Amboise: Tour de Loire

Why do I stay up past midnight writing this blog? Because I hate myself. I also love all of you. I'm also committed to this thing, so let's get started.

After Bayeux, the next place I would be staying in was the town of Amboise, which is just east of the city of Tours in central France. To get there, I had to go back to Paris and then connect get on a train in the direction of Tours. Back in Paris I went over to an internet cafe that I had looked up while in Bayeux and typed up the first post on Paris. I also got a meal from McDonald's because, well, science needed to be conducted. One interesting thing about McDonald's locations in France is that they have these electronic kiosks with touchscreens where you can select your order in several different languages. It's a nice touch, and allows you to jump the language barrier if you're like me and you don't speak French. I might have mentioned these kiosks in a previous post, but at this time of night I really don't remember.

At Paris' Gare Austerlitz train station, I got on my train and departed for Amboise. The town of Amboise is on the Loire River, and in the greater area of the Loire Valley. This part of France was historically the border between northern and southern France and during the Hundred Years War the French kings and nobles built a number of castles here to defend the region from the English, who had taken over most of northern France. After the expulsion of the English from France, defensive structures were no longer needed, and country chateaus were built throughout the Loire Valley. Amboise itself posses a former castle-turned-chateau and for a short period was the seat of the French monarchy. It also has a few good connections to the various chateaus in the region around it, which is why I decided to stay there during my brief time in the Loire Valley. My host picked me up from the train station and brought me back to her house. My room was on the top floor of an old, three-story building right by the city center. There was another guest bed up there besides mine, but no one else was staying there at the time so I had the entire floor to myself. Quiet, peaceful, and scenic, you can't ask for much more in terms of accommodations. My host informed me that later that evening on the island in the Loire River there was going to be some sort of bicycle event and I decided to pay a visit. I made my way over to the island, and along the way was swarmed by a mass of bugs. I'm not sure if it was mating season or just a bad time of day, but the entire time I was walking across the bridge I was swatting them away from my face. On the island and away from the river the bugs cleared out and I my way over to the park where the bicycle festival was happening. Several hundred people on bicycles were gathered and a short while after I arrived the event began. From what I understand, the event was sort of like the cycling equivalent of a fun run and not overly competitive. The cyclists rode off in waves of forty or so, and were going... somewhere. I couldn't see in the dark the route they were following and after a few minutes I left to return to the house. As I crossed the bridge however, I looked behind me and saw that the first wave was closing in on me. I followed them and the cyclists that came after and saw that their route took them into the castle. From there I couldn't follow any further so I don't know where they finished their ride. I returned to the house and went to bed.

The next day was my only full day in the Loire Valley and I got a very full day of sightseeing in. I got up early and first paid a visit to the Sunday morning market which was by the river. Half of the market is dedicated to food and the other half to clothing and various other things. If I was staying in town for a longer period of time I might have bought something, but on such a short stay I couldn't justify it. I then spent an hour or so just walking around Amboise's old town and getting photos. Right next to the castle is the City Hall Museum, which is free, so I took a quick look in there before moving on to the castle itself. Like many of its contemporaries, Amboise's castle/chateau was originally a purely military structure but got converted to a vacation home once the English were no longer a threat to the region. It's nowhere as grand as Versailles, but it was a royal residence for a number of years so it has plenty of fine furniture and well tended gardens. The views from the ramparts are also great, albeit you can only see in a broad northerly direction. After I finished with the castle I was ready for the day's main event. Several miles southeast of Amboise is the famous chateau of Chenonceau, and from some online research it looked possible to ride a bicycle out to it. My host had let me borrow a bicycle, so with a free ride confidence that I could navigate the French road system, I headed off. Now, to say that my bicycle was not in optimal condition would be an understatement. The brakes were squeaky, the lowest gears did not work, and the tires were a little under-inflated. Still, I wasn't going to argue with free. There are signs with Amboise pointing the way to Chenonceau, so I followed those for awhile but after about two miles I knew I had taken a wrong turn somewhere because the signs now indicated that I was heading towards Blois, a town to the east of Amboise and not in the direction I wanted to go. I turned around and retraced my path back to a city map in a park, where I determined where I had gone wrong and recalculated my path. This process should have been quick, but for some reason this map was lacking any sort of "you are here" indicator, so I first had to figure out where I was on the map. With the route out of Amboise figured out, I set off again and managed to reach the French countryside. There are signs on the roads directing you to Chenonceau, though there are periods where you go for awhile without any signs or it's not quite clear which way to go. If anyone in the French transportation administration is reading this, please consider adding a few more signs along the route to reduce potential confusion. The ride to Chenonceau of scenic and took my past suburban neighborhoods, farmland, horses, and fields of sunflowers. It also had more climbing and descending than I expected. For some reason I was under the impression that the Loire Valley was mostly flat, so I got more exercise than I thought I would that day. It took about an hour for me to reach Chenonceau, including the stops I took for photos and water. But it was well worth it, because I was at one of the grandest of all the Loire Valley chateaus. Chenonceau is literally built on a bridge over the Cher River, and belonged to the French king Henry II. Henry gave Chenonceau to his favorite mistress, but when Henry died his (understandably pissed-off) wife kicked the mistress out and took over the place, building it into what we see today. Being built on a bridge, Chenonceau has a pair of long hallways that served as ballrooms and showrooms while the chateau was still in use. The chefs had their kitchens with the support columns and arches of the bridge and various royal rooms occupied the upper levels and the part of the chateau built on land. I spent a little over two hours at Chenonceau and it was after 6:00pm when I left. If my bicycle had lights on it I might have stayed longer, but it was best to return while I could still clearly see the road and the landmarks I would need to navigate back to Amboise. I arrived back in Amboise tired but satisfied, however a few minutes after getting back to the house I starting feeling intense pain from my left knee. Every time I extended my leg, by walking, standing up, or doing any sort of movement, pain erupted out of my knee when it reached a particular angle. I was very concerned that I had seriously injured myself, which could seriously compromise my plans for the rest of my Europe trip. At the same time, I was not going to accept that I had somehow crippled myself and for the rest of the day I was intermittently doing stretches and light exercise with my left leg. In retrospect this may or may not have been the right thing to do, but it seemed to work. Before I went to bed my knee was feeling a little better. In the morning it seemed to be back to the same level of pain as the day before, but with more stretching and just walking around, the pain subsided and I was able to move freely again. I'm really not sure what happened, but it was a scary few hours where it was looking like I might have been seriously hurt.

Not much happened on the day after the Chenonceau trip, other than me stretching and walking around town. My time in the Loire Valley had been brief, but enjoyable, aside from the knee issues. This is a region I think I'd like to revisit someday and see more of. The next city I visited after Amboise was Lyon, which will be covered in the next post. I don't know when that post will be written, but hopefully soon. Tomorrow I leave Florence and go to Padova (aka Padua). If I have access to a decent computer there I'll give it a try.

Bayeux: A Promised Return

It seems every time I commit to catching up with this blog, I just fall further behind. Right now I am in Florence, Italy, and I've got a keyboard that is close to a standard American one, though it has a few differences that are throwing me off. For example, the apostrophe is where the question mark normally is, so I keep having to pause whenever I want to create a conjunction. Excuses aside, let's get back to the storyline. Today's entry is from my time in Bayeux.

The story of my visit to Bayeux actually begins with my brief stopover in the town of Caen, which is on the way between Rouen and Bayeux. I visited Caen to go to the World War II memorial museum, which is one of the better WW2 museums I've been to in my time. Additionally it has memorial gardens in the back and a restored German bunker. I would have liked to visit a few more things in Caen before leaving, such as the castle, but I only had a short window before my train to Bayeux, so I'll just have to come back one day.

Bayeux is a town I told myself I would one day return to. Three years ago I day tripped out to Bayeux from Paris and really liked the feel of the town. I would have stayed a day or so but my schedule at the time didn't allow for it. My return to Bayeux thus felt like fulfilling a promise.

In Bayeux I got picked up from the train station by my host Nathalie, who lives with her husband and two children in a house in the northeast part of Bayeux. That said, Bayeux isn't that big and you can walk almost anywhere, so it's not like I was far away from anything in town. As for the house, I was surprised by how modern it was. Being not in the historic core, it must be newer than most of the buildings in Bayeux. It was really nice. Dare I say, it was ballerific. Ok, so that's probably not the best description, but let's just say it was the best Air B&B accommodations I've stayed at so far. Nathalie and her husband spoke a little bit of English; enough for basic communication. It's these sorts of situations that make me wish I knew a bit of French so that I could chat a bit with French people. Still, I got by with just my basic French words and phrases, so anyone else who is English-only shouldn't be afraid to give France a try.

The day after my arrival I had been planning on taking a train out to Mont St Michele but the train schedules were awful for getting out there. I would have had to get on a 7:30am train and I would have been stuck at Mont St Michele until the late afternoon. Instead I opted to take a spot on a minivan that ran daily between one of the Bayeux hotels and Mont St Michele, and booked a seat for the next day. With this change of plans, my second day in Bayeux was redirected to other things. I paid a visit to the Wednesday morning market and the town cathedral in the morning. The Bayeux cathedral is nearly as large as the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, which is impressive for a small town like Bayeux. Although Gothic in design, it has some distinctively Norman artwork carved into the stone on the inside. Unfortunately I'm not able to upload any photos to Blogger at this time so you'll just have to wait on seeing what I'm talking about. Once finished at the cathedral, I went back to the house to pack my daypack and then went over to the bus station. From there I caught a bus to the American Cemetery at Omaha Beach. I have no family or friends of family buried there, and had visited it last time, but I felt compelled to come back. Visiting the cemetery is an undeniably powerful experience, even if you're not a history buff. The thousands of white crosses marking the tombs of the dead is a sight you will not soon forget. Particularly moving are the ones for the soldiers whose bodies could not be identified. After walking the length of the cemetery and back, I descended down to the beach. 71 years has removed nearly all signs of what happened on that beach, though you can still find scattered sections of pillboxes and bunkers here and there. For the sight of such a horrific battle, it's a strangely peaceful place. People are out walking, the breeze is blowing, and the small waves gently slide over the sand. It started to rain lightly and my time there was coming to an end, so I returned to the bus stop and caught the bus back to Bayeux.

The next day was the long-awaited trip to Mont St Michele, which had been an unrealized goal of the 2012 Europe trip. A van that leaves at 9:00am and goes directly to the parking lot at the other end of the bridge is a lot better than a 7:30am train that only takes you to a few miles away and then you would have to catch a bus the rest of the way. It took just over an hour to reach Mont St Michele from Bayeux, and during the ride I was intrigued to learn that our driver, a guy named Benoit, was a former entertainer who used to work in Malaga, Spain. Mont St Michele lay at the northwestern edge of my European journey, and reaching it was almost like reaching the end of a pilgrimage, only not as dramatic and with the pilgrim being a silly American tourist. As some of you know, Mont St Michele is a village with an abbey at the top of town. It's famous because each day it temporarily becomes an island when the tide comes in. From what I understand, only 40 or so people actually live on Mont St Michele, so it's much like Venice in that you have a small local population that is overrun each day by thousands of tourists. Even with the tourist horde, Mont St Michele was still a worthwhile visit for me. I hiked up to the top of the hill and explored the abbey and got plenty of photos along the way. The abbey gives Mont St Michele something of a citadel appearance, and apparently it was the one part of Normandy that was never captured by the English during the Hundred Years War. After awhile at Mont St Michele I returned to the minivan and I and the other people riding in it returned to Bayeux. On the way back we stopped at this biscuit shop which one of the other guests had heard about. I didn't buy anything, but there were free samples lying around, so I helped myself to a few of those. Ok, maybe a lot of those. I also may have fallen asleep on the ride back to Bayeux. I'm really not sure. Back in Bayeux I visited the famous Bayeux Tapestry and then went over to the Battle of Normandy Museum. At this point I've watched and read enough World War 2 material to write some sort of term paper on several of the campaigns, but I still frequently visit World War 2 museums. Right by the Battle of Normandy Museum is the British War Cemetery, which serves much the same function as the American Cemetery, albeit it has soldiers from multiple nations, including a few Russians and Germans. Most striking to me about this cemetery was that many of the tombstones had messages from friends or loved ones carved into them. Children saying goodbye to fathers they hardly knew. Wives to husbands they missed dearly. Visiting places like that isn't easy, but it's important we remember the price of war and how it touches both the dead and everyone connected to them. As I left the cemetery the day was ending, so I returned to the house.

My final full day in Bayeux was not overly eventful. I slept in a little and spent part of the morning making plans for my train schedule from Bayeux to Amboise the next day. In the afternoon I visited the seaside town of Arromanches. I arrived in Arromanches by bus and got off at the hill overlooking the town. It also was where the Arromanches 360 Theater was. The 360 Theater is an interesting setup, where you have a room with nine screens all around you. I watched a 15 minute video on the D-Day invasion, which was cool, but a little overwhelming since the video is all around you rather than just on a single screen in front. Not all the screens are active at all times, but at a few points all are, and I'm guessing that it is meant to mimic that audio/visual overload that a soldier would experience in the heat of combat. The film finished and I descended the hill to Arromanches proper. There's really not much of anything to do in Arromanches other than just walk around and take photos. Arromanches was the sight of a massive artificial harbor that was built right after the D-Day invasion and remnants of it are still visible in the water. Speaking of water, I did see a pair of girls go out for a swim, and I imagine that English Channel water is very cold. Being a seaside town, Arromanches has the saltwater smell in the air, along with the sound of seagulls and waves, which reminds me of going to the beach back in San Diego. I walked along the seaside promenade for awhile and got some photos before heading to the bus stop and returning to Bayeux. Nothing much happened the rest of the day, but I wasn't looking to do anything else at that point. All my sightseeing was done at that point.

The next day I got my things together and left for Amboise, which will be the topic of the next post. It is now 2:20am, and I am the only guy here in the hostel lobby except for the dude behind the front desk. I really ought to go to bed at this point. The post on Amboise should be shorter than this one, so I may just try to crank it out tomorrow night. We'll see.

Rouen: Introductions

After two massive posts on Paris, I am finally writing about the the towns/regions that came after it. I will always be behind on these posts, but now I can start closing the gap. We begin in Rouen, France.

I arrived in Rouen, France, in the afternoon by train and met up with my host at the metro stop near his apartment. Rouen was my first time staying in an Air BnB residence and I was curious to see how it would go. My host, a guy named Alexis, spoke a decent amount of English, so there wasn't too much of a communication barrier. We shared a dinner on my first night and got to know each other. It turns out that Alexis is a technician for the Rouen police department and he knows bits of America. He also owns several kittens. Some of you know that I consider cats to be the spawn of Satan, but I put that aside for the duration of my time in Rouen. The room I was in was just Alexis' spare bedroom, which I guess is the whole idea of Air BnB. The room also had a small balcony, which would have been good for writing if it hadn't rained while I was there. At Alexis' suggestion, on my first night I paid a visit to the Rouen cathedral and saw the light show, which was a pair of short films that used the surface of the front of the cathedral as the screen. They were actually quite cool and I have to applaud the makers for the creativity in them.

The next day was my full day in Rouen (I was only staying two nights). I still hadn't fully recovered from several days in Paris of full-throttle tourism, so I slept in. It was a foggy and rainy day in Rouen, as is common in the Normandy region of France, and there's also not too much to see in Rouen, so I was in no hurry to get started. When I did set out, I first went over to the grove that marks where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. Joan is a fascinating historical character with a brief (she was 19 when she got executed) but important role in the history of France. Right next to the grove is a modern church dedicated to her that has a distinct Nordic look. The ceiling looks almost like an upside-down ship's hull. Stepping out of the church and back into the rain, I walked through town, passing under the old clock, which has just an hour hand, (there was no need for a minutes hand when it was built) and came to the Rouen cathedral. Rouen's cathedral shares the Notre Dame name with the famous church in Paris. For those who don't know, Notre Dame just means "our lady" (usually a reference to Mary, the mother of Christ) and there are quite a few churches across France that share the name. I would have gone in, but it was closed until 2:00pm, so I moved on and came to St Maclou church, but it was also closed until 2:00pm. Looking at my watch, I saw that it was 1:53pm, so I visited the nearby Plague Cemetery, which is a medieval courtyard that was used as a mass grave when the plague swept through Rouen. I pick the most cheerful sights to visit, don't I? After a few minutes I returned to St Maclou, which was now open, and afterwards returned to Notre Dame. Though Notre Dame looks like any other gothic church, it has some distinctive stonework, a result of the fact that the church has had to be repaired multiple times over the history of the church. In the early days it was Viking raids and in the 20th century Notre Dame took several direct hits from World War 2 bombing raids. To finish my day I paid a visit to the Rouen Fine Arts Museum. The museum is like the Petit Palais in Paris in that it has a broad spectrum of items and no particular focus. In the central courtyard there was a large jigsaw puzzle that I spent a few minutes working on. I added my contribution to the puzzle and then walked around the museum until closing. I may have also accidentally gone into the special exhibit without paying. When I left the museum it was early evening, so I bought some food at a grocery store and returned to the apartment.

The next morning I slept in again, packed, and left for my next destination. My stay in Rouen was brief, but it was an important introduction to Air BnB and what to expect from it. The next three places I was going to were also Air BnB residences, so I was soon to be well experienced with staying in other peoples' homes.

Paris: The Three Day Campaign

Hi all. I am currently in Nice, France. The place I'm staying at has a few computer terminals, so I'm going to try to get more blogging done while I'm here. That said, all these computers have French keyboards and I've been unable to switch to standard qwerty setup, so I'm typing at a snail's pace. Apologies again in advance for more typos than normal.

My last post on Paris gave you a view of my time in Paris from 30,000 feet, but at the end of it I was feeling really unsatisfied with the lack of details and commentary. So, I'm going to stall the engines, put this plane into free-fall, and try to pull up before we hit the ground. The focus of this post will be particularly on the three days of August 27 to 29.

August 27 was a day of perpetual rainfall. It was raining when I woke up, it was raining every time I stepped outside, and it was still raining when I went to bed. Seeing the weather forecast, I had decided to try to spend most of the day inside at museums, churches, and other places with roofs. I started the day at the Pantheon, which is not the same as the one in Rome. The Pantheon in Paris used to be a church but was converted to a secular structure during the French Revolution. It swung back and forth between being a religious building and being a secular building, so you'll find a sculpture of the secular state right by a Jesus mosaic. Currently the Pantheon is something of a mausoleum, holding both the tombs of a number of famous French persons, like Voltaire and Rousseau. From the Pantheon, I walked through the Luxembourg Gardens, which would have been nice if it weren't raining. The gardens also have the summer residence of the French senate, so there were a number of cops on patrol. The ones standing around the perimeter were in these glass booths, which allowed them to keep watch while staying dry, but they also look kind of silly standing in them. I continued on and visited a pair of churches; San Sulpice, and St Germain de Pres. In addition to taking in the art and architecture, stopping in these churches allowed me to get out of the rain and dry off for a few minutes. After St Germain de Pres, I went to the Cluny Museum, (name pronounced like the last name of famous actor George Clooney) which carries a number of things but specializes in medieval art. The Cluny is one of those museums you might be tempted to skip over but its worth the visit if you can spare the time. Speaking of which, I was trying to make the most of my time that day and quickly walked over to the Ilse le Cite (the island in the Seine with Notre Dame cathedral) after leaving the Cluny. The line for entering Notre Dame was unsusually long, so I went over to nearby St Chapelle and stood in line there for a few minutes to get in. When you have a minute, do a Google Image search for St Chapelle and you'll better understand what's in there.The upper chapel is nearly a wall of stained glass on three sides. The windows are meant to tell Bible stories, which I suppose would have been helpful to an illiterate population, though you'd need a priest to tell you what everything was, and the ones towards the top are hard to see. When I left St Chapelle I went back to Notre Dame, but the line was now even longer than before, so I decided to leave it for another day and instead went over to the Louvre. I had visited the Louvre three years ago and saw the Mona Lisa and the other stuff people normally go to the Louvre to see, so this time I figured I'd try to get off the beaten path and see different stuff. I didn't even get a museum map; I just started walking. Normally this would be suicide, but I found myself strangely not knowing where I was going. It's true that you could spend a whole day at the whole Louvre if you wanted, so after awhile I just called it quits and went over to the Orsay Museum. There will forever be debates on the respective merits of the Louvre and Orsay museums, but if there's one thing the Orsay really has going for it, it is that the Orsay is much more manageable to visit. When you visit the Louvre you always feel like there's still more to see, because there is. At the Orsay, you can genuinely see everything in a single visit and leave with a sense of accomplishment from doing so. Having "seen" the Orsay, it was now past 8pm and I hadn't eaten since 7:45am. I got a meal from McDonalds (as part of my research on European fast food) but also made sure to buy some healthier food on my way back to my hostel. Were it not for the rain I would have stayed out longer, but at this point I was thoroughly soaked. I was up late writing in my journal and doing other things, all while listening in on other peoples' conversations. It's not that I was intentionally eavesdropping, but it's hard not to hear when they're right by you. I knew it was time for bed when I started to rant about one such conversation in the journal.

August 28 continued my assault on the French capital, and with the rain now gone I could spend more time outdoors. I talked briefly with a guy named Ben, who was from Dallas, over breakfast. He was at the end of a two week vacation in Europe and was about to be returning stateside. We said goodbye and I went back to Notre Dame, which now had a much shorter line than yesterday. A few minutes in line and I was in. Gothic style churches like Notre Dame are not as ornate as the baroque or rococo ones that followed them, but on the other hand you can better take in the actual structure of the church since its not covered in ornamentation. You can also go up Notre Dame's towers but I decided to put that off for later, partly because the line extended a good distance down the side of the building. Instead I went over to the Army Museum. I had been to the Army Museum the last time I was in Paris and had focused on the medieval and 20th century sections, so this time I spent time in the 19th century section. This era is roughly book-ended by the Napoleonic Wars and the disastrous (for France) Franco-Prussian War. Seeing stuff from the Napoleonic era was fitting since I next paid a visit to Napoleon's tomb, which is connected to the Army Museum. A giant coffin is fitting for a megalomaniac of Napoleon's stature, and a few other French military greats are in their own oversized coffins nearby. I suppose having the biggest coffin around is a consolation prize for being the best French general of all time, but ultimately losing. But there was no more time to give Napoleon; I had to get to Versailles. It takes about 20 minutes to reach Versailles by train and on arrival during high season you arrive to find that a thousand or so other people had the same idea as you. The tour groups can make the inside of the chateau miserable, so you have to try to time yourself around them, arriving either early or late in the day. I went through the chateau and then headed out into the gardens. There must be a gun range near Versailles, as I kept hearing gunfire near one end of the gardens. In spite of all the crowds, Versailles is still worthwhile to visit. Nearly every other great palace in Europe is modeled after it and if you're willing to journey out to the more distant parts of the gardens you can escape much of the tourist horde. With the sun going down, I returned to Paris and went back to Notre Dame, where the line for the tower was now reasonable. The tower of Notre Dame has good views of the surrounding area, but I was frustrated by the nets over the viewing area, as they made it unnecessarily hard to take photos. There are better views of Paris that don't come with inconveniences like that, so I don't think I'll be climbing Notre Dame's towers again. When I got down I got on the metro and speedily went over to the Arc De Triumph to climb to its roof, but right when I arrived they closed it down. Actually, I got there six minutes before they were supposed to close, so I felt a little cheated, but I'm not going to argue with the security dudes with guns. A walk down the nighttime Champs Elysees was my consolation before returning to my hostel, where emails, Feacebook updates, and journal writing, among other things, were waiting for me. I finished up just before 2:00am.

Compared to the two days before it, August 29 seemed almost reasonable, in terms of time spent out and about. I was a bit nervous that I had annoyed the other people in my room by showing up late and being in and out of the room until early morning, but there were thankfully no hard feelings. I started the day at the Montparnasse Tower, which you can think of as a less glamorous alternative to the Eiffel Tower. Montparnasse Tower is an awkwardly out of place skyscraper in the middle of Paris that I think has the best all-around view of the city during the daytime. It also usually has short lines, so you normally don't have to wait long to ride the elevator to the top. From up there you can take in all of Paris, and as a bonus you can't see Montparnasse Tower, because you're in it. I came down the tower after a little while and went over to the nearby Gare Montparnasse train station to catch a train to Chartress. I was visiting Chartress to see the town cathedral and the town itself. Granted, there's not much to see beyond the cathedral, but I still enjoyed my time there. One of the things you'll notice about Chartress Cathedral is that its towers look different, and that's because the church burned down at one point and one tower was made of wood and got consumed while the stone one survived. I made my way back to Paris, and interestingly enough I didn't get checked for a ticket on either the ride to or from Chartress. I noticed this on other regional train rides and I don't know if the ticket screening for regional trains is randomized or just inconsistent (on the trains between major cities they always check). Back in Paris I visited the Petit Palais, which is a free museum near the end of the Champs Elysees. It is sort of a jack of all trades museum, possessing a wide spectrum of art and artifacts but not specializing in any particular thing. I left when the museum closed and had intended to just catch the metro back to my hostel, but I saw a bunch of people walking along this path beside the Seine, so I decided to join them. People were out walking, playing games, and lounging. I came across this large chalkboard that everyone was writing on, and I wrote my name and took a photo. I also wrote "Yeah Wing!" (some of you know what that means). When I reached the National Assembly building I left the crowd and returned to the hostel to eat and clean up. Since it was my last night in Paris, I went over to Ile St Louis and got both ice cream and gelato from places I had read about. It seemed like everyone was hanging out along the banks of the Seine, so I found my own spot and watch the boats go by for a few minutes. My time in Paris was about to end.

The next day, August 30, I departed Paris and got on a train to Rouen. My time there will be the subject the next post. Going forward I'm going to try to do one post per major city/region. Stay tuned.

Paris: Breaking the Record

Hello all. I finally have my first post on my Europe trip. Right now I am in an internet cafe in Paris waiting for my train to Amboise. I just arrived back in Paris a half hour ago after spending six days in the Normandy region of Franc. This internet cafe has an American-style keyboard and reasonable rates for internet usage, so with a few hours to burn I figured I would grind this post out. Apologies in advance for typos and what not. I'm just going to publish this once I reach the end and consequently there will be no proofreading.

My flight from Colorado to Paris should have been unremarkable but the first flight from Denver to Minneapolis got held up on the tarmac due to an electrical malfunction. About twenty or so minutes passed before it was fixed and we took off, but that small delay had a big effect on my schedule as there was supposed to be just under an hour between the landing in Minneapolis and the departure to Paris. Sitting near the back of the plane, I took awhile for me to get off and then I had to move quickly to the gate with the Paris flight to avoid missing it. I was one of the last people to board the flight, but thankfully Delta knew about the trouble and they were specifically waiting for me and the other people who had gotten delayed on that Denver-Minneapolis flight. Once on board the Paris flight there were no issues and I found my seat towards the back of the plane. The only thing worth mentioning about the flight was that the guy sitting next to me was going to Algeria after landing in Paris, and that will be the subject of a post after this trip is over when I compile a few notable individual stories. I slept a little on the flight but not much. Perhaps it was the anticipation keeping me awake.

On arrival I made my way over to the immigration processing line, but was surprised to find that the guards weren't checking everyone. Myself and many others just passed through without getting our passports checked or stamped. While this saved some time, I'm a little concerned that this may cause issues later on. From the airport I had to catch a suburban train to the city center. The ride cost ten euros, which was great because I had the ten euros that were left over from my 2012 trip with me. After arriving in Paris, I went through the whole routine of checking in at my hostel, reorganizing the stuff in my backpack, getting my day pack ready, and so on and so forth. With all that done it was now almost 12:30pm and I had in mind a few things to do with the afternoon. As I made my way towards the nearest metro station I took special note of the neighborhood I was in (for those who want to know, my hostel was nearby the Belleville metro station). There were a substantial number of Asians and Asian stores, with Southeast Asians seeming to be the largest group, though there were also a fair number of East Asians as well. France, like Britain, gets a lot of immigrants from its former colonies, so I'm guessing the reason all the Southeast Asians goes back to the French occupation of Indo-China. When you think of Paris you don't normally thing of Asians, but a decent number of them do live there, though they seem to be concentrated in neighborhoods like that one. Having taken in the area around the hostel, I got on the metro and made by way to Sacre Coeur.(sorry, this keyboard doesn't have the key to create that correct letter that combines the "o" and the "e")

Sacre Coeur is at the north end of the Paris' tourist zone. It's a magnificent church built on a hill with eastern-style onion domes and a good, albeit distant, view of central Paris. The downside is that the main street and stairs leading up to it are a gauntlet of tourist shops and possibly illegal street merchants trying to sell you stuff. Just keep walking and don't get bogged down, as reaching Sacre Coeur is well worth the annoyance endured getting to it. Technically there are no photos allowed inside Sacre Coeur, but I was able to discretely take a few. After finishing at Sacre Couer I went over to La Defense, which is the financial district of Paris. I went out there to go see La Grande Arch, which looks like a modern version of the Arc de Triumph, as well as to take a walk past the outdoor art that's out there. La Grande Arch is perfectly in line with the Arc De Triumph and the Champs Elysees, so if you had a laser pointer at La Grande Arch you could make an uninterrupted line all the way from La Grande Arch to the Louvre. Coming to the Arc De Triumph, I then walked down the Champs Elysees and then took the metro over to the Eiffel Tower, where I climbed the stairs up to the second level and watched the sun go down on the city. In the days and weeks prior to this trip I had been questioning in my head whether or not I was going to do the whole tourist thing again in Paris, but at the end of that first day in Paris I knew that not only was I going to do it again, I was going to do it even more hard core than last time.

A lot happened over the following three days, more than I could recall before this session at the internet cafe ends. Let's just say that 2015 Ricardo put 2012 Ricardo to shame in terms of sheer volume of sightseeing. I would get up early, eat and get ready for the day, and then be out in the city seeing and doing things until past midnight, only stopping to eat dinner or catch the metro to the next location. While there were more tourists in Paris this time, being summer rather than last time when I was in Paris in the spring, I wasn't going to let that slow me down. On day two it was the Pantheon, Luxembourg Gardens, San Sulpice, St Germain de Pres, the Cluny Museum, St Chapele, the Louvre, and the Orsay Museum. At the end of the day I was back on the Champs Elysees, and was surprised to find a McDonald's. Eating there felt strangely patriotic. It was also for science, as I needed to compare American and European fast food (more on that in a different post). I would have kept going and explored the city more at night but it had been raining non-stop the entire day and I was sufficiently soaked as to need to get out of the rain. On day three it was Notre Dame, the Army Museum and Napoleon's tomb, Versailles, Notre Dame again (going up the tower), the Arc De Triumph and walking around at night for two or so hours. On day four I slowed down a little with a day trip out to Chartress after going up the Montparnasse Tower in Paris. The main reason I went out to Chartress was to visit the cathedral but the town itself is also worth the visit. Back in Paris I visited the Petite Palais and then found myself walking along the Seine. A lot of people were out and walking on the pedestrian promenade along the river, so it seemed like a good idea to join them. Along the way I came across a big chalkboard that everyone was writing on, so I took a moment and wrote my name on it (and got a photo). I came back out to the Seine later that night and walked by Notre Dame before going over the Ile de la Cite (that other island in the Siene right next to the one with Notre Dame) where I ate way too much ice cream and gelato. Actually, I take that back. There's no such thing as too much ice cream and gelato. I saw a lot of people sitting alongside the Seine and being sociable. Given that everyone was in groups, it probably looked a bit weird to see one guy sitting by himself, but I was just taking it all in as I watched the cruise boats go by.

That was the broad overview of Paris. There's a lot I didn't get to in this post but I'm running out of time. I feel like I would need another big post just to get to more of the details of what happened in Paris and maybe I'll be able to do that. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to do another extended writing sessions for a few days, so you may have to wait awhile before you read anything else from me. If you have any questions for me just send me an email or Facebook message.

After my time in Amboise I am going to Lyon, followed by Nice, and then I just over to Italy.

Just FYI, I'm not dead

I know some people have been patiently waiting for me to publish something about how my trip is going. Things have been very busy lately and I have not had access to a normal computer terminal in awhile. While I do have my phone on me, the digital keyboard on it is not suitable for extended writing. There is also the fact that keyboards over here are a little different in the placement of keys, so typing is much slower and I have to correct a lot more mistakes than normal. As soon as I can, I'll write up a post on my flight and my time in Paris. At the moment I am in Bayeux, France.

Europe Blogging

Just FYI, there will be no more new posts on this blog until my first post from Europe. I will write and publish posts to this blog as I am able to, but I have no idea when or how often that will be. In all likelihood it will be like the last trip where I was always several days to a week behind. Like last time, I am bringing along a notebook in which I’ll be journaling in each day of the trip, so whatever you read on this blog will largely reflect what I wrote down in the notebook. My first stop on this journey is Paris, and hopefully I’ll have a post on it within a few days of arrival.

Thoughts on Meat Is For Pussies

A week ago I mentioned on this blog that I was reading through a book titled Meat Is For Pussies by John Joseph. In my post I stated that although I agreed with much of the substance of the book in its advocacy for a plant-based diet and healthy living, I had some issues with the style of the writing. I also stated that I was considering doing some sort of response to the book to address my issues. If I went through with it, it would be my first commentary on this blog related to a book. With my departure for Europe less than a week out and having no experience since college in doing any sort of literary analysis, I had originally assumed that I would never get to doing this, however I came to realize that there’s actually not much to say here. The items I would be addressing do not require much elaboration, so a lengthy post would be unnecessary. A short post would also have the benefit of limiting the damage I inflict upon myself in proving that I don’t know anything about criticizing literature. With this line of reasoning, and my usual cautionary instincts strangely missing, I went ahead and started writing, and below are the results.

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“Look, I’m not going to preach to you about how you like to have a good time, because that’s not my thing. I judge no one. What you do for fun is your own business—well, that is, unless you bring your drunken asshole antics into my personal space. Then we got issues.” [emphasis mine]

I think it was here, in the opening paragraph of Chapter 2 of Meat Is For Pussies, that I snapped. The author, John Joseph, had irritated me with his apparent inability to go a single page without spewing profanity, but when I hit this blatant contradiction I knew I had in my hands a fundamentally flawed book. I cannot help but wonder who, if anyone, edited this book, and if they told John Joseph of the inconsistency between the above statement and the title of his book, as well as his commentary on the intelligence and worth of those who do not subscribe to his lifestyle. Although I’m not a vegan myself, I agree with most of the content about eating healthy and maintaining an active lifestyle, but John Joseph has shot himself in the foot with how he wrote this book. Meat Is For Pussies is sadly an example of an overall solid message dragged down by a poor choice of communication style as well as the contradiction noted above.

John Joseph writes in a very abrasive, expletive filled, in-your-face style. As a former violent criminal, convict, and drug abuser, (among other things) John Joseph’s writing style is understandable, up to a point. To his credit, in the introduction of his book John Joseph makes it clear that his intention is to deliver a “… no-holds-barred, New York—style beat-down on real health and real nutrition.” (Page xxi) This is meant to convey that he is giving you the hard, no BS truth and not what you’re being told by society/Corporate America/the government/insert malevolent force here. I’m guessing John Joseph chose this provocative style because he believes his audience is ignorant and/or apathetic and they need to be shocked into action. Certainly there is value this aggressive style of writing, however within it there is a thin line between being helpful and being insulting, and John Joseph has crossed that line.

It’s not an official rule, but from my limited writing experience I do believe that one of the biggest mistakes you can make as an author is to demean the intelligence of your audience. Even if you really do believe your audience is clueless or dim-witted, as John Joseph clearly does, you should still show them the level of respect due all individuals, even those you hold in low regard. On page 16 of John’s book, while discussing drug and alcohol addictions, we read “Now let’s take a look at that word for a second: in-TOXIC-ated. The root word being toxic, as in poisonous to your fucking body, numb nuts.” [emphasis his] There are a number of other points where John Joseph commits similar sins, but this one clearly demonstrates what I’m talking about. Even when a person is genuinely misinformed or foolish, this is not how you speak to them in professional writing.

There is a lot of profanity in Meat Is For Pussies, and the sheer amount of it puzzles me. Why all the swearing? Is this what people like to read these days? Is this a testament to what our society’s level of communication has been reduced to? I suspect if we were to ask John Joseph, he would say the reason for his language is that it is who he is, and that his writing voice reflects his talking voice. Given his rough history, there would be merit to that explanation, though it would also speak volumes to his communication skills. How John Joseph speaks and writes is of course his prerogative, but how a person speaks and writes has a substantial impact on the effectiveness in communicating a message. In the case of Meat Is For Pussies, the swearing makes John Joseph seem less like a serious writer and more like an irreverent teenager who thinks he knows everything but actually needs his mouth soaped.

To wrap up this failed attempt at literary critique, let me mention two more things I noted while reading the book. First, at the end of Chapter 2 John Joseph explains that he doesn’t use the word “vegan” because it has taken on too much negative connotation. Speaking of the vegans who have given a bad name to the movement, John Joseph states “I personally believe the negative connotations that have come to be associated with the V-word can be attributed to the judgmental, self righteous attitudes of a particular subgroup of individuals.” (Page 23) Living in Boulder, Colorado, I know exactly the type of people he is talking about, but at the same time does John Joseph not realize that he’s talking about himself? To be blunt, John Joseph makes the “preachy” vegans I know seem not so bad, and I’d sooner hang out with them than him. Second, John Joseph perpetuates the common myth in our society that people who play video games are obese, sickly losers. It is unfortunately true that there are gamers who are like this or worse, and these are the ones who get all the coverage in our mainstream media. But just as there are both agreeable and disagreeable vegans, there are both well-adjusted gamers and ones that are not living healthy lives. If John Joseph doesn’t want us to be making broad generalizations about vegans, he might take care to not be making the broad generalizations about groups he clearly has no meaningful knowledge of.

That’s all I have to say about Meat Is For Pussies. With my imminent departure for Europe, I can’t give this book any more time, and that’s probably for the best. There’s a lot more that could be said here, like a discussion on the book’s title and the association of female genitalia with weakness/lameness, or perhaps an analysis of the worldview undergirding the book’s message. It is highly unlikely I’ll come back to this discussion, but on the plus side the process of writing this post has proven somewhat cathartic. In closing I’ll leave you with the following image which I came across on Facebook and which states my main issue with the book far more concisely than I ever could.

 

An Enviable Problem

As the day of departure gets closer for my trip to Europe, I’ve been busy trying to tie up various loose ends and make sure everything is taken care of before I leave. On the whiteboard in my room there’s a list of things that I need to get done. I’ve been working away at the list since I created it a week ago and each day I remove a few items from the list. Granted, it seems each day I remember one or two more things that I need to get done, so the list hasn’t been shrinking as fast as I would like. There is one item, however, that’s been on the whiteboard since I created the list and it has proven to be a harder nut to crack than anticipated. It is the question of Spain; specifically what days I’m spending in what cities. Spain comes near the end of my trip and I know I’ll be flying into Madrid from Istanbul but I haven’t yet been able to come up with a schedule that gets me to the places I want to go to while also making sure that I don’t show up on bad days when lots of things are closed. As I’ve been studying this problem and seeking its resolution, I am well aware that this is a great problem to have; I’m trying to figure out how to spend three weeks in Spain. Many would love to have this problem. Many more will never have it because overseas travel is beyond their resources, and I’m trying not to lose sight of this fact while I ponder this issue. Thankfully this problem doesn’t actually need to be solved prior to departure, but I’m still going to keep working at it.
 

Return to Form

With my trip to Europe almost here, it occurred to me that this blog will be reverting back to its original purpose. I created this blog in 2012 as a way of chronicling parts of my Europe trip that year and allowing others to keep up with what I had seen and done. Although I knew that I would be doing some additional writing on the trip after my return, I didn’t think the blog would continue much beyond that. Well, here we are three years later and this train wreck of an author is still writing drivel for whoever is willing to read it. Maybe it’s tenacity or maybe it’s foolishness that’s kept this blog going, but whatever the case, this blog will soon be coming full circle.