Fontainebleu

My last day in Paris was spent visiting another kingly estate, this one south of Paris in Fontainebleu. Napoleon was the last royal, an emperor, to use this place and he put his mark on it. I don't know the history of the place well -- it seems as though both Fontainebleu and the Chateau at Versailles were being built and occupied contemporaneously but how one relates to the other I haven't studied. It was another extravagantly built and furnished seat of the French royal power in the years from about 1660 to sometime around the time Napoleon lost power, maybe 1820 or thereabouts. I won't overload you with photos but here are just a few for flavor.

Anyway, Arnaud decided to come along and I'm glad he did. He hadn't been here in many years and being my guide allowed him a chance to reconnect with the place. We had a good time together and I enjoyed another fine picnic, French style. The weather was good, if gray. The sun came out briefly, lit the foliage and buildings nicely, and then ducked back behind the clouds again.

Once again I was impressed with the woodwork and carvings. You're pressed into the realization that the talent and  artistry that went into creating a place like this just isn't available anymore at any price. To inspect a modern building oftentimes is to see how efficient or how cost-effective a structure can be made and still perform its intended function. There is nothing efficient about these designs. They are beautiful, ornate and labor intensive. The design on the right was part of a heavily carved door.

To the right is one of the strangest sculptures I saw in my tours.  A many-breasted woman, Diana of Ephesus

perhaps, suckling chimeras.

And below, the throne upon which sat Napoleon, Emperor of France. You can see the "N" on the uprights to either side of the throne. There are eagle feathers in the very top, the crown, of the backdrop and the symbol of France, the fleur-de-leis, decorate the red side of the backdrop. Another stunning ceiling treatment is also in evidence. One rapidly runs out of adjectives sufficient to describe such opulence.

After touring the place we headed out onto the grounds and walked here and there until we found a good spot in the woods to have eat our picnic lunch. I always describe the food we ate because those of you who know me or know other Swarthouts know we always plan our next meal while we're eating the present one. And we constantly talk about food in the interim.

Below is one of many ornate doors we saw:

Here are Arnuad and I clowning around during lunch. We found the best Cote du Rhone yet at the supermarket in town, and at only 3.45 euro for the bottle it was a good deal too.

Tennis in Paris

Sunday - Cold, cloudy

Well, we decided to postpone the trip to Fontainbleu until tomorrow. The weather was sort of forbidding. No snow thankfully, but chilly and damp. So I  decided to walk over to the Palais Omnisports de Paris on Rue Bercy, an indoor venue, to see if I could watch a bit of the currently running 2009 Paris Masters Tennis Tournament. I couldn't get tickets to the featured match with James Blake as it was sold out but by dumb luck was able to find a ticket counter staffed by an English speaking woman who sold me a ticket for the qualifier matches. These matches are for players trying to break into, or back into as the case may be, a high enough ranking to get into the professional tour. I watched two matches that were about as good as any I saw at the Indian Wells Masters Tournament a couple of years ago and for a lot less money.
The second match between Marc Gicquel and Alejando Falla (Columbia) was real fun to watch because it went into a third set tie-breaker in which the players traded minibreaks until Falla won it. His opponent Marc Gicquel, a Frenchman, has been on the tour before. I've seen him play in some of the bigger tournaments. I don't know why he's currently playing qualifiers; his ranking must have slipped quite a bit after being beat by Andy Roddick at the US Open this year. But they both played well. (3-6, 6-4, 6-7). Gicquel appears in the top photo. The other match between Vincent Millot (France) and Frederico Gill (Portugal) was also a three setter. And again the favorite, the Frenchman, lost.

(I just read that James Blake beat Fabrice Santoro of France 6-4, 6-3 in the first round of the tournament. Blake broke Santoro twice in each set. I'll bet it wasn't all that interesting to watch.)


Today's ticket cost me 10 €, a relative bargain as tickets go. In 2007 I attended a Masters Tournament in Indian Wells, California, my first professional tennis event.  I bought fairly good tickets for the two finals, the men's and the women's, for about $600 if I recall correctly. Both were boring matches. The winners, Raphael Nadal and Daniela Hantuchova, won in straight sets and did it with ease.

I wanted to relate some other stuff too -- assorted factoids about Paris that might be of interest.

In chats with Arnaud, who once was a realtor of sorts, renting and sometimes selling flats (apartments) here in Paris, I learned that the cost to buy a flat in metro Paris is approximately 8K € per square meter! That means a tiny flat, say about 900 sq feet, would cost roughly a million US dollars to purchase. I reckon that the reason most people rent in Paris.

That also means the beautiful but tiny 16x20 one-room cabin I'm renting from David and Jenny in Homer would cost about $320K were it "located more favorably," in Paris, that is. Holy smokes — that's some heavy coin.

We went to a tiny hole-in-the-wall pizza place in the neighborhood (200 meters away) the other night. I chose a 4-item pizza (11€) while Thea and Arnaud opted for a combination; appetizer, dinner pizza, dessert. Arnaud had salad topped with pieces of sauteed duck and Thea had 6 escargot served in-shell as appetizers. Then they each had the pizza followed by dessert. Thea had tiramisu (I sampled it - pretty tasty) and Arnaud had ice cream (3 scoops). They paid 19 € each for their meals. How can a tiny pizza shack afford to stock and serve snails and duck I wonder? The place was fairly full of customers at about 9 pm.

Oh, by the way, remember that beet I bought yesterday at the market, the one that felt as though it were already cooked? Well, it is cooked. I ate it today. Pretty good too. I saw similar beets in the supermarket last night, also cooked, but these are packaged in plastic bags. Weird, huh?

There are dozens of little shops within a small radius of the flat. They all seemingly sell wine, bread, and other freshly made edibles. How do they manage to stay in business? Sure, there are quite a few people living in the neighborhood (several thousand perhaps), and presumably many people choose to eat out because the food is so good, and fresh, and handmade. But still, a cup of coffee, actually a short 2-shot latte, cost me 3.90€ the other night ---that's $5.80 at the current exchange rate. (I must also add here -- the local coffee can't compare to what I get every day at KBay Caffe.) A glass of house wine is typically 3-4€ and a large draft beer is more like 6€, or almost $9.00. And these little shops and bars, bistros and boulangeries, are always busy. It's amazing. Paris is a very expensive place to live and visit. Like other big cities in the U.S. I suppose. I'm lucky to have these great friends living here. I feel totally at home here in Rue Trousseau with Arnaud and Thea.

Visit to Versailles

Today is Saturday and after yesterday's extravaganza of walking and touring I just might sit around the house today and do nothing. Teahana and Arnaud and I are planning a visit to, let's see now, where were we going again? Fontainebleau maybe? Anyway, another picnic, French style, if the weather's good, another impressive and historical venue. Stay tuned.

By the way, during my walk to and from the Rive Droit train station and around the opulent and meticulously maintained grounds at Versailles yesterday, I logged 39,025 steps. Now, that's a bunch of steps; based on my standard gait that's equivalent to approximately 19 miles! No wonder I was dragging my feet when I got back here. I wanted to break the 40K mark but pretty much ran out of steam.

The Palace of Versailles, or more properly, the Chateau de Versailles, was built by Louis XIV when Paris was a small town at the site of one of his hunting camps in the country. It was begun in 1661 and became the seat of France's absolute monarchy for generations, persisting as such right up until the time of the French Revolution in 1789. It is a place of incredible opulence. One wonders how a person or family could have been held in such high esteem that such palaces were built with tax money. It's difficult to look back from today's perspective with our ideas about political freedom to the time when kings possessed absolute power over their subjects. If you want to read more about it check out this Wikipedia article. The roof treatment on one of the buildings appears below as well as a small copy of a painting of Louis XIV borrowed from Wikipedia.

(Note: Arnaud and I just returned from a quick walk around to the neighborhood markets with brunch (seeing as it's afternoon already): persimmons (kaki), croissants, two kinds of baguette from two boulangeries, roquefort cheese again, mangoes (mangue), wine (Cote du Rhone), and some assorted vegetables for dinner. I love beets and I spotted some in the street market. They're soft and appear to be already cooked. Strange. I bought one and will report on its condition and taste later. We're enjoying these various snacks and tidbits, a true melange of comestibles, with coffee as I write.)

Back to the travelogue. I got directions from Thea about traveling to Versailles as it required a short trip on the Metro and a transfer to an RER commuter train in the Gare Saint Lazar to get to Versailles, which is in the suburbs. After a few minutes of confusion in the extremely crowded Saint Lazar station I boarded the RER and rode to Rive Droit, disembarked and turned on my GPS to help me get to my destination. I was surprised to learn it was over 3.5 miles away. Thea knows I like walking, need walking, so she had me get off the train a stop or two before the Chateau. I headed off down the street going west.

After reaching the palace I queued up to buy an entrance ticket and heard the young people just ahead of me speaking English, so I introduced myself. They were sophomore college students spending a semester in Seville, Spain, and visiting Paris for the weekend. We talked about Alaska, naturally, and the Yankees winning the series (they were from Connecticut and are Red Sox fans), their visits to the Eiffel Tower and Musee D'Orsay . Nice kids. I paid my 15 € and toured the palace. Some photos follow. The first two show the amazing artistry of the rooms, the king's meeting places and some of the other decor. Following is a photo of one of the larger fireplaces and the altar in the Chapelle Royale. Imagine the quantity of wood required to heat this place in winter.

 

Just above is a closeup of some of the fine woodwork that is everywhere in evidence; alongside is a shot of the famous Hall of Mirrors. How about taking a romantic quarter-mile long stroll by candlelight, all indoors? Ah, to be born long ago. And into a royal family, of course. Life was very good for the fortunate few.

After my indoor explorations I began my circum-ambulation of the extensive gardens and water features.  But first things first: I was hungry and wanted to eat my picnic lunch. Of course I had an ulterior motive for picking a secluded corner well off the beaten track. I must confess I was obliged to answer the call of nature while in the Jardins du Roi. I was only following a cue taken from a Frenchman I spotted in the bushes doing the same thing.

I had brought along a small bottle of Cote du Rhone,  a papaya, a tomato, a few slices of whole wheat baguette and the remains of a hunk of Roquefort cheese we snacked on last night. A much more reasonably priced lunch than the one I had the other day at Musee Rodin.

After my fine repast I continued the tour by walking completely around the huge reflecting pool and its transecting canals. I was wishing for my Cannondale mountain bike at this point, and not for the first time: the beautiful gravel walkways passing through an utterly beautiful and quiet setting were begging to be ridden. Removed from the intense Paris traffic I was hearing bird song and squirrels chattering for the first time. Very nice.

A fine repast

I rounded the last pool and made my way back to the entrance of the gardens to retrace my steps back to the Rive Droit station. Along the way I checked out a different station that I suspected would take me back to Saint Lazar. I asked the attendant, Does this  train go to Saint Lazar? She answered in the affirmative and I thanked her and promptly started back toward the exit. She asked, So do you want to purchase a ticket? I said, No, I have some more walking to do. She stared at me with a funny look in her eyes. I said, Merci, au revoir and walked out the door.

Some scenes from the Jardins du Roi.

My long walk from Rive Droit to Versailles Palace and back

I visit the Musee Rodin

I had quite a walk today. I headed off in the general direction of the Musee Rodin at around 11 o'clock. Arnaud's flat is east of most of the places I have been visiting: the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, most of the museums, so I headed west, as usual, to the Bastille but once there took a left turn to hit the Seine which I walked alongside as I passed the I'lle Saint Louis and the I'lle de la Cite. I detoured to see Notre Dame again and briefly entertained a notion to climb up to the towers but when I saw there was a queue waiting I passed up the chance. Again that old acrophobia came into play a bit when I made that decision. Out in front of the cathedral I photographed a beggar in the most unusual garb I'd ever seen. He/She does a little bow and foot shuffle if you deposit a coin at her feet. I thought the costume very weird.


Nov 11th - Correction: Jana, my Berlin host, informed me that the person I thought was a beggar was actually a performing artist. There are many varieties of street performers in the large European cities. My very provincial first take on this person's performance was, well, provincial. What do you expect from a Homerite?

Just as I neared the museum I decided to override my earlier decision to skip lunch after I spotted a very inviting little cafe, the Cafe du Musee. My will power being what is is, power in name only. I went in, overcame the language barrier, and had myself a little lunch.  From the menu I chose a Parisienne Salad and because it seems that everyone in Paris has wine with their meals, I also chose a "pot" of Cote du Rhone. It turned out to be a very nice lunch. The little tray containing the condiments was cool too. It contained 2 small cruets for oil and vinegar, miniature salt and pepper shakers, and a tiny pot of mustard. Charming. Why does this sort of thing appeal to me I wonder? Anyway, here's a photo of the meal. Cost: salad 11 €, wine 6 €, total in USD, about $25. The house wines here have been uniformly excellent, by the way. I've been impressed with all three of the wines I've ordered in restaurants, two Cote du Rhones and a Chardonnay. I don't ordinarily like Chardonnays but the one I had the other night with Arnaud was excellent, and only 4 € for the glass.

Once inside the museum, I toured the garden and the museum itself. The garden was very peaceful compared the the rush of traffic outside the walls. I include a few shots of Rodin's works and some scenes from the garden below. I enjoyed everything but to my uneducated eye, the sculptures at the other museums were more sensuous, more life like. Well, there were some especially captivating ones. See below.

 

The image above of two lovers entwined seems lighter where their faces touch. The stone has been made so thin in that area its actually translucent.

 

From the Musee Rodin I walked a few miles back toward home, across the Seine once again and into the neighborhood of Le Louvre to visit the Musee Picasso. It had begun to rain by the time I left the Rodin museum so the walk was a bit wet. Being from Alaska I laugh at the Parisian rain this time of the year. It's so warm. I just dig out my Mountain Hardware rain jacket, put on my baseball hat and slog through it. When I finally arrived I learned that the museum was closed for renovations. It has been closed for two years! Should've looked that up on the Internet I guess.

BTW, I should explain something right now. You'll frequently see references to "steps" in this blog. My partner Doug is a bit of a driven soul. He bought a pedometer a few months ago and tries hard to walk every day. A pedometer records the number of steps taken in a day and can be a useful tool to motivate one to walk. At least that's the way it works for some folks. Eventually about a month ago I bought one too. And I must admit, recording the number of steps I've taken  (or not taken) each day has become addicting. Once calibrated for a given individual it can calculate calories burned and miles walked but the essential thing is that it can encourage you walk those steps each day. The guideline, arbitrary as it may be, is 10,000 steps per day. As Doug often says, "I gotta get those 10,000 steps done before I feel entitled to drink that bottle of beer after dinner." Today I turned in my personal best record of 26,619 steps.

If you want to buy one for yourself, here is an excellent one. About $25 bucks from Amazon:

Omron Pedometer

I saw some graffiti in the neighborhood of the Musee Picasso that I forgot to add earlier. This first one will likely offend some of you but remember, it's just one person's artistic expression.

A Beautiful Day

Looks like a nice day beginning here in Paris. I sat around the house yesterday catching up on emails, preparing photos for and writing in the blog so I'm keen to get out and do some power walking. As I might have mentioned, the cheese and wine here are especially good and, if I'm not mistaken, my jeans are fitting a bit tighter already despite the walking I've been doing, damn it!

Last night I video Skyped with my daughter Carin in North Carolina and got an issue resolved with Adobe that allowed me to activate my legal copy of Photoshop, my favorite, favorite computer program, through the use of the marvelous Skype program. With Skype and email one can easily stay connected with friends and family. I was able to call and speak with my 93 year-old mother on her birthday. The last time she had a relative in France was when my father was here during WWII. Needless to say, she was amazed!

Today's destination is the Musee Rodin. I'll stop along the way and buy some fruit for lunch. I'll try to resist the other tempting offerings from the boulangeries and patisseries along the way. It all looks so good though. And I have so little will power. 

A shot of the scenery on my walk today follows. It's the Seine of course with some typical Paris scenery in the background including the magnificent Notre Dame cathedral. I really should take a ride one day on one of those tour boats that constantly ply the river.

And here is a shot of a house or public building with a lovely, peaceful looking back yard or garden. Seeing as it is still autumn, there is red fruit of some kind on those vines..

Ah... Paris

I finally made it into Le Louvre. The first attempt was made on Sunday. The first Sunday of the month features free admission but it was raining hard so we thought we'd take a chance that others would decide to stay home. Wrong! The queue was at least a half-mile long. Arnaud and I returned on Monday and I used the free pass Annie had bestowed on me for my birthday to get in.

It's an amazing place in more ways than one. Yes it's loaded to the rafters with great and famous works of art. But the buildings (yep, it's more than one building and each has several levels) themselves, indeed their very "rafters" are also art. I spent more than 5 hours inside and barely scratched the surface. I've read about many of the paintings and have even seen copies in art books and on the Internet but how can one compare that to the actuality of the works themselves? The Louvre and its contents are simply beyond compare, would be impossible to replace, and are of incalculable value. What price could you plausibly set on such a treasure? And what if it had been destroyed during one of the great world wars that swept over France in the last century? I doubt there are crafts people alive today who could come close to recreating just the physical buildings let alone their contents. Rating ***** ***** (10 stars out of 10)

I've included a shot of the ceiling treatment in one part of the Denon wing so you can see what I mean when I say irreplaceable. The close-up of the woman's hand is from a painting that impressed me for its sense of realism. This is an oil painting done over a hundred years ago. Don't ask me who painted it -- these photos are not studies of art and/or artists but rather were made to remind me in years to come of what most impressed me during my all too brief time in front of them, with mouth agape at what I was seeing.


I was disappointed with the Mona Lisa, arguably the most famous painting in the world. But it is quite small, and subdued and, dare I say it, even dark, and one cannot get closer to it than about 15 feet due to a rope enclosure and the crowd pressing in from all sides. I took a cursory look and then quickly moved off into the other galleries.
The sculpture too was amazing. I have no background in art whatsoever but, thanks to some past girlfriends and colleagues, have at least a passing familiarity with the more well known art paintings. But these human forms carved out of stone were, well, simply mind blowing. Photographs cannot do them justice. And Le Louvre is packed with sculpture!
I eventually got tired and hungry so Arnaud and I left the museum and started walking. We walked through the Tuileries, we walked along the Champs-Elysees until we spotted the Eiffel Tower. We crossed the Seine and then we walked over to the tower enjoying the pleasant evening and the lights of Paris at night. Those of you who know me recall how much I fear heights so when I saw that the elevator was going to cost roughly $30 to ride to the top, a place that could only be uncomfortable for an acrophobic like me, I said to Arnaud, let's go have dinner. We walked through the Trocadero and down the Avenue Henri Martin to a nice place to eat. We took the Metro back to the Bastille district. (Note to Doug: 20,337 steps.) It had been a very busy and very rewarding day.

On Tuesday I decided to head out on my own for a visit to the Musee d'Orsay. I successfully negotiated for the first time by myself, the Paris Metro system. It's actually similar to the MBTA in Boston except it has 15 trains compared to Boston's 4. The key is knowing which direction to go (and hence which entrance to use), to get to your destination. As all stations service trains that go in two direction you need to know at the outset the name of the terminus that lies beyond the station you wish to go to. Anyway, long story short, I managed it. After a 45 minute wait in the rain and a nice talk with Warren (a man from, of all places, Albany, NY) and his French son-in-law, Jimmie, I paid my 9.50 euros and walked in.
Another stunning building. And filled with art of all descriptions. Sculpture, yes. Paintings, yes. But this museum seems to specialize in Impressionist school artists: Monet, Cezanne, Renoir, Pissaro. There were paintings by Delacroix, Courbet, Corot, Moreau, Tissot, Bonnard, Hoddler. The list goes on and on. And this building too is, need I say it, a work of art in itself. It's a remodeled train station and so it's old but not as old as Le Louvre. Here's a few samples of what's inside.

I had a somewhat pricey lunch in the museum dining room. Take a look at this place, so typical of the decor one may encounter in these buildings. Lunch was a cup of split pea soup for 7 euros and a double espresso for 4.70, for a total of $17.40 USD. Yikes! The waiters wore full dress suits with neckties, the waitresses were foxy.

Time to finish this damn entry and head to the bunk. I chatted with Joe and Naroa on Facebook chat today and might get a chance to meet up with one or both of them later in my trip. They are the two dive instructors I met in Fiji last spring and with whom I did two very memorable scuba dives, my first. They're in between jobs now and are in Europe until probably January. Joe is in Plymouth, England, and Naroa is in Bilbao, Spain. Mayhaps, with some luck and good travel planning, our trails will cross again.

Paris : First looks

Friday, October 30, 2009
My first full day in Paris was spent walking for miles with Thea and Arnaud in the vicinity of Sacre Coeur Cathedral and learning about the Paris metro system. We walked to the Bastille and grabbed a train to the Barbes Rochchourt station at one end of the Blvd de Rochechourt and strolled through the Montmartre district as the day wore on into night. The subways and streets were jammed with people; drifters, kids, worker bees, tourists, rabble and assorted other characters. We ate in a little cafe where we had a fairly nice, if expensive, meal of mussels ala Roquefort with Belgian beer. The food was good as was the beer. A large draft cost a shocking 8 euros (€), while the total tab was 82 €, or about $120. Ouch! Paris isn't nearly as cheap a place to visit as Fiji.

We got to the cathedral at around dusk. It's an impressive building on a small hill that commands a panoramic view of Paris. We entered along with a dozen other people and as there was a mass in progress we walked quietly around the interior with our necks craned to see the artwork that was literally covering every surface. It was fairly dark outside and the interior not well lit. Arnaud took me aside to tell me that what I was looking at weren't paintings as I had assumed but mosaics. Upon closer inspection their exquisite details were revealed. Their beauty and the realization that people had worked for decades, maybe centuries, on these panels and this church brought tears to my eyes.

We will head to the Louvre tomorrow for First Sunday (free admission) knowing full well that it will be impossible to see all of it in one day. We will take along a picnic lunch of quiche, fruit, baguette and, once again, some of that wonderful $6 a bottle Bordeaux. Might try to squeeze in Notre Dame, maybe.

I'm in Paris

Leaving Alaska

I'm writing this in Paris. But my journey had quite a rocky start. Rewinding to last Tuesday evening: Three hours before my flight out of Homer to Anchorage I got a phone call from US Airways telling me that my flight out of Anchorage would be delayed by an hour and a half ! That meant I wasn't going to be able to catch my flight from NYC to Paris. I nearly flipped out! I was just doing the last minute chores around the cabin. I'd said good-bye to all and sundry, packed up my desk at Alaska Boats & Permits, had my farewell lunch with the boys, dinner at Lora's, and was practically out the door. And now at virtually the 11th hour, I find myself with no way to get to Paris except by purchasing a new ticket out of NYC for $3,000. I won't bore you with the sordid details of the desperate and sweaty 2 hours spent on the phone with Air France, Cheaptickets.com, and the insurance company. (Yep, I had purchased flight insurance. But never again. Useless, totally useless.)

Finally I got back to US Airways and somehow reached a sympathetic booking agent, Rhonda, who agreed it was US Airways' fault that I was getting screwed and that she would make it right. She went ahead and promptly, as if by magic, booked me on a Delta flight that was actually better than the one I had originally. For a long moment I sat there simply stunned at how easily she had solved my problem. After thanking her profusely she replied, "don't worry, we'll get you there in plenty of time." I'm saying it again now, Thank you, thank you, Rhonda whomever and wherever you are. I owe you a big one.

I missed my flight out of Heathrow because I thought my suitcase was lost. I spent an hour or so trying to locate it. Eventually the Delta baggage clerk in London told me he was pretty sure my bag had been sent on to Paris. Oh sure, I thought. But by that time it was too late to make my scheduled flight. And what with all the foul-ups already tossed my way I wasn't really in a trusting mood. The Air France desk clerk, after hearing my story, issued me a ticket on the next flight gratis. Another big thank you goes out to Bernadette in London. By the time I arrived at Chas de Gaulle airport in Paris I was sure my bag was hung up somewhere, New York probably, London possibly, but I certainly didn't expect it to be in Paris. After going through immigration I made my way to the baggage carousel of the flight I had been on. I spotted an Air France guy standing nearby and asked him where the claims office was located. Now get this: he asked for my name and when I replied he told me, Oh yes Mr Swarthout, (he mangled the name but I wasn't offended), your bag will be here in 10 minutes on Carousel 40. And by god if it didn't appear there a few minutes later. It had come on a different flight but it was there! I quickly grabbed it. Waves of relief flooded through me. My luggage and I had miraculously arrived in Paris at practically the same moment.

Dragging my roller suitcase with GPS in hand, I navigated through the crowded streets from Gare de Lyon to Thea and Arnaud's apartment on the Rue Trousseau, arriving about 6 pm Paris time. They had gone to the airport to meet me (another foul-up but this one was mine), so it took a bit of time to connect. I arranged to meet them at a little bar down the street from their place. I sat at an outdoor table afraid to go inside for fear I'd miss them when they showed up. All the while I sat there I was bathed in a continuous thick cloud of cigarette smoke. I'm suddenly convinced that nobody in Paris has read the Surgeon General's report. Don't they know how bad smoking cigarettes is? The joke was on me — as it happens it's now illegal to smoke inside of public places in Paris, just like Anchorage, so all smokers must sit outside. DOH! Eventually Thea and Arnaud arrived to rescue me. My long, arduous journey had come to a very welcome conclusion.

Stay tuned....

Nervous excitement

Okay, I'm finally confident that it's gonna happen. I'm going to fly out of Homer next Tuesday night, and I won't return until mid April. I'll have some great adventures in the coming weeks. I am getting so damn excited. And it's about time. I have the unfortunate habit of letting my nerves, my anxieties, get the better of me so it's nice to feel so positive before the trip.

There's much I want to say. For starters, my daughter-in-law Shannon had to have brain surgery a few days ago. She's okay for the moment. But what happened to her is of a very serious nature: she had to have a goddamn brain tumor removed! A biopsy is in process. If the results are negative, that will be totally awesome. If not, then even with a great prognosis from her docs and even if she is able to defeat some sort of as yet uncharacterized brain cancer, a long, cancer free life will no longer be something she can take for granted. Plus, Tuli and Shannon have a lovely 10-month old baby, Harper. Shannon's complete recovery is constantly on my mind as my departure nears.

I had a great time chatting with Thea on Skype the other tonight. Thea, pronounced TEE-ah, is short for Teahana. She's a diminutive and beautiful Fijian woman, and she's my Paris connection. We met at the Manta Ray Resort in Fiji last spring and after spending a few evenings with Thea and husband Arnaud we became friends. The reason for traveling to Europe in the first place is that I want to see where my grandmother was born. Tea and Arnaud's invitation to stay with them in Paris allowed me to start thinking about an extended tour in Europe, an otherwise expensive travel destination. Then through some Homer friends, Rebecca Reinhart and Sally Oberstein, I got hooked up with Couchsurfing.org and have for the past few months been exchanging emails with Couchsurfers who have offered to host me, in Berlin, in other parts of France, and in Poland. My grandmother left East Prussia in 1907. After two world wars her hometown is now in Poland and that's why I'm going there. I want to head up there fairly soon, before winter becomes all snowy and cold, and then get back south by way of Berlin and Amsterdam. Eventually I'll head to Turkey, or maybe Spain or Portugal, but someplace warmer for sure.

Such travel plans are, especially for me, very ambitious. I'm a homebody. I love nothing better than hanging around the house on the weekends playing tennis, reading, goofing around with my camera and computer. Being away from home and living out of a suitcase in foreign countries for a five-month stretch will be challenging at times I know. I spent a month in Fiji last spring. It turned out just great in the end but there were times when I was forced to ask myself as I sat sweating profusely in the afternoons, what the hell am I doing here? My well-traveled friend Jambo says those sorts of thoughts are common and that most long distance travelers have them.

I guess it's getting to be time to head to the office. I'm finishing up odds and ends and turning my "deals in progress" over to my partners. I'm going to stay connected to Alaska Boats & Permits for a while yet because it's a great business and my partners are totally awesome. I'll possibly work with them next spring for a while after I get back but I'm pretty sure I'm really retiring this time. We'll see.

"getting short"

The time is nearing for me to leave Homer and my excitement is increasing daily. I just got back from playing tennis and now, after a shower and the drive back to my chilly cabin, I'm wondering just how long it will take my hands to warm up. I've just turned the heater to high and eventually it'll get cozy in here. It's been another beautiful day, a gift really considering the lateness of the date, and I enjoyed it fully. And it appears that my goal of getting out of here without putting the studs on my car will be realized. As long as it doesn't snow next week I'll make it. Stay tuned...

Doug and I have been walking to lunch almost every day now that my time at Alaska Boats & Permits is getting short. I got a nasty surprise from my tax man a few days ago. I had to shell out an additional $3500 to cover my income taxes for last year. This after I'd already sent the IRS a check for $3000 this spring after realizing that last year had been a very good year, income-wise at least. I made more money in 2008, working part-time, than in any other year of my life. Nice. But because of that there are some nasty tax consequences to deal with. Anyway, because of the hit to my little travel nest egg I decided to work right up until the time I leave Homer. So it appears that I'll be walking to lunch with Doug all next week as well. We'll hit Maura's and Fat Olive's, The Mermaid, Latitude 59, and the Cosmic Kitchen, all great places to eat in a town chock full of cooking talent. We know the people who own the restaurants and wait the tables: Maura, and Jelena & Angie, Sean, and Wendell, Andy & Sally and Mike. And I'll soon be missing the best coffee in the world out at Michael's K-Bay Caffee. But mostly I'll miss the people who make the lattes and dopios at K-Bay, and the "cups of love" -- Andrea and Remy, Michael and Jared, Caressa and Andrea.

Okay, let's see now. I've got all this stuff laying around the cabin: my various power adapters and chargers, the wires and cables no geek can be without, chargers, batteries, extra memory chips for my camera and GPS, a supply of contact lenses, my GPS and the Europe Street Maps, my music collection loaded on the netbook, my Canon G10 camera, my headlamps, my clothing, books to read. I've decided to take my tennis racquet so I've got to somehow wedge that into my new "convertible" wheeler suitcase, a suitcase that can easily be turned into a backpack, my auto insurance is suspended, my satellite TV on hold, etc. Oh yeah, and I've got to get a package of summer stuff in the mail to Tuli in Oregon so that I don't have to carry summer AND winter clothes from the outset. When I head to Thailand I won't need all those layers of wool and polyester, or jackets, or long underwear.

And I guess today I'll have to admit to feeling a little bit blue as well. I have many friends in Homer. Good friends. Due to the length of time I'll be gone I know I'm going to miss people. While 2008 was a good year for Alaska Boats & Permits it was a bad year in other respects. Lora and I split up last fall after 10 years of marriage. It was a hard winter and a difficult Christmas season for both of us. I'm happy to say we're talking again and now that the separation is behind us, we seem to be working on rebuilding the friendship that began almost 30 years ago. She's been laid up with a knee injury and so I've been bringing her coffee every morning for the past week or so. We've been enjoying chatting and gossiping about our friends and life in Homer, sort of like we did in the old days. And it's been feeling really good. I'm thankful we can be friends again.

One of the questions facing me as I turn over in my mind the decision about whether to commit to writing this blog, and I'm sure it's a question faced by other bloggers, is exactly how truthful I want to be in the telling of what is, on the surface at least, only a travel story. I mean, should I reveal my fantasies, or for that matter, my insecurities and worries? I seem to have a need to talk to my friends about my life -- I typically reveal everything, almost. So, is this the way my blog should be? Maybe I should I try to keep it less personal but full of interesting snippets about Paris and Berlin? Or should it be more like a "slice-o-life" narrative, in particular, a slice of my own life? How real should I make it? Good question that.

Tennis

We had a couple of days of beautiful weather last week and I took advantage of them to play tennis. Anyone who knows me also knows that tennis is my passion. Family members who have seen me embrace other pursuits passionately were suspicious that this too would fade as the others did.
But it hasn't.
I continue to work on my tennis game and have improved each year. I work on my serve. I work on hitting ground strokes. Hell, I bought a ball machine a couple of years ago. It throws tennis balls at me with topspin or backspin so I can practice ground strokes in a more or less controlled environment. I want to be able to volley better than I do now. I want to be a better player than I am. At age 66, please understand I feel a sense of urgency around this. Hell, people are dropping dead all around me every day, many younger than me. My friend Doug says, "It's a good day when you wake up and realize that you're still pumpin' air."
Yep.

The other day I couldn't find anyone to play singles so I took a basketfull of balls up to the high school courts and hit serves for an hour or so on a beautiful, sunny October afternoon. The words of coach Jim Gorman echoed in my head as I practiced: words that describe how to hold the racquet, how to prepare for the striking of the ball, how to toss the ball. Every move is carefully scripted for these practice sessions but the goal is to eventually be able to hit my serves without thinking. The serve is comprised of a complicated set of smaller movements that are strung seamlessly together by a good player. And it's the only shot over which one has total control. These points replay in my mind over and over as I hit serve after serve. Now after weeks of practice those movements are beginning to feel normal, comfortable almost, and that's starting to result in an ability to hit some fairly good serves. Possessing a good serve encourages confidence in the rest of my game. And in tennis confidence is the name of the game.

As this note winds its way to conclusion I see that it's 8 o'clock in the evening. I'm in my little rented cabin up on Diamond Ridge Road writing in this blog, listening to Internet radio, and contemplating what's ahead. I look out at the darkening sky and wonder what it will feel like to be in Paris with 2 months of travel in Europe ahead. Mornings are gradually getting colder and what a skier might label "the promise of winter" is, to me, more like a threat as the days shorten. But I'm content. I won't have to endure the inactivity winter usually forces upon me. Not this year. It won't be summer in Europe when I'm there but regardless of the weather I'll soon be walking the streets of Paris, the streets of Berlin and Amsterdam, maybe the streets of Istanbul. I opened a fortune cookie in a strip-mall Chinese restaurant in Eugene last spring. It contained a fortune with these words: You will step on the soil of many countries in your lifetime. I liked hearing that then and I like it now. I liked it so much I stuck in in my wallet and have kept it with me. I want to make those words come true.

Getting ready

Cold and cloudy

It looks like I'll try my hand at blogging during my upcoming trip to Europe and Thailand during the winter of 2009-2010. D-Day is still a month away but I'm starting to get excited (and a little bit nervous) about what's ahead. I'm headed to Paris and other places in Europe until just before Christmas. Then I'll spend about a month with my family: mom and brother and sister in Buffalo, NY, daughter and 3 grandchildren in North Carolina, son and grandchild in Oregon. Being with family will be a nice break from going solo, especially at Christmas. After that, I'll head to Thailand for the long winter months. I'll get back home sometime in April, hopefully after the snow melts.

I'll be traveling for 5 months living out of a suitcase, far away from Alaska! Hoping to meet some nice folks, and to have a good time exploring the world while avoiding another long Homer winter. I've been here since 1983 and I'm sick and tired of winters. Plus, I was born and raised in Buffalo where the winter weather makes Homer's look absolutely benign. It's definitely time for a change.