It was all Duckie’s idea. We were tossing around things we could do to have a New Year’s more exciting than normal, and she suggested driving down to the Oregon coast and visit some Pacific beaches. We rented a condo on the beach at Lincoln City, a tiny beach town on the coast outside of Oregon. I went without supplementary health insurance (Mike Moore would blow his ballcap!)

A few hours later, we drove past Seattle for my very first time. Everyone always said that it was like Vancouver, and since I lived in Vancouver, I never saw the point. The point is obviously on The Space Needle. I love Googie architecture.

We did stop in Tacoma to see the revitalized historic core, and especially the bridge to the museum of glass, which is filled with artwork from Dale Chihuly. We’re big fans. We ate a proper cafe breakfast across from the renovated train station, now serving as a courthouse.

We drove on, and made our next stop in Portland at The Grotto. It’s an outdoor shrine recessed in a cliff wall, built by nuns or monks or both. It’s really quite cool! They were advertising their Fest of Lights, but we were visiting in the daytime, so we could only profit from the temporary petting zoo.

It started getting gloomy, then the sky went dark and it started to hail merrily. We bought tokens to take the elevator to the upper gardens and walked in the freezing cold sleet. The gardens have paths that wind between religious sculpture and iconography. We were alone.

I was soaking wet and shivering, so I was happy to get to the meditation centre, a large glass room built into the side of the cliff and overlooking the city away from Portland. There were overstuffed leather chairs facing the view. The room is well sound-proofed and very silent. I tried to dry my hair with my scarf.

Of course, there was a surprisingly intense rainbow.

We had terrifying pizza in Portland, and ended up on the long, wrong road to the coast. It was dark by the time we arrived in Lincoln City.

We rushed straight to the box office to buy tickets for the community theatre production of Moonlight and Magnolias. We were worried that they might have sold out.

The ticket lady informed us that they were having a gala presentation for New Year’s on the following night, but we had high hopes for the gala at the local casino.

So we went to the play that night. It was the retelling of the book Gone With the Wind to the screenwriter who would write the movie. Of course, I have no qualifications to be a critic, and I think amateur theatre is valuable in all its many forms. No matter what a disastrous shambling mess it appears to the spectators.

If it had been slightly better, we would have walked out at intermission.

Community theatre actors, please remember: we can see you, even when you aren’t speaking. However, when you are speaking, look at each other, or something other than the floor. And put your fingers away! Keep gesticulating like that and someone’s going to lose an eye.

OK, that was a bit mean, but I edited out all the worst. The worst was just malign, and didn’t need to be said.

The next day, we went out the the beaches. I love strolling on the beach. It was freezing, but I bought thermal underwear at Target. Canadians love Target! We walked and walked.

We went to the casino to check out the New Year’s parties. We were expecting to get tickets for the forties-themed gala, but the casino was too depressingly gloomy when we arrived. It was well-lit and modern… just gloomy. On a beautiful sunny day, it just seemed so very wrong that the casino was so busy. We left again quickly.

We spent the afternoon on the beach, and wandering through charming curio and second hand shops. At one, the proprietor tried to sell us artisanally handcrafted plush owls with disturbing and perverse storage orifices.

We decided to pick up stones, and attach our worries, problems and anxieties to them, then throw them in the ocean. I picked up one with lots of little holes (for lots of little problems), walked with it for a bit, and threw it as hard and as far as I could.

In the evening, we were both feeling feverish and ill, so we slept until nearly midnight, ordered Chinese food from the wrong town 15 minutes down the highway, and finished our champagne with Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin in our apartment.

The next morning (the first morning of 2008) we went for a dip in the ocean. Duckie had her swim attire, but I had to go in my underwear. We both went in only up to our navels; I would have gone in farther if it had felt… less… punch-in-the-ballsy. Duckie was disappointed that we didn’t completely submerge, but my legs were turning blue. I’m convinced we can do better next time.

On the way back, we stopped off at the aviation museum, which looked really cool. It was closed. An enthusiastic man was wandering outside going from aircraft to aircraft and shouting excitedly to his girlfriend, who was following him slowly from inside her car. With her windows closed.

That’s about it! Wait, no… there were TWO bonus adventures!

We had a tweaked out server at the Outback Steakhouse in Seattle. He was speaking English, but he wasn’t making any sense, as if he had come from an alternate planet with frequent and regular drug abuse. Duckie confounded him by asking for a bit of milk with her tea. He ended up bringing a saucer of milk. Like for a cat. And presented it (and every other item on the table) with a flourish.

The second bonus adventure was at Target. Canadians love Target! We had bought some wine, and Duckie decided to ask the cashier if she knew anything about a specific bottle. The cashier replied, no, she didn’t, but she had had “mer-lott” before, and assured us that it was “kinda grape flavoured”.

14h00 We arrived at the Lisbon airport and set our watches back an hour. We tried to get a taxi voucher to the city centre (a flat fee of about 15€) but the infolady told us to just get in the taxi line and pay the metered fare. She was right — it came to 10€. Taxis are inexpensive in Lisbon.

16h00 We left the hotel and found some food at the little mall next door. It looked like a worker‘s cafeteria, with a small pre-prepared menu to be microwaved. The chocolate cake was delicious!

16h00-18h30 We went back to the hotel for a nap, and to dress up for the evening.

19h30 Our hotel was close to Parque Eduardo VII, a large green space inside the city, connected to the harbour by a long, leafy avenue. Lisbon is built on seven (or so) hills, and one side of the avenue is the Barrio Alto, or “high neighbourhood”. At the end of the avenue is the Baixa, a small grid of shops and restaurants, historic squares and arches, finishing at the Tagus river.

We walked down to the Baixa. It took us roughly a half hour, but we were very leisurely. We stopped at a café for a beer (and a tonic water for JJ) and to watch the world a bit.

21h30 Our restaurant had nightly performances of fado, which is a particularly Portuguese genre — a soulful singer clad in black accompanied by traditional rhythms and melodies on a Portuguese guitar. It‘s somewhere between blues and torch lounge with an Arabic influence, and fado performances are a mainstay of the Portugal tourist experience. The guide book was somewhat cynical about our chances of encountering a quality Fadista, but the performers at the restaurant were obviously very accomplished. The Portuguese in the crowd were particularly enthusiastic.

We obtained the last available table, fortunately refused by the couple in front of us for being too far from the stage and too close to the aisle. In reality, we had a clear view straight to the stage. We both had the tourist menu (39€) starting with bread and olives, cabbage and sausage soup with cornbread. I had the white wine.

We had gone through two different fado singers and they moved on to traditional Portuguese folk dancing. Unfortunately, in comparison to the throaty emotion of the fado music, it really came across as chirpily touristy. We concentrated on the main course, baked trout. Portuguese cuisine is based on seafood.

Later on in the evening, the dancers would return with garlands and banners proclaiming LUSO in flowers. They dragged some of the audience members up to dance as well, including our neighbours.

So we “borrowed” their video camera to surreptitiously tape them (and then ourselves waving), replacing it on the table and acting innocent when they came back. They didn‘t suspect a thing.

10h30 The first show finished and most of the restaurant left. Our waiter moved us into the center of the restaurant, where they cleared a small candlelit space under the vaulted brick ceiling. We had the best spot for the second sets of singers (no more dancers). They were even better up close — it was a very intimate setting, and the fadinistas have piercing, longing stares to go with the music.

We had the simplest dessert and coffee, and headed out between sets.

0h00 The Barrio Alto is full of bars and restaurants, and it was a warm night. Everyone was out on the street drinking caipirinhas and mojitos — it was a very friendly atmosphere. We ran across our destination almost by accident. It looked closed, until someone approached and buzzed in. At many of the clubs in Lisbon, you need to ring to get in. We popped our heads in and looked around… The place was DEAD.

The doorperson assured us that people would arrive and start dancing at about 2am.

So we wandered through the Barrio Alto, and eventually found the Praça de Principe Real, and another little bar to buzz into and hang out at. We sipped at our drinks (tequila for me, Pepsi for JJ) and hung out. And hung out. The barman played solitaire…

2h00 We found our way back to Frágil, and the bouncer recognized us. It was a 10€ cover including a drink, but we headed directly to the dance floor. It was empty except for couple making out… well, someone‘s gotta start, so we did. We‘re trailblazers!

Wilson, one of the featured DJs, watched us for a while and chanted at us for a bit — then came down to dance and inspire the crowd while his partner worked the music. He introduced himself to us, then threatened us: “I will kill you if you stop dancing.”

Threatened by the DJ! That‘s the hallmark of the start of a successful night.

So we danced and danced. Wilson came down again a few times, and danced very specifically with JJ… And then we melted into the night.

4h00 We took a taxi and went home. It was so close, but we were tired, and a bit lost.

8h21 Both of us woke up before the alarm, and couldn‘t get back to sleep. We went to the breakfast buffet in our pajamas. Our original intention was to raid the buffet and then go back to bed, but we decided to head out and nap later.

10h25 We took the metro to the Baixa. It was only three stops, but it was so convenient and inexpensive (0.75€) that it wasn‘t worth walking.

Once we were there, we stopped at a bunch or European chain stores that could have belonged to any city. Except, of course, they were spacious and well-organized with a larger variety and in my sizes… I spent a bit of time at the H&M. Again.

12h00 But we‘re in Lisbon for cultural reasons, right? We should be shopping… culturally. To this end, we found a tiny shop specializing in custom-fitted handmade leather gloves. We weren‘t going to be there long enough to get the custom-fitted of course, so JJ and I tried on a few pair of ready-to-wear gloves. The shopkeeper had an elaborate process of individually opening the glove fingers with a little wooden tool and inflating it with a little talc. JJ‘s gloves were a delicate black leather, with splashes of orange, red and white between the fingers. Mine were black leather driving gloves with the finger seams on the outside. She looked ready to stroll along snowy New Haven streets with a (cruelty-free) fur stole and a handsome beau. I looked ready to cat burgle something or strangle someone.

Unfortunately, they were too dear to simply purchase on a whim, so I bought hers as a gift, and she bought mine. Problem solved!

13h00 We lunched at Praçca Dom Pedro IV on a traditional Portuguese dish bacalhau con nata (cod in cream). It was very rich with a baked bread crumb crust, like a thermidor.

Then we took a taxi through the Alfama, through the steep hills and twisty streets, to the São Jorge castle. The view alone is worth the price of admission — there‘s a little restaurant there that would be ideal for a romantic lunch. The castle itself is mostly restored ruins, but with intact staircases that climb the high walls to see the city from almost any angle. They built a camera obscura that acts as a live periscope over the city, but we decided against waiting to enter. We also skipped the Olissipónia, a multimedia presentation on the city and it‘s history. It probably would have been very interesting but we were rapidly fading from the efforts of the day…

15h30 So we taxied back to the hotel, had a nap, and got Dressed again to go out.

We learned from the previous night that we didn‘t need to be at the club too early, so we headed back to the winding streets of the Alfama to wander and find a restaurant. The neighbourhood is very residential, and seemed very quiet and still during the night. It‘s very easy to photograph, however, with its maze of streets, stairs and paths. It‘s very unlike other medieval city centers that I‘ve seen, even more disorganized and jumbled, and interesting.

We ate at a small restaurant called Amigo Antonio, which specialized in grilled seafood. Dining in Portugal, there is frequently a “cover” charge for the table, usually in the form of olives, bread, bottles of water, cheese. You are charged for each individual item that you consume whether you ordered it or not. This occasionally extends to individual pats of butter. You aren‘t obligated to eat any of it, of course… but my recommendation is to go ahead if you feel like it. Restaurant prices are very inexpensive in Lisbon compared to any other European city I‘ve been to, especially for the quality of the food. You‘ll be ahead of the game anyway.

We had the grilled sea bass and sea bream, with side salads (with homemade bread) for about 50e.

JJ was particularly impressed with the restaurateur… He was available, polite and sincere. He seemed truly appreciative that we had chosen his establishment, which is a charming change from most tourist-oriented services. In fact, the Portuguese we encountered were all warmly gracious.

23h00 Still far too early to hit the dance floor, we decided to take a taxi down to the Docas area to walk around. The taxi driver, John, confirmed that the club would be empty, scoffed at us for napping during the day, and dropped us off well past our destination at a little strip of bars and restaurants. We walked past them all over to the little harbour. The night was clear, and the view of the suspension bridge was excellent. We were nearly underneath it.

Like Rio, the Christo Rei spread his arms facing the city, lit magnificently.

0h00 Finally, we walk to the club — the Blues Café. The doorman warns us that dancing doesn‘t start for another hour and a half, so we sit and have a drink (a 6e tequila for me and a 3e tonic water for JJ).

The club is much larger than Frágil, and carefully decorated as a combination Southern bordello and gentleman‘s club. Large Johnny Walker statues are lit like museum pieces. We scored a little table with big puffy fringed chairs. Floor lamps are scattered around. The dance floor fills with standing and chattering tourists.

This place seriously lacks authenticity. It‘s very crew cut and cruise ship. The DJ is playing lounge trance — I think it might be a Buddha Bar compilation.

1h30 I run to the club next door. The door staff lets me know that it‘s girls‘ night and that the management prefers regulars to foreigners. I take this at face value, but I suspect she might have been gently bouncing me. In any case, their dance floor was still obviously dead too. Meanwhile, back at our club, the lights dim further and the music changes to heavy-handed house remixes of serious eighties rock songs.

The herd sniffs the air and tentatively sways back and forth. A few early adopters actually start to dance, but for the most part the dance floor is still standing and chatting. We gamely join the dancers.

1h55 Enthusiasm comes from within… But only for a half hour. We say we‘ll give the place five more minutes, but we don‘t. We flee — the dance floor is trying its best, but can‘t compete with the soulless discomfort of the rest of the tourists wishing they were having more fun.

So we cut our losses and get a taxi to a different club, by the Principe Real closer to our hotel. Trumps has two dance floors, which is always a good sign. 10e cover, including n drinks (I‘m not quite sure… the barman took two stubs off of my ticket, which had four).

What can I add to that? We danced on one dance floor, then the other.

3h45 And then we went home. The night was still going strong and we were having fun, but it was all a bit tiring. And while Trumps was much more fun than the Blues Café, it seemed that everybody there already knew everybody. I felt a bit foreign to the scene.

10h00 I went down for breakfast. This time fully dressed for the day.

12h00 We took the metro to Cais do Sodré with the intention of catching the tourist tram to Belém for some historic sites (or not-clubs as they are sometimes known). We quickly caved and called a taxi — they‘re really quite cheap here, and they‘re available everywhere. The tram looked like fun, though.

We ate lunch at a self-service cafeteria next to the Torre de Belém. This tower is on the cover of all the Lisbon tourist guides, but I couldn‘t tell you what it was all about. It was free day, and swarming.

We did not skip the cloister at São Jerónimo. This is an extremely beautiful example of Portuguese architecture, with helices and ropes carved into every surface and every ceiling vaulted… TO THE MAX.

The flea market along the park was also chock full of souvenir-worthy items (much better than the souvenir shops, in fact).

We looked for a special pastry shop called Pasteis de Belém , but it was packed and we couldn‘t be bothered. In fact, there was very little we could be bothered with that day — we floated serenely from place to place, glanced shallowly and moved on. It‘s not that we‘re negligent tourists; we were more relaxed and content to not concentrate too hard on too much. Typical last day of vacation.

So we did stop off at the pastry shop next door, and shared five pastries, a cappuccino, and a banana smoothie (for under 10e! Hooray Lisbon!)

17h00 Then we taxied back to the hotel for our nap.

We skipped the monument to discovery, which commemorated the grand history of Portuguese exploration.

20h00 After napping, we dressed (“small-d dressed, not big-d Dressed) and walked to the Principe Real and through the Barrio Alto with a bit of sunlight. I ate more delicious grilled fish, JJ had the octopus rice, plus our soups and sparkling water, the bread, cheese and pats of butter: 32e.

We walked down to the main square for some night pictures, and decided that we would both come back to Lisbon one day, but with a lover. It just seemed like that kind of city.

Wait, can I say the word lover on the Internets?

0h30 Anyhoo, metro home and sleep.

7h00 Wake, shower, breakfast, taxi, airport, Paris.

My cousin Zed met me at the finish line. He had arrived in Paris during this last, dull week of training (all carbs and no booze and early nights). It was really nice to see him there, a friendly face to help me limp home.

A few days later, we took the Eurostar to London. This was our second trip there together, so we‘d already visited the big museums and monuments. This time we were there for strolling, shopping and (hopefully) clubbing.

Zed had booked us a room right between Soho and Covent Gardens. It‘s very nice to have a central home base in a city, and this place was particularly great — on the sixth floor looking straight down Old Compton Street from Charing Cross Road. It was also really close to Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street, and the city is compact enough that any of the major sites are just a nice walk away.

We ate at Wagamama, a Japanese noodle house. I had the Amai Udon (thick, fried wheat noodles with nuts and sweet chilies), and Zed had the Chicken Itame (rice noodles in a spicy broth). It was pretty crowded, but the service was quick and friendly, with handheld computers to zap the orders to the kitchen upstairs.

The food was quite good (in fact, tastier than the Japanese noodles I‘ve eaten in Paris). They use good ingredients, and are particularly conscientious about listing everything in the meals, for those with dietary restrictions. It‘s a good place to go if you‘re a vegan, gluten-intolerant or trendy. We ate there frequently.

That evening, we went to this one bar for a drink. The website was very new wave, loud and fun. The reality, however, was very laid-back and calm. It wasn’t unpleasant, of course, and it was only Wednesday night… It had a very “friends at a pub” feeling, chatting over drinks and sitting on the dance floor (not dancing). I could always use friends at a pub, of course, but it just wasn’t the night for it. I was tired and Zed told me that I was making zombie face. Thanks a lot, botox!

The next day, we visited St. Paul‘s Cathedral, walking there via Trafalgar Square. Both the column in the square and the cathedral were covered in scaffolding on our last trip.

Unlike France, a few of the functioning churches charge an admission fee for tourism. It makes sense — at some point the sheer mass of tourists overwhelm the general viability of the congregation to perform basic outreach to the community, believers and non-believers. So, open a merchant account with the major international credit card agencies, install a till and turnstiles in the apse and use the gaping hordes to pay for upkeep and maintenance. It‘s an unfortunate business reality in an age where the Established Church is no longer a dominant, unelected social power. Have you paid your tithe today?

I spent mine on admission… and tequila!

The last stop on our tourist day was the Tower of London. We missed it on the last trip, but our feet were motivated this time. It also has a steep admission charge.

We stumbled on Alan, a yeoman guard starting his tour. He was very good — he teased the children, but they loved him, holding his hands between the stops. He told the story of the various prisoners, the condemned and the kings and queens that walked those grounds, alternating between far-too-graphic horror and comedy. We found out that he was stationed in Alberta when he was in the military, so it seems likely he would have been near my hometown!

After the tour, we went in to see the crown jewels. There is, as rumored, a conveyor belt that whisks you along, but it‘s only a couple of metres long. You can go back and ride it again, or just walk backwards if there‘s no crowd (there wasn‘t).

The stronghold in the center of the compound has an armoury museum, and there was a very modern panick-mongering exposition on “What if Guy Fawkes had succeeded?” Tabloid headlines screamed TERRORISTS! and computer generated reenactments blew up the Houses of Parliament over and over.

We saw the famous ravens. They‘re huge! Alan assured us that they are ferocious and will bite you.

Traitor‘s Gate, the little chapel, the graffiti at Beauchamp Tower — it‘s really quite pretty and poignant.

We walked back to the our apartment and rested a bit before heading out to the theatre. We could have seen two of the stars of the Harry Potter movies in a revival of Equus, including a nudie Daniel Radcliffe. There are so many things wrong with that… but mostly the fading relevance of the script in a world of commonplace horror and mental illness.

We saw Tennessee William‘s The Glass Menagerie, a story I‘m familiar with from watching two of my friends do a critically acclaimed duologue. Jessica Lange was in it, and she did a great job. All of the actors did — I loved it from “Deception! Deception! Deception!”

We were going to watch a movie in Leicester square, but paying 12 pounds to see Blades of Glory… well, we couldn’t justify it.

We didn‘t go for a big steak dinner either, out of fear that it would be too bloatful for going out that evening… Now I‘m glad, since I’ve learned that the big steak chains in the area are apparently the biggest rip-off in the city.

That night we dressed up and headed out to the club. We found it easily enough, but the kids ahead of us were being turned away at the door and causing drama. They were all dressed up: as angels, sailors, goths, glitterqueens. Apparently they were celebrating someone‘s 18th or 19th birthday (I forget the drinking age in England — and I know I‘ll never see it again…) Equally apparently, they were already smashed from the open bar in their limo (as one of them painstakingly explained to me). We got in, got frisked and got some tequila. I was in charge of buying the drinks for the night.

It was pretty easy to entice me onto the dance floor and subsequently up onto the stage…

And that‘s all I have to say about that.

The next day, we checked out, stored our luggage at Waterloo Station and wandered, wandered, wandered as far as our feet could take us, then stopped for a coffee and wandered some more. We found another Wagamama, and ate there for the last time.

The cosmos occasionally aligns incredibly. I came down the stairs at Quick, and I spotted Anna waiting outside the milling crowd. Antonio, engulfed in the undisciplined French lines around the fast food cashier, was already calling me to meet them. I seldom encounter people by chance on the street.

We decided to celebrate by going for some fancy tea. The Mariage Frères, down in the Marais, have imported fancy teas for 150 years. They serve lovely pots of their hundreds of teas in a salon at the back of the store.

I’d always vaguely wanted to go there, but was put off by the price. I’m not a secret scrooge — it’s like going to the museums on the first Sunday of the month. I’m here; they’re free. Why not take advantage of that? Likewise, there are hundreds of reasonable cafés and terraces in Paris. Why not take advantage of them at a tenth of the price of a cup at an expensive salon du thé?

However, you don’t always get the luxuries you merit, but you always get the luxuries you offer yourself. And I should be cutting down on the ten espresso habit anyway. In we went.

The waiter, in formal white tie, gave us a better table than my jeans and general dishevelment deserved. We sat just above the ground floor along the corridor at the atrium — a bit of passing traffic, of course, but the best spot to look over everyone and (more importantly) to be seen. We were The Royals, holding court at our balcony.

We chose the tea from a list of hundreds, organized by location, type of leaf, and occasionally the season of harvest. Along with the tea list, they thoughtfully provided us with a large user’s guide, explaining the differences and importance of the classifications, how to identify the different leaves and how to make the ideal pot. We floundered through the list and the guide, which explained to us that tea relieves the brain of somber thought and chases away stupidity. Hooray!

You may be familiar with the word Pekoe, which comes from the chinese word for the fuzzy hair found on the tea leaf. Orange Pekoe is a step up (apparently Orange refers rather to the Dutch royalty as opposed to the colour of the leaf). You can find Orange Pekoe in the supermarket — but in the world of tea, it’s equivalent to decorating a pine stump and calling it a Christmas tree. They make supermarket tea from the broad, coarse leaves from the bottom of the stem of the tea plant.

The better quality teas use the single tiny leaf at the tip of the stem, and the best quality teas only use the best part of this leaf. Experts abbreviate Orange Pekoe as OP and add qualifications for each step up in quality. One step better is FOP: Flowery Orange Pekoe. Another step up is GFOP: Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe.

All three of us decided that if we were going to indulge, we might as well get the top qualification, SFTGFOP1: Special Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe, with a special commendation for excellence.

Anna ordered the Lingia (rhymes with ninja), a black tea from Darjeeling harvested in the spring (first flush). The user’s guide said that it was an excellent tea for special moments.

Antonio had the Arya “Rose Himalaya”, another black tea, but from the autumn harvest. It’s supposed to have an unexplainable flowery flavour.

I ordered the Fikka Lima, from Nepal. For some reason, I couldn’t find it in the user’s guide, so it was like a Secret Party just for me.

A bit after taking our order, White Tie jumped out and demanded “Lingia?!” Antonio and I glanced pointedly at Anna. She panicked, thinking there was a problem and that she’d have to descend back into the tea list and pick another, but it was just to bring her her teapot.

The teapot Mariage Frères is a pleasing sphere wrapped in a silver cozy and closed tight with a little clasp. They’ve prepared the tea in the back, and according to the user’s guide, each tea has a perfect water temperature and length of time for steeping. The server removes the leaves from the pot before serving so that the tea remains consistent from the first to the last serving. We each had our proper teapot with slightly less than a Litre each.

My first impression of my first taste of fancy tea was… errr… not especially life-changing or remarkable. What was I expecting? The tea was delicate, but it didn’t surprise or delight me. Nope. At ten times the price, fancy tea alone only delivers, say, one tenth extra enjoyment over regular tea.

But that’s going to remain a secret between you and me. The verdict is that the tea experience is fun, and even more fun with a silver spoon, a white jacquard tablecloth and White Tie as a server. Even the sugar was fancy, large grains like diamonds in the Mariage Frères sugar bowl. I don’t normally take sugar, but I had a bit with the second cup when the tea had a stronger, tea-like taste.

Oh, I feel some poetry coming on!

I could easily skip the sugar with my tea, and I could easily have skipped the tea entirely with my afternoon conversation. But I couldn’t have skipped a pleasant afternoon with my friends — and if it’s at a fancy salon, that’s just a bit of extra interest and some bonus luxury!

There were only three kids this Halloween, and they were waiting for me in the hallway when I got home from work.

“Donnez-nous des bonbons ou on va vous jeter un mauvais sort”, they yelled. They weren’t wearing any costumes, I noted. It wasn’t like they were hooligans shaking me up for candy — I got the impression that they just didn’t understand the social contract that Halloween entails.

Probably fair enough. I doubt if one out of ten apartments has bought into the holiday. At the other nine, they’ll get blank looks, apologies or accusations, if anyone even answers. It isn’t ever going to be like our childhood again, with every house lit with a jack o’lantern and a host handing out miniature chocolate bars, Halloween kisses and specially creepy candy specially manufactured for the occasion — skulls, black cats, bats, frankensteins and spiders.

On the other hand, I had a bowl of Mi-Cho-Ko and Krema candy in my my apartment. I was also carrying a precious pumpkin, which wasn’t easy to find here in Paris, so as I juggled my bag and keys, I asked them, “Quelle espèce de mauvais sort?”

They looked at me without comprehension, and finally one of them asked if I speak any French. Ouch.

I repeated myself, feeling depressed about my accent. They asked me if I was English, and were delighted to find out I was Canadian. Even the kids love Canadians. That warmed my heart sufficiently to give them each a huge handful of candy. Weirdly, the three kids were sharing a bag.

Going door to door where most apartments have no idea they’re supposed to give you candy is bad enough. Sharing your Halloween candy is altogether another nightmare — BOO!

Oh, these foreigners and their endearingly strange ways… Except I’m the foreigner. For once, I get to look at the Parisians, with their obsession for doing things correctly, and shake my head. Oh course, the obvious Parisian reply, delivered with a sniff, would be that Halloween is not a correct holiday.

We carved the pumpkin and roasted the seeds, and had some pumpkin pie that night. It was the first time the Italians carved a pumpkin, but they did a great job! I only helped a bit.

The day after Halloween is a holiday in France — All Saint’s Day — and Véronique suggested that we go to the aquarium at the Trocadero. I didn’t even know there was an aquarium there (with one of the largest tanks in Europe). It’s a bit expensive, at 19.5€, but you can get a combination pass for 20€ that includes a cruise on the Seine.

I always enjoy a cruise on the Seine, whether it’s day or night, or whether I’m listening to the French or English audio commentary. In fact, I’ve tried all combinations, plus two dinner cruises, plus the Batobus, plus one cruise that started up at La Villette and went down the locks of the Canals St. Martin before doing the bit on the Seine. All included, this was my tenth cruise on the Seine.

I always beg my guests to take me with them for Seine cruises. I plead that we skip some museum, or cafe, or what-have-you in order for this extraordinary jaunt, with it’s incredible views and brisk, fresh breeze. But my guests are a hard-nosed bunch with little patience for Seine cruises. Véro and I seized the opportunity of the combo ticket.

I learned some new things on this trip. The statue at the Hotel de Ville is Étienne Marcel, who was the first mayor of Paris.

Actually, that’s the only thing I learned.

Before the aquarium, we went to grab something to eat. There’s a sushi restaurant right in the aquarium, appropriately enough, but it was a bit expensive, and we were looking for something warm to munch on. It’s getting cold in Paris, and colder on the ever-so-delightful Seine cruises.

The area around the Eiffel tower, of course, is a graveyard of French restaurants, racing to the bottom of the ladder of quality in order to supply sufficient appearance of a French restaurant without the authenticity. We ended up eating in the area anyway, being sold on the overpriced omelet on the posted menu behind the Trocadero.

When we entered and were seated, however, we were informed that we couldn’t have the omelet. “Even so, Madame, this IS a restaurant…” the waiter informed Véro, with exaggerated snoot, and directed us to the dinner menu. To be clear, it isn’t abnormal for a restaurant to have different lunch and dinner menus, nor to have different menus for the area of the restaurant you’re currently enjoying. One side of an aisle is permitted to order less noble dishes such as a croque-monsieur, while the other side is constrained to confit de canard. According to our server, there was no time or place in the cafe where they could make us an omelet, so we relied on one of the best strategies for dealing with bureaucracy — the second opinion.

The serveuse said, of course, we could have our omelets, and gave us the lunch menus.

The aquarium is pretty awesome. It’s arranged along a spiral, with the usual collection of tanks of different temperatures and of species from around the world. It’s already a great set-up, but they added a bonus — modern cartoon shorts (both topical and irrelevant) are projected here and there, and there are even little cinemas along the route showing longer oeuvres.

Our first stop was the petting pool, where you were allowed to feed the fish and gently caress them. Fishtacular!

It was a midweek holiday, so there was a bushel of children, putting their grubby little fingers on the glass, leaving a blurry, greasy zone at the height of our knees.

They had wonderfully lit jellyfish. I actually loathe jellyfish, especially the dinner plate sized monsters in Vancouver, with the curdled blood-coloured innards. These were only disquieting little ones, floating in tanks under coloured lights like disturbing nightmare angels of doom.

Another highlight was the shark feeding. We all crowded into a Plexiglas tunnel while divers descended into the main tank — 33 metres long and containing five times as water as a municipal swimming pool. It didn’t seem that big, probably because of its landscaping. Fish need interesting places to hide. One diver feeds each shark one at a time using an extended claw device, while another stands guard with a poker. The sharks, however, are kept very well fed and aren’t very aggressive, so they can keep lots of smaller fish in the tank with them.

There was a little internal auditorium, where a woman was playing the piano and singing the songs that accompanied a cartoon short. We stopped at one of the smaller internal theatres to watch a different short about a badger, then one surreal show about japanese frogs moving from their pond with the sage advice of old Oom-pa-pa Toad. SPOILER: He didn’t make it.

Yup, I was writing travel logs five long years ago — just a weekly report to family and friends. I put them up on my personal site, along with photos. I wrote the comment subsystem myself, with a bit of guidance and inspiration from photo.net (back in the day, they had gems of programming advice hidden away here and there). Unfortunately, all of these first comments were lost in a database crash… my home-grown stuff [apparently] sucked.

Then I moved to PostNuke (overkill), then MovableType (poorly licensed), then fell into a bad crowd at Blogger. Actually, it was excellent and easy, but it didn’t feel like home. Finally, at bullet-biting time, I installed WordPress and moved everything here. It has a final destination.

What next? I’m probably going to play with some different themes. A friend drew a picture of the view from my window, and I’d love to base the look of my blog on that. Mostly, I’d like to keep up the me-based news for the me-based community. You know, continue to feel close and in touch with those family and friends that I miss. I’m very likely referring to you, in specific.

There’s my excuses, sorry I haven’t rapped at ya sooner. Let’s see if I can’t do better in the end half of 2007.

So, what’s been up? Well, apparently Elizabeth is getting back together with Anthony. I was rooting for Warren, myself; too bad he didn’t feel the same way. I don’t know… it just all seems a little too easy. And it’s not that I don’t like Anthony. He is obviously clinging to his past image of her, and she’s flattered (after crashing and burning so many times, so very recently…) But is that going to be enough to build on? Time is ticking down, and for better or for worse, she’ll never be able to change her mind. This is it: eternal 2007 for Liz and Mike, and their families. The growing up part is over.

We’re the lucky ones. We’ll get old in an inconstant world, fight and fall out, have our world shattered and forget why we made our choices… But we’ve got tomorrow to fix it all.

Anyway, back to me and my life. For those of you that missed out on my obsession for the first half of 2007, I ran the Paris Marathon. I followed an eighteen week training program that was pretty intensive (and I just took the Novice plan). It was a pretty big deal for me — but I’m more proud of sticking to the training than my actual finishing time.

It was 3 hours and 59 minutes, by the way. I was well on track for 3:45 until I hit the famous wall at about 36 kilometers. At that point, it wasn’t a question of determination or will-power. I was just empty… completely bonked. Not exactly tired or sore, but just nothing to power the legs! I finished by alternating running and walking 3 minutes at a time.

The funny thing is looking at it from the other side. Like so many things, it just doesn’t see so ground-breaking or life-shaking once it’s over. Just before the race day, I couldn’t have told you for sure that I would finish. Afterwards, it was obvious.

There’s a moral there, I’m sure. And it’s probably too obvious for me.

I finished the Harry Potter VII, and it was nice. I’m just maintaining my position in the hive pop culture mind.

So how about that weather? This spring was unseasonably warm, than goodness for my vacations in London and Lisbon. This summer has been kind of miserable — it feels like Paris winter skies.

I didn’t write about London, which is too bad. I had a really nice time. We ate quite a bit at Wagamama’s, which is a great concept — an English take on a Japanese noodle house. Noodly!

In fact, I don’t have any particular vacations planned for the near future. I’ll have to do exciting things in Paris, and write about them.

Nevertheless, I’ve managed to make a few picnics and brunches. Leisure must go on, especially bacon-oriented leisure. I’ve picnicked on the Seine, Bois de Vincennes (twice) and in a couple of small Paris neighbourhood parks. I brunched with my new waffle iron.

There’s some new friends in the picture: (a) some exciting connections made through blog land and (b) new arrivals in the family of the tried and true old gang. An old passing acquaintance became a great new friend. It’s all very exciting.

I’ve been thinking about buying an apartment in Paris. Haha — just kidding! I’m far from ready and my brain still explodes with anxiety at the sheer tonnage of process you have to eat.

Then again, it’s not like they’re going to get cheaper…

I found a great little French restaurant by my place. If I carefully consider my daily trajectories, I’d guess that I’ve walked past it about seven hundred times. The steak tartare is perfectly delicious (although the menu seemed to suggest that it was made from “little sister”).

Man, I miss going camping… but I have to admit, it’s starting to seem bizarre that any yahoo with a match is allowed to start a blazing fire in a protected natural park.

Once in high school, a dear and charming friend once suggested that Mornay sauce was actually code for excrement on your food. We laughed and laughed until Slurpee(tm) dripped from our noses. But I still don’t eat Eggs Mornay. They serve it from time to time in the work cafeteria, but it’s suspicious.

Wasn’t life a bit more fun when you made stuff like that up? OK, we were kids, carefully wacky and never too weird, but I’m convinced we were pretty clever at the same time. I remember once where we decided to sit silently at a restaurant, together but without talking. It was profound, and serious. And very nice.

Maybe I’ll just consider my long absence from blogging like sitting quietly with my friends in a restaurant, in companionable silence. We don’t need to fill the space between us with words…

… but there’s a certain fun relief in speaking up afterwards.

He may have had a point.

Our chauffeur took us straight back to our apartment, where the concierge was waiting for us. It was in a grand location, in a 16th-17th century palazzo directly in between the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain. Our place was on the second floor, with small balconies looking out over Via del Corso, one of the major city streets. The location couldn’t have been better, and the price was terrific for Rome (notoriously expensive).

We took our morning coffee at the little coffee bar next to the apartment, and went straight to the Vatican, using the ridiculously off-scale map that Rick Steves mockingly provides. Unfortunately, one of the bridges was closed, either for a remake of Hair (given that The Age of Aquarius was being piped in at rock concert levels for the be-hippied extras to dance to), or more likely, an advertisement for soda or hair gel.

The line to the Vatican museum is stupid long — it goes forever, with hours and hours of waiting in line. I wasn’t going in, but Duckie was. The tourist ecosystem, however, includes barkers that try to convince you to pay 25€ to skip far ahead in the line to join a guided tour. Duckie took them up — it still took an hour longer than the promised half hour wait, and that was skipping more than half the line.

I just walked around the city during this time, trying to find where Romans bought their groceries in the city. It’s not evident — there aren’t any large chain supermarkets. I picked up some speck (cured ham from northern Italy) and duetto (a layered cheese of mascarpone and gorgonzola), a package of delicious chocolate biscuits printed with sugar stars, some other crispy tomato crackers, some fruit and a bottle of vile pink sparkling wine — some things to be dropped off at the apartment and others for snacking on the run.

We had made arrangements to meet at the Pietà at the back of St. Peters (Michelangelo‘s sculpture of Mary holding Jesus taken down from the cross) at 1:30pm. It was obviously an awful place to try and meet, but there’s not much better inside the church. We underestimated the Duckie’s time at the Vatican museum , however. I discovered there’s a big difference between looking at a sculpture, and looking at a sculpture for five minutes without interruption. It’s only five minutes, but it’s an important act of not glancing and moving on. In this frame of mind, a masterpiece like the Pietà can absorb a luxurious twenty minutes of straight examination and appreciation… At about forty minutes, you start taking each other for granted. I spent an hour in the company of the Pietà waiting… but I can think of worse places to wait.

At that point, the best strategy is to shrug and wander off. We’re adults. We can always meet at the hotel. I got the wander off part alright, but then my plan was shattered when I bumped into Duckie a half hour later in the crowds.

The dome was closed, but we went down to see the tombs of the Popes. John Paul II was particularly crowded. There was an usher who ushed us along quickly, but there was also a velvet rope section for those who wanted to pray a while.

Oh yeah, someone saw Duckie’s Rick Steves’ guide and gushed, “it’s like my bible!” Bonus points for unintentional irony!

And… the greatest Martha of them all: “Hello!? Martha?! Guess where I am?! Yes, guess! No, I’m at the foot of the statue of the Apostle and Saint Peter, the spiritual ancestor of every Pope ever and the bedrock for Christ’s church. Yeah!! Like untold millions of pilgrims, awed by this sacred and holy place, I’m going to rub his foot! I told you you’d never guess! Uh-huh… I can hardly hear, where are you? OH!! The supermarket?! Well, I’ll let you go then kay bye!”

I may have imagined some of the dialog. At that point, I couldn’t help laughing (and I wasn’t the only one). I even missed the photo op.

And what’s a blog for if not explaining to the rest of the world what the rules should be. If you’re a fellow tourist, I’ll give you about eight seconds to take your picture before I’ll walk into it. After twelve seconds, well, I won’t push you out of my way, but I certainly won’t share your aggrieved glance when someone else does. Exceptions may apply.

What else is there in St. Peter’s basilica? The porphyry dot where Charlemagne was coronated, the body of Pope John XIII in a glass coffin (he doesn’t decompose, but he’s wearing a wax mask), there’s the Swiss Guard in their ribboned uniforms, the baldacchino (canopy) over the altar designed by Bernini, and the two metre wide stained glass dove, representing the holy spirit. You know, the usual.

We ate the crackers in my man bag, and scoped out restaurants along the way. We ended up at Piazza Navonna in an obvious tourist trap, but a genially friendly one that wasn’t priced ridiculously out of proportion. Bernini‘s fountain of the four great river’s was under restoration, and mostly covered, but we got a few blurry shots in. Apparently this was necessary for Duckie’s Angels and Demons tour guide, of which I’ll not speak again.

We went to see Palazzo Farnese with the French embassy. It’s an attractive building, and I imagined a long and exciting history and gave a discourse in the very swish voices and styles of my good friends Dan Brown and Rick Steves. This displeased Duckie, who attacked me! Physically! I’m not going to say exactly how, but it would have been a bathing suit part (in the thirties).

Then it was the Campo de’ Fiori with the statue of a hero, Giordano Bruno who was burned at the stake for holding essentially correct but heretical cosmological beliefs, then the Largo di Torre Argentina with its four pre-Christian temples inhabited by dozens of cats, then the night-time Pantheon, another Bernini sculpture of an obelisk on an elephant, then home so Duckie could write the names of things she wanted to see on little slips of paper, with their location and hours. Then she could spent an hour shuffling them around into an ambitious but plausible schedule. I sneered like a Steves at her for doing this, but I secretly plan to make a million dollars on this idea. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was my idea first, using index cards or somesuch.

After our coffee bar, the first slip of paper told us to do the Pantheon and surrounding churches. The Pantheon is just a skip and a jump away from our palazzo, remember? It’s one of the oldest Roman buildings that has been in continuous use for millennia, now as a functioning church. Raffaello Sanzio is buried there.

The church beside the Bernini elephant-obelisk is called Santa Maria sopra Minerva and is the only gothic church in baroque Rome. It’s name comes from being built on top of a temple to the goddess Minerva. Sant’Ignazio is nearby and has a spectacular trompe l’oeil ceiling that extends out of the church straight up into heaven. There’s a statue of Jesus carved by Michelangelo, an athletic nude that later, more prudish authorities added a bronze loincloth to.

We walked from there to Trevi fountain. I threw in my three coins to guarantee a return to Rome, but Duckie didn’t. We’ll see who makes it back to Rome as a rigorous scientific experiment. Then we rushed to the Spanish Steps, which aren’t really all that interesting, and up into the Villa Borghese.

We had to run to get our tickets at the Borghese Gallery. You need to reserve in advance to even get in — we thought ahead that far — but you’re supposed to get there a half hour early or your tickets go to the waiting list. We got there five minutes before our reservation, but they had miraculously saved ours.

You can’t take pictures or even the smallest handbag in with you — you have to check it all. The villa isn’t enormous, but it is sumptuous, and the collection is something special — sufficiently small that you can enjoy the gems without glazing over. I liked the statue of David (one of the many works by Bernini), with his face set with determination and concentration as he targets Goliath.

From the villa we walked to the Cimitero dei Cappuccini. The Capuchin monks decorated the walls of the crypts with the bones of their deceased comrades, creating fantastically geometrical and (dare I say?) organic designs. Jawbones, clavicles, ribs, fingers — they covered the walls, filled the niches, and even served as light fixtures and a non-functioning clock. There were even children’s skeletons — fun for the whole family! It ended up being a bit crowded, and the calm monk needed to be replaced be a woman screaming into a microphone: “No photo! Donation!” We did leave a nice tip.

On our way to pick up our tickets for our Papal audience, we stopped by San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, a tiny church designed by Borromini. He used all his architectural artistry and tricks to give it a sense of spaciousness — its ellipsoidal dome looks much larger and higher than it really is, and even the tiny cloister has a sense of open grandeur.

You need to reserve the Pope well in advance. We got our free tickets through the American church at Santa Suzanna for only 5€ — first touring the church with it’s gloriously grand frescoes telling the story of Saint Suzanna. She was spied bathing by two lecherous elders, rebuffed their salacious and improper propositions. They publicly accused her of attempting to seduce them, but an angel appeared at her stoning to clear her name and the old men were stoned to death instead.

The priest at the ticket desk was a bit of a Rick. He complained about people picking up tickets in general, angrily thrust ours at us, and bitterly snapped a response to our question about the time to be at St. Peter’s square. It was refreshing, in fact — I don’t see why a priest shouldn’t have a personality, or show it.

Next door was Santa Maria della Vittoria with the particularly famous statue of The Ecstasy of St Theresa, who regularly experienced divine visions and extacies. Bernini, of course — he’s become a bit of an icon this trip. The statue is striking — St. Theresa gasps or sighs, her hand lifted to her chest as a smiling cherub pierces her with an arrow. Duckie expected more extasy.

One of the side chapels was open, with a little sign pointing to the sacristy. So I went in… There was a Carmelite monk sitting at a little desk in a darkened room decorated with paintings of the victory in battle for which the church was built. The glass cases lining the walls were mostly filled with historical church artifacts, but one corner had postcards and herbal creams, oils and booze made and sold traditionally by the monks. I picked out a bottle of Amarro (a digestif), and the monk gave me a mini-bar sampler to take along the route. Many people don’t care for bitter liqueurs, so this was a nice gesture — and it was delicious. I should have bought two!

The moral of the story is: occasionnally wander into a sacristy, cause you might find some booze.

Duckie performed some mystic and profane divination with her little slips of paper, who commanded us to the Baths of Diocletian. These are some more of the Roman ruins, right beside the train station, and the largest of the brick halls was converted into a church. We only had a few seconds to look around, since a service was concluding and the church was closing. The bits of paper commanded us to the Trevi fountain at night, then around the Pantheon for souvenirs and stuff, then home to eat in the apartment.

There was something to do with that sparkling rosé at this point, and Duckie assures me that I was singing Disney songs, but I can’t seem to recall any of that.

The Papal audience starts at ten, but you need to get to the square much earlier. We got there at eight-thirtyish, and snagged a pretty sweet spot close to the front. Then we sat, chatted, watched the other tourists and the Swiss Guard. Did you know that they are actually required to be good-looking? Seriously, it’s in the criteria along with being between a natural born Swiss between the ages of 18-30, speaking several languages, having regular pillow fights in the dormitories, and… celibacy.

When the Pope arrived in his Popemobile (although not behind the bullet-proof glass), everybody stood on their chairs, pointed, and took pictures. The little German boy excitedly yelled Der Papst! Der Papst! although there was little chance that he could see anything. His early teen sister with the unfortunate moustache sneered through her unfortunate orthodontia. The Popemobile actually goes through the crowd along corridors, waving and blessing. He passed within ten metres of us. When he got to his chair up on the steps, everybody sat down, except for the German girl right in front of us, who remained standing on her chair. Slouching a bit, but incredibly bored and disinterested.

The American high school kids behind us started chanting “sit! sit! sit!”, which eventually seemed to work.

The Pope read his sermon in Italian (for all I know — I don’t actually speak Italian), then an Italian cardinal got up and thanked him, prayed for his safety and good health, then started the roll call of all the Italian pilgrims that were present. Every school, chorale, church and convent screamed wildly when they were called, and the cameras zoomed in on them, and Der Papst gives them a little wave

He gave the same sermon in four other languages, and waved at a hundred pilgrims. When he got to French, I understood that the sermon was about Judas and his role as the betrayer of Christ — there has been some recent unorthodox conjecture that Judas conspired with Christ to shape the events of the Crucifixion. The Pope set the record straight.

He wasn’t being infallible, however. In fact, the Pope is only without fault when he’s speaking ex cathedra — in the official role as the head of the Catholic church, under well-defined circumstances and using special formula to clarify specific Catholic doctrine. Many Popes never spoke infallibly — Pope John Paul II was considering it when he declared that women could never be priests. And while a Pope can be without fault, as decreed in the mid nineteenth century, he is never guaranteed to be without sin.

In any case, we can assume he knows what he’s talking about when he speaks of Judas — but as long as Pope Benedict XVI isn’t speaking ex cathedra, there’s no guarantee that it’s the truth as God sees it.

A cardinal gave the sermon a sixth time in Polish, the Pope waved at the Polish pilgrims, and everyone stood for a prayer and blessing (except the bored German teen who was now slouched over dead with boredom). Everyone held up their rosaries and religious items to catch some of that Pope power. I tried to go through the list of everyone I knew that was ill or ailing, or could just use a bit of prayer. I’m not Catholic, but I made the trip and thought I might as well take advantage of them.

Afterwards, the Pope chats with his cardinals, and we waited for St. Peter’s to open again, this time to go up to the dome. A line formed and we got into it, but there really wasn’t much point — once you’re at the Papal audience, you’ve already passed security, so the point is just to push up as close to the front as you can.

We climbed the stairs up the dome, and gawked at the various views (inside and out of the basilica). Although the line at the bottom was reasonable, the top was crowded in a way that made my skin crawl. Meghgh.

We stopped just outside the Vatican to buy a memory card for Duckie’s camera. The first store was so overpriced that I could barely keep a straight face when I politely declined. I think the saleswoman was having the same problem. It was insanely inflated — the store a block farther away had cards twice as large for a reasonable third of the price. And speaking of prices, we had two huge-o gelato with four scoops each (cialdone, which means oooh yeah, that’s a lotta ice cream). Gelato in Italy is half the price as France, much less sweet and much better.

Mine was ciocolatte bianco, dolce di latte, straciatella and nocciolata. Duckie had nearly the same, but put mango in there. Crazy Duckie!

We went in Castel Sant’Angelo, but didn’t actually visit the site. Neither of us were really in the mood, so we walked along the Tiber instead, watching people talking (and kissing) along the banks. We went to Piazza del Popolo for some extremely expensive and tiny coffees — they aren’t ripping you off. They really do drink them like that. Then we visited Santa Maria del Popolo for some more Bernini sculptures, skulls and crossbones and some Dan Brown references that I didn’t get. Yet.

We were going to finish the sightseeing hours by taking the metro to the Colosseum, then rushing past the forums at night to get to the Palatine hill (with its magnificent square designed my Michelangelo) in order to see some of the must-see items at the Capitoline Museum. But we got there mere minutes after the last ticket sales, and the guard couldn’t let us in. That is to say, we walked right past him into the museum, but then I stopped, confused and looked straight at him and he was obliged to ask us if we had tickets already. He did point us the way to the toilets around the side of the building… which are actually located inside the museum. The more I think about it, the more I suspect he was encouraging us to just sneak in, but we were too honest to take advantage of the situation. Or stupid.

We walked to the Bocca della Verità, which is an ancient drain in the form of a huge mask. The legend is that if you put your hand in its mouth and tell a lie, it’ll clamp down on your fingers and mangle you. We couldn’t find it, and we sidetracked to the old Jewish quarters (the “ghetto”) to see La Sinagoga, the first temple to ever recieve a Pope. It was open at night, but not for tourists.

We found an excellent restaurant though. We shared a delicious appetizer — carciofi juidi, a deep-fried artichoke that tasted like nuts and popcorn. Duckie had a house specialty — canelloni alla gigetti — followed by the lamb. I had two typically roman foods, a spicy bucatini all’arrabiata (an angry pasta) followed by the frittura mista — breaded and fried zucchini, mushrooms, artichokes and calves’ brains. Brains are slightly eggy and slightly cheesy. A bit greasy, and they get less delicious with each morsel. Although you do get to cry out “brainss… brainssssssss…” as you eat. We finished with a digestif — limoncello for sweet Duckie and Montenegro for bitter me.

Newly nourished, we set out again to find the Bocca della Verità. It was right were that incomparable genius Rick Steves claimed it would be — in the patio of a small, locked-up church. We had no chance to mash up our fingers. I blame Rick. Continually.

Rick had caused us to have digestion problems pretty much the entire day, and a pressing need descended. We took a taxi halfway across the city for an incredible six euro. Never take a taxi in Naples; always take a taxi in Rome.

We left our palazzo the next day and had our last coffee at Chigi’s. I love the efficient ritual of Italian coffee: place your order at the cashier — due cappacini et due cornetti per favore — pick up your receipt and change, drop the receipt and some change at the bar where someone sweeps it up, barks to the barrista at the machine, drops some saucers, some glasses of water and later your coffee and pastries. Most people drink and eat rapidly at the bar, but we moved to the side to have a better view. Our palazzo was near some political buildings, so the Italians were dressed very elegantly.

We dropped out bags off at the major train station inside Rome (the baggage handlers were admirably calm in the face of a growing line, pausing to take a cigarette break under the huge no smoking sign). We split up — Duckie to the Colosseum and me to St. Paul Outside-the-Walls.

Until St. Peter’s was built, St. Paul’s Outside-the-Walls was the largest church in Christendom. It’s a short metro ride outside of Rome (hence outside the walls, or extramuros). I entered through a side door, and thought it was, sure, kind of impressive. Elegant and clean, straight lines in comparison to the exuberance of the baroque domed churches in Rome. I thought it’d be bigger, though… then I turned the corner. I was just in the transept, the small hall perpendicular to the rest of the church. This is, by any reckoning, one big church. Enormous. And way up high, there’s a continuous line of mosaic portraits of every Pope since St. Peter. The new guy got a spotlight.

I met up with Duckie at the Arch of Constantine, where she confirmed my opinion of the Colosseum. You need to go see it. It’s the Colosseum. But, like the Mona Lisa, be prepared to be slightly let down.

The Colosseum ticket also lets you visit the Palatine Hill. Duckie was a bit tired, and a bit leary of over-rated Roman ruins, but I forced her to go in. It’s not as big of a tourist draw as the Colosseum (and doesn’t get half the fame), but it’s far more interesting. Not having a ticket, however, I waited outside.

It started to rain as we walked back through the Forums, so we ducked under some vegetation and sat on stones and ate chocolate cookies with sugar stars and some of yesterday’s bonbons. Other tourists walked by with their umbrellas, and watched us with envy. Delicious chocolate cookies with sugar stars!

That’s about it now. The rest of the trip: metro, Termini station, Anagnini station, we missed the airport bus and checked the price of a taxi, but then the next bus came, Ciampini airport, extremely late flight, we missed our boarding announcement and just barely made final boarding, then the bus home from Beauvais to Paris.

Ta.

Dah.

Our goal today was the Passeig di Gràcias, the modernista route showing off Barcelona’s famous art nouveau and art deco architecture. The sidewalks along this route are taken from Gaudí’s famous hexagonal tiles that show life from the ocean. Gaudí designed the delicate and gracious street lamps, integrating a flowing bench into each one. And the most famous of the Gaudí apartments (Casa Battló, our first stop) costs an butt-reaming 16.5€ to visit. Bring your own lube, or do as we did and skip the visit entirely.

I would really have liked to have seen it, and I’m sure I would have adored the building. I’ve always been a huge art nouveau fan, and Gaudí is the art nouveau-iest. But come on, there has to be a limit to the price-to-experience ratio. Thus, skipped.

Instead, we went to a little tapas bar for coffee, and walked around looking at some of the less-famous works. There was the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, which had a floating wire sculpture above it.

We did go to La Pedrera, another of Gaudí’s buildings (and a very reasonable 8€). We started on the roof, which is open with a great view over the city. There are two large, round holes going down into the apartment complex for light, and the roof has waves of gentle stair cases going up and down and around them. The chimneys and stairwells are all large sculptures, geometric, but fluid. There were arcs to walk through and/or hit your head on.

The attic floor was designed to provide a buffer of air, ventilating the upper apartments in the summer and insulating in the winter. There’ll an exposition space one day, but for the moment there were just a few models and plans for the building. There are hundreds of brick arches on this floor — like other art nouveau designers, Gaudí drew his inspiration from nature, and many of his arches were hyperbolic catenaries. A rope of uniform weight (or Christmas garland) will naturally take this shape when hung between two points — flip it upside down and you have an optimally self-supporting arch. The neat thing about hyperbolic catenaries is that they’re made of an exponential function added to its own reflection! This means they’re the best arches ever and the most strong and godzilla couldn’t ever stomp one flat, even if he was as big as the moon! Hooray hyperbolic catenaries!

They renovated and refurnished the floor just below the attic to how it would have been in modernism’s heyday. The rooms were all gracefully curved, but functional. I love art nouveau things; it always keeps on boiling down to shelves and teapots that were grown instead of manufactured. The gift shop was pretty nifty.

We finished off the day down at the other end of La Rambla, by the water, going up a tiny elevator to the top of the monument to Columbus (pointing off into the distance). We walked for a bit along the harbour, and enjoyed the sunset.

We ate on a terrace that night, and had a big pitcher of good, non-vile sangria. Duckie ordered Canada Cake off the menu, without having any idea what it was going to be — it turned out to be ice cream cake.

Despite not getting any decent sleep (and I had even found ear plugs in my bag), we managed to take the metro out to Park Güell (pronounced “whay”, I have just learned). Designed by Gaudí for his biggest patron, Colonel Güell, it’s mostly known for the astonishingly beautiful mosaic work done by his colleague, Josep Maria Jujol. The terrace undulates along the top with crowded tile benches, and an extremely famous tiled dragon that everybody takes unpleasantly crowded photographs of.

You know, I really like Gaudí and his stuff. I do. He was one of my top draws for Barcelona. But I can probably save a lot of bandwidth by throwing a bunch of adjectives here and letting you insert them repeatedly in my descriptions: undulating, organic, sinuous, stylized, graceful, hyperbolic, fluid, probably closeted, sweeping, serpentine, and colourful.

We saw his house and bought the combo ticket to visit it and the Sagrada Familia (9€). Lots of Gaudí-related drawings and explanations, etc, insert adjectives here and have your toes stepped on by too many people.

We ate that night at 8pm, which is very early in Spain — only the tourists eat that early! The restaurant was called Los Toreros, and was decorated in coloured tile and bull-fighting posters. We ate very well, but we particularly liked the manzana liqueur served as a digestif.

We dropped our bags off at the central bus station and spent our last afternoon at Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família — the ambitious church (but not a cathedral) designed and overseen by Gaudí for much of his life. The Spanish have a saying: Like the Sagrada Familia, you can know when you start, but you can’t know when you’ll finish… Gaudí himself had another saying: My client isn’t in a hurry.

The church was started in the late nineteenth century. The design called for twelve towers (representing the Apostles) and one giant dome with a huge walk-up cross that serves as a spotlight and viewing platform. They haven’t started the dome yet, but most of the rest of the structure is in place. It’s taken far longer than projected, and some of the older bits are requiring restoration before the new bits can be finished.

There’s a museum in the basement, with plans, plaster models in all sizes and preliminary sculptures. Gaudí wasn’t making it up as he went along — he researched and carefully planned all the different aspects of the church, from the pillars reminiscent of plant stalks to the interlocking sunbursts in the ceiling. There’s a workshop dedicated to restoring his scale models to ensure that his vision is accurately constructed.

There was a little cinema showing the stages and techniques of construction. One woman made a phone call during the film (Martha!?). She made a phone call in a cinema during the film. A cinema, inside a museum, inside a church. You have to be a completely oblivious yokel to top that Martha (but we met that yokel in Rome, just wait.)

We went to the top of the towers for a view over the Eixemple, then walked around the church under construction a bit more. It’s already a stunning achievement. It’s going to be a world class monument when it’s finished… The posters said they expect it to be done in 2015, but the only Barcelonan I know scoffed at the idea.

Okay, that caps the trip to Barcelona. We took the bus to Girona, and flew to Ciampino. Because our flight arrived late at night, we planned ahead and reserved a chauffeur for the drive into Rome. Oh, the luxury!

Okay, you’ll have to take that with a pinch of salt. Consider the story — on your rest day in Paris, you stay out at the bar making ridiculous claims about the lead singer of The Cure. Getting home after midnight, you get up at 4:30am to catch a bus at the other end of the city at 5:50am… And then you discover the metro doesn’t open until after 5:30, so you throw a cab into the mix. Miss a bus, catch a bus, then two hours out to Beauvais, sitting next to a crying baby, then milling about in front of the check-in desk (France is the millingest!) while listening to a crowd of gospel singers determine who is exactly accountable for a bag being sent back with the rental car, and who is just about ready to offer their natural black ass for kissing. Here’s a hint — it’s not mine!

Then, the flight to Barcelona. Well, not Barcelona, but Girona… Two hours out. That’s the problem with RyanAir — the flights were only 79 centimes, but they’re always from distant airports that require a two hour bus, plus associated costs and time.

Once we were actually in Barcelona, at the bus station, we were still far too early to meet our landlord. We actually rented a private apartments in Barcelona and Rome via craigslist, and I was a little worried that one or the other might be a scam. We killed time at Terrablava, an all-you-can-eat buffet. Not authentic Catalan cuisine, and the hot buffet was unspectacular, but the large bar of colourful and fresh salads and vegetables was exactly what we needed.

Our landlord was exactly on time, and showed us the cute second story studio that would be our Barcelona home. It was exactly as described — two monk-like twin beds, a well furnished little kitchen, an old wood-beam and brick ceiling that was just a tetch too low, and pleasantly clean. He was extremely helpful, and gave us a little flyover of the city on a map, explaining the closest market, some good restaurants, and where to find Sangria.

It was early afternoon, and we were exhausted. We took a nap.

Then we visited La Rambla, the long avenue connecting Plaça de Catalunya (where we were staying) to the harbour. I expected this famous strolling ground to be similar to the Champs-Elysées in Paris, but there’s no comparison except for the crowds. For one, the buskers along La Rambla are very, very good. They make Parisian buskers look like total crap — their costumes and acts are surprising and delightful!

We stopped for fruit, vegetables and meat at the covered market by our place (Mercat St. Josep), and Barcelona gained a few points. It was colourful and interesting, with a variety of local products. We bought some Catalan sausage and cheese with our produce, and some of the vilest sangria conceived. We went searching for supplementary toilet paper for the apartment and got completely lost in the tiny streets, but made it home to cook,watch some TV and go to bed early. We didn’t get much sleep — the street was very, very loud. Until 6am.

I got up early and went out to find us coffee and croissants.

We started our day wandering the Barri Gòtic, the Gothic quarter. It’s like a puzzle, still the tiny winding streets of a historic centre, but you can see the overall symmetry of the original Roman city lines. Not knowing really where to start, we popped into a church, Iglesia del Pi, and started to look around. Five minutes later they kicked us all out. I don’t know why. Apparently, I don’t speak either Catalan or Spanish.

Duckie bought a Vespa bag, which is an incredibly tourist thing to do when you’re in Spain. But it was probably the coolest Vespa bag ever, admittedly, so she didn’t have a choice. With her fashionable Vespa tote, we went to a little English-style pub in the quarter for tea and club sandwiches.

Our next stop was the cathedral, dedicated to Saint Eulalia, who looks over the city. It has a large cloister filled with palm trees, geese and a fountain capped with St. George killing the dragon. It’s said that if you drink from this fountain, you will be forever cursed to visit Barcelona again… (Those who are familiar with “reality” will note that I made up that particular “fact”.)

The interior of the cathedral is great! Each chapel is a little religious museum, and extremely interesting. I bought the little guidebook at the gift shop.

There was a little antique market outside the cathedral, so I bought some old postcards and smacked my head good against an awning support. Ouch.

Then we went to a dollar store… Don’t laugh. I was still practically concussed, and a cultural anthropologist can discover amazing things about a place and it’s peoples in the oddest places. I actually love going to big grocery stores in different countries. At one level, they all resemble each other, but there’s always the little unique things that surprise you.

People were handing out bills for a classical guitarist that was playing at the Palau de la Mùsica, one of the modernista buildings that I really wanted to see, so we decided to go buy tickets. Kind of expensive, long line to get tickets, and in the end, well, more than a little dull. I can’t gush with enthusiasm.

The Palau was really something though — the stained glass ceiling fluidly dripped a huge stained glass chandelier, the flowing stairways, the lilies in the tile work, and the half-sculpted figures surging out of the stage… Some more points for Barcelona. It gave us something to look at during the incessant encores from the world famous guitarist.

It poured on the way home, and we were in our fancy clothes. It was great! Not cold, but very, very wet. We didn’t get much sleep, despite being frantically exhausted. People were having a screamingly good time walking between bars. I imagined a large hammer smashing them flat, like in a cartoon.

The famous American cemetery is an broad expanse of respectfully kept green grass and row after unimaginable row of white crosses. They were the defenders of liberty, and many of them remained here. We didn’t go to the big American cemetery in Colleville this time.

It must have been hard to put together a cemetery for the aggressors, the invaders and occupiers. It must have been well after the war. The German at Huisnes-sur-Mer cemetery has 12,000 bodies of identified and unidentified German soldiers. They’re arranged in a two-story circle of small rooms. It’s a peaceful and thoughtful place.

“If people only knew how hard it is to be wounded, to die, they would all be meek and gentle, would not split into parties, would not incite mobs to attack one another, and would not kill. But when they are in good health they know nothing of this. When they are wounded, no-one believes them. When they are dead, they can no longer speak.”

You can’t see outside of the round structure except from the second story of the back, which looks over calm farmland and the bay of Mont St. Michel.

Mont St. Michel is amazing, especially from this distance. It jags straight out from the bay, its man-made silhouette is unnatural and beautiful. Inspiring. There’s nothing in Canada like it.

Of course, some other tourists arrived, jibber-jabbering on their mobile phone. In a cemetery. In our solitude looking over Mont St. Michel. What sort of planet do these people come from?

The worst part about being a tourist is the other tourists. We have a particular game for mobile phone offenders. It’s called “Martha!? Guess where I am?!” and it involves mocking the mobile phone user by talking to Martha on a pretend phone, and screechily asking her to identify where you are. You have to be there.

These two, by the way, happened to be among the least offensive of the Martha?! targets that we’d end up meeting. Just wait until the Rome travel log…

Our car is so amazingly cool. We drove it to Mont St. Michel, stopping along the way to take some more pictures of the Mont, some cows, and our beloved Citroen.

The parking at Mont St. Michel depends on the tides. When we arrived, they were going out. Some of the attendant booths were still partially underwater. You have to pay special attention to the parking hours for the same reason. If you’re late, you don’t get a ticket… you get a submerged car.

The tides at Mont St. Michel are fast too — it’s said the tide comes in at the speed of a galloping horse. That’s a lie, however. In reality, it comes in at the speed of a brisk walk.

St. Malo has the highest and lowest tides in the region; the bay of Mont St. Michel has some of the longest — dozens of kilometres. At low tide, people walk far enough out that they’re barely specks from the shore.

The view looking up at the church from the parking lot is also impressive. From this distance you can still see nearly everything and the distinctive outline of the mont, but you can also make out details of the church on the peak and the medieval city built up around it.

Unless someone’s big head is in the way. Stupid tourists!

On entering Mont St. Michel, one of the first places you’ll see is the inn of Mere Poulard. She used to provide food and boarding for pilgrims to the mont, whipping up quick omelets on the fire in her long-handled copper pan. Now her name is the premier brand among Mont St. Michel tourist crap: cookies, copper frying pans, omelets, the above items on tins and magnets. If you actually want to eat an omelet or sleep on the mont, her inn is still open. For a dizzying price.

We wandered a bit on the city walls, looking at the view inward and outward, before making our way up to the monastery and church. There’s a lot of stairs to climb, even just to get to the ticket office. It wasn’t particularly crowded, but there was a plague of tour buses. The cashier at the ticket office actually started yelling at the tour groups, telling them that they should keep a respectful volume, that this was still a church and that she would have no problem sending them straight back to the bus that spawned them. She was right.

We each got an audio guide. I’m a big fan of audio guides now. It’s usually worth well worth the price, it’s at your own pace, and you’re easily fed the information you need to apreciate the site.

The view from the top is well worth the trip by itself. The front of the church burned down ages ago, and during repairs, they left a large terrace overlooking the bay and the channel.

Inside the church, they were apparently having a workshop for the kids — There was children’s art here and there: tissue paper stained glass, coloured tile replicas, calligraphy of their names.

We were extremely hungry, so we stopped at one of the overpriced restaurants on the mont. Just like around the Eiffel tower, the tourists and their flowing dollars kill any good food. And in this crushing environment, where the establishment serves more and more of less and less, the service staff becomes unstandably resentful and bitter. Spiteful animatronics that have numbed themselves to dropping barely adequate plates in front of ne’er-to-be-seen-again tourists.

And spiteful tourists, stretch out their cameras slowly with stiffly bowed arms, mouth-breathing as they awkwardly frame the historic monument squarely on the screen, as if suddenly the exact level of zoom has a sense in their artistic aesthetic. As if they’re not taking the photo for the sole purpose of avoiding seeing or thinking about this fleeting instant itself. Don’t kid yourself, you’ll never look at that photo again.

Unless you have a blog! Ka-zing!

But the convertible was hypercool. My next car, if I ever have one, should at the very least have a sun roof.

I wanted to walk out on the bay of Mont St. Michel for a bit, but you have to be prepared for this. It’s extremely muddy, and there really isn’t any place to clean yourself up — the main fountain at the entrance to the site actually forbids you from washing your feet there. I don’t know — maybe disposable thongs and plastic socks? You’re also supposed to watch carefully for quicksand. But I wouldn’t be worried — I float! We all float down here!

We stopped off at a local producer to buy many bottles of pear cider and pommeau, which is an aged cider/apple brandy mix. We broke one of the bottles on my doorstep. It smells really kind of gross.

The next day was our recovery day in Paris. We took the car back, and did the minimum amount of walking we coukd get away with.

Our walking took us to the Institut du Monde Arabe, which has a great view over Paris. One of its walls is covered with irises that open and close automatically to control the amount of sunshine in the building. You have to pass through security to get in, then take the elevator to the top floor.

The bathrooms are also excellent, if you have a pressing need.

We spent some time in the medina afterwards. It’s not a real medina, with the hustle and colour of an arabian market. It’s calm, with piped music and plenty of space to show off the best of arts and crafts from a dozen middle arabian countries. We had mint tea and sugary pastries.

Well, that was our France appetizer. The next courses are Barcelona and Rome!