Photos!!!

For those who are interested, here are all of Dan's photos from the trip.

There's one big album,

OR you can look at individual collections:

Cholet
Clisson
Chateau de Brissac
Le Fete du Vent
At La Giro
In Paris
Boat Ride on the Seine
In or from the Pompidou
Amsterdam

Hope that you enjoy looking, because we sure enjoyed taking!

Thanks for traveling with us ~

The long flight home

We had one of the most pleasant flights ever from one part of the world to another. Dan and I decided to blow $119 each for the Delta Economy Comfort seating. We've never done that before, but boy howdy is it worth it. Hell, if you're spending $1600 on a ticket, what's another $100? We were seated in an exit row, without any seats in front of us and right next to the galley. We thought that it would be a bad thing, sitting right where all of the galley activity would be, but it was great entertainment. The flight crew was hilarious, and we heard all kinda of interesting scoop on other passengers. Michel had to quiet down some people who were trying to make it into the mile-high club. Some skinny guy in business class ate nine french bread rolls and two full meals - and then ate snacks on top of that. Another flight attendant had wine poured down her back (accidentally) by another flight attendant. She said that the frustrating part was that she couldn't suck her ponytail because she was on duty. Holly was lamenting that her rising-senior son was in a moratorium about applying for colleges and didn't seem to understand the importance of deadlines. (This evoked memories of Sallis Murrell.) All in all, our seating was great.

On the down side, we had a very clear view of the quality of life in business class. Now THAT would be the way to travel long flights...

I'll broach the food issue before Dan does. Food on a trip originating from France or Amsterdam (London, not so much) is always of superior quality to the crap we Americans serve on our flights. I don't know why there has to be that discrepancy, but to seems to be consistent.

Border patrol and customs were a breeze in Atlanta. As seems to be the rule and not the exception, all flights have been packed, but we've not sat behind fragrant Dutchmen, near a lavatory, or in a row in which the seats don't recline. 

Heading to the States

We are, with mixed emotions, headed back to the New World. With a suitcase wheel rigged with electrical tape (this is the second suitcase that has done this, and both times it's been mine (Vicki's). I guess I really am hell on wheels. Ha.)

We arrived at the tram station literally 5 seconds before the tram got there. At Centraal Station, the machines only take a credit card with a chip. Our flight has been delayed. I figure that the wheel, the ticket machine, and the delayed flights are signs from the gods, but we are going ahead anyway! 

P.S. Schiphol airport is confusing as hell. It is also very crowded at the gates

From A to P: Appeltaart to Pannenkocken

I (Dan) came to Amsterdam after Paris with lowered expectations. I had eaten well prior to this leg of our trip and figured that Amsterdam was primarily a chance to see the canals and Anne Frank's house. However, I found a list of some Dutch foods before I left, and then I found a new and wonderful website, www.eatyourworld.com, that highlights foods in some international cities. Suddenly, Amsterdam had more appeal and I had goals.

In the last 24 hours, Vicki and I found and tried:

1. Appeltaart - you've heard the expression, "as American as apple pie?" Could be Dutch as well. We came upon a wonderful little place called the Cafe de Prins and got seated canalside by a Canadian who came to Amsterdam for love and stayed past boyfriend #1. We saw someone peeling and cutting up apples at the bar, and found out that the bartender actually makes the pies herself. Ours was delicious. 

The same spot also provided an opportunity for #2 and #3.

2. Bitterballen - related to krokets, these are basically very crunchy, fried balls (about the size of a ping-pong ball) with creamy centers of shredded chicken or beef, mixed with broth, flour, and almost assuredly butter. Think of leftover stew with flour added to make it thicker, rolled into  ball, rolled in crunchy coating and fried. 

3. Beer - more specifically today, Heineken. Not the stuff one buys in a bottle in Memphis, but local draft. Completely different taste, undoubtedly improved by location and the accompanying bitterballen. I have to say I have had no other memorable beers here. Vicki found Kriek and was very happy.

4. Frites - after pommes frites in Paris, I was quite happy, but walking around last night, I had a craving. There are frites stands here, and they sell only fries. Last night after dinner and dessert, I was not hungry, but what does that have to do with anything? I saw the stand that proclaimed that they had the best fries in the city or nation or world, so we stopped. They have three sizes - and the smallest paper cone of fries must have had a whole potatoes worth. They serve these to you hot and on the top you can have one of probably 30 different toppings, from the common (sweet mayo) to the unusual (satay sauce or curry ketchup). 

5. Jenever - the previously mentioned gin-related beverage that can apparently range from very juniper-ish to sweet and flavored varieties.

6. Gerookte Paling - smoked eel and 

7. Haring - brined herring. These are both local specialities typically sold out of market booths and we just happened to find one. Vicki was willing to try the smoked eel (on the left below) but would only taste the onions on my herring. The herring was almost buttery in texture, still very oily and I liked it. That oily flavor was still with me several hours later, however! [it was with everyone near him for several hours as well...]

8. Pannenkocken - pancakes. I had no idea that pancakes were a Dutch item. Not only the plain ones, however. There are pancakes with any number of items served on top, from eggs, bacon and other breakfast-type items to the sweet versions to the more exotic, like a tex-mex pizza pancake, and all of these  flopped over the edge of a dinner plate. [These are not big, fluffy,American pancakes. They are thinner and chewier.]

9. Stroopwafel - a delicious waffle made from two thin layers of baked batter with a caramel-like syrup filling in the middle.

Add to that the cheeses we got to try, various coffees, Kriek, soft-serve pistachio ice cream, gaufres, etc. and I pronounce the two days in Amsterdam a culinary success.

Cheeses stacked in a cheese shop we visited:

Yes, we did some other things besides eat. Your point?

Bastille Day!

Today is Bastille Day, the French national holiday. Festivities began last night and there is a huge parade on the Champs Élysées today, which we will miss. We will also miss huge crowds and really bad traffic.

I (Dan) don't have my French flag, but we will find our own ways to celebrate here. I will toast you all today!

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Amsterdam

Hated to leave Paris, but we had train tickets. We took a taxi to Gare du Nord, not the prettiest or cleanest of the train stations serving Paris. We grabbed some breakfast while waiting for our train to arrive, then loaded and plopped down for the ride. (We heard from a Memphis friend this morning that there had been a horrific train wreck in Paris.) [You don't hear much about these kinds of wrecks in France, so it was a little disconcerting. Thanks, Robert, for checking on us!]

Our train ride was fairly uneventful, spent napping [that would be me ~vsm] and having breakfast again - and I read a lot and played games on my iPad. We arrived on time in Amsterdam and immediately had to deal with the fact that we don't know that language. Even when they speak English, the street names sound like gobbledygook. Street names like De Lairessestraat don't sound anything like we think they look. 

We managed to get public transit to our hotel. Get this: we are staying in the Hotel Memphis. [Thanks, Pat Stevens, for the recommendation!] No one has said anything about that yet. Seems like we should get a discount. [It seems also that the guy at the GVB - the Amsterdam transit system - should know the best tram to take to get to the hotel. Instead of sending us on one that stops just down the street or one that stops a block away, he sends us on one that is a nice, long walk... And me with a suitcase with a gimpy wheel!]

We walked to a nice neighborhood restaurant area for lunch - and then further on for coffee and people watching. When we came back, Vicki napped and I went down to the bar to try Jenever, the juniper-flavored and strongly alcoholic traditional liquor of the Netherlands from which gin evolved. Good stuff.

After naptime, Vicki and I set out for downtown and dinner. Indonesian restaurants are all around and one was recommended by the highest authority we could find: a clerk in a bookstore who told us that really, Dutch food isn't all that good. [Besides, she said, the Indonesian could be considered Dutch since Indonesia was a Dutch colony! We hit a good spot with some good food that we've never tried before. After dinner, there was more walking... And into a coffee shop, where in Amsterdam they sell marijuana and seeds for hemp, peyote, and more. Needless to say, on the streets on a Saturday night, you can get high just from the second-hand smoke. We stopped for a drink at the Cafe Spui, where I had a Kriek. Dan is jealous because he ordered another janever, but this one was sweet, like a dessert wine, and he didn't like it. He prefers that his alcohol taste like moonshine, I think.]

As we were getting ready to leave, several horse-drawn carriages, filled with adults in early-1900s period dress, drew up and stopped. Our server at the Cafe Spui had no idea what was going on, but the procession stopped public transit (which is unusual; EVERYTHING runs on time here) for abut 10 or 15 minutes. I looked it up online, and there's some annual parade - but I couldn't find any reason for it. Someone said that it could be a period Gay parade... This is, after all, Amsterdam.]

Finally, we walked back via the Red Light district, which was quite boring [it wuld have been great if we were in our 20s, single, high, and/or gay ] except for the pistachio soft-serve ice cream [FINALLY!!!] and the frites (served with mayo). [Dan caught these in a store window:

These are pacifiers with sunglasses attached - or vice-versa. Brilliant!]

And now it is bedtime.

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Train rant

So here we are cruising along at 300 kilometers an hour.The cars are going about 90 kph.

http://youtu.be/fMminLqgEKI

For those who must have the conversion (see next rant), that is about 185 miles per hour.

We only had to be at the station 10 minutes before we boarded.
The train left on time.
It will arrive on time.
Breakfast was served:

OK, it wasn't gourmet, but it was considerably better than airline food.
It is comfortable.
There is workspace (I am typing this part on the train).
The seats recline.
I can actually cross my legs.
There is a decent and clean restroom between each car.
There is a dining car.
The emissions are a fraction of that of automobiles.
I can see the countryside go by.

What is not to like about this? It doesn't seem to me that the U.S. is so far behind that trains couldn't make a comeback. We would have to upgrade our rails to make them safe for a high speed train, but this is one time we can learn from the considerable advances in rail travel from Europe and Japan. No reason to reinvent the wheel (or train) here.

And nuts to the airlines if they can't compete.

[Note from Vicki: Dan is the optimistic one of us, as most of you know. I think that America is too stupid to go for a high-speed rail. If we weren't, we would have done it in the 1970s when the Middle East oil crises started. If anyone remembers, Jimmy Carter - still destined to go down as a visionary leader - told us that the oil problem would not get any better. Some have yet to believe it.]

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Rant 2 - the metric system

I (Dan) remember the failed attempt for the US to join almost all of the rest of civilization by using the metric system in the seventies. To my way of thinking, it was a good idea with very poor execution.

What I think went wrong was the idea of converting everything. On highways, you saw both miles and kilometers. In stores, you saw quarts and liters. The change should have just been made overnight. No conversions were needed. It would have taken about a week to figure out what a liter of milk, or gasoline, or any other fluid was. And the first time you went outside, you learn that 30 degrees Celsius is hot, and that your house is comfortable at 17. You wouldn't convert, just reboot and learn.

We spent a whole lot of money on signs and education and have little to show for it. Too bad. When I get to run the country, I'll try to do a little better.

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Friday, July 12

Our full day in Paris started with a walk to the Pantheon. As we walked in front of the Hôtel de Ville, we saw several people making a huge display made of roses in support of Paris hosting the Gay Olympics in 2018:

I did not know that there were Gay Olympics. Maybe there's some rally or something going on for it, because we saw more gay men than I've ever seen before in city tonight. The gay bars were packed.

Okay - back to our tour. In December, 2007, we were in Paris with our children and my parents; stayed just across from the Pantheon, but we never went in. What a loss! It's a fantastic place, built on the site of a basilica built by King Clovis in 507 A.D. The present-day building was the brain child of Louis XV. It was completed in 1790. There are several historical figures buried there, including Pierre and Marie Curie (Marie was Polish, which I did not know); Victor Hugo; Emile Zola; Alexandre Dumas; Jean Jacques Rousseau; and Voltaire, who had perhaps the coolest tomb.

One part of the ceiling

(Having read a lot of Voltaire for my degree, and then teaching about him and having students read Candide, I was in awe. - Dan)

After the Pantheon, we roamed the Latin Quarter, looking for the Arènes de Lutèce, which is the ruins of a Roman amphitheater. You would not think it would be hard to find, but in Paris, just about everything is hard to find... even a decent-sized garage.

From there, we were practically starving, because we hasn't earn for maybe three hours, so we hit the metro to have lunch at La Cadole, a place discovered by our friend, Will Thompson, and his partner who were just here. It was trés delicieuse. Dan had ravioli in a ridiculous cream sauce and lapin, which is rabbit.

I had a sautéed goat cheese and a fish filet that was so flaky, I had to eat it like an American (with my fork in my right hand). That, no doubt, gave us away as foreigners. (Nothing else, of course, did. Not the camera. Not the tennis shoes. Not the accents. - Dan)

Fortified with a wonderful meal, we headed to the Grand Palais, which was closed. However, we got some great views of the Tour Eiffel:

In addition, we got to see a load of gendarmes, who apparently we beginning their patrols in anticipation of Bastille Day. The Champs Élysées had the barricades already set up and the flags flying.  It was an impressive sight, but given the throngs of people who flooded Paris today, I am glad that we are leaving.

On our way back, we walked and walked and got about two map millimeters toward our destination, so we opted to take the metro. Good call, Vicki and Dan! We had been out for almost eight hours, and if we had kept walking, I think that we would have been out for another eight. When we got to the hot room, I cranked the air conditioning and Dan went to the Pompidou Center. I don't have much patience for modern art, and after seeing his photos, I'm glad that I passed that up.

Dan - I cannot believe Vicki would pass up the chance to see such masterworks as these:

This is made of panty hose material - and each one has about a pound of spice. Smells good...

C'mon. Really?

Umm... aluminum worshipers?

The artist said something about excreting string on the canvas. I'm not making this up. 

There were some great views from the top!

Like the Sacre Coeur...

And this little known and apparently unfinished tower:

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Location:Rue Simon le Franc,Paris,France

We are in Paris!

So... Paris. There's no other city like it, I think. Reginald and Teresa took us to the gare at Chemille, where we could not get our tickets printed for some reason. We left with a hand-written ticket which basically said that our tickets wouldn't print, so the written note would have to suffice. And so it did.




Dan, Gabi, and I boarded the train which, as do all French trains, left exactly on time. It's pretty amazing, the timeliness of the rail system here.

At Angers, we said goodbye to Gabi, who promised to see us on Facebook. We have been waiting more than a year to see Gabi on Facebook, so  I'm not holding my breath. I have to work hard not to take it personally, but not to worry, Gabi... I am still whole. After Gabi departed, Dan and I dragged our luggage (mine had four containers of sel de mer, three bottles of perlant rouge, two containers of chocolate noissette spread, and a partridge in a pear tree) across the street to a lovely little cafe where we had a drink and lunch.

Out train to Paris left at 12:41 pm, and we pulled into the Gare Montparnasse at 14:21. We looked for the nearest metro station to no avail and finally opted to hire a taxi. I think that's the best 25€ we have spent. And let me say that I would not drive in Paris for any amount of money.

Our hotel is very nice and on a quiet street near the Pompidou Center. We set out to explore the nearby arrondissement. We headed to the Hotel de Ville, where there were several street performers that Dan captured with his camera. 

We then walked part of the Promenade Plantée, or the Coulee Verte as it's called here. It's a long bridge kind of thing that is above the streets of Paris, and it's planted with all kinds of beautiful perennials, vines, and shrubs.

That kind of walking stirs an appetite, so we were off to find moules frites, which we did:

Following dinner, we walked along the quay of the Rive Gauche and saw more people sitting, eating and drinking, and dancing than I would have expected to see on a Thursday nite. Dan says that the Parisians love their parks, and they do

The day was capped off with a boat ride up and down the Seine.







(And Vicki left out that we stopped for a crepe from a street vendor on the way back to our hotel. Just to tide us over until morning.)

More on the last day

Some shots from the day....

This is the abbey we walked to, from the road just outside La Giro.




Une poupée in a town window (typing in French really messes with my spell check!)




Teresa Dalle in her favorite spot, at her favorite time of day:




Celebrating the 42nd anniversary of Teresa and Reginald Dalle:




Some dinner photos - escargots:




Prosciutto wrapped melon:




Orange with red onion and pepper:




And we never got a photo of the main course - BBQ shrimp. They were huge - maybe 5-6 inches each.

And here we are once again at the table, dining outside. We sat here until almost 11:00. Wonderful.




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