Month: August 2005

As I retype these entries, I feel painfully older. The person who wrote these words was so much younger than me, so much more earnest, so much more sure of herself and her place in the world. And so in need of an editor!

I’m sitting on one of the stone bridges on the inaptly named Pont Neuf, watching the sun set, reflected in the Seine. The Pont Neuf, by the way, is inaptly named because pont neuf means new bridge and this is the oldest bridge in modern-day Paris.

The sunset is spectacular, as it has been every night since I’ve been in Paris. It’s as if the gods are reaching out, seeking to inspire the creative spirits that are already drawn to Paris. The sun is a perfect sphere of an indescribable colour – not orange, not pink, not red, not yellow. It is the colour of energy, the colour only the sun could be. A few wisps of clouds, remnants of the day’s thick haze, paint the sky varying, shifting shades of pink, mauve and grey. The sun itself leaves a long, shimmering streamer of pink that crawls toward me on the surface of the Seine. With each degree closer to the horizon, the colour fades infintesimally, bleeding the landscape of colour shade by shade toward the monochrome of night.

And what a landscape it is, regally befitting such an imperial sunset. The Left Bank of Paris, with its tree-lined gothic façade. A wrought-iron pedestrian bridge fords the Seine in the foreground, and the deity of all iron structures, the Eiffel Tower, rises serenely from the backround, grey and surrealistically one-dimensional in the darkening haze.

Gradually, the sun is swallowed by the thickening haze, its illumination dampened and defeated prematurely, with no kiss for the horizon. But darkness falls gently, like a floating feather, creeping with increasing boldness from shady nooks and corners, even as the clouds still refract the sun’s dying rays.

Somberly, but persistently, darkness engulfs the city and soft pastels yield to deep indigoes. Then, from the twilight, a flicker of light, and another, like the reflections of stars in the earthly plane. Slowly, as if awakening from a day long slumber, Paris begins to illuminate herself – the footbridges, the streetcorners, the restaurants and apartments and finally, gloriously, the Eiffel Tower. Emerging, transforming, an urban Phoenix: Paris, the City of Lights.

(What can I say, it’s Paris, it does that to you.)

I guess I’m feeling excessively creative tonight because I’ve spent the day bathing in artistic history – four hours in the Musée d’Orsay this morning and another hour and a half getting my feet wet in the Louvre. Orsay was wonderful! The museum itself is a work of art, a converted railway station. I saw almost all the Impressionist paintings I’ve learned about, and so much more. I wish I could go back again and again. I’m in awe of the skill, the colours, the sheer talent, the history… let’s just say I’m in awe in general. There is so much more to see, to learn, to understand.

And I thought Musée d’Orsay was overwhelming – until I got to the Louvre. I’m glad I spent a while poking around there this afternoon – it took me that long just to get oriented and get my bearings. There are seven “schools” spread out over three wings, and nothing seems particularly coherent, from a chronological or artistic perspective. But I bought a little guide book and picked up a free map – god, I’m attacking the Louvre with the same tactics I use to learn a new city. I’m excited about tomorrow’s visit – today just whet my appetite.

I did a major sight-seeing tour of Paris yesterday. I wandered for a while in the Latin Quarter (my favourite neighbourhood) and got a little lost, then wandered through the gorgeous Luxembourg Gardens on my way to the Musée Rodin. I really liked that one; it’s one of the nicest museums I’ve been to. There is a huge garden around the museum housing about a dozen sculptures including The Thinker, a huge statue of Balzac, and an imposing door-type gate called The Gates of Hell – very disturbing. Inside, I was lucky enough to see my favourite Rodin sculpture, The Kiss (actually, Le Baiser) among hundreds of others.

My walking tour continued through Les Invalides, a huge palace-like Veteran’s home and location of Napoleon’s tomb. I carried on from there (having gone there more because I stumbled upon it rather than because I sought it out) to the Eiffel Tower, where I waited like a good little tourist in the 1/2 hour line up to go to the top. Worth it!!! A most excellent view of Paris, literally as far as the eye can see.

I continued my trek, heading down one of the huge boulevards that intersect in the 12-street traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe. Of course, I had to go up there, too, so I climbed the stairs to the top (yes, I took the lift on the Eiffel Tower. YOU feel free to climb 300m of steps in the mid-day August sun. Actually, the stairs only lead to the first of three observation decks anyway.) Anyhow, the Arc de Triomphe was an impressive structure, but less than 48 hours had elapsed since the aforementioned bombing, and I wasn’t willing to test my Garp-luck theory.

So, Intrepid Traveler (read: tourist from hell) took off for a saunter down the Champs Elysées, across the Place de la Concorde with its ancient Egyptian obelisk, through the Tulleries Gardens and into the courtyard of the Louvre, where I gratefully stood in the spray of the fountains flanking I.M. Pei’s controversial glass pyramids. Personally, I think they’re kind of funky looking, if not a little out of synch with the (baroque?) style of the Louvre’s palatial wings.

All in all, I figure it was probably a 20 or 25 km trek; it took from 9 in the morning until almost seven in the evening, but I saw so many great parts of Paris. Because I walked everywhere, I got to see a lot of un-touristed residendial and commercial areas that made the city more real and more endearing to me. Paris isn’t just a tourist city – it’s alive with the people who live in it.

As if Paris weren’t interesting enough on its own merits, this afternoon when I stopped off at the hotel between the Musée d’Orsay and the Louvre, I found the little square outside the Hotel Henri IV (my hotel) completely blocked off because they were filming a movie there! Details are sketchy, but I found out the working title is “Le Proprieteur” and it is a Merchant Ivory film. The scene they were filming was showing the WWII liberation of Paris. So I rubbernecked around there for a while, too, but time in Paris is a precious commodity to me. Speaking of which … à demain!

(Editor’s note: The movie was eventually titled Surviving Picasso. Quite ironic, given my Picasso obsession born in Venice and Antibes. I’ve since seen it – it’s quite a good film!)

Categories: Europe95

Yes, I’ve already posted today. Then I read a story on another blog, and I had to write this, too.

A while ago, I was reading Tertia’s blog and saw that she asked her legions of readers (around 2,000 a day) to help raise money for her nanny, Rose. Rose is a black woman living in South Africa, and for health reasons wanted to get breast reduction surgery. I am in no way commenting on the worthiness of Rose’s surgery, but I have to admit that I did raise my eyebrow – okay, I rolled my eyes. I’m happy that Rose has someone as influential as Tertia to help her, and it seems they raised enough to cover the $3000 or so required for the surgery.

Then I read a story about a 34 year old graduate student in in the United States whose husband has terminal liver cancer. Dean Dad mentioned her story on his blog, and I followed the links to Mary’s blog. Mary doesn’t know the grad student, who blogs under the name Badger, but has taken it upon herself to organize a Paypal account to help the struggling family with their overwhelming medical bills. I lifted this quote of Badger’s blog from Mary’s blog, and it broke my heart:

Here’s a quote from a Live Journal post she wrote last spring:

“Cost to date for surgery, CT-scans, hospital stays, doctors’ visits, and labwork: $79,000. Insurance benefit left for year: $21,000. Days left until new benefit year: 145. Response from Social Security Administration when I went down to their office with our 2004 tax returns to prove our lack of income: Priceless.
“There’s nothing I can do for you. Come back in two years.”
Prognosis of someone with stage four liver cancer: 3 months.”

Now, things are difficult because of the expense of the medication Mr. Badger needs for pain. Here’s another quote posted on her blog in July after a trip to the pharmacy to pick up a new, stronger prescription for morphine:

“Pharmacist: Oh, we didn’t fill the entire prescription. Your insurance company says you have reached the limit on your prescription benefit.
Badger: Oh!
Pharmacist: You would’ve had to have paid for the prescription out-of-pocket, which would’ve been over $400, so we’ve only given you a few pills.
Badger: Oh.”

Can you guess which fund I donated to?

Sorry for the service interruption this week. First I had a virus, then I gave it to my computer. Actually, neither of us had a virus, we were both just a little cantankerous and out of commission for a while.

But we’re back!

So, how’ve you been? As the first official Potty Week draws to a close, I am happy to report that Tristan has gone TWO DAYS without an accident. (pause for ovation) He is just two potty trips short of earning his metal Thomas and Annie and Clarabel, and we are all amazed that he seems to be at least superficially potty trained. We have a few more tricks to learn, like using public washrooms (when we tried the other night at Harvey’s, he kept wiggling off the seat and saying, “It’s not like home!”) and I’m not confident enough yet to leave him diaperless overnight. But we’re getting there.

My babies are all grown up! Even Simon has been growing exponentially this week, and now insists on having his food in a bowl or plate, and eating with a fork. And damn, he’s clever! (she said, completely lacking in bias) Tristan and I were in the bathroom washing our hands after a potty event, and I was enthusing that he had just earned two more stickers and would soon get his metal Thomas and Annie and Clarabel when Simon came in. He had gone into the train bag and pulled out Annie and Clarabel (the wooden versions) to bring to Tristan. He walked over to Tristan as Tristan was drying his hands and handed him the trains – he had been following our conversation, and understood that somehow Tristan going to the potty and him getting Annie and Clarabel were linked. And he knew which trains, of the several dozen that inhabit our dining room, were Annie and Clarabel. I was stunned!

And more progress, if you can stand it – Tristan started riding a big-boy bike this week, too! My dad found a bike with training wheels at garage sale a week or so ago for $15 and picked it up for Tristan. It’s just a shade too big for him, but by next spring it will be just right. We started letting him ride around the driveway on the weekend, and for fun thought we’d let him ride down to the mailboxes on the corner. We kept right on going, and he had gone around the block in no time, and with no difficulties (on his part; I nearly had organ failure running to keep up with him on the downhill bits while dragging Simon in the wagon behind me.) Now every moment Tristan is torn between wanting to play with his trains and wanting to ride his bike around the neighbourhood.

What is it about kids and bikes? I so clearly remember my first bike, or at least the first bike that mattered to me. It was blue with a banana seat and hi-rise handle bars, and had a white woven basket on the handlebars. I had Charlie’s Angels stickers, taken from those card packs that came with the flat, stale pink gum, stuck all over the seat.

Do you remember your first bike?

We are currently experiencing technical difficulties. Do not adjust your monitor.

Regularly scheduled blog service will resume as soon as possible.

Thank you for your patience.

In the 2005 world, we’re experiencing technical difficulties. With less than a week of travel left in 1995, I was facing difficulties of another kind.

My god, I’m in PARIS!!

Categories: Europe95

What I remember most about Nice? Rain. Very cool olive trees, and rain.

Wow, is it really the 17th of August already? The summer is almost over!

Made a slight error in judgement this morning. When I checked into this hotel, I told her I’d only be staying the one night, figuring to spend the next night (tonight) at a cheaper and “funner” sounding place I saw in the guidebook. Much to my chagrin, the cheaper/funner hotel ended up being non-existent (the first time Let’s Go has let me down). So I hustled my butt back here, but my bed had already been taken. She did, however, offer me a cot in the TV room, an open room off the reception with a TV and access to the showers and kitchen. Not exactly the lap of luxury, but it’s a place to stay for the night. It’s kind of funny, actually.

So that got my day off to a good start. It was pretty cloudy, and there are a couple of good museums in town, so I packed my bathing suit into my day pack (you never know…) and set off to do some museum wandering.

The first place I went was the Musée des Beaux Arts de Nice. I was a little disappointed because I expected it to be much larger. It was a good collection, though, and I found a new artist I like called Marie Bashkirtseff from the Ukraine.

I was done there by noon, so I decided to take the train to nearby Cagnes-Sur-Mer to the residence/museum of Auguste Renoir, about a 20 minute train ride. I still had about an hour to kill before the museum opened when I got into Cagnes-Sur-Mer so I called Mom and (Beloved) and had an expensive but good lunch (I tried the famous salade niciose with black olives, anchovies, boiled egg, tomato, greens and tuna). The entire time I was on the phone and having lunch, it was pouring rain – thunder, lightening, torrents of rain. I had hoped that it would let up, but it just poured and poured.

So, in the rain, I set off for the museum with only the vaguest idea of where I was going. I found the museum at the top of a winding boulevard and the grounds were spectacular, even in the pouring rain. Aside from the lovely view of Cagnes-Sur-Mer and the sea, the grounds are dotted with ancient (i.e. 1000 year old) olive trees. The olives must come into season in the next few weeks, because they’re on the trees but don’t look ripe yet. The trees are very knarled and twisted, quite different from the stately maples back home.
The museum itself was a bit of a disappointment in that it didn’t have much of Renoir’s better-known works on display. There were a lot of lithographs, and many pieces by friends and associates of Renoir who had stayed at Cagnes-Sur-Mer. The lithographs were, of course, beautiful – it amazes me that such a severe and stern-looking man painted such gentle, compassionate paintings – but they didn’t have any of my ‘favourites.’

The really cool part was Renoir’s workshop, supposedly restored as it was during his final years, including his old-fashioned wheelchair. Seeing the many black-and-white photographs of him late in his life is very sad when you can see how badly knarled his hands are from rheumatism. Looking at how painful his hands must have been seems almost on the same level of tradgedy as Beethoven’s deafness.

Categories: Europe95

These were probably the best few days of my entire trip. The romantic in me wishes that by some fluke of chance, my travel buddies from Scotland and Seattle somehow come across this post and recognize themselves and remember me. I’d love to hear from them. Wouldn’t that be cool?

Another city, another temporary home. This one not as nice as most of my temporary homes, but only one week of travel left. I’m feeling quite homesick for the first time in a long time, but a week is nothing!

I met the most interesting array of people in Antibes – the most interesting so far, for varying reasons.

There were two evil French girls living for the summer at the hostel in Antibes, and being such long-term guests (or maybe being French) has given them quite an attitude. They were impolite to the point of rude and quite inconsiderate (radios loud at 3 am, for example).

But I also met the most wonderful two guys. Niall is from Scotland and Terry is from Seattle. They’re friends traveling through Italy and France together, and they are just the sweetest, nicest guys! Yesterday morning we started talking at breakfast and found out we were all considering going to the Picasso museum in Antibes, so we walked into town together. Unfortunately, the museum was closed for Assumption Day, but the walk into town was great. We talked and talked. Niall is also a fine arts student, and Terry is quite interested in art, so we talked about arts in general and especially impressionism and surrealism. They had just come from Paris and had all sorts of recommendations for me. Terry in particular loved Versailles – he went on and on about it. They also emphasized the Musée d’Orsay, which I was already excited about.

When we discovered the museum was closed (after a 45 minute walk) we ended up going our separate ways. I went into Cannes and did my para-sailing thing. VERY cool! A gorgeous view, kind of like being suspended on a swing above the sea. Too short, though! The guys driving the boat would slow it down to the point that my feet were almost in the water, then they’d speed up and I’d go flying upwards. It was amazing! I spent the rest of the day doing nothing except lying about on the beach. It was rough!

After dinner, I met up with Niall and Terry again, and we had a good laugh at the bad-mannered American girl from LA who is staying in my room. She got in at around six, going her loud LA way about how she wants to party all night. She pulls high heels and two cocktail dresses out of her backback, begging us to approve one or the other (I had just finished washing my underwear in the sink) and asking if any of us had perfume to share. She seemed to be from a different planet than the rest of the travelers. She was saying the stupidest things about how nice Americans are and easy to talk to and how she hates the French. She was so outrageous it seemed she must be joking, trying to satirize the ugly American tourist, but I don’t think she was that smart. She was entirely sincere.

Anyway, Niall, Terry and I had a good laugh about her and vowed to be extra careful with our own behaviour. We ended up, the three of us plus two young girls from Australia (Marissa) and New Zealand (Gabriella) out on the rocks by the water until midnight’s curfew, sharing a few bottles of red wine and admiring the most spectacular moonrise I have ever seen. It rose right out of the sea – unbearably beautiful, made more so in finally having someone to share it with. It was like we were old friends – instant camaraderie.

This morning, we had breakfast together (the five of us) and were priviledged enough to watch the LA Princess throw a bona fide hissy fit with absolutely no provocation whatsoever, telling the French-speaking kitchen staff that she would never treat them in such a manner if they were visiting the US. She was mad because she had to wait two minutes (literally) for bread. She was so completely rude that I was aghast.

After the breakfast entertainment, Niall, Terry and I decided to try again with the Picasso museum. Since we had all spent our last night in the hostel in Antibes, we all had our packs with us and decided to take the bus into town. The museum was open today, and I really enjoyed it. It had a lot of paintings and ceramics by Picasso, and a few sculptures. There were also original pieces by Miro, Khee, Dubuffet (a favourite of Terry’s, I learned) and quite a few others. The museum itself used to be a workshop/residence for Picasso in the early 1930s. I had been to a minor Picasso exhibition in Venice, and done the requisite background reading before I left, but now I feel like I’m actually beginning to understand and appreciate Picasso, if not surrealism in general.

So, after poking about the museum for a bit, and then sitting in the shade and enjoying the sea breezes, it was time for us to go our separate ways. Holy separation anxiety! I’d only known them for a day and a half, but that’s the longest I’d hooked up with anybody, and the closest I’ve been to anyone while traveling. So we took the obligatory pictures and exchanged addresses – the whole bit. It was so silly, we stood on a street corner saying good-bye forever, like we’d known each other all our lives. I really miss them! I think having made some friends and then lost them has made my homesickness more acute, compounded by being so close and yet so far from the end of the trip.

For the rest of the day, I wandered around Nice, basically killing time. I think tomorrow I’ll go either to the Matisse or Renoir museums nearby, or maybe the Musée des beaux arts here in Nice. I may get in some more beach time, too, although the beaches here are stones, not sand. The next day, into Paris (!!) and then home a week from today. Looking back, this has been the most interesting, educational, enlightening, enjoyable, FUN vacation. But I think it’s pretty much time to go home.

Categories: Europe95

I think maybe it’s time we take a break from the potty talk. Don’t worry, we’ll get back to that soon. Instead, I want to tell you about this fabulous book I got for my birthday from Beloved and the boys called What Canadians Think … About Almost Everything. It’s a book of collected public opinion research on Canadian opinions on everything from politics to parenting, sex to stress, work life to death. It’s fascinating!

I love reference books. I was in Chapters the other day, and they had all the dictionaries and thesauri (thesauruses?) and atlases displayed prominently for the back-to-school crowd, and I began to salivate with desire. Heck, even the phone book is an interesting read if you just stop to think about what’s behind each entry, how there’s an entire life just like yours hidden behind that seven-digit entry, and rows and rows and rows of them on every single page. But I digress…

This book, What Canadians Think, has just the right mix of prose and statistics, with a healthy sense of humour running through. The authors, senior execs with the public opinion research firm Ipsos-Reid, make interesting the most humble minutia from daily life. I could go on forever pulling strangely compelling stats out to show you — did you know 6% of Canadian women don’t read washing instruction labels at all? Or that the average age at which birth control is first used is 16.4 years old? Or that firefighters, pharmacists and nurses are seen as the three most trustworthy occupations, while local politicians, used car salesmen and national politicians are the least trusted occupations? I love this stuff!

What I really wanted to share with you, though, was the polling data on our cousins to the south. I’ve always been interested in comparisons between Americans and Canadians, and I know that despite my rabid Canadianism (there’s an oxymoron for you), most of you are American. It’s one of our oldest debates – how different are we? Here’s what they found:

Percentage of Americans who claim that “my religious fath is very important to me in my daily life: 82
Percentage of Canadians who do: 64
Rate by which an American is more likely than a Canadian to “very much” agree that faith is important in day to day life: 100%
Percentage of Americans who believe same-sex marriage is “wrong and it should never be lawful”: 47
Percentage of Canadians who do: 27
Percentage of Americans who support the death penalty: 71
Percentage of Canadians who do: 42
Percentage of Americans who believe their children are getting a good education: 59
Percentage of Canadians who do: 84
Percentage of Americans who think decriminalizing marajuana is a “sound idea”: 36
Percentage of Canadians who do: 51
Percentage of Canadians who thought Chretien did the right thing by not supporting the US in its war against Saddam Hussein: 74

Percentage of Americans who think Canada is just another state: 30
Percentage of Americans who think they have a king: 13
Percentage of Canadians who can name Canada’s largest trading partner (the US): 82
Percentage of Americans who can name the US’s largest trading partner (Canada): 14

Before this begins to look like gratuitous American-bashing, I must admit that not all the stats looked favourable to Canadians. While 63% of Americans could score five out of ten correct responses on a quiz of their own history and civics, only 39% of Canadians could pass a similar quiz about Canada. And while 79% of Americans could identify the first line of their own national anthem, only 37% of Canadians could identify the first line of our national anthem. Which begins, by the way, with the words “O Canada.”

Aside from that last stat about the national anthem, I seem to be a fairly typical Canadian. What about you?

Categories: Canadianisms Books

Despite the other, more pressing business the Internet may be in the process of conducting this week, I officially declare this week (cuts ribbon) Potty Week, where I regale you with the excruciating minutia of the eliminatory habits of my three year old, and you shower us with praise, support and clever suggestions. Some day, Tristan will disown me for this.

Day one was not bad over all. He stayed dry most of the day. We made it through a 45 minute ride in the car including a nap, and even scored two potty bowel movements. He had one P accident, which I think an issue of forgetfulness more than anything. (Digression to our topic last week – can I add to my list of lamentations about the challenges of particularly large children the fact that they have a bladder capacity of much larger mammals? When that boy goes, he goes and goes and goes. My poor, ugly carpet.) Much to my astonishment, he had the other kind of accident after bathtime while I was getting his brother’s diaper and jammies on and he was enjoying his usual pre-bed nekkid romp. I can’t remember the last time Tristan had any kind of accident at that time of day, so he might have been holding it from earlier. He told me what he was doing, so I chased him off to finish his business in the potty (which he did, to his credit) and I went off in search of carpet cleaner. Note to self: buy econo-sized bottle of Pro-Solve and jumbo pack of paper towels on way home from work.

This morning, he came downstairs just as I was leaving for work, and I tried to get him hyped about the potty again, but he was pretty blasé about the whole thing. Now that the novelty has worn off, he’s beginning to lose interest in the project. (He’s so much like his mother, my Tristan.) When I asked him if he was ready to go to the potty and get started earning even more stickers for metal Thomas and Annie and Claribel, he replied with a sleep-bleary, “No thanks.” But when I took down the shoebox with his stickers and showed him how many stars he earned yesterday, and how close he was to earning his trains, he perked up a little bit and headed for the bathroom.

The soother thing went this way for us as well, as did CIO. Full of the courage of my convictions, we leap into whatever it is with enthusiasm. But lacking the novelty of day one, day two dawns as a bit of a drudge. “Oh, we’re still doing that? I thought we did that yesterday.”

So, bloggy friends, aren’t you excited about potty week? Now that we’ve arrived, what other sagacious advice do you have for us? How do we keep the dream alive?

And please, for the love of all things decent, can someone recommend a good all-purpose spot remover?

Cannes did not let me down. Cannes is the embodiment of what the Riviera should be: great beach, expensive shops with seedy shops around the corner; haute coiture and haute cuisine and hot dog stands on the beach. Cannes was cool!

Again I found myself near the beach, as I had been during my morning walk in Antibes, but not ready to allow myself to indulge in the long-awaited pleasure of the beach of all beaches. Then, I noticed them. In the air, being pulled by waterski boats. As soon as I saw them, I knew I had to — parasail!! So I walked down to the pier they seemed to be originating from for details. No experience required, no need for upper body strength (memories of being dragged face-first around the Niagara River in waterski gear) and the completely outrageous cost of 300 francs. I’m not even going to convert that figure. But regardless of cost, I knew I had to do it. It was either that or scuba diving, and I think the view would be better from above!

I decided to wait until tomorrow because tomorrow is a national holiday of some sort, and a lot of other things will be closed. I’m going to the Picasso museum in the morning and this should be enough of an event for the afternoon. Of course, I’m on the Riviera, who needs events to fill the day? Sun, sun, sun!

On with the day’s events – are you bored to tears yet? I got back into Antibes around 3 pm and finally allowed myself the pleasure of the beach. I bought myself one of those funky woven mats everyone has and headed for the sand. Unlike what I saw in Venice, the nicest beaches here seem to be the public ones. So I found myself a tiny stretch of sand (an accomplishment in itself) and claimed my territory. And yes, they are topless beaches, and yes I did! Not everyone was topless; maybe 1/3 to 1/4 of the females were. So with a liberal application of sunscreen, I stretched out to soak up the sun. After I had baked myself for a bit, the water looked especially appealling. After a moment’s consideration, I put my bikini top back on (there’s a limit to my bravado) and headed for the surf. To my surprise, it was cool and salty. For some reason, I thought the Mediterranean was freshwater. I didn’t stop to think out what exactly would be filtering out all the ocean salt – just never really thought about it at all.

Anyway, I had a nice splash-about, went back to the beach and baked for a bit, back to the water again – nirvana! I was being really brave in the open water by Dani-standards, even swimming out to depths over my head. I could see bottom, so I was quite content. Then, as I waded back into shore with a careful eye open for land sharks, I saw a jellyfish floating in front of me. I immediately levitated to a height of two feet above the water and zoomed into shore, or so it seemed. I was pretty psyched out by it, but these kids came up with a net and scooped it up and dropped it into a garbage can on the beach. I saw it happen a few more times during the afternoon. So now I wade in to the water carefully, with eagle eyes, only as far as necessary to cool off. I guess they can’t be too poisonous or people would be more freaked out about them, but considering my personal intolerance for such minor afflications as mosquito bites, I don’t think I want to be dealing with jellyfish stings. And no, I don’t have a sunburn in any unmentionable areas.

I realize looking back that I’ve only had my passport stamped twice – once on arrival in Schipol in Amsterdam, and once in Italy coming from Austria. I had to present my passport at the station in Austria coming from Germany, but no stamp. No one even going into Germany from Holland or France from Italy. I guess the whole EC thing has really loosened the borders. It hasn’t done much to merge the cultures, though.

The Dutch and the Austrians were the nicest people, and the Dutch the most likely to speak English. The Germans seem the most uptight, and there are police everywhere in Italy. The Germans bring their dogs everywhere, and most have tiny frou-frou dogs like Yorkshire Terriers or bichon frieze that they carry in bags (stores, restaurants, ferries, everywhere.) Amsterdam, Venice and Rome were filled with cats – maybe the dogs have a problem with canals?

In Rome, I had tried to get to see a museum with a bunch of Bernini sculptures, including a David I had read about, but after walking for 20 minutes to get to the museum I found it closed an hour before it was supposed to be with no explanation. Disappointed and dragging my feet on the 45 minute walk home, I noticed a fountain in a park. Some of the fountains in Rome you can drink from, so I went in for a closer look. I noticed two or three cats near the fountain and made that “here kitty” psssss-wssss sound. Before I knew it, cats were coming out of the woodwork! Maybe 15 or 20 cats altogether of varying breeds and ages. Most were not too tame, but some were brave and friendly. I have no idea where they all came from (and they kept coming!) but it was a bizaare experience. I felt like the pied piper of cats.

Categories: Europe95