#17 (Part 4): There's Reasons Why Parisians Are Snobby...And They're Good Ones.

Tour Eiffel, Waiting for 10 PM...

Very Significant: A French Pigeon

Pont Solferino, Stale Baguette and I on right

~

Saturday evening, Hotel Caulaincourt. Our room is located several floors below the lobby in the corner of the building, which quite obviously was not built by someone who favored right angles. The wall paper is a classy pattern of navy and white stripes and fleur-de-lis's, but is ripped and stained. In the small room there are three rickety bunk beds and a tall window from which we can see into apartments across the way, where we see Parisians folding laundry, talking on the phone, drinking wine, and sitting on couches and watching TV...so they are humans like us...

The door to our room opens into a trapezoid-shaped room with a shower stall and sink on the right, a triangular-shaped bathroom straight ahead, and the door to our bunk room on the left wall. The room with the toilet is better described as a triangular closet in which one cannot "utilize the facilities" without sitting diagonally or leaving the door open.

I can only laugh because I know that soon I will be describing this room to others, and when I am much older, I will tell someone young about the hostels I stayed in, about the inconveniences and nastiness, about how we didn't complain or long for the "comforts" of home because we were young and flexible and simply seeking experience. And when I am older I will miss the inconveniences and the nastiness and our flexibility and adventurous spirits. But then again, who says we have to lose our flexibility or adventurous spirits?

We eat dinner at a tiny, low-ceilinged Italian restaurant decorated with knick-knacks and fake plants, tucked in a corner of a narrow back street. And then we go. Onward, to Tour Eiffel. We ride the metro and end up in a square across the street from the end of the lawn that extends from the base of the tower. We're rushing to find it by 10 o'clock because we have heard that it sparkles every hour on the hour. From this perspective we can't see it, but we know it's there. We're all walking so fast we might as well be skipping, and then, there it is. A blue beacon of adventure puncturing the foggy night sky, it's two lights whipping around and around, begging us to stare.

We take our time walking towards it, ogling, gaping, gawking, goggling, gazing--mesmerized. We reach the base of the tower and wait. Laura pulls a bottle of champagne out of her bag and asks someone else to open it. Next thing I know, the bottle is in my hands, we're counting down to 10 o'clock, someone says, "Now!", the tower starts sparkling and  the cork shoots at least 25 feet. It occurs to me that this bottle has ridden the metro all the way here with us under Laura's arm. No wonder I almost killed a family of tourists.

(See video at bottom)

We stand in awe, our American jaws hanging open. I am completely mystified by how strongly a sparkling blue tower is affecting me. Why is this so beautiful? I realize that this moment is not wonderful simply because the tower is wonderful--I am coming to the end of a beautiful journey during which I have grown so much it hurts. In a few weeks I will be back in the US, but I'm ready. We cheers, watch, wait, and when the twinkling stops, we ride the metro back to our temporary home in Paris.

~  ~  ~

Sunday morning. We look at our map to find out where Montmartre is. Apparently--and please forgive us--we are staying in Montmartre. It's time to climb. We laugh and begin our ascent. Who knew that we were inhabiting sacred bohemian ground? We're walking where the likes of Picasso, Modigliani, Van Gogh, Matisse, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Langston Hughes walked...no biggie. Just another day in Europe.

Although I am tempted to avoid the subject of Montmartre completely, I cannot. I will put it plainly and get it over with: Montmartre is like a Universal Studios attraction with better food and cooler temperatures. Some of its charm remains, but it is merely visual. It is so crowded with tourists that it is hard to walk two steps without bumping into someone. The streets are overflowing with over-priced knick-knacks targeted either at uninspired romantics who want to substantiate their visit to this "hallowed" place or to travel guide junkies who lack any real passion in their lives at all. Perhaps I am being a bit harsh, but it just goes to show how disappointed I was. Visiting Montmartre forced me to accept that all good things come to an end, but also made me wonder what my "good thing" is. It's about time I get one.

We spent most of our time in Montmartre on the steps below Sacre'-Coeur, people-watching. I can say this about Monmartre: I'll be back one day to give it another shot...even if it means I have to go to church at 7:30 AM and sit around until the wee hours of the next morning, waiting for the bohemians to emerge and the freak flags to rise.

Midday, Tuileries Quarter--home of Cartier, Boucheron, the Ritz, etcetera, etcetera. More importantly, it is the quarter in which one finds the Louvre and Jardin du Palais Royal and other beautiful gardens. We hunt down Musee de l'Orangerie with the help of some very helpful ladies. They see that we are struggling to find our way and one of them offers to help us. Apparently she understands how frustrating it is to be lost when you have only a limited amount of time.

We are headed in the right direction and we have a destination in mind, but those definitely aren't good reasons to ignore alluring sights along the way. We arrive at Place de la Concorde and once again, we are hypnotized by the Eiffel tower, the view of which now includes a bed of trees at its base, an ancient obelisk, a statue of the Sun King (Louis XIV), a gargantuan palatial fountain, and a tour bus. It is a clear, sunny day and although the square is bustling, it still feels open; seeing so much blue sky has never been so refreshing.

Inside the relatively small, naturally-lit Musee de l'Orangerie we see Monet's Nympheas, his celebrated water lily series painted at his home in Giverny. Monet donated this series to the museum (to Paris, really), and required that they be displayed in two oval-shaped rooms. The path one walks between the two rooms forms the symbol of infinity.

Of the museums I have visited in Europe thus far, this experience with art is the most intimate. The rest of the works in the museum, all executed by Parisians, are from the Impressionist and inter-war periods.  We see works by Cezanne, Renoir, Matisse, Modigliani, and early works by Picasso. As usual, I take too long and I realize everyone's waiting for me (Sorry guys).

Early afternoon. We go in search of Musee' D'Orsay. On the way we see a one-man-band playing a Beatles song in a tunnel leading to Pont Solferino, and we stop to enjoy the views up and down the Seine. We get to the other side of the river and wait in the long, snake-like line outside the museum for quite a while, but the time passes quickly because it is so worth the wait. The people-watching is incredible.

In 1986, after being closed for nearly 50 years, this mainline railroad station became the museum it is today. It displays art created between 1848 and 1914 from a variety of periods, from naturalism and symbolism to art nouveau and neo-impressionism. We spend hours and hours exploring as much as we possibly can, each of us most likely knowing that this will be our last stop in Paris, but we eventually lose our stamina.

Sitting in the central area, where train tracks were once lain and now sculptures watch visitors pass by, we all seem to silently agree that we've reached the end. I now certainly realize the reasons why many Parisians are snobby...and they're good ones. But all I want to do right now is pass out on this bench and have a train deliver me to my rickety bunk in Hotel Caulaincourt. But--that's not what this journey is about. 

And we have a plane to catch in a few hours.

~ ~ ~

Video of "Tour Eiffel," sparkling at 10 PM...

#17 (Part 3): Enchanted and Overwhelmed in Paris

Kim, The Train to Versailles

The Chateau, Palace of Versailles

View of the Grand Canal, Palace of Versailles

~

Saturday. Chissa' (Who knows?!) AM.

Once again we've missed our complementary breakfast at the hostel, so we go to a patisserie we saw near the hostel the day before. I'm not hungry, and I'm slightly disoriented from finally getting some sleep, and I stand, droopy-eyed and expressionless, slowly glancing over the wide array of pastries crowded in the glass cases before us. I am completely, totally, and utterly overwhelmed. I feel like we are playing a game with this pastry shop and I am losing. It becomes clear to me that my head is not screwed on right quite yet and I move through a long line of Parisians, like a chinook heading upriver, outside onto the street to wait for the others. Apparently my Italian tendencies are winning out over my Parisian ones: Never mind breakfast, just give me some espresso, immediately, or I will keel over and die.

We walk a few blocks to the nearest Metro stop. My head is still not screwed on right. We rode the Metro many, many times yesterday, but as we enter the stop on this beautifully bizarre morning, I feel like I am walking into a video game. We're familiar with how to ride the Metro now, and we wind our way through various tunnels, following arrows, taking quick glances at musicians and gypsies, and all trying to stay together. We're spit out of the final tunnel onto the correct platform: 10 points.

The Metro in Paris is incredibly easy to figure out, which makes experiencing Paris all the more enjoyable and possible. While in Rome, we walked everywhere and only had 10 hours to "see it all." We walked 23 miles that day and only saw a quarter of what we could have seen if there had been a Metro. One day in Paris blows one day in Rome out of the acqua frizzante. 

But the Metro is much more than an easy mode of public transportation; it is the best way to experience the people of Paris and get a glimpse of their everyday lives in this teeming city. The hundreds of faces one sees during a day's worth of travel on the Metro inspire much thought about Parisian life, and inevitably, our own lives. (I apologize, I'm beginning to sound like a Rick Steve's episode)

We get to the north edge of the city center and catch a train to the country to visit the Palace of Versailles. A few minutes pass and an accordionist and a saxophonist come into our car to serenade us all. We reach the end of the track and walk down a grand avenue, at the end of which we can see a large, gilded building. The sky is gray and wind is whipping through the avenue. As we get closer and closer to the gilded building, Laura asks,

"Where are we? What is this?"

We all answer, "Versailles!"

She responds with,

"NO WAY! THIS is where the TREATY went down?!!"

The Palace of Versailles began as a simple hunting lodge, but in 1661 Louis XIV began enlarging it, and construction and interior and exterior design continued until his death 54 years later. His grandson Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette moved here in 1774--59 years after his grandfather's death--and turned the Palace of Versailles into what we see today: It was and is the largest palace in Europe, capable of housing 20,000 people at a time (which it did for many years).

In 1789 the King and Queen were then forced to flee their palace for Paris and were executed four years later in 1793. Exactly forty years later Louis Philippe, a "King of the French," turned the chateau--which Louis XIV made the center of political power in France--into a museum. The establishment of the Palace of Versailles as a full-fledged museum was a long and laborious process. Sometime during the final years of the 1700's, in the days following the palace's abandonement, the wealthy and politically connected Huges Lagarde (a soap merchant from Marseille) was appointed as bibliographer. Lagarde strove to turn the Palace of Versailles into a museum and assembled a team of curators. Thanks to the effort of individuals like Lagarde, ordinary mortals like us are able to wander about this regal place. I can only imagine the probable disgust and horror the royalty of this period would experience in knowing that millions of commoners pass through this palace every year.

Furthermore, I can only imagine the probable disgust and horror the royalty of this period would experience in knowing that Jeff Koons' art was displayed here. Koons, who is still alive today, is one of the world's priciest  and most controversial artists. He is known for creating humongous, brightly colored metal reproductions of objects such as ballon animals and people, such as Pamela Anderson and Michael Jackson--sitting with his chimpanzee Bubbles no less. In 2008 one of his pieces sold for $25.7 million...it was a giant balloon knot resembling a flower.

According to Edouard de Royère (creator of the Fondation du Patrimoine and a noteworthy patron of Versailles), "I am not against contemporary art, but I am absolutely shocked at its descent on Versailles, a magical, sacred place."

According to Koons, "[Contemporary Art] is so imprisoned in the present that juxtaposing new works with old ones allows [us] to rediscover a connection between history and the history of art. . . The baroque is the ideal context for me to highlight the philosophical nature of my work."

In my opinion, Koons is correct, and I greatly enjoyed the exhibit and how it affected my perspective of Versailles. There was something so thrilling about this particular combination of old and new and the controversy it caused. I couldn't keep from grinning: the people involved in this exhibit really stirred the pot and brought to light the opinions concerning modern art today. It is controversy that coaxes the truth out of its cave.

In 1919 the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the war between the Allied Powers and Germany, was signed here in the Hall of Mirrors. The armistice signed in 1918 ended the actual fighting, but six months later the Treaty of Versailles drew the peace negotiations to a close. I couldn't help but imagine President Obama amidst a group of balding white men and a myriad of representatives for the Middle East, seated in the Hall of Mirrors, signing a peace treaty and eating croissants.

The Hall of Mirrors

Me, Kim, Jo

We spent hours and hours exploring both the interior of the chateau and the vast expanse of gardens outside, yet we were barely able to see even a third of the grounds. Inside the chateau we saw many of Jeff Koons' bizarre sculptures--among them, Michael Jackson posing with Bubbles, a scantily clad Pamela Anderson, a blow-up lobster beach-toy hanging from the ceiling, and a giant balloon animal dog--on display in the elegant living quarters and grand halls.

I felt a mysterious presence of royal blood. It was difficult not to imagine elegantly dressed figures moving about in the rooms and gardens we visited, leading lives of great--and in my opinion, DISGUSTING--excess. It was even more difficult not to imagine weary servants moving about, serving, serving, serving. The Palace of Versailles is breathtakingly beautiful, but it did not become so without many costs. Even more breathtaking than the display of creativity, skill and natural beauty one sees at the Palace of Versailles, is the display of greed and vanity.

After several hours exploring the gardens the weather is nearly unbearable. Our hands and faces are frozen by the biting wind and our bodies are simply tired. We bid adieu to Versailles and make our way back to the city center--but not before making a pit stop at a Starbucks near the train station of course. This time, I "imbibe."

View of Chateau from inside the grounds

Laura, Jo, Me, Kim

#17 (Part 2): When Life Takes You to Oostende, Belgium Instead of Paris, Momentarily Forget That It Ever Happened.

Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame...

Outside St. Severin

Inside the Louvre, Large panel French paintings

Marble, The Louvre

~

I wake up and the sky is gray. We are stuck in traffic. The digital clock at the front of the bus says 9-something. Mr. Obnoxious next to me (who, as you might recall from Part 1, likes to shush people) is having a very loud and intense conversation with someone who is probably his girlfriend. Poor girl. I feel like shushing him...but I don't. I'm just a nice guy I guess.

Friday, 11 AM.  Finalmente, we reach our hostel--Hotel Caulaincourt--at the bottom of the hill atop which the famed Montmartre sits (although we don't realize this yet). We check in; the manager waives the charges for the previous night's "stay"; we meet the two girls with whom we will be roaming around--one who is a long-time friend of Jo's from back in Philly, Laura, and the other, Lindsay, who is a friend of Laura's from their study abroad school in Spain; we don't sleep; we hit the city.

We find a restaurant that does not look cheap and I have the most delicious omelette of my entire 19-year experience on this earth. The spirit of that Omelette Mixte visits me when I eat out at American breakfast joints and I can't help but cringe at the sight of our greasy-imposter-omellettes. Snobby, I know.

After topping off our tanks and pushing the trip to Belgium out of our minds, we go in search of Notre Dame via Metro. I know nothing about Notre Dame, and when I see it from afar, I wish I did. It is stunning; elaborate; seductive. The sight of it triggers my internal adventurer spirit--the trip begins. Awareness of cold and wind and rain and tiredness fades completely.

Throughout my time in Europe I have found myself unaware of the history of the places to which we are traveling and the sights we are seeing, and often I have felt guilty, regretful, and even shameful. I am so grateful to be exploring Europe yet I have not known the natures of many of the places we have explored and often I have felt unworthy of the experience.

Here in Paris I realize that there are legitimate reasons for this ignorance--preoccupation with school, lack of exposure to the world beyond U.S. borders, poor recall of knowledge learned in high school geography and history classes--but despite these, this realization of ignorance is a lesson in and of itself, and perhaps many lessons. Once we learn to travel we can become individuals who travel to learn (a valuable lesson learned from a monk named Patrick Duffy, a "character" in Blue Highways). 

Lesson one: when I travel again I will do my research because the experience becomes so much more affecting and valuable when one does this. Lesson two: I will forgive myself when I do not do my research, because life can be busy, time can be limited, and because any experience is better than none if one is open.

Construction of Notre Dame, which means "Our Lady" (referring to the Virgin Mary), began in 1163 but was not completed until roughly 180 years later. Because it was built during a period of widespread illiteracy, the cathedral's many portals, paintings and stained glass works retell Biblical stories. It sits on the Ile-de-la-Cite', eneveloped by the waters of the Seine, and is able to accommodate 6,000 worshipers. In 1768 it was decided by geographers that all distances in the whole country of France would be measured from Notre Dame, and in many ways it is still considered the center of France.

If Notre Dame could speak, it would have many stories to tell: Before leaving for their holy wars, crusaders prayed here; polyphonic music matured here (definition, polyphonic: producing many sounds simultaneously; many-voiced); during the French Revolution it was pillaged and desecrated; it was dedicated by revolutionaries to both the cult of Reason and the cult of the Supreme being; it was used as a warehouse for food storage; it was here that Napoleon crowned himself and his wife emperor and empress. In the 1800s, Victor Hugo, the writer of The Hunchback of Notre Dame (The original title being Notre Dame de Paris--an anticlerical, anti-aristocratic work of French, historical romanticism) raised awareness of the terrible physical state and high artistic value of the cathedral, which led to a 23-year restoration beginning in 1844.

. . .

"Each face, each stone of this venerable monument is not only a page of the history of the country, but also of the history of knowledge and art....Time is the architect, the people are the builder."

— Victor Hugo, Notre-Dame de Paris.

Inside we are comforted by the cathedral's warmth and restfulness. The only light sources are chandeliers and natural light setting the stained glass aglow. Although the building is large and the nave reaches great heights, it is welcoming rather than overwhelming, which is much more than I can say for Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral in Florence. We take our time wandering every nook and every cranny. We find a chandelier that is about 9 feet tall and 7 feet wide hanging a few inches from the ground in a tent-like metal structure, perhaps waiting to be restored. Later we find an electric nativity scene with a crowd of confused-looking people standing in front of it. Below a stone screen of Biblical characters being revealed again and again by swirling, billowing colored lights stands a large screen on which animated clouds move across a bright blue sky at different speeds. Below this, Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus sit in a field of lights, slowly twinkling like moonlight reflecting off of a swelling sea.

We find a cafe to shelter ourselves from the incessant winds and penetrating cold and order some hot wine to go around. From inside this typically Parisian cafe, I gaze out the window at a bridge spanning the Seine and reflect on where I am. There probably aren't any genius writers or painters seated next to me, waiting for the night to come and cast a spell of debauchery on us all, but this is Paris nonetheless. Eighty years ago this would be the case, but I'm excited anyway.

Despite the showers of icy globs of rain and the dancing trees twisting and bending and lashing the chalky skies outside, I want to go...somewhere, anywhere. We head for Sainte-Chapelle. Again, I know nothing of the history of this place--I've never even heard of it--but it has been regarded as one of the architectural masterpieces of the Western World.

On our way to Sainte-Chapelle we pass a small gothic church called Sainte Severin that is completely engulfed by buildings. In the spirit of spontaneous exploration we decide to go inside. What we find is one of the strangest things I have ever seen--inside or outside of a church. The building is small and filled with chairs rather than pews, and there are only a few people milling about. It is quite dark inside except for a bit of light filtering through the stained-glass, emanating from candles and several spotlights shining on frescoes. And then there is the main attraction, which is a wide-eyed female mannequin in a white robe, arms stretched upward towards a turning disco ball, standing in a herd of neon-colored paper animals and people. I don't think it's necessary to write more on this subject.

We finally find Sainte-Chapelle, which means "Holy Chapel," buried by other buildings on the other end of Ile-de-laCite'. We pay four euro and enter into a tiny chapel with low ceilings. Every wall and pillar and arch is covered in dark blue, red or gold and busy patterns of fleur-de-lis's and star-like shapes, resembling dusk and night skies: I felt like I was trapped inside a royal stationary box. The room is empty except for tables along one wall that are cluttered with souvenirs, and we immediately wonder what must be so special about this place that it cost four euro to see. We see others walking up narrow staircases that are somewhat hidden behind us in the corners of the chapel in the same wall as the entrance. We all let out a big, "Ohhhhhhhh!"  and climb a narrow spiral staircase, waiting for the suspense to be over. 

We emerge from a tiny doorway at the top into the upper chapel, an oval-shaped room supported by extremely narrow 50-foot columns, between which stained-glass panels depict more than 1,000 religious scenes. The columns, walls and ceiling resemble those in the lower chapel. The top of the staircases are jammed on both sides with open-mouthed tourists. Security guards ask us all to keep moving and we slowly and silently nod 'yes' without breaking our gazes. We are hypnotized by this nearly-hidden kaleidoscopic womb. 

The chapel is lit by the blue glow of the stained glass panels, a dozen gold chandeliers, and by an immense rose window depicting the apocalypse in 86 stained glass panels, which we finally notice above and between the staircases behind us as we turn in circles in place like all the other tourists, jaws still hanging open. Other tourists are seated in flimsy plastic folding chairs circling the perimeter of the chapel, reclining, heads hung back, hands constantly moving through the air in front of them, quietly pointing out detail after detail to their fellow travelers.

Once described as a "gateway to heaven" by the devout in the Middle Ages, Sainte-Chapelle was built by Louis IX in 1248 in order to house what was believed to be Christ's Crown of Thorns and other relics (including a supposed piece of Christ's cross)--purchased from the Emperor of Constantinople. The lower chapel served as a worshiping place for commoners and servants while the upper chapel was reserved for the royal family. Whether above or below, worship here at Sainte-Chapelle must have been a truly intimate and spiritual experience. Even in retrospect, this is the most beautiful work of architecture I saw during my whole time abroad.

(Video at bottom)

It is dark in Paris and we've got our hearts set on visiting the Louvre. We see a Starbucks on our way there and the girls juice themselves up. It's strange to me that Starbucks is so popular in a city known for having great coffee--both stories of the place are packed with Parisians--but then again, they've got some crazy drinks with crazy amounts of sugar that taste crazy good and get you crazy hyped up. What more could one want?

(2 videos at bottom)

We glance over the map and have no idea where to start. We spend hours navigating and exploring the never ending coil of rooms. Then we go in search of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The surprisingly small 30.3" x 21.7" painting hangs on a wall all by itself, protected by a 1.25" thick glass enclosure that is constantly kept at 43 degrees fahrenheit and 50% humidity. In front of the painting there is a constantly large, chattering, amoeba-like crowd. The setting is incredibly awkward and not the least bit intimate. If I had my iPod, were listening to the song "The Gulag Orkestar" by Beirut, and were standing front and center, I might have been able to create a memorable moment with the Mona Lisa. Next time.

~

For effect: "The Gulag Orkestar" by Beirut   . . . copy and paste to listen . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UJX0QpkhhU&feature=related

~

We move on and find the hall where Da Vinci's other works are hanging. It is much less crowded here and we take our time examining the entire room. I look for Jo and KIm and find them seated on a bright orange circular couch looking exhausted, and then it hits me: I am also exhausted, and the soles of my feet (which are squished into "cheap" Italian boots) feel like they might split open any moment. We haven't had a good night's sleep since Wednesday night and now it's Friday night. It's time to turn in and call it a day. . . A very, very good day. Outside we see a bright light atop a blue spike flashing in the distance like a light-house. I watch this while Jo and Kim take pictures and it hits me--that is the Eiffel tower.

"JO! KIM! THAT'S THE F*%#$N EIFFEL TOWER!"

 ~  ~  ~

Video of St. Chapelle...

Video of sculpture inside the Louvre...

Video of large panel French paintings 

inside the Louvre...

#17 (Part 1): Keeping It All In Perspective

~

Paris: I realize that this is the last trip, and I begin to freak out. Just a little bit, but this definitely counts as a freak-out. And then I decide that it doesn't have to be. I decide to just go; to take a trip, to be wholeheartedly grateful, to be conscious of and open to each moment, and to return home with a big, fat travel bug in my pocket that I will diligently feed for the rest of my life.

Once the freak-out wears off, I think about why I feel so passionate about traveling. It's difficult to organize my thoughts--there's so many things. A passage of Blue Highways comes to mind, and because William Least Heat Moon phrases it so well, I'm not going to try to do it better:

"What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do--especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road."

For me, this is currently one of my favorite elements of travel. Youth is inevitably a period of time during which individuals explore who they are and who they want to be and figure out what they don't know about themselves. I, just like anyone else, need and want this sort of exploration, and it is one of several reasons why I went abroad in the first place.

Paris is a bookend: bookends can be moved to accommodate more. I ponder this and decide to move on to other thoughts. I return to another reason why I love to travel. Since leaving the U.S. I have learned that life should be fun--and not just occasionally, as I once unconsciously believed.

I realized how exuberant I felt after only one day in Florence. I realized how much fun I was having after seven days. And I realized how quickly time soars by when you are actually having fun. Thus, I realized--TRULY realized--how critical it is to be energetic, ambitious, perseverant, conscious, flexible, and creative...with these qualities intact, life can be surprisingly fun.

The problem is that you think you have time.

Buddhist proverb

Thursday.

Kim, Jo and I take a bus from Santa Maria Novella train station to Galileo Galilei airport in Pisa. We wait in the small, crowded terminal while a thick rain decides our fate. The flight to Beauvais is delayed an hour, then two hours, then three hours.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we are sorry for the delay. Beauvais' runways have closed so we are being rerouted to another airport nearby for landing. There will be shuttles to take you to Beauvais. Thank you for your patience."

Friday.

I've lost track of time--I'm just ready to get there. As the plane descends, I see a circular configuration of bluish-purple lights. A roundabout. I'm incredibly excited to finally be at least near the city of lightsand Kim and Jo look rather giddy as well. It's probably around midnight when we finally land. The flight attendants smile and giggle and bid us adieu as they shiver near the doorway in their goofy uniforms.

We step out into a cool, Parisian darkness and descend the stairway onto the wet, oily tarmac. The crowd of passengers floods into the small airport, which is empty and seems to be closed. We all wander around inside the big main area, looking for information about where we are and how far we need to go.

Kim, who is our linguistic link to France on this trip, is looking around at the signs, Jo is wandering around trying to find a helpful pamphlet or brochure, and my empty stomach and I are watching an American kid pull a Belgian waffle out of a vending machine. I look around at the signs and notice that there are three languages on them: something that looks like Dutch, then French below it, and then English. I ask,

"Why isn't French the first language?"

After several minutes, we ask an American guy our age if he knows where we are. With a grin on his face he says,

"Belgium."

The Belgian waffle suddenly no longer seems out of place.

We end up waiting in the airport for an hour or more for buses to take all of us to Beauvais. We are told by the airport employees, who are friendly and helpful, that the bus ride to Beauvais will be four hours. I can't help but laugh at the situation--you have to admit, it's pretty damn funny.

After everyone--Italian, American, French, whatever--understand what is going on and calm down, the vibes lighten up. A young, trendy Italian mother in boots and a fur coat plays with a tiny bouncy ball with her toddler. A 30-something Italian guy in a gray, voluminous fur coat (whom we deem Bear Man) wanders around, striking up conversations with others, cracking jokes and being conspicuous in the best way possible. I decide to throw down on a Belgian waffle from the vending machine because a) it's too funny to pass up, and b) I'm VERY hungry. It wasn't horrible. If you're ever stranded in a Belgian airport...

Two buses arrive and it becomes clear that we are not all going to fit. Crowds gather outside each bus and everyone pushes and shoves. We hear that a double-decker bus will be arriving to pick up the rest of us, so we decide to just wait for the jumbo bus, figuring we will be able to lie down because of all the empty seats and sleep the whole way. The buses fill up and drive away. One of the employees approaches the group and says with a Belgian flavor:

"I am very sorry--they have found a bus, but cannot find the driver. They are trying to find him, but you will have to wait."

Fantastic. Now I'm really laughing. It just keeps getting better and better. The crowd goes back inside the airport to keep warm. The children are starting to look pretty tired, as are many of the adults. Jo, Kim and I get comfy beneath a baby ficus and try to keep it all in perspective. Here we are. Three Americans exploring faraway lands. How lovely.

~

I have no clue what time it is, but finally a bus appears in the distance. Everyone, for the second time, rushes outside into the cold. We see it approaching and I say to myself, 

"That doesn't look like a double-decker."

And it isn't. As it pulls up alongside the curb it's clear that we are not all going to fit. Jo, Kim and I look at each other and are all obviously in agreement that we are getting on this effing bus. As we expected, the crowd pushes and shoves towards the door of the bus. We let the families with kids push ahead of us but then we began to push as well. We get inside and there are only two seats left. I squeeze into the row with Kim and Jo. At the front of the bus, the driver is telling someone to get off because they don't have a seat. There is no way we are getting off of this bus.

Kim and I sit on top of Jo and cover her. The driver makes his way down the aisle, looking left and right, left and right, checking, counting, whatever. He passes us. He doesn't notice. He heads back to the front and starts the bus. We shift our bodies around and Jo pops her head out. 

Laughter bursts out around us when the others notice what we've done. We smile and are quite proud. Goodbye Belgium. Just as we are noticing how difficult it is going to be to sleep during the 4-hour ride, someone notices a bus pull up behind us for the remaining people. We are afraid that it too will fill up and decide not to get off. 

Luckily, a lone American traveler leaves our bus, freeing up a seat right next to Bear Man in the back for lil' ol' me. He loudly calls me to the back, rubbing the seat cushion in a circular motion with his hand. Everyone chuckles and smiles at me. I get up and sit down in the corner seat of the back row. Bear Man rolls up his jacket and puts it on my shoulder:

"Pronta?!"

Bear Man is asking me if I am ready, and he lays his head down on the ball of fur on my shoulder, meanwhile everyone is cracking up...including me. Bear Man is not as creepy as he seems--he's just a teenage class clown who happens to be 30-something and out of school. We are his class for the time being and we all seem to be appreciating his humor considering our situation.

I can't help but think about what it would be like to be in this situation with a crowd of Americans. It would be unbearable. Although I can't recall exactly when or where or why, I can recall being in some sort of similar situation in The States, and the crowd was angry, unforgiving and rude, which made the situation that much worse. I was grateful to be in the presence of people who come from cultures that know when to laugh and when to just let it go. For me, our trip to Belgium felt like a blessing; a ridiculous yet exciting test of our newfound endurance and patience. Those who truly love travel are able to smile when "the road" takes them somewhere they did not intend to go. A real traveler is able to cherish the beauty of all the mistakes, problems, and disappointments they experience. I was once told by a high school teacher,

"The struggle is the best part."

It took me some time, but I believe him.

As we pull out of the airport lot we drive down an avenue lined by cottage-like homes with pitched roofs and trees shrouded in bluish-purple lights. We enter a roundabout with a bluish-purple neon sign in the center that says Oostende. More bluish-purple cylindrical lights jut up from the ground around the sign. I nod off, happy to be going once again.

~

My hand is tingling. I wake up. The sun hasn't risen yet. The bus is barreling down a highway, surging through dark blue sky. I look down: Bear Man's hair is tickling the top of my hand. This  is the reason I'm awake. How unfortunate.

To put it nicely...I feel like s**t.

The night has stolen my optimism and good spirits and replaced them with drowsiness and hunger.

We pull over. Beauvais. It is a tiny airport with only one terminal. Inside, all the passengers from our flight are strewn about the airport, sleeping and staring blankly...waiting. The airport is just beginning to open. My stomach sinks. I look around and don't see anyone who looks like they'll know if a free shuttle is going to take us into Paris.

The food shops open. The sun still hasn't risen. We get croissants, I throw back an espresso and we pull it together. We spend the next hour or two trying to keep our spirits up and try to figure out what we are going to do. There's talk of taxis, other shuttles, trains...anything. Eventually we learn that there actually will be shuttles to take us to Paris, so we spread the word. Everyone seems to have the same idea: there' s not going to be enough seats.

When the buses arrive, the crowd moves like an amoeba, trying to figure out where the buses will stop so they can be at the head of the mob. The two buses fill up and the rest of the crowd is left on the sidewalk. I am seated next to an Italian guy in his late 20's or early 30's who keeps shushing everyone so he can sleep.

I lean my head against the window and get comfortable. I keep telling myself to hang in there; to not let my good spirits wane. The horizon begins to glow blue as dawn approaches and I fall asleep thinking of Da Vinci, bright lights and coffee. It doesn't get more romantic than that.