Broke Down in Heaven

I had driven through Glenfinnan before on my way to Mallaig and the ferry to Skye. It was worth a stop. This is a wonderful hotel and location just across from the Glenfinnan Monument to Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Viaduct. I had a lovely walk last night, about two hours worth, that included the viaduct and a nearby Catholic Church. But there is bad news. I went out to check the car, and the tire was low, having lost air during the night. I sense that I could make it the fifteen miles to Ft. William, but it is close. I call the gentleman at the tire store who tells me that he is happy to replace the tire, but he can’t come out to Glenfinnan. I start out in the car thinking I can make it, but I stop at the main road and check, and I’m already losing more air. I pour some water on the tire, and bubbles show around the plug. I could risk it, but I think this is now National’s problem, and I would rather wait for several hours at the hotel than on the side of the road. Meanwhile I go to breakfast with the ladies and tell them the bad news. They had planned on taking a cruise of Loch Shiel today, and I tell them to go ahead. It’s one of those things that only one person can deal with anyway, and I’m partly here to deal with such things, so they are enjoying the lovely Loch.

I call National to tell them that I do not think it is safe to drive into Ft. William, and they tell me that a repair service will be there to replace the tire. I have to run back and forth to the car several times to get the tire information, but I finally do. I leave the number of the hotel because they won’t call a US number, and soon enough I get a call from a repair service in Ft. William. He can be here at the end of the week but not before. I am to call National back, which I just did. They take all the same information again (why can’t companies keep this information once they have it?), and they tell me someone will call soon. “And then what?” I ask. “Then they will assess the situation.” I had thought this might happen. We were lucky to get to the hotel, but I didn’t want to push my luck trying to get the fifteen miles back in. So now I am waiting.

A room with a view in Glenfinnan, Scotland

I have a feeling we will have to stay here again tonight instead of in Edinburgh, but we’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, I will enjoy the quiet of a lovely Loch-side hotel on a summer’s day in Scotland, while the fire burns in the sitting room and the hotel staff do the things they do when guests are not around. I will update when I can, but everything will be most well.

Scotland Calling

We left Orton Hall and decided to head south for a bit to visit Hilltop Farm, the home of Beatrix Potter. I had a vague notion of who she was, but it looked like an easy and lovely drive around a lake. It was anything but. The road was choked with tourists, and it because increasingly narrow to the point where I was brushing the leaves on the rock wall on the passenger side and almost clipping the mirror of the approaching car. Another tense driving day, but we finally made our way to the M6 and easy rolling. I was happy to cross the border into Scotland and began remembering my several trips here. We pulled out the directions to the Kelvingrove Hotel, and I immediately got lost once we left the M8. I had lectured at the University of Glasgow before and had a former friend there, so I parked the car at the university and tried to get my bearings. No luck. Back toward the city center. We were at a stop light heading toward the Kelvingrove Museum, when the cabbie next to us asked if we were lost. “Yes,” we said in unison, and told him where we wanted to go. “Follow me,” he said, and took us right to our hotel. He even parked his car and got out to make sure it was the right place. I thanked him profusely, and he said simply “No problem. Welcome to Scotland.” Indeed.

I packed in the enormous luggage then headed down to the Kelvingrove and up to the University to see where I once lectured and to walk by my former friend’s office. It was all nearly ten years ago, so my memory was a bit vague, but I soon began to remember. The Kelvingrove is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, in my opinion, and it looks odd sitting below the soot-stained University of Glasgow. I walked around for a while then started back. I quickly became lost and ended up walking for about an hour before I found my way again. Then I got lost again–for another hour. Then I got lost again–for about half an hour. The ladies were calling me worried, but I told them not to. I would find my way; I always do. Sure enough, just as I turned the corner to head back to the hotel, I see my family coming down the sidewalk. They want to walk to dinner. I must have walked five or six miles, and we end up eating just across from the Kelvingrove.

The next day (yesterday) we left for the Highlands. It was a lovely drive this time, past Loch Lomond and Ben Lomond and into one of my favorite places on earth. Ten miles south of Ft. William, we hear a loud thump and feel the car shudder. I look bad and there is nothing in the road but a dip and storm drain. It was very loud, so I monitor the car pretty closely, but nothing seems to be amiss, so I keep going over the bridge. Just as I pull off the bridge the tire goes place, and there is a service station there with air. I pull right up to the air supply right as the tire goes flat. We were unlucky to get a flat tire but incredibly luck that we made it across the bridge and to this station. It’s not a real station, more like a convenience store, but we call National and tell them what’s going on. We wait two hours for a repairman to come, after I search the boot and under the car for a spare with no success. How can you rent a car without a spare? Finally, the guy arrives and discovers a hole in the sidewall of the front passenger tire. Not good. He plugs it and tells me to call this repairman in Ft. William in the morning (which it now is). We limp into Ft. William for a wonderful dinner, then the fifteen miles to Glenfinnan. I am about to go down for breakfast, but I am waiting, as usual, to get into the bathroom. All shall be most well. I will take care of the car while the ladies will have a cruise, then it’s on to Edinburgh. Caitlin says this is the most beautiful place on earth, and I have to agree, flat tire and all.

A Long Day Ending with Ghosts

We spent the morning debating whether we should head south to Stonehenge before heading north to the Lakes. It was an hour one way, the wrong way, and we were already looking at a 6 1/2 hour day, according to Google. We decide to forego the rock monument and make our way to the home of Wordsworth and Carlyle. But the gods were not with us. We encountered numerous traffic jams, construction, and just general slow going. It took us nearly ten hours altogether, including getting lost in Manchester. The ladies were patient, and we all got along just fine, but is was hard driving.  We ended up at Orton Hall, south of Penrith and were stunned at our room. The hall itself is a mansion built in 1662, a dark time in England’s history to be sure, but this was an opulent house and grounds with coats of arms on the walls and other trappings of history and wealth. St. Judy immediately felt a dark and heavy presence, and I have to admit that I did as well. I often do in England, especially in houses of the wealthy. I feel like a Scotchman or an Irishman these times and want to curse the English for their crimes. While several people were staying there, we saw almost no one. It was a very odd feeling being there. We were able to do some laundry and to visit the lovely village of Appleby where I bought a shirt or two to replace the ones that I had jus thrown away because I didn’t want to wash them. I shot a little pool and finished the novel No Country for Old Men, which is even more wonderful than the film. Those who loved the film will love the book since it fleshes out the philosophies at work there in more detail. McCarthy is amazing.

Saturday morning I went down to the village post office that doubled as a market and picked up my Eurail pass that I had mailed from California, then picked up some breakfast for the ladies and me. We had a kitchent there, though we had to pay for the electricity we used, but I bought some bread and jam. The brand of the bread was Warburton’s, and Judy and I had a good chuckle at that. I also filled up the tank with petrol. I knew it was going to be bad, but still I was shocked. I kept thinking I was calculating the transition from liters to gallons and pounds to dollars incorrectly, but I wasn’t. I filled up our car for $125, almost double the price of gas in the USA. And all I could think was that I wish it were this much to fill up in the states. If it were, we might be able to have an energy policy that wasn’t insane and did not get people killed in the Middle East.

While we were visiting the nearby village of Appleby, where some of my ancestors are from, I had an interesting conversation. We had trouble parking as it was Saturday and Market Day, but after driving around the village several times, I finally found a spot. While waiting in the rain for Angie and Judy to emerge from the tourist information center, a man approached me and, of course, asked me for directions. He wanted the Royal Oak Pub, and I told him that I was visiting from America, but I was pretty sure it was down the street, around the curve, and to the right. He looked at me and said, “Why is it so unconvincing coming from an American?” I told him I understood. It was July 5, and I suppose he was feeling a bit put off by the celebrations back home. He went into the bakery I was standing in front of, and I watched the women behind the counter point down the street and to the right and smiled as I looked down. He came back out and said, “You were right on, chap. And I suppose you’re still giddy from those celebrations from yesterday.” I just smiled and told him I would glad he found it. I didn’t even think about July 4, not that I do anyway. He was giviing it more meaning than I was. We had a lovely dinner and headed back to our haunted mansion where we sat in a cold room and watched three movies in a row before going to bed.

I long for Scotland, for shortbread, single-malt scotch, and haggis. Give me the Highlands over the Lakes any day.

A True Latte

After my walk to Bath along the canal, I ended up on Manvers Street near the station and began heading north. I would meet up with the women when the finished their Jane Austen excursions. I was happy with the coffee shop at 8 Manvers with two very nice ladies who reset the wireless for me so that I could get on. I had several drinks and answered some emails.

Across the shop two ladies with two newborns sat and chatted lazily during the sunny and rainy Bath afternoon. I was facing them but far away. It was a lovely little place with local art hanging on the walls. At one point an elderly man came and stood right by my table and stared at the print on the wall above me. I looked up and smiled, but he paid me no mind. After he walked away, I glanced at the ladies again and this time they were both breast-feeding–at the same time. How does that work, I wondered, you just decide it’s a good time for both of you (or four of you in this case) and open up the gates? I didn’t mention it, but the woman beside me on the Eurostar also took a moment to breast-feed her eight-month old while we talked. I have always admired women who do this. It must take some courage to do what it most natural in a culture that is in many ways offended by the natural. Breast-feeding exists on the seam between the natural and the cultural, or as Levi-Straus would say, between the raw and the cooked. I was pleased that the woman on the train was comfortable enough to feed her child while we talked, and I admired these women who naturally fed their infants while they continued their conversation.

The women in the coffee shop continued chatting as before, and I took a sip of my latte. Suddenly, it tasted different, and I realized I was experiencing a bit of synaesthesia: the confluence of two or more senses, in this case sight and taste. I was looking at breast milk, so I ended up tasting breast milk in my latte: a true latte if you will. I am not going to explain here how I have any idea of what breast milk tastes like, but suffice it to say that I know, and I was tasting it my latte.

Later, I looked up and the ladies were looking at me and talking to me through one of the infants. “Do you like the nice man?” they asked the child. It was looking at me and smiling, so I smiled back. It interests me how people hold conversations with you through their infants or dogs. “How old are you sweetie?” they might say, knowing full well how old their child (or dog) is but ventriloquizing through them to hold a conversation with you. I suppose I can understand it. It makes things a bit easier because you have this buffer between you and the other person. After all you didn’t say the thing, the dog (or child) did, and if anything goes wrong, you can blame it on it. “That’s horrible,” you can say to the child, “very offensive. Please don’t ever say that again to the nice man.” Of course it’s the dogs who can be most offensive when they speak without their ventriloquist. “May I smell your ass,” one might say, or worse–just begin humping a leg.

So I smiled at the nice young women and the infant who was ogling me, and these were the thoughts I had as I sipped my now very different tasting latte on a lovely afternoon in Bath.

Bed, Bath, and Beyond

Due to lack of time and Internet access, I last posted just outside Oxford and the lovely Gorselands Hall where the proprietor, Nigel, took good care of us, and we slept well that night in our beds, all stacked into a little upstairs room that could have been an attic. He continued to do so the next morning as I attempted to get into Oxford to pick up the car. The reason I am picking up a car in Oxford while staying ten miles away is complicated but involves the rental office in London closing after we arrived from Paris and something about Angie-sans-Zoloft’s reservations being in Hanborough instead of Oxford, probably having to do with the price. By the way a significant change occurred that evening we arrived at Gorselands Hall: a package was waiting for Angie, so she is now Angie-con-Zoloft, or just Angie. In any case I am up early for breakfast and Nigel and I discuss how I can get to the rental agency. A train leaves for Oxford every hour and a half, but the timing is all off for us, and I would have to get a bus even after I got there. Nigel shudders at the thought of a taxi: “It will likely be thiry pounds.” But there is no other way. So I call a local guy who takes me into Oxford where the car rental is across from the mosque. “I’m sorry,” he says genuinely, “but that will be 24 pounds 60. “No problem,” I tell him. I enjoyed the ride.” I had tried to notice the way we were coming in because I was going to have to go out that way. I picked the car and immediately checked the “boot,” as they call it here. Yes, it would hold our enormous luggage. That was a relief. I was seriously concerned that Angie or Judy might be sitting with luggage in her lap all the way. Our transport is a Citroën Q4 Picasso, seen below.

I spend a good ten minutes just sitting in my car acclimating myself to being on the right side and learning where all the switches are. I adjust my mirrors and play with the console. Driving in the UK is not as bad as you might think: you just have to think about what’s happening. Nothing has really changed. You are still driving on the road adjacent to other drivers with the far shoulder furthest away from you. On four-lanes (or “dual-carriageways,” you stay to the outside unless you want to pass, then you do it on the inside. What’s different is that left turns are now easier than right turns, and of course, like most everyone else in Europe, I’m driving a stick shift now. No problem.

I pull out just fine and very quickly get lost. No problem. I intuit my way back to the road and am on my way to Gorselands Hall, where the women await. Somehow I miss a turn for the A44 and find myself west of where I should be. I turn around and head back just as Caitlin, the young one, calls to check on me. She puts Nigel on the phone who guides me back. The women are visibly relieved when I show up, as is Nigel, I think. We discuss routes, and he asks if I have a map. I tell him I’m going to pick one up. He tells me to come inside where he gives me an old atlas, a very kind gesture. He suggests a route to Bath that looks very good and is. It takes us through the lovely village of Bibury, complete with trout pond, stream, walks, bridges, and evil swans. St. Judy declares this her favorite place in England.

We make our way to Bath with the able navigation of the young one who sits across from me in the front seat. She amazes me with her confidence and critical observance. She quickly figures out the map and the UK road system and within minutes she is advising me on where to turn and what to look for ahead. Good navigators are hard to come by, and I am lucky to have her on this trip. Bath was lovely, and the hotel, the Tasburgh House, was outstanding. We stayed in the Shelley room, and I threatened to read aloud from the poet but didn’t follow through. I learned that there was a canal hike that went from our hotel to the train station then back to a pub just the other side of the hotel. That was my plan for the next day and I followed through on it after taking the women into town. Bath is a small but complex village where the street names change almost every block. To add to the confusion, there was a diversion (read “detour”), and I ended up dropping them where none of us recognized anything. We all sat there for a while before we realized that we just had to find our way: me in the car, they on foot. I managed to find my way back to the hotel, and they managed to find their way to the Jane Austen house. I spent some time uploading photos for the young one then cleaned up and headed out. My hostess was wrong about the walk. It was on the other side of the canal with no clear way for me to get to the bridges I could see. So I walked through some weeds on private property and made my way to a bridge, then had a lovely walk into town. I ended up at a coffee shop that I will post about next, then met up with the women for dinner and a visit to the Roman Baths. Normally, I hate stuff like that, but I really enjoyed the tour of the baths. They are, of course, ancient, but it was the Romans who constructed a temple there and organized things. Then they were forgotten about until some guy in the nineteenth century kept getting warm water in his cellar, and he called an engineer who happened to be an amateur archaeologist. What they found was amazing: hot mineral water bubbling up at a constant rate from water that fell ten thousand years ago. Truly worth a visit if you’re ever there.

Two nights in Bath, then we we headed north to the Lake District and beyond.

Days Like This

Travel is not all romantic; in fact that’s fairly rare. Travel is hard and occasionally rewarding. It’s those rewarding occasions that make it romantic; it’s those hard days that teach things about yourself and the world. We spent a lazy morning at the Hotel L’Avre in Paris before getting our taxi to Gard du Nord. The driver was outstanding and got us to the station for 30 Euros. So we got ripped off when we arrived because the guy charged us 45 Euros. Still we got a tour of the city that we would not have otherwise had. But the return to Gare du Nord was the opposite, that is, fast. The guy was brilliant. I’ve been in a lot of taxis and always appreciate the drivers, even if they’re bad. There was a guy in Puerto Vallarta who took me all the way to a conference hotel but told me that it wasn’t the right hotel. I didn’t believe him, but he insisted on waiting. When I tried to check in, they told me the hotel was in Acapulco. That was the last time I used a travel agent. I went back outside and he took me downtown where he found me a cheap hotel right next to a strip club. His cousin probably owned it, but he still saved me a lot of trouble and for only a few pesos. Then there was the cabbie who took my brother and me from the North End in Boston to Fenway. Classic Boston. When we told him we were going to the game, the began a diatribe on the Yankees. “It’s not the players who suck,” he explained subtilely, “it’s their fans.” Right. Our driver to Gard du Nord was an artist, cutting up side avenues when he saw traffic ahead, being fearless with the left turns and roundabouts, and cutting in and out of the bus lane with a surgeon’s skill. Twenty-five minutes and thirty Euros. Our taxi from Gard du Nord was forty-five minutes and forty-five Euros. We learn.

Gard du Nord was the usual nightmare. It was 86 degrees in Paris that day, so imagine being in a covered train station with thousands of people and dozens of trains. Everyone was soaked by the time we boarded the Eurostar, and we had to walk to the third coach. When we got there a woman was struggling with a baby and a stroller, so I dropped my bags and helped her lift the stroller up to the car. Then I hauled the ladies’ enormous luggage into the baggage compartment and stacked it up. We went to find our seats, and I ended up next to the lady with the baby. There will be days like this. I can tolerate babies on planes and feel sorry for the mothers who have to contend with passengers who cannot. Mary and Stephanie–I am with you. But the eight-month-old was not the problem; it was her mother. Who told me everything about the child in a voice that thundered through the cabin. St. Judy sat beside her traveling companion and heard wonderful stories of living in London for the past several decades, but I was regaled with stories of how this woman gave her child a bath. Meanwhile, Angie-sans-Zoloft and the young one were sitting with a fabulous young man from Leeds who engaged them with interesting banter for the two and a quarter hour trip. It was I who was cursed, and even though the baby was beautiful and happy, I was embarrassed to be the object of this woman’s attention. If she only had not been so long, it might have been bearable. But everyone turned to look at her every time she spoke, including a beautiful, young French woman who looked at me as if to say, “If you were not otherwise engaged, we would have a drink.” It was either that or “I hate American men.” I get those two looks confused sometimes.

We made it into London’s St. Pancras station, gathered our bags and ourselves, took a deep breath and headed for the tube. Loud sirens and bobbies blocked our way: the tube was closed, no explanation. So we dragged ourselves and our enormous luggage to the taxi queue, which was, of course, terribly long. I read David Sedaris while we walked slowly towards the waiting black taxis. We made it to Paddington station minutes before our 20:20 train to Oxford and Hanborough. There were only electronic tickets available and one person at the ticket desk with a long queue, so at Angie’s suggestion, we got on the train planning to pay on board. We found a car, and I hoisted their enormous luggage once again into a hold, and we sat throughout the car wherever there were seats. We were soaked with sweat again (or at least I was) and we settled in for the hour and ten minutes to Hanborough where the nice innkeeper would be waiting for us. Now Angie-sans-Zoloft and Caitlin begin to get worried that we’ve not paid our tickets. St. Judy and I try to calm them and say that this happens frequently, and it will be no problem to pay when asked. No one comes through for tickets. At Oxford I realize that we are not going to have to pay and become much happier. Tickets were $40 each, so we are about to save $160. Before Hanborough the conductor announces that only cars A, B, and C will be opening doors, so passengers wanting to depart will have to move to those cars. That’s right: we were in E. So I go back and unload our enormous luggage into the aisle, and four Americans traipse their way through cars E and D, looking bedraggled and lost. As I bring up the rear, I hear comments about St. Judy’s bright green bag: “No way to miss that one, eh?” And I almost say “That’s the point, you silly bloke,” but I don’t. There is laughter behind us as we pass through each car. Commuters can be kind, and sometimes they can be cruel. I want to say “Yeah, how much are your tickets, losers, because ours are free. We don’t even have tickets!” Fortunately, I catch myself and refrain. Next is the door. Conductors don’t open the door. I light comes on indicating the door is able to be opened, then you slide the window down and open the door from the outside. One more thing to deal with along with the enormous luggage. The light comes on, I slide the window down, and the door opens. A ticket-taker waits on the platform. As I haul the enormous luggage out, she actually helps me. I tell her thank you very much, and she tells us to have a good night, then hops back onto the train. Made it! We’re $160 to the good, of course after getting ripped off in Paris by the taxi guy, but still, something goes our way.

Nigel goes our way as well. The wonderful proprietor of Gorselands Hall near Hanborough is the best of England: literate and urbane but down-to-earth and funny at the same time. He is a former teach of English literature who has retired to run this B&B. We hope to find time to talk later, but I learn he does the nineteenth-century novel. I like him anyway. The accommodations are wonderful, and we all fall asleep fairly quickly. It is late, but we have to be up for breakfast at 9:00, so that means we start much earlier. But we are happy and tired after a long and difficult day. We didn’t even have time to eat, so we scarf up the shortbread that is in the room.

A really hard day would have involved missing trains or botched reservations. It could have been much worse. But we are here, back in England, and tomorrow I will get a car. Yet another adventure. And a new day.

Au Revoir Paris

I am sitting in the lobby of the Hotel de L’Avre with the young one while her mother and grandmother are out shopping. Our train leaves Gard du Nord for London at 17:43, so around 15:30 we will call for a taxi to take our enormous luggage to the international train station. Two hours and thirteen minutes later we will pull into London’s St. Pancras station where we will load up a black taxi cab with our enormous luggage and unload it at Paddington Station. There we will catch a train to Oxford where the kind B&B owner will pick us and our enormous luggage and take it to our lodging. Tomorrow morning I will pick up our car, and we will begin a new kind of journey–a blue highways through England and Scotland. There will be countrysides and villages as well as cities (Glasgow and Edinburgh). More importantly, we will be in charge of our travel and can stop as we wish to wander or play.

Sitting here I have taken the time to look closely at my possibilities after July 12 when I will send my family back to the states and head east toward Istanbul. The Mediterranean looks enticing, but I’m feeling the north for a number of reasons. North is Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen (if I choose), Berlin, Prague, Budapest, and Istanbul. I like this route because it includes some major European centers and allows me plenty of time to play. I have been looking at hotels in these cities, but I cannot bring myself to make reservations because I want to arrive at the train station and find my hotel by walking around and checking out the vibe. It should be quite an adventure. Istanbul to New York to Tennessee, where I visit with father, brother, and son for a few days, then back to LA for a few days on the beach. Then, I return to my normal life, which is anything but normal. Life is sweet.

Now, I’m off to walk around a bit before our taxi takes us to Gard du Nord. It’s warm in Paris today, but I want one last look at the city. Au revoir.

Paris Disturbia

We managed to find a cafe that was open last night. Sunday nights are fairly quiet in Paris, but it was the European Football Championship between Spain and Germany, so we found a sports bar that was open near our hotel, but only after walking quite a ways. Angie-sans-Zoloft and I are completely different travelers. She has her Rick Steve and Frommers books, and I have my sense of adventure. But I think we work well together. When I get into a jam with my wandering, she is there with a map or some piece of information, and when she is overwhelmed with the planning, I am happy to lead us on a walkabout. All is well.

We were seated very close to the television, which had a long crack running down it. I imagine it getting there when France was ousted from the championship, and an upset Parisian threw his glass at it. “Quatre s’il vous plaît?” I asked the bartender. “Oui, oui,” he replied, then asked me if we wanted dinner or just to drink, and of course I was lost. I know just enough French to have people begin to converse with me, then it’s “Parlez vous Anglais?” So he put us next to the television where we watch Spain defeat Germany. Our waiter said he spoke a little English, so when I asked him about a menu item that I didn’t understand, he hesitated and then said “That is a piece of meat.” That sounded good enough to me, so I ordered it, thinking it probably some kind of steak, and it was. The others got salad or a cheeseburger, and we enjoyed being in Paris together on a lovely Sunday evening, but that was soon to change.

It was near midnight, and St. Judy and I were on the Internet doing various things when Angie-sans-Zoloft came into the room and said Deliverance is on television. I knew I shouldn’t have, but we turn it on and watched it dubbed in French. Deliverance is a horrific film in its own right, a story of the cruelty of nature and humans in it, and both the book and the film touched a nerve in American culture that still aches today. But hearing the French-dubbed version disturbed me more than I can describe. Of course we began watching just before the climax, so to speak, of the novel, when the mountain man sodomizes Bobby and Lewis kills the other one. I knew the dialogue by heart, but when I heard it in French, I shuddered. This should not be happening, I said out loud. But it was like a car wreck that I couldn’t take my eyes off of. It was just wrong, and I won’t soon be over it. I slept fitfully last night, but thankfully, I don’t recall any dreams. What I do recall, and always will, is Wild Bill McKinney, the actor who plays the rapist, saying “Excusez-moi” during the scene. I shudder to even write it here. Paris disturbia.

Fortunately, today we did the Musee de Louvre, and I washed my mind of such things by seeing the amazing Victory at Samothrace, the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the Code of Hammurabi, and The Raft of the Medusa. My favorite, however, is Cupid and Psyche, which I happily share with you now. Tonight the ballet. La vie est bonne.

USA Calling, London, and Paris

It is 1:30am in London, which means it is 3:30pm in Los Angeles where my niece is waiting for the same flight I took to London. The phone rings with with the text message notification, and I wonder who would be texting me. It is Angie, my niece, waiting at LAX to board her flight. “Please tell me you are on Zoloft,” it reads cryptically. I can’t make any sense of this message. Why would she want me to be on an antidepressant, and why is she texting me at 1:30am after I have had an international flight to confirm her wish that I am on psychotropic medication? I look at it again and see that she has forgotten hers and is hoping to use mine. Again, I am confused. If am on medication for depression, why would she take mine away from me and use it for herself? Now I can’t sleep, and I have to be up at 7:30 to meet St. Judy at Heathrow. She’s on an earlier flight that arrives at 9:25, and I want to be there to help her find her way when she gets off the plane. I try to drop off to sleep again, but now I remember that sunrise is very early in England in the summer, and sunset is very late. It’s 4:30am, and the sun is up and shining into my window. I close the shade and try to drop off again, but I manage only a brief nap before I have to get up and get back on the tube.

When I was checking out to move to my new room with my family, a woman at the top of stairs stood looking despondently down at her huge suitcase. London hotels like this one are basically old Victorian houses: the stairs are small and steep. “Could I help you with that?” I asked. “No, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” she replied. “You didn’t; I offered.” She was an American, and I asked her to hold my David Sedaris book while I took her enormous bag down the narrow stairs. “You’re an American,” she said. “Yes,” I replied, not volunteering anything else. “Where are you from?” Here we go: the routine.

“California,” I said.

“What part?”

“Southern”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

“I’m from San Bernardino County,” she said. Now she had my interest.

“As am I,” I replied, still wresting the suitcase down the stairs.

“Where do you live?”

“Coolville.”

“You’re kidding. I work in Coolville and live in Highville.”

Amazing. I’ve traveled seven thousand miles to a different country, and the first person I talk to is from my town, and I’m carrying her luggage. “Have a good time,” I say, and we both shake our heads at the coincidence.

An hour later I am back at Heathrow waiting for St. Judy to emerge from the International Arrival passage. I love that we are doing this. It is all a part of a casual conversation last summer that I have related here before, and now it is happening. She emerges looking like everyone does from an overseas flight, but she smiles her saintly smile when she recognizes her little brother. “Welcome to London,” I say. We make our way to the tube, and I get to watch my big sister take in the sights from her first trip outside the United States. We depart at King’s Cross and gingerly make our way across Euston Road to the Bloomsbury district. The ghosts of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Lytton Strachey, and the other bohemians walk with us to the hotel. We can’t check in until 1:00pm, so we relax and talk in the sitting room. We also pay two pounds to get onto the desktop computer there where Judy writes her husband Roger and tells him all is well. We have to go back to Heathrow to pick up Angie-sans-Zoloft and Caitlin by 3:00, so we dump our luggage into our room at 1:00 then head around the corner to the pub for some fish and chips. St. Judy approves of everything but the peas, and then we are back to the tube for another two-hour round trip to Heathrow.

Angie-sans-Zoloft and Caitlin emerge into a new world looking wide-eyed and tired at the same time. I hug my niece, whom I haven’t seen in eight years and before that probably fifteen years. I shake the hand of my grand-niece and introduce myself because I have never met her. She is off to college in the fall, and this trip is part of her graduation present. We will make it a good one. We load their enormous luggage onto the tube, and it creaks its way back east to central London. We then haul their enormous bags up three flights to our modest but clean room where Judy and I have single beds, and Angie-sans-Zoloft and Caitlin have a double. By now it is time to eat, and we walk around Bloomsbury then toward the river. I had been here yesterday evening by myself because Monique has been accepted to the London School of Economics, and I wanted to check it out for her. There is another Buffalo studying here now, and I have a former student from Parochial College and a former colleague from Coca-Cola University here as well. Interesting connections. We don’t make it all the way to LSE before we find a cafe that serves up typical British food. That is American food without the class or service. It is mediocre at best, and at the end the rain comes down. Still, we are happy and in London, and we rest well that night.

The next day, we do a boat trip on the Thames that is actually a nice way to see London. We get off in Greenwich and look around for a bit before returning. Angie-sans-Zoloft wants to see the London neighborhood of Marylebone, so we take the tube there and walk around for some time looking for High Street. They are exhausted, so I deposit them on a bench and walk ahead to find high street. It’s adjacent to the University of Westminster, so it’s pretty much a college hang-out with some pricier restaurants for those who do not want to mingle with the university types. I report back and we decide to eat at the pizza place they’ve been sitting outside of all along. It’s mediocre again, and we tube it back to Bloomsbury where we fall into a deep sleep again.

The next day is the National Gallery, then Paris on the Eurostar. It is a good day, and we nap on the way, taking only occasional glances at the French countryside between Calais and Paris as we fly by at 100 miles per hour. Our taxi driver must be sixteen, recruited by his father to drive us from Gard du Nord to our hotel near the Eiffel Tower. It’s 45 Euros, and I’m skeptical, but when I look at our enormous luggage I realize that it’s not a bad price since I don’t think we could get all of this into one car, and this guy has a van. The father and his son speak some in French, and we are off. Very quickly I realize that he doesn’t know where he is going. He heads toward Gare St. Lazare, which I know is wrong. Of course Angie-sans-Zoloft has several maps, and she hands them to me from the back seat. Our driver has a GPS system in the car, and I realize that this is how he gets around Paris, not from any sense of his own direction. He can’t find our hotel or our street or even our arrondissement, so I begin helping him. He is understandably reluctant, but we’re now approaching forty-five minutes on a trip that should have taken twenty. He makes it to the Eiffel Tower, which we are near, and points to it as if to say “See, I know what I’m doing.” But he clearly doesn’t. He asks another taxi driver where to find the Metro station near us, and the guy shakes his head and points back to where we came from, indicating that he is to make several turns. Finally, we find Rue de Grenelle, and I tell him to turn. We follow the street for a mile or two, but there’s the Seine and the Eiffel Tower again, so I say we have to go the other way on Rue de Grenelle. “Oui, oui” he says, finally grateful for the help. We see Rue de L’Avre, and I hear audible sighs of relief from the back seat. For some reason he parks several yards from our hotel and unloads the bags. I give him 50 Euros and insist on change back, and he is off. He lost money on us, and we got an unexpected tour of the city. A word for the traveler: patience is its own reward.

We had a lovely dinner at a classic cafe last night, and we slept in this morning, lounging around before we headed out around noon. Today we walked to the Eiffel Tower then across the Seine to the Champs-Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe. It was a good day, and I enjoyed being in the city. It happened again, twice today in fact. No matter where I am: Escalante, Utah or Paris, France, someone will ask me directions. I was able to help both people find the Metro Stations they were looking for, and my sister and nieces thought I was awesome, but as travelers know, it’s not that hard if you pay attention.

I love Paris. I could be here for a while. Tomorrow morning we will get up early and do the Louvre. Tomorrow night we have tickets to the ballet at the Opera house. I’m impressed with my family. They are making their way through this strange and wonderful place, and we are all getting along very well. The young one is sassy, which masks a fragility of sorts, but she’s also good. She pays attention to what is around her, and I find myself talking to her a lot because she wants to know how things work: the Metro, the Underground, traffic, money, etc.

As I write St. Judy snores beside me, and I suppose Angie-sans-Zoloft and Caitlin are napping as well. My window is open, and I hear the clop of a woman’s shoes on the pavement and someone speaking French. We are from Tennessee and Georgia and Arizona, but today we are in Paris.

London Calling

Now get this
London calling, yeah, I was there, too
An’ you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
After all this, won’t you give me a smile?

The Clash

Saturday morning in London in the quaint and affordable Harlingford Hotel near King’s Cross. My traveling companions, St. Judy, her daughter Angie, and her granddaughter Caitlin are having their first English breakfast in the dining room. I went down earlier to clear out of our small room so that three women could prepare themselves for the day. I had David Sedaris’s new book When You are Engulfed in Flames, coffee, juice, and those unique English breakfast versions of bacon and sausage.

I arrived here direct from LAX on a new Air France flight that was pleasant enough. Ten hours passed fairly easily, especially since I did sixteen hours to Beijing year before last, which seemed like an eternity. Immigration was another matter. Three agents at Heathrow stood against the onslaught of three international flights. Two lines: one for UK/EU folks and one for the “rest of the world.” Nearly every American remarked on being put in the rest of the world. We think we are exceptional, and we are shocked when we realize we aren’t at the center of everyone’s world. One thing I am is patient, so I made my way through the line without worrying about anything. I had slept briefly on the plane, but given my recent shenanigans at Cool University, I was used to staying up late. At least no one had drawn on my face on this flight, at least that I knew of.

Finally, I made it up to agent, smile, and say “Good afternoon.” He returns the smile and the salutation and asks why I am in the UK. “Pleasure,” I say happily. “Do you have a return flight?” he asks, smiling. “Indeed I do,” I say, and show him my Air France printout. Maybe it was the long flight, or maybe I just wanted to tell someone that my journey was not typical, but for some reason, I decide to blurt out “But I’m not taking that return flight.” Now he looks up at me quizzically, as does another agent who has overhead me and comes over to listen. “It’s just that I’m traveling out of the UK after that date and won’t be taking that flight,” I stammer. “Where are you traveling outside the UK,” he asks. “East,” I say, smiling. The agents are not smiling. He wanted to hear France or Spain. East sounded a bit ominous, I’m sure. “You’re traveling east then?” “Yes,” I explain, “and I do have a flight back to the USA; it’s just coming out of Istanbul.” “Istanbul, really?” he says. I realize now that I have complicated things further rather than simplifying them. “Do you have a copy of your return flight from Istanbul?” he asks. “Sure, it’s right here,” I say eagerly. But I don’t. Somehow I neglected to print that flight out. I have a flight from New York to Tennessee and a flight from Tennessee to LAX, but I don’t have a copy of my flight from Istanbul to New York. Now both agents are looking at my papers closely. “Let me get this straight,” he says: “you are here for a few weeks with your family, but your family is flying back on the day of your return flight, but your return flight is not the one you are taking. Instead, you are ‘heading east’ (he actually inflected the quotation marks), eventually ending up in Istanbul, from where you will return to the United States but for which you do not have a copy of the flight.” “Yes,” I say, “that’s right.” “Do you have a copy of your itinerary in the UK?” Strangely enough, I do. It’s only because Angie, the niece, made one. I haven’t made an itinerary in my life. I don’t believe in itineraries, but Angie is a planner, and today she helps me get through UK immigration. I proudly pull out my itinerary that shows London, Paris, Oxford, Bath, Carlisle, Glasgow, Ft. William, Ediburgh, Durham, and Canturbury. The other agent remarks “That’s a great trip.” The first agent smiles and waves me through. “Have a great time,” he says. “I will,” I reply, “I will.”

I catch the Underground to King’s Cross/St. Pancras and walk the few blocks to the Harlingford, but for some reason I keep missing it. Once I find it, I realize I have walked past it several times in my journeying. No worries. I check in and then head out for Indian food. One of the ironies of imperialism is that the best Indian food is found in London, and I find a lovely Tandoori place that serves up my favorite: Muglai and Poori. Delicious.

I fall asleep and go to that place that you find only after international travel: a deep, unconscious sleep that is as close to death as we are likely to come in life. Then I am awakened by a text message . . .