Skype and Family

One forehead wrinkle for each question

I'm in Israel right now! It's all thanks to Birthright Israel Foundation, which pays to send hundreds of Jewish youths to the motherland every year. In 11 days, my tour will take me to most of the major historical, religious, cultural, and political sites in the country. This stint on the other side of the pond has brought back some of the challenges that we faced during our first weeks in France. What will I eat? Will I make friends? How will I communicate with loved ones back home?

With France already under my belt, I can answer all of these questions with ease. I will eat everything anyone puts in front of me. I will make some friends, but not too many (especially since I'll have Robert with me). And I will communicate via Skype, the free internet-phone and video-conferencing software that everyone should know about.

There's not too much to explain - you download the software, set up an account, find your peeps online, and press "call." Skype is how we were able to check in with people back home throughout the year, including at Thanksgiving, when we said hi to my entire extended family.



I don't have a phone in Israel, so if I want to call home, it'll have to be with Skype. And that's fine by me.

Toto, We're not in Paris Anymore

We've been a little slow in posting this past week because we've been traveling around, hitting up Maggie's family reunion, spending time with her mom and sister, and attending her 5-year college reunion. As if returning to Somerville after 9 months in Paris weren't culture shock enough, Maggie's family reunion took place on her aunt's farm in Western Minnesota, not too far from Fargo. We went from one kind of immersion to another, camping in a horse pasture, going for a lake cruise, and eating non-stop BBQ. One of our favorite moments of the weekend really drove home the distance we've traveled - geographically and culturally - from Paris.

That's me and Bill, heading out for a walk around the "block" (3 miles long). And to think, just a month ago we were taking pictures of street art and the music library inside the Opera Garnier . . .

Last Day

We keep getting asked what we're doing with our last few days in Paris. Nothing special, we say. But we're keeping busy, for sure. Here's today's schedule:

8am: -Wake up, walk Panda.
9:30 - Louis cancels bank card so he can keep his account, free of charge.
9:45 - Depart for Bois de Boulogne, where an off-leash Panda will tire herself out in preparation for tomorrow's flight.
12:30pm - Return from Bois de Boulogne, where Panda not only tired herself out, but also rolled around in something gross and yellow.
12:35 - Panda gets an unscheduled shower.
1:30 - Last Paris Lunch at Le Baratin.
3:00 - Visit Livres & Papiers, 6, rue Vivienne, 2e arr., to purchase our last souvenir from this trip: an 1863 map of Paris with annotations by engineers working under Baron Haussmann
3:45 - Visit La Bonbonnière de la Trinité to buy another package of super super fine cocoa powder to feed my mom's addiction
4:30 - Back home, say goodbye to Héloise, Mehdi, Nahel, and Tilal before heading to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont for Panda's afternoon walk
5:00 - Finish packing, weigh all luggage, spot clean
8:00 - Dinner (read: finish all food remaining in the house) with Evan.
11:00? - Bedtime, knowing that we'll sleep fitfully in anticipation of the big move.

Next Time Around

With our departure only four days away, it's high time we embarked on some retrospection. There's no disputing that we had an amazing year, that we learned a lot, and that we're satisfied with our experience. Still, if we ever have the opportunity to do it all over again, there are a few things we'd do differently.

1. Subscribe to a French newspaper or news journal.
2. Watch more French TV.
3. Go to the movies more often.
4. Plan more trips during the winter, fewer during the spring.
5. Take more day trips around France.
6. Write down the schedules of local food boutiques (for a long time we always thought to go to the fromagerie on days when it was closed), try to buy food from them whenever possible, and budget the added cost (because it can get quite expensive if you shop there regularly).
7. Get year-long passes to the Louvre (which cost only 30 euros if you're under 30 and which let you bring one guest for free per pass) and the Centre Pompidou (only 27 euros, which is more than paid for by three visits - and exhibitions change every few months).
8. See what it's like to live outside of Paris, maybe even outside the metropolitan area. 
9. Dedicate time to creating a children's book called "Panda à Paris" in which Panda has a series of adventures around the city. The plot line is still in the development stage, but we have a lot of faith in the premise.

We're Back!

Our cruise ended on Sunday and we were supposed to fly back Sunday night/Monday morning, but like so many other travelers over the last week, the ash cloud prevented our transatlantic return trip.

We were a lot luckier than most of the thousands upon thousands of stranded folks, since our flights to and from Florida took us through Philadelphia, which is roughly where my mom lives. So from Sunday through Tuesday, we were "stranded" at her house, which was much nicer than any airport or hotel. Our second stroke of luck came around 11 PM on Monday night, when the last-call-to-USAirways-before-bedtime yielded two seats on a flight out of Charlotte for the next day. It was a gamble - we could have arrived at Charlotte only to find our flight to Paris canceled - but we had to take it.

And our gamble paid off! Insert huge sigh of relief here. With only six weeks left until we return Stateside for good, every day counts!

PS - Several people asked us to try to take a picture of the volcanic ash as we flew by. I'm pretty sure that even if the plane were to fly anywhere near the ash (which it wouldn't), the stuff wouldn't be visible. But my understanding is that it does contribute to incredibly beautiful, extremely red sunrises and sunsets, and we did catch a sunrise just before landing in Paris, so I'll let you decide for yourself how much ash was in the air.

Paradise Lost

A week-long Caribbean cruise with the fam: gorgeous weather, copious amounts of food, relaxation central. We're so relaxed we can't even be bothered to fully describe the experience in words. Here's hoping that some pictures do the trick.


Thanks, Poppop.

Things We Learned In Warsaw

How to Speak Polish: dzień dobry (hello), dobranoc (good night), proszę (please), dziękuję (thank you), pop corn (pop corn), all other words were too difficult.

Cost of Living: Warsaw is a cheap place to visit. We ate like kings for next to nothing (by Paris standards, anyway). Worst of all, złoty feel and look more like play-money than Euros.

Uprising Karma: When the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising saw hundreds of thousands of Jews engage in uneven warfare to prevent their wholesale extermination, the non-Jews of Warsaw mostly stood by and watched. A year after the Ghetto Uprising had been crushed and almost all the Jews removed from Warsaw, the rest of the citizenry rose up in similarly uneven warfare against the Nazi occupiers, only to see the Red Army and Free Polish forces stand by just across the river, waiting until the fighting ended and until the city was destroyed to chase out the remaining German forces. Harsh.

Warsaw Uprising symbol and Monument

Citizenship: for a new-born girl to qualify for Polish citizenship, her first name must end in the letter A. Acceptable: Maria, Eva, Rebecca, Andrea. Unacceptable: Maglen.

Culinary Culture: Polish specialties include obvious dishes like pierógi, barszcz, and kiełbasa. Unexpected delights include donuts, unpasteurized beer, and coke-flavored chocolates.

Pierógi!

Palace Crazy: There are more former royal residences in and around Warsaw (top: Biały Domek (White House); top left: Zamek Królewski w Warszawie (Royal Palace); top right: Pałac Łazienkowski (Łazienkowski Palace); bottom left: Pałac Belwederski (Belweder Palace); bottom right: Pałac Wilanowski (Wilanów Palace); not pictured: Zamek Ujazdowski (Ujazdów Castle); Pałac Myślewicki (Myślewicki Palace)) than in and around Paris (Palais du Louvre, Chateau de Versailles, Place des Vosges, Palais du Luxembourg, Chateau de Vincennes). To be fair, every single Warsaw palace could probably fit inside the Louvre at the same time and still leave room for the Antiquities collection.

Finally: We learned that Warsaw is beautiful. A mix of old and new, original and reconstructed, noble and popular, rich and poor, it's a city with a fascinating past and a promising future. We'll be back.

Exciting Times

Thanks to the marvels of modern technology, we were able to continue posting about Paris without even being here. Where were we, you wonder? Why, we were visiting Warsaw, way yonder!

Top Left: Frederick Chopin Airport; Top Right: Maggie with Kielbasa; Bottom Left: Warsaw Uprising Memorial; Bottom Right: Hliarious tiny communist-era car

Top Left: Palace of Science and Culture; Top Right: Chopin Monument; Bottom Left: Andrea - colleague, host, future argyle model?; Bottom Right: Warsaw Uprising Museum, "We Hate Communism" room

More reportage to come on this fantastic trip very soon. For now, we must focus on the task at hand: transitioning from Panda-à-Paris-Crashes-Warsaw to Panda-à-Paris-Celebrates-Passover. Tonight was the first time I can ever remember not getting together with tons of people to celebrate the first night of Passover, and this was mostly because we don't know anyone else celebrating here, but also partly because we just got home from Warsaw. But we still made do.

Tomorrow night we're going to throw a for-real Seder for some Paris friends, and we'll have more on that soon. For now, though, Happy Passover to everyone back home!

Signage

I've been trying to pay closer attention to signs, lately, especially signs about dogs. (And not just because I'm worried about getting in trouble.) It's interesting to compare how signs convey different messages.

This is supposed to mean that you can't take dogs inside the castles - but we walked Panda right up to Neuschwanstein, and she could go in the castle courtyard without any problems.

Along with soccer balls (or is that a billiards ball?), dogs are simply not allowed on the Stüttgart "Common" - but lounging people with stickers for heads are. Well, we showed them: Panda pooped on that Common.

My favorite: dogs are allowed, without leash, they just can't poop. Hey, unleashed dog over there! Stop that! This sign (seen in Munich) would be appropriate in Paris.

More Engrish

While we were visiting Neuschwanstein, we saw this amazing coat and couldn't resist taking a picture. If this doesn't qualify as Engrish, I don't know what does.

That must be what Italy means to him . . .?

In Bruges Part IV

Great thing about museums in Bruges: buy one ticket, get into a few museums. Buy another ticket, get into a few more. If a bunch of rooms are closed at the Groeninge Museum, get a super reduced rate (1 euro for students). Then again, the Groeninge Museum without its best Flemish Primitivist art wasn't much of a Groeninge Museum at all. We elected not to to use our super-reduced-rate ticket to get into the Museum's extension across the courtyard, instead choosing to enter the Notre Dame of the city, the choir of which I've already described. To get into the choir, we had to buy another 1-euro ticket - which also got us into the Gruuthuse, just next to the cathedral. During our tour the previous day, Tom had explained that the family with the privilege of running the Gruthuis (which collected taxes on products needed to make beer) actually connected the Gruthuis to the cathedral via a private passageway, so they could attend Mass without leaving the comfort of their own home.

The path between the Groeninge Museum and the cathedral takes you over this ridiculously quaint/picture-perfect bridge. You can see the ambulatory of the cathedral, and to its right, the Gruuthuse. The little gate right on the water is where the Gruthuis occupants would meet incoming boats to exact the tax on the beer-related products they were carrying.

The Gruuthuse

(looks like someone combined Princeton's Collegiate Gothic architecture with Harvard's brick fetish)

After the Gruuthuse, which seems to be the Museum of Mundane Objects Throughout Bruges' History, we stopped into the Stadhuis to see the Renaissance chamber and learn about the city's political history.

Actually, the Stadhuis is composed of about 5 quasi-separate buildings, each of which is designed in a different period's style: Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical, with a touch of Neo-Gothic thrown in for good measure. Here, from left to right: Classical, Baroque, Neo-Gothic.

After lunch (more on that in another Flemish Foodfest post), dessert, and a waffle, we stopped into Sint-Salvadorscathedraal, which is the "main" cathedral, then walked to Konigin Astridpark, and finally it was time to leave Bruges.

Until next time, Bruges, city of kind people and weird serpent benches . . .

Have Dog, Will Travel

Before leaving for Munich, we did a bit of research to make sure that Panda was welcome on both French and German trains. As you've already guessed, it turns out she was - under certain conditions. You're supposed to carry a muzzle with you, in case a neighbor is uncomfortable with your dog's gaping, bloody jaws. Also, a neighbor can ask for you and your dog to be moved. Dogs under 7 kg don't need tickets (it's assumed they can travel in a small bag and/or on your lap) but dogs over 7 kg require reduced rate or children's tickets.

We also read that conductors rarely ask for a dog's ticket, so we decided to play it by ear and only buy a ticket for Panda if someone asked us to on the train. In four ticket-checking situations, only once did a conductor inform us that Panda needed a ticket - and that was probably only because we mistakenly drew attention to her. (She had just chewed off her harness, and we were busy trying not to let her sprint down the aisle in search of the dining car.) Most of the conductors didn't even seem to notice her as she lay quietly at our feet.

All in all, traveling with Panda by train was a pleasant experience. And the single ticket we had to buy was still cheaper than boarding her at the local kennel. Still, I can't help but wonder whether Panda might have gotten to Munich faster on her own four feet . . .

We Get Around

I mentioned last week that we were heading to Munich for Thanksgiving #2. What I didn't realize is that we'd also get to see a bit of Stuttgart (while waiting to switch trains), a lot of Bavarian countryside, and the Austrian Alps! Highlights included:

Panda pooped in the huge park in central Stuttgart from which you can see the former royal residence, the current state parliament, the opera, and - in this picture - the state theater .In case you're keeping track, Panda has now pooped in at least three states (GA, NJ, MA) and three countries.

We perused the wares, sights, and smells of Christkindlmarkt in Munich's Marienplatz (where you can also find the not-so-new, gothic-out-the-wazoo Neue Rathaus). We did not try Glühwein, the mulled wine that everyone seemed to be enjoying in festive mugs (it's served hot).

Saturday evening we attended Thanksgiving Dinner II chez Maggie's first cousins once-removed (or, Maggie's mom's first cousins). You'll notice that, as traditional as the rest of the meal was, we could not avoid socking away massive amounts of delicious beer.

Sunday, we took a spin through Bavaria and saw three castles. Neuschwanstein, constructed by crazy Bavarian King Ludwig II (my namesake!) as an homage to Richard Wagner's creative genius and influence, was Disney's inspiration for Sleeping Beauty's castle; in the same town, the much less crazy Hohenschwangau is very yellow; Linderhof is more of a country chateau than an honest-to-goodness castle. To get from Schwangau (the town at the foot of Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau) to Linderhof, we drove through the Austrian Alps and enjoyed the views.

The entire weekend was basically made possible by the incredible hospitality of Rebecca (Maggie's second cousin) and her boyfriend Moritz. We stayed at their lovely apartment, shared excellent food, and enjoyed their company throughout our excursions within Munich and throughout the Bavarian countryside. Thanks so much, and see you soon in Paris!