the sport we love. What freaks me out is that I've taken what to me is a staggering 6 weeks off, yet that's barely anything...some cases take years to get to the point where they can run again. I'm doing everything right to heal, but I should also suck it up and go to the gym to swim or do weights...and I will...I guess...

Whining about running aside, any helpful tips for getting over a writing hangover? Throw stuff out at me, whatever you've got, I'll take it!

Thanks for letting me whimper, everyone, hope you'll be patient with me.

Baby we were born to run

2010-09-18T07:31:00.004-07:00

Three crazy runners, flinging their sweaty headgear up into the air

I posted a "FLY HOME" countdown in the kitchen which dwindled down from double to single digits all too rapidly. Suddenly we were driving a rental car, packing our bags, and everything that used to be everyday was becoming "last-time".

This was hard with places, harder with people. Dubai expats are depressingly good at good-byes. Lots of practice, you see.

I have mentioned before that we have two groups of friends in Dubai, which overlap slightly. One group is Mike's co-workers. The other group consists of my running buddies. To celebrate and say our farewells to the first group, we went out for a typically Dubai-esque and therefore lavish Friday Brunch with some 30 folks from Mike's work. While there I discovered a particularly fabulous cocktail. Martini glasses filled with snow-white cotton candy, over which was poured fresh lime juice and gin.

Twas tasty, and quite beautiful. I made sure to appreciate several of them.

The other group. the runners, was, for me, harder to say good-bye to. For one thing, once you've run with someone else mad enough to attempt it in the Middle East, there's a certain indescribable camaraderie that runs deep.

So I ran one last nighttime run with Graham along our route on Umm Sequim Beach, the light show of the Burj Al Arab above us, the adhān (Islamic call to prayer) ringing out from the mosques and through the dark around us as we pounded the sidewalks and jumped over fishing lines strung out to dry. It was 106 degrees when we finished.

And a last run with Vicki and Linda, so humid that the camera lens fogged and fogged again from the heat and we couldn't get a great photo. Probably best, we were soaked and not looking our feminine best.

Then a last early morning distance run with the Dubai Creek Striders, having somehow convinced John and Nigel to join me (fools), including a brief, refreshing respite on an abra (water ferry) across Dubai Creek at the middle of the 17 kilometers (a lifesaver, we really were dying and desperate for a break), and posing with the iconic Emirates Towers after we completed the darn thing.

We might have been a little punchy.

The most touching good-bye of all, in many ways, was the last Predictor race Bethy and I ran at Safa Park.

Nigel, Bethy, the spire of the Burj Khalifa, John, and me. Yes, I generally wear a dorky headscarf, and yes, Bethy is in a ballet outfit.

That's how we roll.

Here she is, flying to the finish line. Even though I was accused, half in jest, of child abuse for allowing her to run in the hideous heat, all the Dubai Road Runners cheered her in.

She is running with John and that huffing and puffing is probably me trying to recover from my two lap craziness.

Some things are just wonderful. No matter where she goes, I know Bethy will get the same strength and pride from knowing that she ran in Dubai, with the love and encouragement of her friends and family.

It's a long way to the top...

2010-09-15T03:42:00.005-07:00

And now for something completely different.

From the world of scrabbling for a few dirhams to being above it all. Literally.

Perhaps you've heard of the Burj Khalifa. It would be the tallest building in the world. At 2,716.5 feet it is the equivalent of stacking 4 1/2 of Seattle's Space Needle on top of one another, which would be quite the balancing trick. Another Guinness Book of World Records experience for us? Yeah, we're there!

Actually, it holds seven world records.

You can see the Burj Khalifa from really, really far away, and it's both impressive and beautiful, especially when the light reflects off it at certain times of the day.

I couldn't get a photo of the whole thing. That's big.

The opening ceremony in January was an over-the-top fireworks display like nothing ever seen before. Visualise the Space Needle again, this time on New Years Eve, with the fireworks shooting off it. Now multiply by 4 1/2. I can't believe nothing caught on fire.

It was going to be called the Burj Dubai, and we'd called it that all the time it was being built, but in a surprise move, Sheikh Mohammad renamed it Khalifa as a nice thank-you for the monetary bail out of Dubai by Abu Dhabi.

Sometimes, a Hallmark card simply isn't enough.

I was a little sad several times when I read international news descriptions of the Burj Khalifa that said things along the lines of a dark spire stabbing into the burning sky, as if it housed the Eye of Sauron from Tolkien, perhaps.

Why the negative journalism, again? This is cool stuff, people!

I mean, the scope of this project is wild.

Even if I set the Burj Khalifa aside, I could write and write about the many buildings of Dubai, and how amazing the skyline is. The man-made islands are pretty stinkin' cool too. I kept hoping some enterprising company would give engineering and architecture tours of the city.*

Ah well.

Being on the world's tallest elevator ride alone would be, to my way to thinking, well worth the (online) price of admission. Online, adult tickets were 100 AED apiece -$27.22- and considering that I paid 50 AED apiece to take the kids to 3-D Toy Story 3, well, not bad. If you showed up to buy them at the Burj Khalifa ticket window, though, heaven help you. There the going rate is 400 AED -$108.91- apiece, which is kind of crazy even by Dubai standards.

The elevator had some issues not long after the tower opened early in the year, so they closed it to the public. People getting stuck in an elevator is not so great for tourism or the reputation of the city, you see. We'd kept our fingers crossed as the weeks and then months dragged by, that would open up again for visitors before we left Dubai for good.

And...it did.

I won't deny that it crossed my mind more than once that getting stuck in an elevator somewhere between the ground and 124th floor would not be the best of times, but this vague and mostly unfounded nervousness was easily overruled by our most basic rule: if it's a once in a lifetime opportunity sort of experience with a high likelihood of survival, do it.

We showed up at our assigned time, and once through the initial line and friendly security, found ourselves walking a somewhat long distance from the entrance at the Dubai Mall to the core of the building, made entirely painless by lots of educational and interesting displays and visuals about the history of Dubai and the Burj Khalifa, and hey, why not, an occasional moving sidewalk.

Also the heady scent of money, which made us a bit euphoric as we breathed it in deeply.

The actual elevator lobby is swank and dark, adding to the mystery and anticipation. Velvet ropes and beautifully uniformed staff, Arabic music swelling and wrapping around us.

And...the elevator. I was slightly disappointed that we couldn't see out of it. A dark enclosure, with a sort of light show and music to keep us entertained for the 60 second ride. Wait, 60 seconds to ascend 124 floors?

On second thought, it was a good thing we couldn't see out. One would need the stomach of a fighter pilot. That meant, at 124 floors in 6o seconds, the world's fastest elevator goes an average of 33 feet a second. Twice that at top speed.

As it was, the ride was smooth, pleasant, and was it just me or were they still piping in that money scent? Mmmmm.

The doors opened and we stepped out to the Observation Deck. Not the highest on in the world, would you believe (the tallest one is at the Shanghai World Financial Center) but, ohmigosh, this one is not only inside like in Shanghai, but also outside.

Whoa. Hadn't been prepared for that. And boy, was it ever straight down.

To give you some perspective, the tallest building we're looking down at on the left there is the Address Hotel, which is 63 stories high. The other skyscrapers look insignificant, don't they?

There was another view from the observation deck, straight up, which was dizzying. Above us were another 40-some floors, including the world's highest mosque on the 158th floor. Talk about a place to worship.

I admit it, I skittered inside. It was too high and bright and...yeah. A few minutes of that was good for me. Inside were huge windows, nice solid walls and air conditioning, thank goodness for that. And more views.

What views.

Sheikh Zayed Road, the major highway though the city, and downtown Dubai, the Gulf beyond.

You could walk 360 degrees around, looking out west to the World Islands being built,

east to the desert, south to the Palm Islands, Dubai Marina and the Burj al Arab, and north to the city. It was strange to see the cityscape and not see the Burj Khalifa.

Thomas and Mike, checking it out

I got kind of a kick out of the AT THE TOP merchandise available for purchase. Hey, if you've got it, flaunt it, right? I figure they earned bragging rights, to be sure. Along the lines of earning it, however, those water bottles on the second shelf are 299 AED. Somehow I managed to resist.

The impressively large Burj Khalifa-shaped camel milk chocolate (see top of entry for photo) was slightly more tempting, but since even a little piece of camel milk chocolate bought at ground level is indulgently priced, I didn't even bother to look to see how much they were. Best not to know.

Visibility out the windows, the real reason we were there, was good but not great, what with the early ever-present sand hanging in the air. Not surprisingly, the designers had thought of that and installed special telescopes all around that would show you not only what you were looking at, but with the touch of a button, what it would look like on a clear day, and what it looked like at night.

This was pretty darned cool, and I was impressed, but after the kids found Safa park, they were ready to go find some lunch.

Apparently it's hard to impress a Dubai kid. Yeah, Mom, it's cool, but you know, a pizza and some Magnolia cupcakes would be even better.

Oh, fine then. Be that way.

Back down the super awesome elevator, though more exhibits, which Mike and I were far more interested in than the kids would ever be,

Check this out! The original proposed model for the Burj Khalifa

and the kids' reactions as they loll on what is undoubtedly VERY expensive designer furniture

Were we impressed? Yes. Was it strangely anti-climactic to be there? Also yes. I don't know why, and that's OK. The Burj Khalifa literally stands alone as an achievement the attests to what people can accomplish if they set their minds to it and, as Dubai is well known for, refuse to see limits.

We were there, even if we didn't fork out for the T-shirts.

*The Discovery Channel has a show, Impossible City, about Dubai that I highly recommend. Here is a link to the part about the Burj Khalifa (which they refer to as the Burj Dubai) and our beloved Burj Al Arab: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bOd_v7Ukgw . Well worth 9 minutes of your time, in my admittedly biased opinion. You can really get a sense of what an enormously, unfathomably HUGE building the Burj Khalifa is, and what an undertaking it was to build it.

Gettin' had, gettin' took, I tell you folks it's harder than it looks

2010-09-11T10:13:00.006-07:00

I am going to give you one of the best pieces of advice any expat can give another:

Never, ever, by all that is good and holy, try to hold a garage sale in the Middle East.

No, really, I mean it. We would spare you that pain.

Now, a garage sale should be simple enough, right? Sort through all our stuff (see above) and sell or give away, oh, 3/4 of it.

Yeah, simple. Right.

The initial result was several piles and then sub piles and then more sub-piles and also the opportunity to re-raise the question that Mike had been asking nearly the entire 2 years of our expat experience: Natalie, how (and why) did you manage to acquire all this crap while living abroad?

Sometimes you have to roll your eyes and change the subject. I was getting pretty good at it, too. Knowing full well we have an entire storage unit of stuff back in the States, I had hoped to have become the very epitome of streamlined living, sensible, organised, and ready to pick up and move at any moment.

Yeah, right.

It was hard work but, sniping aside, rather freeing to sort out all our stuff. The kids were great about narrowing their possessions to one box of toys apiece. We had decided long ago to bring home our Persian carpets, of course, and the beautiful carved antique wood furniture. We'd bought those as investments, and because they made us happy, but most of the rest of it was slated for the chopping block.

Two Indian schoolgirls knocked on the door asking if they could clean the carport, despite the midday heat, for some spending money. I thought this fortuitous and was impressed by their enterprising spirit. For less than the price of a latte and cupcake I had a nice clean carport. They even put the swept sand into the bin instead of out on the street.

As soon as I listed the sale online I began to get phone calls. Did I have this? Did I have that?

One woman really took the cake. She wanted a Little Tikes kitchen set. This I had, and described it to her. She got pushy, then pushier. I was to give her a hefty discount, (why I'm not sure,) and then hold it for her until after the garage sale, when she could send her driver to come get it, then, when I had agreed to all of this, would I send her a photograph of it to make sure it was what she wanted, and by the way did I have any Gucci purses or high-end designer clothing?

Oh, for crying out loud...

The photo I sent, stipulating that the kid was not for sale, at any price.

This should have been a portent of things to come, but we marched optimistically on.

Beginning to set out things in the carport at 6:15 in the morning, it was already hot and humid, and getting hotter every minute. I made nice little piles of stuff, with room to wander through, and had advertised a "special deal" online for potential shoppers: fill a bag for all they could stuff into it for 30 dirhams. (About 8 bucks.) I thought this was clever. Make some money, reduce haggling, get rid of stuff, good for everyone, right?

My first customer came wheeling by within minutes, a Filipina nanny, pushing a pram. She began to take things from the carport floor, until I finally got through to her that I was going to sell the stuff.

Ah, so sorry madam, so sorry!

Immediately she started helping me to set things out, even taking things from me she deemed too heavy. I'm not sure what her motivation was. The working class here are often uncomfortable watching us delicate white ladies doing any sort of manual labor...like, oh, pushing a grocery cart or wiping a child's nose. It just isn't done.

Except of course by stubborn and strange individuals like myself.

I'm not terribly teachable on certain points, even with patience, though many have tried.

I wasn't sure what to do about this Fillipina maid helping. I tried to stop her, which proved impossible. The maids have an impressive survival skill, deliberate or not, that causes them to suddenly lose their hearing and/or ability to understand English.

Once I recognised what was happening, I knew it would be useless to protest. (OK, so I'm not completely unteachable.) Should I pay her, and if so, how much? What if her employers came along and saw their little boy parked alongside the sidewalk while she neglected him?

I decided to thank her profusely and told her to take anything she wanted. The smile I got in return and the lessening of discomfort was worth whatever she took, which ended up being a pretty good pile.

It was coming up on 7 AM. I was hoping to go inside and have a quick bowl of cereal. We'd decided that 8 AM was a good start time, figuring people might come a little early, but not that much earlier than that.

Then it happened.

I had mentally prepared for an onslaught of maids, the occasional wily housewife who liked a bargain, and little kids. I figured I could deal with the first two, and give the kids really great deals and throw in lots of free stuff to make their money go far.

What I was not prepared for was six or seven cars pulling up all at once, way before opening time, jostling for sidewalk parking spaces.

Out of each of these cars came 3 or 4 men. What the...?

In a brilliantly conceived formation attack, they swarmed. I have never seen anything like this. Suddenly the carport was utterly inundated with swarthy Middle Eastern men, perhaps of Iranian origin, though we never did find out. Mike thought they might have been Pakistani merchants.

It didn't matter where they were from, these guys were pros, and we, well, we were not.

All is fair in love, war, and apparently also in garage sales held by wussy white folk. Thickly accented and clever eyed, they circled and pounced like hyenas. In the herd of yardsellers, we were a sickly weak member, and as is the way of things, we needed to be weeded out to keep the rest strong.

Within moments I knew we were outgunned in every way. Had I priced things instead of trying for the 30 dirham stuff-a-bag deal, perhaps it might have gone better, but without prices marked, it was open season. The men swirled around me like a bad music video gone awry. I was getting thoroughly confused as to who was asking what about which, and it didn't help when they would come back with the same item three or four times, and if they didn't get the price they wanted, they passed it to a friend and sent him in for a go. Stating prices I knew to be reasonable received a scoff or hurt look. The game seemed to be pay a tenth of the asked price.

Sometime early in the melee one asked about small kitchen appliances. Now, here I had really tried to be on top of things. I had each appliance sparkly clean, displayed inside the house along the kitchen counter with the box and manual behind each.

The idea was that Mike would take interested people in one at a time to look the items over. This also might have worked except that the man asked if his friend could come along. Mike made the colossal mistake of agreeing, which opened the floodgates and several men tromped into the house. Well, that didn't go to plan.

I managed not to blubber or beg Mike not to go, leaving me to the rest of the sharks. You know how sometimes a shark will swim up to something like, say, a surfer, and not sure if that thing is food or not, take a test bite? Well, we were past that. There was blood in the water and the feeding frenzy was gearing up.

They rotated in tag teams, playing good cop bad cop, being pleasant, intimidating, scathing, gentle, as rapid fire as a machine gun, with some pawing through everything, and others lining up behind me, leaning against the wall and watching the white woman fumble and sweat, struggling to have any sort of control over what was happening with our stuff.

Their being behind me was incredibly uncomfortable in an area of the world where sexism is quite normal, unquestioned, alive and well. Being in a soaked shirt, in the heat, surrounded by men speaking another language which I couldn't understand (which made me think it must have been Farsi), well, talk about being in a poor position for negotiation.

45 minutes of total agony later it was all over. At one point I had whimpered to Mike (begging your forgiveness for the phrase) "I'm getting raped out here." "I'm getting raped in here" he moaned back, "what do you want me to do?"

The horde left as suddenly as they had appeared, arms full of loot, off to prayer. Oh, thank God. Literally.

Looking over the destruction left behind, Mike and I ascertained we still had two kids, tried to gather up the shredded remnants of our egos, and realised it was just about time for the garage sale to start.

I can't speak for Mike, but I no longer cared very much. Halfheartedly, I tried to organise the sad remains into some sort of order while we started to compare notes.

Outside, I had sold the ironing board and iron for the equivalent of $2.72. Again and again I would settle on a price even lower than I ever thought I would accepted for things and then the men would press even less money into my hand and try to walk away with the items.

There was a lot of bait and switch, and even one man who asked me how much some linens were, and then didn't even look embarrassed when I pointed out that he also had 8 other items in the bag beneath the linens. I had two or three of these men asking me how much something was at once, circling, feinting, then rotating out and letting the next team hit me up. I don't think anything walked away without being paid for; obviously there were some rules. A Pirate Code, if I'm not mistaken.

Inside my head there was some loud self-talk hollering: ACK! NO! STOP! All of you GET OUT!!!

But I'm too well brought up for such a tantrum, and I'm pretty sure they would have been surprised had I actually hauled off and let them have it. They were having the times of their lives, and, we figured out later, restocking their resale stores for practically nothing. Playing the game as they had their entire lives, it was not their fault I was the rawest of raw rookies trying to play with the big boys.

Not only that, but what if I'd thrown a fit, ordered them out, and they hadn't left?

Inside the house, Mike had also tried to corral the men with no success whatsoever. They were opening drawers and cupboards, going through all our things in the rooms, asking repeatedly if this that or the other thing was for sale, undeterred in the least by his no, no NO replies.

One man bought the microwave and then ate the package of cookies that was sitting on top of it. He at least had the grace to look a little embarrassed when Mike saw him and gestured to the few remaining crumbs for permission from Mike to finish them off. Like Mike would have said no at that point.

I would have to say that the cookie muncher was the best behaved of all of them, and he paid an OK price for the microwave, at least in comparison. Mike was harried and harassed down to his last nerve. He sold all of the carefully cleaned and displayed kitchen gear for about what one of them was worth. I deserve some sort of Wife Award for not giving him grief about the espresso machine. He, of course, deserves a husband award for the entire situation. You know, the one where he puts up with my nutty self, ideas, and all the crap I bring home.

At some point Mike had realised, and nearly panicked, that he had left the stack of cash we'd gotten for selling two of our cars, dirhams worth nearly $20,000, on his desk in his office with the door slightly open. I had noticed it and put it under a pile of paperwork, on the off chance that someone could see it through the window, but he didn't know that. The pile remained unscathed, fortunately, which was a huge relief.

We agreed that our favorite fellow was one who came outside and told me, "your husband says he will let me buy the air purifier (which cost us 1300 new and was in perfect working condition, with the box) for 30 dirhams." I looked aghast at him. "Good gracious," I said, "will you at least give us 50?"

The fellow went back inside. "Your wife says the price for this thing is 50." Fortunately Mike wasn't taken in, having bought the air purifier himself. The fellow argued back and forth (keep in mind that this is while others are still going through our house and Mike was trying to keep an eye on all the men in the different rooms and fend off other negotiators,) but Mike refused to be taken in, even when the man tried to put a 50 AED bill in his hand, the purifier beneath his arm and ready to leave. One point for Mike.

a great sign at the Eat and Drink in Dubai

I was drenched and felt used and tired and lousy about the whole thing. The Filipina maid had stood by mutely for much of the proceedings, with the expression one might have observing an unsavable flood victim being swept downstream. She, pleasingly, at least did not look gratified. I gave her all she asked for and bid her and her small and very patient charge good bye.

There were other things that happened that morning. The heat continued, 110, 115, I think the hottest was 118 while we were out there, which was plenty, especially with the high humidity.

I was terribly apologetic to the folks who showed up on time for the sale to start...and I didn't have all that much to offer them. At that point I was beaten down and conditioned to accept pretty much any amount offered to me, so those folks at least got really good deals. More than one person was rather taken aback. Really? Are you sure? they would ask. "Yes, yes, do enjoy," I would say, "sorry it's so hot, sorry there isn't so much left."

And then the bus showed up. Literally. These nice folks were from the Phillipines, were polite, if very frugal. The range of people who showed up was interesting, from nice to incredibly demanding. (I was giving out cold bottled water, still or sparkling and one woman complained I didn't do so quickly enough in her case. Considering that I wasn't charging for them and she didn't buy anything, I thought her a bit rude.) There was a steady trickle of folks for the next while, and then I pushed it all to the side and put a "FREE" sign on the remnants of a once-proud garage sale, and went inside.

I have run for the same amount of time under the blazing desert sun and not been half as tired as I was when I called it a day that morning.

There is a positive post script to this lesson, however.

When I first posted the sale online, I also got an email from a Filipina named Galilee (isn't that a lovely name?) saying that she was quite poor, had no furniture, and could she come get anything left over after the sale? I had a sofa bed that I was going to give away, actually, and told her she was quite welcome to it, and anything else for that matter.

While I was waiting for Galilee and her friends to arrive I heard rustling out in the garage and peeked out in time to see some Sri Lankan maids rooting through the leftovers, one having secured one of my fancy hats that I'd decided not to keep. She put it on immediately, this Ascot looking creation, and beamed, quite pleased with herself.

Galilee arrived soon thereafter, with a moving van and three friends. Round faced and pleasant, they worked fast and hard and not only moved the sofa bed and cushions, with some linens thrown in, but also completely cleaned out the garage area, sweeping it tidy and empty afterwards.

Then we went inside and slept like rocks in the blessed air conditioning.

Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection...

2010-09-05T12:55:00.007-07:00

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: out in the desert you can see some unusual and often amusing sights. One of my many quirks (again, a relatively harmless one) is to snap photos of signs, along the lines of Lonely Planet's Signspotting. Here are the ones I got this trip: First, darned appropriate,

I am sorry to keep harping on how hot is was, but really, that kind of heat drives everything else out of your mind.

These signs don't really make the grade, unless they were intended to communicate "Windy! Very windy!"

You can see how the bright desert light overwhelmed my camera. JeepJeep's windows are well tinted, and good thing too. Every time we got out of the car to look at something there were moments of blindness while our eyes tried to adjust to the desert sun, a challenge even with hats and sunglasses.

Then there was this sign, which seemed a little redundant.

Isn't it a bit like stating "watch for icy conditions" in Antarctica?

I'm just saying.

This next one I found utterly charming.

Isn't it great? Where else in the world would you see such a thing? Unfortunately for us, the incinerator-like conditions prevent such events from happening in the summertime, so we didn't see any racing.

Closest we got was a guy out walking his goat.

This is my favorite speed limit sign of all time, anywhere, ever:

The "steam" rising from the little car is actually the numbers in Arabic "120"...but I always think it looks like the occupants inside are either boiling or swearing. Probably both.

While we're on the topic of cars, let me move the story along. Now, I don't generally make generalisations, but I feel largely comfortable in saying that most Emiratis love cars, they know cars, and they love to drive. Enough of that driving is such that one can't help but notice it is firmly in the realm of insane: speeding, racing, and trick driving all are de rigueur.

Commonly seen, even in the middle of nowhere (perhaps because it is the middle of nowhere) are black skid marks from the tires of cars pulling "doughnuts."

This is one of those things that young, bored men with much money do.

We checked out "Scary Mountain" Tel Moreeb, one of the tallest dunes in the world,

where these same young men racing modified Nissan Patrols try to go fast and hard enough to reach the top without blowing up. Adrenaline junkies, feel free to YouTube Tel Moreeb or Moreeb Dune, but be warned, there are some seriously hair-raising accidents, some of which result in fatalities, so I'm not linking you this time.

While racing is going on there are nice men with fire extinguishers strategically located along the nearly 40 degree slope, and with good reason. We drove up to the dune, looked up and said Ohmigod, that is insane.

Looking at the tracks in the sand, apparently some rotten person had been driving a camel up it earlier in the day.

Poor camel.

Now, not everyone out in the desert has money and cars to burn.

These guys, for instance. Another common sight.

You do recall how hot I said it was, right?

Now, our last destination on our desert adventure was to go see the collection of a man who really, really loves cars.

The pyramid (yes, you read that correctly) of Sheikh Hamad bin Hamdan Al Nahyan, better known as the Rainbow Sheikh, houses his wildly extensive eclectic collection of cars.

Known as the Emirates National Auto Museum, it's free to visit. You drive up and find a parking spot, perhaps next to the Earth trailer home, which, it is rumored, is a 1:1,000,000,000 scale model,

and then you enter the pyramid past the monster truck-esque Mercedes

and proceed out of the hot sun (oh, thank goodness) into a giant hangar to wander paved road aisles between cars in mirrored parking spots.

The aisles are like this in case the Sheikh wants to drive any of his cars, and let me tell you, there are a lot from which to choose. There seems to be no discernible why or wherefore as to the sorts and number (more than 200) of cars he owns...little of this, little of that. Or, I should say, lot of this, lot of that.

What was interesting was that nothing is labelled, nothing is explained, there are no guides...you have to figure it out by yourself. Inshallah.

The Rainbow Sheikh has a veritable flock of Mercedes-Benzes, as one might expect from a Sheikh, like this one bling-blinged up with much gold,

Note the rainbow licence plate and the single-digit number. The lower the number, the higher up in the Emirate's ruling family the owner is. For instance, in Dubai, Sheikh Mohammad has "1" license plates on all his cars.

Far quirkier than merely a little gold were some Mercedes-Benzes he'd purchased in the 80's, one for each day of the week. He had them custom painted by the apparently accommodating Germans in bright rainbow sherbet shades with rainbow trim; pink, blue, yellow, lime green, candy cane red, orange, and one that was all colors. The cars also had, get this, coordinating rifles in their matching gun racks in the trunks of each.

Bethy was definitely liking the rainbow theme. There truly was something for everyone.

California Highway Patrol car? Check. Queen Elizabeth II's Rolls Royce? Youbetcha. An 1875 steam-powered carriage? Of course. How about a humble NYC taxi? Yup. Rows and rows of Land Rovers and Jeeps from many eras were fun for us, and there was even an off-road 4x4 Lamborghini. I'll bet that wasn't cheap.

When the Sheikh had collected a bunch of cars, he apparently decided to design some too, while he was at it.

They may look outlandish, but before you laugh, it was the 80's or so, and this guy seems to eat, sleep, and breathe cars. He has actually been consulted for his expertise by such companies as Nissan/Renault, and does so gratis.

No surprise. The members of the Royal Family of Abu Dhabi don't exactly worry about money.

Oil, of course, is the reason they needn't worry about such silly things as money, which reminds me, there is one more vehicle I neglected to mention.

The Rainbow Sheikh is extremely fond of the Dodge Power Wagon truck from the 50's.

Why? Simple. The Dodge Power Wagon is the vehicle that was used by early oil prospectors in the Middle East. That truck made him and his family rich beyond any one's wildest imagining, and as Han Solo once said, "I can imagine quite a bit."

So, to top off collecting a whole lot of these trusty little trucks, he also had one built on a grand scale. And by a grand scale, I mean that it is the largest car in the world. By far.

See the regular-sized pickup parked underneath?

The ratio of this truck to a regular-sized one is 64:1. They think it weighs about 55 tons. Not an easy thing to hoist upon a scale.

The wheels are from an oil rig transporter. The windshield wipers are from an ocean liner. It has four bedrooms with all the accoutrements inside, and you can put down the tailgate where it becomes a balcony...and have one heck of a tailgate party.

You have to hand it to the guy, he knows what he likes.