Sorry!

Hey Everyone, sorry for the complete lack of blogging over the last couple weeks. Working on some updates now, and will hopefully have stuff up shortly. I'm safe, I'm sound, life is good -- NOT looking forward to leaving this Sunday.

Short version: Got back to Paris, met some super cool people and had a great time, decided to blow off Budapest/Prague/Krakow and have been in Paris ever since.

Long version: Working on it :-)

later!

Ski Days (3/13-16 Les Arcs)

Thought about doing separate entries for each day, but that would have just bored everyone to tears: every day is pretty much the same. Here's the basic outline: Wake up somewhere between 9 and 11, have a pain au chocolate or croissant, and be on the slopes within an hour. Ski for 4 to 5 hours, then meet up with Michel for lunch (he's not skiing because of his accident... poor baby), go back to the apartment, clean-up/nap/errands, dinner around 8, head out to the bar and/or bowling around 10, to the club around midnight, home anywhere between 4 and 6 – possibly having inhaled a Kebab sandwich along the way. Lather, rinse, repeat.

So, instead, some highlights/lowlights of the last couple days:

* Bizarre as this may sound, I'm having way less fun when the girls are around. When it's just the 3 or 4 of us, the guys are conscious of my deficiency in french, and make an effort to speak slower, or to explain things to me in English if it's clear I'm not following. It's great, and I have a lot of fun when it's just us hanging out. However, when the girls show up, it all changes: the french speeds up, the number of times anyone will stop to explain something to me goes down, I’m not really part of the conversation, and I'm not sure France is even aware I exist. Even worse, they are always around: we meet up with them after breakfast, we ski with them, we have lunch with them, we have dinner with them, and they party with us. However, I guess they don’t feel like they are enough a part of the group to feel like they need to include me (or, maybe they don’t consider me a part of the group). Either way, not enjoying the “there are girls in the group” experience. With regards to France, Michel and Pimous insist that everything I’m experiencing is “cultural differences”. I think she’s just a bitch.

* That said, France and I do share one funny moment. On Thursday, when Pimous, Stephanie, France and I are skiing, I decide I’m going to make my own fun. So, every chance I get I start a race with the other 3, pick up snow balls to throw at Pimous (which ends up leading to a full on tackling each other in the snow episode… Pimous won), and snow spray someone whenever we stop to regroup. After one of these, France says something to me in French, and I snap right back in French. She says, in *perfect* English “Oh, so you can understand and speak French when you want to.” I start laughing and say back “And you can speak English just fine when you want to.” She laughs, I laugh, but also further proof she’s a bitch.

* Pierre/Pimous is awesome. There could have been no snow, and he would have made the trip to Les Arcs worth it for me. I don’t know how else to put it, but I feel like I’ve made a real friend here, and that’s really more than I could have ever asked for out of a trip like this.

* Skiing in Europe is so much better than in the US. I’ve been consciously avoiding talking about the fact that it dumped something like 8’ of snow in Tahoe pretty much the day I left for Europe until I got a chance to do some skiing here, and temper my bitterness over the whole thing. It’s better here because the runs are so much longer, it’s better here because you can get hot wine and beer right on the mountain, it’s better here because I’m using rented skis and don’t have to care how badly I thrash them, and it’s better here because the après-ski/nightlife is better than anything I’ve seen in Tahoe/Vail/Killington (though, not as good as Zermatt or St. Anton… more on that later).

* Lots of people here wear hats/jackets/etc. for US sports teams… especially the Yankees. I know that for them, they are just for fashion (much like my Barcelona sweatshirt), and at the most means that they’ve spent a few days in New York (more likely, they bought it at H&M and have never left France), but I still find myself muttering “Yankees suck” whenever I pass one of them, and a little bit hoping one of them really is a Yankee fan if for no other reason than I’ll have something/someone to talk about something “American”. Though, after the hundredth guy I see, I pretty much have to restrain myself from punching them in the face. Anyway, I think next time I come to Europe I’m bringing a bag full of Red Sox hats and doing my own little exchange program.

* Les Arcs has been different from my other ski trips over here. Previously, I’ve been to Zermatt (Switzerland) and St. Anton (Austria). While this doesn’t make me an expert or anything, I do feel at least qualified to comment on the differences between these three, and Les Arcs feels different. I think the biggest difference has to be that this time instead of being with a group of equally fish-out-of-water Aussies, I’m with a group of locals. It also feels like people here aren’t as friendly, but, again, that’s probably because I’m with French people and going to places that are more French, where as with the Aussies we would have sought out places that were more English (or, at least, more Anglophone). I think this is where I’m encountering the real cultural differences between the French and Americans. I want to say that the French are xenophobes who hate/look down on anyone who isn’t French, but that is in some ways too simple, in some ways giving the French too much credit, and in others not enough. It’s complicated. I don’t think I can get into this here without either using more space than blogger will allow and/or getting something wrong. I’ll probably devote an entire entry to this when I get back to the US, and I’ll probably have to get Michel to help me write it.

* When Michel wrote about the little “fight” he had with his friends with the bread, water, etc., he failed to mention that the three of them basically ended up anywhere from half-naked to naked. The only wardrobe change I made was to put a horrified look on my face. Oh, and French bread hurts. At some point it became Michel and I against Pimous and Nicolas. I got hit in the shoulder with a piece of bread, and it drew blood. I’m not kidding. In the morning, we all had a wound of some sort from the bread.

* Thursday night we went to an English bar. It was jukebox night, and in the span of half an hour I heard Toto, Bon Jovi, Oasis, Journey, and The Hooters. After a week of nothing but house music (and, especially “Love Generation”), it was sooooooo nice to hear good old, normal, sing along (badly) at the top of your lungs music. I loved it. France, Pimous and Michel seemed… ambivalent.

* Friday night, Michel and I get home late. Michel doesn’t want to be completely useless the next day (when we have to drive back), so, after calling his girlfriend back in SF, he goes into the bathroom to make himself throw up. His phone rings. “Mimi, your phone is ringing.” “Answer it.” “Ummm… hi.. this is Michel’s phone… Irina? Yeah… Michel isn’t really available right now.” “Tell him I give him another kiss.” “You sure about that?” Well, made me laugh.

Mimi’s Big Day (3/12: Les Arcs)

Note: for this entry, we have a special guest writer, Michel Decoux. For those of you who don’t know him, Michel is one of my good friends in San Francisco. He’s from Paris (only been in the US for two years), and this whole ski trip was conceived and setup by him and his friends. I’m just along for the ride. Oh, and one of his many nicknames is “Mimi”, so any references over the last couple days to a Mimi, are to him. Enjoy!

Well, how am I supposed to start that… Maybe just start with the day to day stuff, Nicolas wakes up first after hiding in his bed for one hour hoping someone else would go and pick up bread and croissant… In a superb effort he finally went down without forgetting to let us know how courageous he was… It’s around 11am, checking my cell, only one text from the girls of last night basically telling us that we are little girl not being on the slopes before 12. It’s again an awesome day, the clouds are hiding from us, and we finally make it to the highest spot of the resort… Maneesh looks upset, and he is very quiet. After asking him 4 times what was going on, he finally admit that he had a hard time with those skies which are more responsive and technical than the one he has back in California. I don’t know what you think about that excuse, but I always tried to find stupid explanations when I’m just having a hard time… ;) The snow up there is marvelous, my skis are the greatest I ever had, all the ingredients to the recipe of the perfect day. 3 hours skiing before *crash*, and I just decide that I would spend the rest of my week with only one of my knees. Getting back to the room while they are having hot wine with cute girls, go to medical center while they are resting, put skies back while they are in the shower, go to the physical therapist while they are starting the aperitif, greatest day in my life… But I’m fine I just twisted my knee, won’t need any surgery.

Pimous is cooking, Oups, I don’t know if I introduced you to my friends. Maybe Maneesh did, but I’ll do it again… We all gave nicknames to people back in my business school, Pierre is Pimous which is also a candy back in France which slogan is “small but strong!”. He is actually 100 kilos… You also have Nico for Nicolas, not as crazy as he is from his 2 meters height. And myself, Meru (Michou with a Spanish accent) it’s also a big and ugly fish in French, and I’m about average in weight and height…

So! Pimous is cooking some kind of Spanish stuffed omelet, not as good as it sounds actually… Getting diner, I’m sneaking to the Ipod to play “Love Generation”, they start to be a bit angry at me about that… C’mon guys, that s the anthem of the week!

Getting ready to go out, Maneesh shows up nicely dressed and Nicolas yelled at him a “Bogus” when he saw him… Maneesh looks upset, lol, I couldn’t stop laughing. “Bogus” in French stands for “Beau Gosse” and basically means, “hot guy”… I love those misunderstanding, that’s just making my days, here… He still doesn’t really like when we are calling him like that… There are many other words that can lead to misunderstanding, “douche” stands for “shower”, “bonheur” for “happiness” and plenty of other examples…

French are very “in your face”, they rarely adopt cheesy Marina behaviors, you will never ear a French girl say five times “It’s the greatest thing I ever seen” and three “Oh! My God!” in a 10 minutes row, they are very direct, they will say what they truly think and if they like you they will probably make fun of you AND themselves, and be very sarcastic about you in front of you, because they just want to have a good laugh with you. If they don’t like you then they won’t just talk to you. I feel like Maneesh is asking himself, hum, do they like me? So why are they making fun of me like that? The thing is everybody is doing that to everybody, and we are expecting Maneesh to do the same… It’s coming slowly… Don’t worry Maneesh!

We went to the Ambiente, again, got a bottle of champagne, again, but we are not having that much fun there, Nicolas is in love, again, with the barmaid and trying to do anything to catch her attention. The music is loud, there are only guys in the bar, it s pretty depressing… We need to make this night better for Maneesh’s blog, he can’t just say, we went home and slept… We decided to go bowling. I think the image of this sport is about the same in the US. Anyway, this looks like to be a five-stars bowling with average speed of your bowl, digital animation and the equipments look pretty new. Getting shoes and bowls before starting, Maneesh is probably using his engineer background to get the best of his bowl (btw, his score made me think about the quality of his program). Pimous is just an elephant that is launching a rocket on those poor pins, and Nicolas is sad because he is still in love with the barmaid, and thinks that this state of mind will strongly affect his bowling skills. I have shoes on, but with my knee I don’t expect to be the best that night. We did 2 games, and we will recall that the injured guy won the first game with an average speed below 16km/h while the elephant is around 27, that Maneesh loves doing a one pin shot right after a spare or a strike, that girls is the weakness of Nicolas. Maneesh wants his revenge tonight, I expect him not to go skiing just to be ready for tonight’s games.

Back in the Ambiante negotiating a shot of vodka as the bar was already closed, went to the apocalypse again, Nicolas felt, surprisingly, in love with the stripper that looked at him 3 times [Maneesh’s note: this is one the strangest thing I’ve ever seen. The club, a regular, plain old night club, has a stripper that works for them, and guys pay to get lap dances out in the open in the middle of the club. It seems like a great idea, but it’s a little awkward to try to talk to anyone, when you both know there’s a naked woman 10 feet away.]… and finally get back home at 4, nothing crazy happened, it was just a quiet clubbing night, when, I don’t really remember if it was because I played, again, Love Generation or because Nicolas was upset about not getting the stripper back to the room, but we started a little fight launching pieces of old breads, beer caps, whip each others with aluminum foil, splash water on dressed guys and horsing around. Nobody got hurt, and we really had a good laugh.

Thanks for reading me… Sorry for the grammar mistakes and excuse my French ;)

Love Generation (3/11: Les Arcs)

Mimi won’t stop playing this song. “Love Generation” by Bob Sinclair. I wake up to it, we have breakfast to it, he sings it all day while we’re on the slopes, he plays it while we’re cleaning up after skiing, and he requests it at the club. It’s reached the point where, much like back home some friends will randomly say “who’s country is this?” and we sing back “this is ouuuuur country”*, we’ve taken to randomly saying “what generation is this?” and then we’ll either sing back “beeee the love generation”, or whistle the melody. People look at us funny.

Actually, we get lots of funny looks. There are lots of French people here, there are lots of English people here, but nary do the twain cross. The fact that my obviously French friends have this random brown person who speaks bad French and has an American accent following them around draws some funny looks. On the upside, I get some automatic credibility from being with them, so more people are willing to let me struggle through my French, and not automatically switch over to English (or ignore me all together!).

Anyway, we’re up and out around 10 and hit the slopes. Today we’re piddling around on mid-mountain, mostly trying to find our legs, and adjusting to the altitude. I made the mistake of letting Michel help pick my skis. He wants me to become a better skier, so he picks out skis that require good technique. I hate these skis. See, I have no technique. I’ve pretty much declared my self the world’s best bad skier. I can go just about anywhere, I can do just about anything, but lots of people have been alternately horrified by my technique, and amazed I can ski at all. My skis back home are *perfect* for my style. They absorb a lot of shock, and they turn slowly on their own, though I can still force quicker turns when I need to. These skis are the exact opposite. They absorb no shock, and they turn on a dime. I’m not used to this. I lean a little to my left expecting the skis to slowly bank to the left, and instead I’ve turned practically sideways. The only thing these skis are good for is doing moguls. Since they turn so sharply on their own, navigating the gaps is way easier (and less draining) than with my skis. So I guess that’s one thing I’ve going for me. So, we’re skiing. Michel is a really good skier. When he skis, he looks like a professional skier. I feel, and probably look, as wobbly as a newborn cow trying to take his first steps.

Around 2 we stop for lunch, and at the end Michel, Pierre and my self decide that we’re pretty much done for the day, and ski back down to our place, while Nicolas decides to stay and keep snowboarding on his own. Get home, crash for a nap and then get up and get ready for dinner/going out. Michel makes a dinner of spaghetti Bolognese… sort of. While he’s cooking, I have some funny conversations with Pierre and Nicolas about different US compared to Europe type stuff. Also, there’s a song these guys like to play that has a line in the chorus, “C’est le bonheur”, which roughly means “I’m having a good time.” However, “C’est le” literally means “it’s the”, and bonheur, well, it’s pronounced “boner”. I spent about an hour giggling about this. Actually, I’m still giggling about this. After, we head over to Ambiente (again) to meet up with some girls (Stephanie and France…yes, I’ve met a French girl in France who’s name is France) that are friends of Michel’s boss back in the US. We all hang out at the bar until closing time-ish, and then head over to Apokolypse (noticing a trend?). Things get out of hand. I don’t have a clear memory of everything that happened, but the following things I’m pretty certain of:

1. None of us danced in the cage up against the wall.
2. We didn’t gang tackle Nicolas and then drag him around in the snow.
3. And I definitely didn’t drunk dial my parents.

Please ignore any pictures that contradict any of the above statements.

* For anyone who didn’t get the reference, there were a series of Chevy ads that featured the really annoying (and almost nonsensical) song “Our Country” by John “don’t call me Cougar” Mellancamp. These ads were on TV incessantly during football games. So, for over 4 months, anyone who watched football heard 30 second snippets of the song about a thousand times every Sunday. You can see an example here This is ouuuuuuur country.

5 pounds of Cheese! (3/10: Les Arcs 1800, France)

After the rest of our drive, we get to Les Arcs around noon. We can’t check into our room until 5pm, and our ski passes aren’t valid until tomorrow. Nicolas grabs his stuff, buys a day pass, and goes snowboarding – the rest of us wander around for a while, get the lay of the land, have lunch (gallets & cider), after we head to a bar to watch a rugby game (Wales vs. Scotland – part of the Six Nations tournament that I also saw a game of in London). Hang out there until around 4ish, and then we’re able to get into our room and get unpacked, rent our gear, etc. I also finally get start in on my 4th book: "Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism" by George Soros.

For dinner we go to a place Michel has been raving about since before we even got to France. What they do is take a round of a cheese called Tomette, and basically melt the cheese inside the rind, slice of the top, and serve it straight up with bread, meat, etc. So, we get to the restaurant, and they don’t serve it anymore. Michel is disappointed (bordering on upset), but we settle for Raclette, and proceed to eat about 5lbs of cheese. I’m not kidding. Raclette is the name of the cheese, and dinner consists of giant block of the Raclette, some bread, cornichons (small pickles), and plates of meat. I think in the US you'd have to sign a waiver of some sort before they'd be allowed to serve you this meal. The Raclette goes under a burner lengthwise to melt it, and you use a scraper to scrape the melted cheese off and on to your plate. Dinner is just pure, unadulterated cheese.

At some point during dinner, Pierre disappears. I figure he’s just gone out for a cigarette, but turns out he’s sick and has gone home. We’re down to three. After dinner we go to a bar called Ambiente, where Nicolas falls in love with the bartender, Alice, who barely speaks a word or even smiles at any of us. Around 1, we decide we’re done with the bar, and head over to Apokolypse, which is the nightclub in the village. Actually, we get sidetracked. There’s an arcade on the way to the club, and they have a multi-player racing game that none of us able to resist. So, 4 games later (Michel won twice, Nicolas and I once each… but I swear, on the last game – when we were tied at one win each – they teamed up against me just so “the American” wouldn’t win. Bastards.). So, to the club.

At 3, Michel comes over to me and says, “we’re leaving.” I finish talking to some girl, and Michel and Nicolas are nowhere to be found. I’ve been ditched! I head back to the apartment, but I’m locked out. Of the building. Luckily our room door is right next to the building door (on the 3^rd floor), so a combination of phone calls and banging on the outside door gets Pierre to come let me in. However, Michel is the only other person there. Nicolas is still at the club. So, grab keys, and head back to the club. We’re down to two. I get back inside, and find Nicolas sitting on a bar stool, facing a wall, head resting against the wall. He’s fast asleep. I wake him up and suggest going home, but, he wants to stay. Guh. I’m ready to go home. So, we struggle through the last half hour or so (club closes at 4) with some liquid assistance, and then finally head home.

I’m pretty sure we woke Pierre and Michel up (by jumping on their beds) before they were able to corral is into our beds, and down for the night.

7 hours in Paris (3/9: Tours to Paris to Chambery, France)

Get up and out around 11, and drive to Paris, where I’m meeting up with Michel. Call him when I get close, and, since Paris is about as confusing as Toulouse, it’s a good thing I have him to guide me. Paris is also way cooler than Toulouse, so it’s ok if it’s a bit confusing.

Get to Michel’s place, drop my bags off at his place, meet his mom, grandmother, grandfather, and his dog; and we head out to return my car. Driving in Paris is an adventure. By Michel’s count I broke about 7 laws on the 15 minute drive to the rental car place. Honestly, though, in terms of driving etiquette, respect for lanes, right of way, etc., driving in France reminds me more of India than the US, and every cop I’ve seen has been parked and standing around with a bunch of other cops. So, it’s a little hard for me to take any of this seriously. At one point, to make a u-turn on a boulevard, I used the crosswalk. Oops!

Anyway, Michel is running late for a haircut, so I send him on his way, and hop on the metro to get back to his place. Since we’d told his mom I was going to go with him, when I get back to his place she’s gone off to do some errands. However, there’s a little café/bar about half a block away, so I just walk over there, and text Michel to meet me there. When he shows up, he has a bunch of flowers. They weren’t for me – they’re for his mom. Since we’re heading out, I get up to finish my drink, and tell the girl who has also walked in and is now standing next to me that she is welcome to my seat. She answers “Oh, you can speak to me in English.” “Wow, you have almost no accent.” “That’s because I’m an American. I’m from Los Angeles.” That’s awesome. I’m in Paris, and the first person I talk to out on the street – even if it was in a bar, and just to offer up my chair – is an American. Michel I talk to her for a bit, then take off to run some errands of our own. Get back, go inside, and I start repacking my bags. We’re driving to Les Arcs that night. Four guys in a VW Golf, so clearly all my stuff won’t be able to make the trip. Need to get all the stuff I need for the week into one bag (my ski stuff alone takes up half the bag).

Mimi’s mom makes us dinner: pate & sausage to start, beef-en-croute with a salad for the entrée, 5 different cheeses and (homemade) tiramisu for dessert – and wine, of course. Michel calls this “a simple meal”, and that she’s going to make something nicer when we get back from our trip so that we’ll have time to wait for his step-father to get home and all have a proper dinner. If that was the simple dinner, I can’t wait for next weekend!

Around 9, we jump in a cab, and head over to Michel’s friend Pierre’s place. One of the funny things about driving around Paris with a Parisian is that all this stuff I’m kind of excited to see as we’re driving along (Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower in particular), he couldn’t care less about . So, get to Pierre’s, introductions, a girlfriend who keeps yelling at people at people to speak in English (for my benefit – until she realizes I can speak french), and pack up the car. We head over to a café, where basically everyone in there is one of Michel’s classmates from the business program at his university… including the bar tender, so I’m not sure what to think about Michel’s education anymore. At the café, we have a couple drinks (well, Michel and I do, Pierre has to drive). At some point, someone hands me a shot, “it’s vodka”. The drink is brown, and smells funny. “This isn’t vodka.” Turns out, it’s a “Caramel”. A very popular drink over here is a caramel flavored vodka (you buy it that way at the store – just like we’d get vanilla or orange flavored vodka), and it’s really, really good. We also, pick up the fourth member of our group for the week: Nicolas. Nicolas is really tall, and Michel is shorter than me, so when the two of them are together it looks really funny. Anyway, I get introduced to a bunch of people that I’ll probably never see again, we pack Nicolas’s stuff, and we’re off for Chambery, our stopping point for the night (Les Arcs, is about 7 hours away, and Chambery is four or five).

Chateau Envy (3/8: Bordeaux to Tours, France)

Warning: this is a long entry. It’ll probably take a good 10 minutes to get through it. You might want to print it out and take it to the bathroom, or something.

After a flurry of phone calls, my winery visits are all rearranged: at 10:30 I’m going to Chateau Petrus, at 1 Chateau Margaux, and at 3:30 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. Then, at the end of it all, instead of going to Paris, as originally planned, I’m going to Tours (SW of Paris, in the Loire Valley) for the night.

So, wake up, and realize I left my toiletries bag in the car. Throw on my boots, stumble out the door and head for the car. Since I don’t have my ticket for the garage (left it in the car), they won’t let me in through any of the side doors, and I’m in no condition to walk all the way to the main entrance (2 blocks away). Screw it. Go back up to the hotel room, shower, get dressed, and head down to check-out

Something isn’t right. Probably just because I haven’t deodorized or brushed my teeth yet. Once I finish getting human, I’m sure I’ll be fine.

Check-out, head to the main entrance to the garage, get to my car, grab my toiletries bag, head over to the bathroom to wrap up the “getting ready” part of my day, and leave for Chateau Petrus

The winery is just north of St. Emilion; and while the Bordeaux wines are named after the nearby city of Bordeaux, Pommeral (the type of wine Petrus makes) -- while also technically a Bordeaux -- gets its name from a nearby castle. I get there at 10:30, and take the tour. Guess what, it looks just like every other winery I’ve ever taken a tour of. Sweeping vineyard, old growth mixed with new growth, processing, barrels, blah, blah, blah. Note for next time: skip the tour, and go straight to the tasting room. Though, I did find out one interesting thing during the tour: somewhere along the way, the French passed a law that if you call your wine “Chateau Something”, the structure pictured on the label not only has to exist, but has to be on the grounds of the main vineyard. As wine became more and more popular in the US, lots of French growers realized that the best selling wines (other than the famous wineries), were the ones with the “nicest” chateaus pictured on the label. As a result, over the last 10 years, there has been a flurry of construction all over France as wineries try to build more and more impressive chateaus to put on their labels so their wine will sell better in the US; and that within the industry they have taken to calling this “chateau envy”. My guide ends his story by almost sneering “the appearance of our chateau has not changed for over three quarters of a century.” Anyway, head to the tasting room, and, of course, the wine tastes phenomenal. I’m really not a Merlot fan, but Pommeral works for me (Bordeaux reds are rarely made from a single kind of grape – they are almost always a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc. The typical Bordeaux is predominantly Cabernet Sauvignon, a Pommeral is predominantly Merlot, but both contain all three). These particular Pommerals (Chateau Petrus) are also crazy expensive. The cheapest Petrus’s sell for over $500 a bottle… and that’s for a “future” on a 2007 that won’t be released for another 2-3 years. Anything available on the market (2005 and older) is already well into the thousands. Doing the math, each “tasting” of wine probably costs more than any single bottle of alcohol I’ve ever purchased. Spit cup? No thanks, I’ll swallow.

Something still doesn’t feel right. I’m probably just hungry – haven’t had anything to eat all day, and I just had (the equivalent of) 2 glasses of wine.

So, I head over to the town of Margaux for lunch, and get a Pate sandwich. How awesome is that. Two thick slices of pate, some veggies, all on a perfect baguette. This is a perfectly normal lunch here. I love France.

After lunch, head over to Chateau Margaux for round two of my winery tour. Of course, because all these tours/tastings are by “appointment”, I feel obligated to take their stupid tour. More grapes, more tanks, more barrels. I laughed, I cried, it was awesome: over to the tasting room. This stuff tastes even better, and it’s much cheaper than the Petrus… anywhere from a fifth to a tenth of the cost. Eventually, leave, and start driving up towards Pauillac to go to Lafite-Rothschild.

Something still doesn’t feel right. I know what it is – I haven’t talked to my folks in a couple weeks. I should give them a call.

So, as I’m driving, call home. Talk to my mom for a bit… my grandfather is doing well, she’s heading to Connecticut, dad isn’t home (huh? It’s 6:30 in the morning! No, it’s 8:30… west coast is 9 behind, east coast is 6 behind, and you’re even getting the west coast wrong – it was 8 behind from London… d’oh!). I don’t have dad’s number handy, so mom calls him, and he calls me. We talk for a bit… he’s been mapping out my trip online, saw my pictures, maybe Sagrada Familia isn’t considered a “modern wonder of the world” because it isn’t done yet, and when I tell him where I am he tells me I’ve been going in the wrong direction for the last 20km and I need to turn around. But, everything is fine.

I get to Lafite.

Something still doesn’t feel right. I reach for my chain… I fiddle with it sometimes when I’m feeling like this. Holy crap! My chain is missing!

This is a big deal. It’s the chain that my (late) grandfather gave to my father to give to me at my “thread ceremony” (our version of a Confirmation or Bar Mitzvah, but without a lot of the religious stuff). This isn’t just a piece of jewelry. To me, it’s a physical connection to my father, and to my grandfather. I can not lose this.

Run inside the Lafite office. “Hi, I’m Maneesh, I’m here. I have to go! Sorry!” Run back to my car, and bomb my way back to Bordeaux. Seriously, I’m going 140Km/h on 80Km/h roads (about 90mph on a 50 – and they are welcome to mail me all the speeding tickets they want). I know exactly where my chain is. I left it on the shelf above the sink, but since I never brushed my teeth there, I never went back there after my shower. I also don’t have the number for the hotel, so I can’t call them to find out if anyone has been in the room since I left. Crap, I think that was a cop I just passed at nearly twice the speed limit. No, it was an ambulance. The ambulance is just a regular car? How is that useful? Get to Bordeaux, and now I’m stuck in traffic. I’m going crazy. What if it isn’t there? What if I left it in Toulouse? What a cruel trick that would be. Have I mentioned that I hate Toulouse? Having to go back there would suck. Ok, it was just a lane drop because of some construction. Since Bordeaux doesn’t suck, I follow the signs to Gambeta, and pull up in front of my hotel. Run inside “I have forgotten something really important in my… room of sleep… this morning” (remember, I’m speaking French… badly). He calls the housekeeper. “What are you missing?” “A gold chain.” Goes back and forth with the housekeeper. “She has it, and you—“

Before he can finish I say “Merci!” over my shoulder and I’m already running upstairs. Find the housekeeper, get my chain back and put it on. From now on, I’ll be showering with my chain on.

Now, everything feels right. Get back in my car, turn on the radio, get on the A10, and head for Tours.

“I always feel like, somebody’s watching meeeeeeeeee”

Rockwell! This whole song, to me, is one of the great mysteries of our time. It came out in the early/mid 80s, so how did a then unknown (and turns out one-hit-wonder) Rockwell, get Michael Jackson – at the height of his powers – to sing back up for him? Someone needs to look into this. Michael may have gotten away with the whole child molesting thing, but I’m guessing Rockwell has something pretty juicy on him.

Anyway, after a couple hours driving, I arrive in Tours, and, like Bordeaux, find my hotel no problem ($*&#ing Toulouse). Get my room, and head out for a bite to eat. Go to a restaurant recommended by my guide book called “Comme Autre Fouee”. They specialize in… fouees. Basically mini pitas that are baked in wood ovens for about a minute, and then immediately served piping hot. The first course is a fouee with onion and lardon (French bacon) on top. The next is pork rilletes, white beans with sausage, and goat cheese (each of which goes into the fouee to be eaten like a sandwich), all with a half-bottle of red wine. Another awesome meal.

After that, wandered around the old-town area (which is now full of restaurants, pubs, and cafes), and then finally back to the hotel. Finished my third book (The Namesake), and down for the night.

Administrative Day (3/7: Toulouse to Bordeaux, France)

Ok, today I was supposed to go to the Chateau Petrus and Chateau Margaux wineries in Bordeaux. However, thanks to the rain, both have called to tell me they have cancelled their tours for the day, and my cell phone battery promptly dies.

I’m disappointed, but this is probably for the best. Because of my delays the day before, I never got to do laundry, I need to get a charger for my phone (using the USB on my computer doesn’t appear to be working), and I need to get better maps.

First things first, head over to the laundromat. I try to follow the 7 instructions line for line, and then find out at the bottom of the sign “don’t forget to perform instruction 6 after instruction 7” Is that a joke? So, now I’m not sure if the detergent I’ve added is actually going to get used. Whatever, I’m off to the internet café to try to find a cell-phone store where I can get a charger, and a bookstore where I can get maps. For both, the closest I can find are in the Toulouse “centre ville” (where I was circling for hours the night before). Screw that. Head back to the laundromat to put my stuff in the dryer, and none of them work. Fantastic. Now I have wet clothes – that may or may not actually be clean – and no way to dry them. I decide, “to hell with this place, I’m leaving”. Get in my car, get on the A62, and head for Bordeaux.

The drive from Toulouse to Bordeaux is beautiful. Early on, it reminds me of driving through New England in the early fall… grass is still green, trees are half bare -- and the leaves that are still there are shades of red into brown – and there are evergreen’s mixed in. As I reach the wine country, the trees give way to sweeping vineyards, villages with either a large central church, or chateaux. It’s like something you would see in the background of some bad movie that's yet another variation of the “The Three Musketeers” story... the movie "The Musketeer" specifically comes to mind.

The city Bordeaux itself is gorgeous. It’s set on a river, and the downtown is small enough that I can pretty much walk from one side to the other in half an hour, or so. But, it’s large enough that it has all kinds of cool buildings, good restaurants, laundromats, book stores, and cell phone stores. I find my hotel (in Place Gambeta), and find everything I need right in that square: get maps at a book store next to my hotel, phone charger at the Orange/France Telecom store across the square, laundry place a block off the square, and dinner at a restaurant called “Le Regent” (which was really, really good). As an added bonus, the restaurant had free wireless, so I was able to post a bunch of blog entries I was behind on, and got all my pictures uploaded (finally!).

Also had the pleasant experience of running into a couple Mormon missionaries while out walking around. They started to talk to me in French, and once I realized what they were doing, I just came out in English with “are you guys from Utah?” One of them was, and so we ended up talking about what we thought of Europe, France, etc. The other tried to get back to the Mormon thing, so I told him “I’ve heard the good news… and I’ve decided it’s really not for me.”

Back in the hotel now, getting ready to go to sleep. Weather permitting, I have a 10:30am appointment at the Lafite-Rothschild winery.

How lucky am I? (arms spread apart) This lucky! How stubborn am I? (arms spread apart) This stubborn! (3/6: Barcelona to Toulouse, France)

Ok, I have to be on a train at 8:45am from Barcelona to Narbonne (France), where I’m supposed to pick up a rental car, and drive the A61 to Toulouse. According to the RailEurope website, this is the only train all day from Barcelona to Narbonne, so I make sure to get a wake up call at 7am, which should leave me plenty of time to shower, pack, check-out, and get to the train station.

Wake up call comes at 7am, I don’t wake up until 8:30. Unless there’s a time machine somewhere in the hotel, I’m not making that train. However, I don’t really believe that that’s the only train, so, I take my time, do all my stuff, and get to the train station around 9:30.

Me: “One ticket to Narbonne please.”
Ticket Guy: “That train left almost an hour ago. There isn’t another one.”
Me: “Oh… there isn’t any other train that will get me to Narbonne?”
Ticket Guy: “No.”

Right during that part of the conversation, one his coworkers walks buy, over hears us, and they go back and forth a bit in Catalan, and then the coworker starts typing on the computer.

Ticket Guy: “Ok, you can take a train from here to Cerbere, and connect from there.”
Me: “Done.”

How lucky was it that that guy walked by right at that moment to tell Mr. “you can’t get there from here” that, in fact, I could? No other trains my butt!

So, hang out for an hour or so, get on the train, and start in on my third book: “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri (soon to be a major motion picture starring the suddenly ubiquitous Kumar… I mean Kal Penn. Speaking of Kal Penn, did anyone find him remotely believable playing a high school kid on 24? The guy is 30-something, isn’t he? Wait. I’m 30-something. Never mind. It was totally believable. Let’s just move on.). Reach Cerbere a couple hours later, and get off the train to face French passport control. They check my passport, hand it back to me and let me go through. No questions, no stamp, just “Bienvenue” (welcome). Get inside the station, the connecting train I want to be on doesn’t leave for another couple hours, and ticket office won’t reopen for another 45 minutes (they take a break from 1pm to 5pm… lazy ass French). There are a couple other “clearly tourist” types in the station with me, and since I seem to be the only one who understands French, I end up being the translator for everyone. The benefit to this is that when I want to leave the station to try to find something to eat, no one minds watching my bags for me. So, I wander down to the village center, and everything from the tourist office, to the cafes to the markets is closed from 1 to 5 (you thought I was kidding about “lazy ass French people”?). So, head back up to the train station (beautiful views of the Mediterranean Sea, though), and just sit and wait with everyone else.

I end up sitting with a group consisting of a 22 year old German hippie girl, a 50+ Indonesian-New Zealander (who won’t shut up), and a 50+ Canadian woman who is outside North America for the first time in her life. When our train comes, we all get a compartment together, and keep talking (well, the kiwi woman does most of the talking – I’m mostly trying to keep from strangling her). At some point we do the go around the circle and talk about your self. The Canadian woman (hey Dusty/Cookie, she’s from Edmonton!) does her bit, and then the Kiwi turns to me and says “you’re in computers, right?” I haven’t said a word about what I do, or where I’m from. “I never said that… what makes you say that?” German chick, “Yeah, you seem like some one who’s in computers.” What the hell does that mean? How did two complete strangers, unprompted, no previous knowledge, both just come out with “you’re in computers”? Is it that obvious what a dork I am? Anyway, I concede that I’m in computers, and leave it at that.

Eventually we get to Narbonne, and I get off the train (the others are all continuing on). I get in a taxi and give her the address for the rental car place “9 Route de Perpignan”. We drive out basically to the middle of nowhere, and she says “here we are.” Huh? We’re nowhere! We argue a bit over the address I have, and finally, in a huff, she turns around and starts driving back to the train station. “Hey! There it is!” I’m not sure how, but somehow I see a sign for National RentalCar on the side of the road. She turns around, pulls in, and I go get my car.

Two hours later (about 7:30pm), I’m in Toulouse. I’m running way behind, and it’s dark now, but finding my hotel shouldn’t be a big deal – Toulouse doesn’t appear to be that big. I spend the next two hours driving around in circles. Here’s the thing: they don’t really label the streets, instead they have big signs that indicate what major landmarks are in a given direction. Of course, I know nothing about Toulouse, and know nothing about its landmarks, so this doesn’t help me. I picked the hotel I’m staying at (Hotel Anatole France) because: 1) it’s cheap, 2) it has laundry nearby, 3) there are restaurants nearby. So, I am intent on finding the place. Back to the driving around in circles for 2 hours. I’m just trying to find a landmark so I can figure out where on my map I am. I would use the signs pointing out landmarks, but no matter where I am in the city, all the signs say the same thing, and at no point do I appear to actually arrive at any of the landmarks. Part of the problem is that there are lots of rotaries. We have rotaries in New England. I’m used to rotaries, I even like rotaries, but at this point I just want to burn Toulouse to the ground. As I’m driving around, I notice that there are lots of laundromats, and plenty of hotels, but I just can’t find the one I’m looking for.

Finally, I decide to stop for dinner. I go to a restaurant called “L’Entrecote”, which is supposedly famous for its steak with “special green sauce” and french fries. I also have a half-bottle of the house red to go with it. At the end of the meal, I get a cup of coffee (driving around in circles for 2 hours is tiring), and ask how to get to where I’m trying to go (note: now that I’ve had dinner, and know that there are other hotels with laundry nearby, my need to go to this particular hotel no longer exists). I’m told to head towards a certain rotary (“Place Wilson”), and then head towards “Place Capitole”, and then look for signs for “Place St. Pierre”. I head back towards Place Wilson (the same rotary I’d already been circling for 2 hours), and follow the signs for Place Capitole. I end up back at the restaurant. It occurs to me, that what I thought was Place Wilson, might not be Place Wilson. I put my window down and ask the person in the car next to me, “where’s Place Wilson?” They point in the opposite direction from the rotary I’d been circling around. *sigh*. Now I just want to kill myself. Anyway, head towards the real Place Wilson, follow the sign for Place Capitole, even find the sign for Place St. Pierre. But, thanks to a convoluted sequence of one ways, I suddenly find myself on a bridge. I don’t want to be on a bridge. I turn around, come back over another bridge (the bridges are one way), find my way back to Place Capitole, and try again. I repeat variations on this theme three or four times, before finally pulling into a parking lot (that I’ve passed a couple times) before I get forced onto the bridge again. I ask someone in the lot, “where’s place St. Pierre?” His answer, “this is it.” I hate Toulouse.

Anyway, it’s now midnight, but I’ve finally found my hotel. The same hotel that it’s no longer really necessary for me to have found. But the point is, I found it. Go inside, check in, drop off my stuff, and head back out to a bar to congratulate myself with a beer. Drink up, head back, and crash.

Sagrada Familia (3/5: Barcelona, Spain)

Today, there is only one thing on the agenda: The Sagrada Familia.

For the full back story, go here. The short version goes something like this: 1866, the Sagrada Familia is dreamt up. 1884, Gaudi takes over as architect. 1914, church runs out of money, Gaudi continues work with a skeleton crew of 30. 1926, Gaudi is hit by a trolley while crossing the street, and dies (not kidding). Construction still continues to this day, and is scheduled for completion in 2026 – the 100^th anniversary of Gaudi’s death.

The church is breath taking. So far, 8 of the eventual 12 bell towers (one for each disciple) have been built, and the remaining 4 are to be even taller than the 8 existing ones. Inside, the church space is dominated by scaffolding and work space. In fact, other than a 5 foot wide walk way around the outer edge of half of the church, the whole thing is closed off. So, Christie and I walk around, taking in all the stuff that is done: the stained glass, the ceilings, and the three facades (each representing a stage in the life of Christ: the nativity, the glory, and the passion). Then, we take the elevator up to the top of one of the towers, walk around up there, and then climb the stairs back down.

A picture is worth a thousand words. So, like the other Gaudi stuff I’ve seen, go look at the pictures. In this case, I also have to say that actually seeing it is worth far more than a thousand pictures. If any of you plan on going to Barcelona, lots of people will tell you “if you do one thing in Barcelona, see the Sagrada Familia.” They are right. I’ve seen six of the 14 modern and ancient wonders of the world, and that this isn’t on the list is mind boggling.

From the church, Christie and I headed back to El Borne one last time for… wait for it… more tapas. This time we ended up at a place that the first time we came through here had been super packed, so assume that it must be pretty good. I’m not sure if I was just tapas’d out at this point, or if the food wasn’t that good, but either way I’m under whelmed. From here we head back to the hotel, get Christie’s stuff, and I walk her to the Placa de Catalunya where she catches a bus to the airport to head back to London. I walk back to the Hotel to take a nap.

After napping, I finally give in and head to McDonalds. Honestly, I don’t think I can even think about another tapas restaurant, and I just want something I can bring back to the room, and eat while watching TV and/or reading my book.

Around 10, I head down to the lobby, thinking I’d continue reading my book in the lobby bar, instead of my room. I get down there, and suddenly I’m surrounded by some of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. I’m astounded, shocked, and confused. I ask one the hotel employees what’s going on, and he tells me that L’Oreal is having a conference in the hotel. So, I plant myself in the lobby bar, pretend to read my book while taking in the view, and start practicing pick up lines in my head. Eventually I realize that 1) I don’t have any pick up lines (that work, anyway), and 2) even if I did, I don’t speak Spanish or Catalan, and that’s all anyone around me speaking. So, around midnight, I finish Moneyball, and head back up to my room since I have to be on a train at 8:45am.

New Camp (3/4: Barcelona, Spain)

Up and out around 10:30, today I’m headed to Camp Nou (New Camp), home of FC Barcelona – one of the most famous soccer clubs in the entire world. Find my way over on the Metro, and finally get there around 11.

It’s awesome. I don’t mean that just in the sense of “cool”, but also in the sense of awe inspiring. It doesn’t look like much from the stands, or even sometimes on TV, but standing on the field (ok, next to the field), imagining the stadium fool of fans, it’s easy to see why New Camp is considered one of the best stadiums to see a game. I take the full self guided tour (11E), which gets you into the visitors locker room, up the players tunnel and onto the field level (but not actually on the field), the second level of seats, the press box, and finally the FC Barcelona Museum, where they have (a replica?) of the UEFA cup trophy they won last year. After the tour, you exit by causeway to the gift shop, which is really part FC Barcelona gift shop, and part Nike shop. I bought a sweatshirt... mostly because I like it, but a little bit to annoy Michel (Barca bought Ronaldinho from Paris-St. Germain, his favorite team).

After, I head back to the metro, when I realize I’m starving. There’s a McDonald’s right next to the Metro station. I can’t do it. I may be hungry, but I’m not that hungry! Anyway, hop the metro back to the hotel, meet up with Christie, and we’re out and on our way back to the El Borne district for lunch. We stop into a tapas place (noticing a trend?) called “El Rivoli” that also has really good tapas. Since it’s still early afternoon, we skip the wine, but I manage to stuff my self into a coma and have to drag myself out of the restaurant. From there, we head over to the Eglise de Santa Maria del Mar, which, after all the Gaudi stuff, is really quite boring. So, we head over the Picasso Museum instead. Now, had I known before hand that the museum focused mostly on his “early works”, and not on any of the stuff for which he is famous (which is mostly all in Paris), I probably would have skipped it. I’m glad I didn’t. I never realized that 1) he was so prolific, and 2) early in his career he really did a lot of very “classical” style painting… illustrations, portraits, etc. It’s really cool to see how he started out as a “classic” painter, and then slowly started to break out of the mold and into all the cool other stuff he’s done. I think later Christie put it best by saying “it was neat to see how he had to learn the rules before he could break them.”

From there we headed back to the hotel for naps. Since we’d been out late the night before, and had been powering through site seeing for the last two days, we decided to take it easy for dinner, and just went to one of the touristy places near the hotel. I had the tapas version of a burger and fries (she had some more adventurous stuff), and we shared a pitcher of pretty good Sangria.

One thing I need to make perfectly clear (based on some comments): Christie is one of my best friends; and even though we’re not into all the same stuff, we usually have a great time hanging out together. If in places it seems like she’s “a drag”, it’s only because I haven’t elaborated on:

1. how much I’m putting her out by making her go do all this sight seeing stuff she’s mostly already done.
2. what a pain I’ve been about taking pictures. I swear, there are more than a few pictures that in my attempts to be “artistic”, I’ve made her wait at least 20 minutes while I tried to get “the shot”.
3. that there have been more than a couple situations where I knew going in it was something she didn’t want to do, and I dragged her along anyway.

The occasions (in Barcelona, at least) where she’s put her foot down and said “we’re doing this” have been minute compared to the number of times I’ve said the same thing, made her go along with it, and she did without complaining. Clear?

Gaudi, Gaudi, and more Gaudi (3/3: Barcelona, Spain)

One of the things I did yesterday while Christie was getting some work done, was make a list of all the “sight seeing” type stuff I wanted to see in Barcelona. Three of the things on that list are: Casa Batllo, La Padrera, and Park Guell. All three (2 buildings and a park) were designed by the architect Antoni Guadi (a.k.a. “God’s Architect”).

We head out, and our first stop is the Casa Batllo, which is pretty much a block away from our hotel. I can’t really do justice to how crazy/cool Gaudi’s designs are, so just go look at my pictures.

Next, we head out to Park Guell via the metro. Park Guell is a public park with a plaza area designed by Gaudi. The main entrance has “houses” modeled after the Gingerbread house from Hansel & Gretal. Inside the gates, there are stairs up to a room open on three sides, filled with columns supporting the roof. The main feature of the stairs is a large fountain down the middle modeled after a salamander. The ceiling of the columned room has all kinds of beautiful tile work, as does the outside of the terrace above. Up another set of stairs and there’s a huge terrace, with amazing views out to Barcelona. Again, I really can’t adequately describe it, so just go look at the pictures! Anyway, spend a few hours wandering around the park, stopped for a bite to eat at the snack bar on the terrace, and then headed back out to the Metro.

Our final stop was La Padrera. Unfortunately, after the grandeur of the park, and the craziness of Casa Batllo, this building just seemed kind of boring. There was some neat stuff up on the roof, and a great view out to the the Sagrada Familia (more on that later), but at this point in the day it was pretty much just a building. So, back to the hotel and crashed for naps.

Back up and out around 10ish for dinner. First we headed over to a place called Cal Pep in the El Borne district, but it was completely packed, so we walked back out to another place (forget the name), and just got a few small plates and a glass of wine there (like last night, basically a big appetizer). Walked back over to Placa de Santa Maria, and wandered around a bit looking for our next stop. As we were walking around we got to see part of the lunar eclipse! We were going to stick around the Placa to watch it, but after waiting 20 minutes or so, and nothing seeming to have changed, we decided to just keep wandering in our quest for more food. What did we find? A restaurant called “Cheese Me”. If any of you thought there was any chance I was passing this place up, you clearly don’t know me well enough. So, we head in, order the Spanish cheese plate, and a bottle of cava, and chow down. After cheese, we decided to get dessert (I know, most places the cheese plate is dessert. I’m on vacation. Don’t judge!). Christie gets a “fruit gratin with ricotta foam”, and I get a flourless chocolate cake.

So, now, it’s about 1am. We jump in a cab, and head over to a club – The Sutton Club -- and not only is it dead, but they want 15E each cover. However, the two bars near it are both packed. I’m flummoxed. Why are the bars packed, and the club dead? I’m hemming, I’m hawing, and Christie pretty much just wants to go home. In my confusion, Christie decides she has to go to the bathroom, so we head into one of the bars. She goes to the bathroom, and I sneak off to get a drink. Drinks are big. Tall glass, filled to the half way point with ice and vodka, and they give you the can of red bull: 5E. So, obviously I don’t finish it before Christie gets back. When she does, we start talking to the guy next to us at the bar. Neither he nor his friends really speak any English, so he calls over his brother to do the translating. We end up talking to them, and eventually find out that everyone hangs out at the bar until 3am or so (when they close), and then people go to the club. So, we hang out with them, and then around 3am we all head over to the club.

Now, there’s a huge line. Luckily, one of the guys we’re with (Eduardo, the English speaker) seems to know someone, has a card of some sort, and just like that we’re in. I don’t know what he said, I don’t know what he did, and I don’t really care: I hate waiting in lines. We all head for the bar in the back, and Christie sets up camp on a sofa nearby. Get a drink, talk to Eduardo and his brother/friends for a bit, and I get the urge to wander. Now, I know that you’re never supposed to leave a girl (any girl) alone in a club for very long, but we’ve been hanging out with these guys for a few hours, and Christie has been talking to them just as much as I have, so I figure she’ll be ok to hang out with them for a bit. I tell Eduardo I want to walk around for a bit, tell Christie I’ll be back in 5 minutes, and wander off. Huge mistake.

I end up at another bar across the club, talking to some people, when I get a text message from Christie that “we are leaving. Meet me at the front of the club. Go back and get your jacket on the bench.” Crap. Something has happened. I find Christie at the front of the club, and ask her what happened. She tells me to go get my stuff, and she’ll tell me when we get outside. I run over the back bar, grab my jacket, run back to the front. We get outside. “What happened?!” No answer. We get into a cab, and she starts explaining that after I left, she started talking to Eduardo, and he starting hit on her. First he says something like “So, is that guy your boyfriend?” (No). “Do you have a boyfriend?” (No) and then says something to the effect of “I think you’re cute.” Now, never mind that she should have seen this coming a mile away – I don’t think any guys has ever asked a girl her availability without some sort of motive – but we have to leave because someone starting hitting on her? Really? Now, granted I ended up being gone more like half an hour than 5 minutes, but still, no “help! Need rescue!”? No, “where are you?”? The situation escalates straight to “we are leaving.”? So, in one of the biggest party cities in the world, those were my 30 minutes of clubbing.

I want to be pissed about this. Going clubbing was of two things on my "must do" list for Barcelona. I want to be *really* pissed about this. Just one problem… it was my fault:

1. You never leave a girl alone at a club.
2. I’ve been dragging her around Barcelona sight seeing all day.
3. YOU NEVER LEAVE A GIRL ALONE AT A CLUB.

*sigh*

I'm an idiot.

Barcelona! (3/2: Barcelona, Spain)

Woke up late morning, packed all my stuff up, and Christie and I head off to Heathrow to catch our flight to Barcelona! I won’t be coming back to London until the end of my trip, so this time I have to take all my stuff with me.

Get into Barcelona late evening, and head to the hotel. Christie had some work stuff she needed to finish up, so I read a little (“Moneyball” by Michael Lewis… can’t believe I haven’t read this yet) and then fell asleep. Around 9ish, we head out the door for our first night out in one of the biggest party cities in the world. Think I’m excited?

First we head over to a tapas place called Taktika Berri about 5 blocks from our hotel in the Eixample. Tapas here is different than from in the US. In the US, you order a “tapas dish” off the menu, and they bring you a small plate of stuff. Here, they put plates of the different tapas on the bar, each in an individual serving (usually on a slice of baguette), with a toothpick through it. So, you get a plate, a cup of red wine, and just pick what you want from the bar. At then end, they just charge you based on the number of toothpicks (one or two euros per) you have accumulated. This would probably never work in the US… you would just find a small mountain’s worth of toothpicks outside the restaurant. Anyway, the result is chaos. You have people seated at the bar, drinking, eating, having conversations, etc. You have people behind the people at the bar, drinking, eating, having conversations, and reaching over/around/through the people actually at the bar to get to the tapas. Behind the bar, not only do you have the bar tenders serving up drinks, but there are also waiters cycling in and out the tapas. It’s loud, it’s full contact, but it’s all pretty friendly. So, I head over to the bar to get plates and wine, and, of course, the bar tender speaks only Spanish and Catalan. I speak neither. Christy speaks neither. Luckily, the owner’s son is there because he is possibly the only other person in the bar who speaks English. So, he relays my order to the bar tender, explains to me how the whole things works, and sends us on our way. Christie and I probably have 4 or 5 each (a big appetizer, basically). Oh, and it was *excellent*.

After, we head down to La Rambla (the uber touristy area), and walk around for a bit, before getting sick of it. So, we duck into a little bar for a drink while going through the trusty Lonely Planet book looking for a decent restaurant nearby. We find a Mediterranean place called “Es” that’s just 5 blocks away, and head over there. When we get there the place looks a little dead, and has that look of “look how trendy we are! Red lighting!”, so we were both a little concerned how good the food was really going to be. Turned out there was no reason to be concerned. Prices were reasonable, food was really good, and the wine was pretty cheap too.

From there, back over to La Rambla, and basically walk it all the way down to the water. At this point, I’m ready to find another drink, but Christie is convinced we are near the beach, and insists we find it. We walk on and on and on, and we’re on the water, but it’s all marinas and piers with hotels, etc, but no beach. Finally we stop and look at our guide book to discover that we really are close to the beach, we just have to walk a little farther. So, to the beach. We hang out there for a while, Christie soaking it all in – I’m just waiting for her to finish so we can leave.

One of the funny things about being brown, is I have a very utilitarian view of the beach. There’s no magic to it. There’s sand, there’s water, and that’s it. I have no desire, and even less need, to go and sit on it for hours to get a tan. If we’re going for a bbq, play in the water, kick a soccer ball around, or something like that, I’m all for it. At night, if we’re going for a bonfire, to watch the waves, or something, then I’m all for it. But the bottom line is, I need a reason to be there.

Anyway, Christie wants to just sit there and be reminded of being at the beach back in Orange County, or to be reminded of previous trips to Barcelona. For the first ten or fifteen minutes, that’s fine – I’m enjoying the waves – but, then I’m just standing around getting bored. Once she’s done with that, I find myself stone cold sober, tiredness is starting to catch up with me, and my “window of opportunity” to keep drinking and keep the night going has closed. So, back to the hotel and crash for the night.

Maneesh's Moving Service? (3/1: Cambridge, England)

Today, I have to do laundry. While no one has dryers in London -- and the ones at the laundromat are expensive -- here in Cambridge, they have them, and they're cheap. So, laundry.

While my laundry is running, a guy stops by with a bunch of (flattened) boxes and wrapping paper for Vikram & Swati's upcoming move to the US. Some of these boxes need to find their way over to Vikram's office. Since I've already helped one friend move, I figure what the heck, and end up carrying a bunch of them over. What were the chances I'd be even tangentially involved in helping two people, in the UK, move?

Around 1ish, laundry done, Swati and I head over to the Engineering building to meet up with Vikram, and then we all head over to a pub called "The Eagle" for lunch. They get the fish and chips, I get the bangers and mash. In the US, the fish part of fish and chips is usually 3 or 4 smaller pieces, over here it's just one big piece, so it's not even really finger food. After lunch, Swati and I wander around downtown... stop in at the Borders, she checks out a clothing store, and eventually we get to "The Copper Kettle". It used to be a proper tea house, but now it's really just a cafe. What it is sort of famous for, is that Watson & Crick (they of the discovery of DNA) used to come here a lot. The tea is good, but it lacks any of the ambiance or character that Auntie's had. Apparently it used to, but the space was so large that they couldn't get by as a tea house alone, so they remodeled and made it a full service cafe.

I understand that they did what they had to do to survive, but it seems like such a waste when places with real character or forced to modernize. This is one of the things that really gets to me whenever I have one of my internal "east coast vs. west coast" debates. On the west coast, since nothing is really that old to begin with, there's no real compulsion to hold on to anything. As soon as something out lives its usefulness, it's torn down to make way for whatever is coming next. Sure, they might keep one wall for permitting purposes (renovation vs. new construction), but for all intents and purposes, the old is very readily discarded for the new. I think only in the last couple years has there been more of an interest in preserving the character of older buildings, but even that is only because it's trendy (eg. "historic" warehouses converted into lofts, etc.). On the east coast, whether it's by design or bureaucracy, there is a much stronger connection to the past. Buildings and houses from the 1800's are fairly common, and it is far more likely for such buildings to be gutted and remodeled on the inside, than for them to be just torn down.

Anyway, after tea we headed over to the "Porter's Post" (reception) at Pembroke to pick up the wines Vikram had ordered for me: 4 Burgundies (ie. Pinot Noir), 2 from 1996, 2 from 1995. Not bad. Headed back to their place, packed up, hugs and good-byes, and got back on the train to London.

Couple points I wanted to clear up from previous posts based on some emails I've gotten:

1. When I say "Christie is dying", I don't mean that literally -- she's just sick.

2. I understand that a lot of the taxes/fees they have in London are what pay for so many other services. I wasn't complaining about them. In fact, if were able to get anything at the level of quality of the BBC, I would *happily* pay a TV licensing fee. If SF built up a truly effective public transport system, I'd happily pay/support congestion charges (and I think we need to increase the taxes on gas to support public transport and/or alternative fuel research).

Getting out of London (2/28: Cambridge, England)

Today I'm heading up to Cambridge to visit my cousin Swati and her husband Vikram, who's a "fellow" (professor) at Cambridge University. Due to some hot water issues at Christie's new place in London, I don't get out of the house until around noon. Take the tube from the West Hampstead station over to King's Cross, and at 1:15 hop on an express train to Cambridge, arriving around 3.

Drop of my stuff at Swati's place, and we head out for a tour of the colleges (Cambridge is made up of something like 30 VERY independent colleges), and then of the downtown area. Stopped in at a cell phone store to find out when the Nokia N95 is being released, and I was very excited to hear that the release date is April 2, the day after I leave. I'm glad for that because the phone will probably cost around $700 and will probably never be available in the US. I don't even want the temptation. Dropped into a wine shop, and discovered that Absinthe is now legal pretty much all over Europe. I'm going to have try that while I'm over here. Finally, stopped in a tea house called "Auntie's Tea Shop" for afternoon tea and scones. I'd heard of scones before, but I wasn't *exactly* certain of what they were. So when the waitress asked what kind of scone I wanted, I really had no idea what I was being asked. I took the safe route, and just ordered the "fruit" scone. This was probably the first time I felt like I was doing something very British.

After tea, we walked over to Vikram's office, met up with him, and then headed out for dinner. First to "The Granta", a pub near where they live, for a pint, and then over to a restaurant called "Rice Boat" for dinner. Since it was Vikram's birthday, and thus far the both of them had refused to let me pay for anything (tea, pints, etc.), I decided to be sneaky, and excused myself to go to the bathroom. Got the attention of a waiter, gave him my credit card and told him to just bring me the receipt for signing at the end -- don't even bring the bill. We had a really good south Indian dinner, where I got to have two of my favorite Indian dishes: dahi vada and masala dhosa (no idea if I spelled any of that right). Over dinner, I found out that each of the colleges has it's own wine cellars, where they purchase really good french wines before they are labeled (either in the barrels, or unlabeled bottles), store them for years, and make them available to the fellows for either their cost, or L10, whichever is lower. I don't really have any what the quality of the wines is, "really good" could mean pretty much anything, but Vikram is going to pick up 3 or 4 bottles for me, so that should be pretty cool. In general, had a really good time at dinner with them... Vikram got a professorship at UC Santa Barbara, so they were asking me lots of questions about getting things up and running in the US (utilities, credit cards, etc.), Swati teasing me about lots of different stuff, Vikram and I both teasing Swati about different stuff... good times all around. After dinner, headed back to their place, hung out a bit longer, then crashed around 11.

Hanging out with family is always good.

Lazy day (2/27: Lisbon, Portugal)

Today was my lazy day. I was still sore from my surfing adventure yesterday, and we're headed back to London tonight, so I'm not feeling terribly motivated to actually "do" anything.

Finally roll out of the hotel around 11, and just head down to the Baixa district. Wander around for a while looking for a cafe with wireless, fail miserably (seriously? No cafes with wireless? Even the bar at the beach offered wireless!), and end up at a dedicated internet shop, sit down, and spend about 2 hours checking email, (finally) posting to the blog, paying bills, etc. Wander around some more, stop at a plain cafe for a coke, look for a "Maniche" Portugal jersey, and before I know it it's 4:30 and time to head back to the hotel to catch a 7pm flight back to London. Hang out with Christie, more free beer on the flight (I like British Airways).

That's it. That was my whole day. I rule.

So, some mental house cleaning:

Don't do the Math: Everything here (England & Portugal) appears to cost the same as in the US. Let me rephrase that, all the numbers are the same. A coke that's $2 in the US, is L2 in London, and 2E in Lisbon. Of course, that means in London my coke was really $4, and in Lisbon it was $2.50. With a coke, that's no big deal, but now apply it to meals. My $20 meal in the US, is now $40 in London, and $25 in Lisbon. A cab ride from Gatwick to Clapham that feels like "40", is in fact L40, which is really $80. Don't do the math. You'll feel much better. Things cost what they cost, and if you start doing the math, you'll just start to feel like you're getting screwed (and you probably are).

London vs. US cities: a point that Christie and I have spent some time going back and forth on, is that so far, being in London doesn't really feel like being in another country to me. While it's certainly very different from San Francisco (and even more so compared to Orange County, where she grew up), it doesn't strike me as all the different from Boston/New England: narrow and windy roads, the bare trees in winter, the weather, the underground and, the mostly brick construction, the architecture, rotaries... all very New Englandish. I have enough friends with different accents, that I barely even notice the British accent when I'm out and about. In fact, I'd say the only time I really notice the accent is when Christie's sometimes falls out, but that's only because I have a preconceived expectation of how words/sentences should sound when she says them. The sports fanaticism is relatively similar, just with various football/rugby clubs instead of the Red Sox/Patriots/etc. I haven't even had a problem with the whole "driving on the wrong side of the road" thing. Doesn't everyone look both ways before crossing the street? So pretty much everything that I see around me feels very familiar. The differences I am noticing are more in the category of "day to day life". For example, while it is very common for people to have washing machines in their flats (more so than in the US), almost no one has a dryer. So, it's fairly common to walk into a flat, and see clothes draped over the radiators. Another would be that consuming alcohol is socially acceptable pretty much all day (remember my beer on the flight to Lisbon at 11:30am?). A last example would be that things we pretty much take for granted in the US, all have some sort of tax or fee associated with them. Buy a TV, and you have to pay a "TV License Fee" to the BBC. Buy a car, and not only do you have pay the crazy gas prices, but there's a "congestion fee" of L5/day if you want to drive it in central London.

Public Transportation: why on earth can't we have better public transportation in the US? I think I go on this rant every time I'm in Europe. I know the public transportation systems on the east coast are much better (ie. subways, accela, etc.), but why don't we have any of that on the west coast? Why isn't their a train from SF to Tahoe? Or SF to LA? Or SF/LA to Vegas? Where's our TGV? Ugh.

What's wrong with the Women?: In London at least, I've been very underwhelmed with the "quality" of the women I've seen out and about. Granted, I haven't even been into Central London yet, but having been on the tube a few times now, and just walking here and there to the various pubs, on my run, etc. I think I can count on one hand the number of genuinely attractive women I've seen. Lisbon and Cambridge, I've seen plenty, but, thus far, London has just been dreadful.

Verizon sucks: There are all these really cool phones available in Europe that never even show up in the US because Verizon, the dominant carrier in the US, uses a different technology (CDMA), and Cingular/AT&T -- which is GSM -- uses a different GSm frequency than Europe. So not only is the market segmented by the different technologies, but even the people that are GSM are a different GSM. I have verizon, I love verizon, and they either have to switch over to GSM, or die.