[Paris] Autumn, going native, and Switzerland

Pretty soon I won’t speak any language. I am loosing my facility with English now. And after only 4 days of classes!

The air is surprizingly cool and crisp with fall much sooner than I am used to. I feels like late October to me.

Going native:
As I hoped, Muriel, Juliette and I went shopping on Saturday. We each bought a top. Sunday, Juliette and I went with Mido to the flea market, but only Mido was successful (getting things for her grandchildren; she’s due to have another one on Friday). Juliette went home because her back was hurting, but I went back to Mido’s to visit more. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but she ended up giving me a bunch of clothes she says she doesn’t wear anymore. So, I have a new parisien wardrobe afterall.

I’m a little sick this afternoon, but I have had lots of water and herbal remedies and should be cured (fingers crossed).

Ten days ago, I was in Basel, Switzerland. I went, again, to see some sustainable housing developments. We saw 2. All information on the tour was in French, and I didn’t try to understand it; so, this description is based strictly on my observations.

I liked the first better, maybe just because we got to see the interior of one unit, but it isn’t particularly transit accessible. In general, it is very simple and rectangular in form. Windows have big gray sliding shutters. Porches surrounded both the front and back of building’s long side with full-length glass doors along their entire length. At the front, there is essecially an ordinary-looking apartment building. Behind it, there are 2 rows of townhouses with flat rooves divided by lush beautiful gardens. Cars park in front of most units. The interior is open and spacious. Front doors openned onto the driveway and backdoors the garden. Again, windows are full-length and porches surround the second floors. Like the apartment building, they are charcole gray and rectangular.

The second development is the color of pine wood. Like the first, it is strictly rectangular. Closely lined townhouses open onto the lane (where no parking is provided, not sure where the cars live). Behind the units are small green yards. They form a small grid. Children and their equipment (strollers, bicycles, toys) punctuate each lane throughout. This development seemed to be in a closer suburb, near a tram and a train station. I left the group here to see Basel.

Actually, first, I took the tram to the other side of town for the art museum, Foundation Beyeler. It’s the collection of modern art formerly owned by the Beyelers. (The price was a bit of a shock after London’s free museums.) They have several nice pieces, my favorites were a small pink Paul Klee nude (I don’t normally like him in particular, but this piece was an exception) and Giacometti (my boyfriend at Hampshire had a print of one of his paintings on his wall, and despite the fact that that was my worst relationship, I like Giacometti). The museum’s garden is beautiful and cows grazed with their compulsary bells in an orchard on the other side of the fense surrounding the modern yard. Returning to the city center, the tram driver waited for me as I bought a ticket.

What do you expect of a city by a river in Switzerland? Well, Basel won’t disappoint. It is very pretty. The old part of the city is on a rise above the river with winding medeavel streets, a cathedral, town square, etc. The river has a really pleasant prominade and appears remarkably clean and clear. I was trying to take a picture of myself with some stuff in the background (the cathedal, a boat, a bridge) when an old man walking with his wife came over and demanded something of me (my german does not exist yet). He repeated himself several times, finally grabbing my camera from me abruptly. Now, I thought for a moment he might run with it, but he was very old, walking on his wifes arm for stability as much as affection, so I decided not to wrestle him for the camera and instead let him take my picture with it. I saw them several more times during my walk and each time he spoke to me kindly; I have no idea what he said on any occasion.

We dined in the hostel kitchen with some Scots who came to Basel for a kickboxing match. They told stories of a guy they knew who was kicked out of the hostel and arrested by the police for being too noisy. “That’s Switzerland for you.”

Well, I have worn myself out already, and Juliette has started cooking (so, I should help). I’ll finish these tales later.

[Paris] Dagnabit

I put aside this afternoon to catch up on my blog, but instead I have spent it on personal email. If you didn't receive one in the last few days, you have only yourself to blame (or maybe it got lost in delivery...). I really need to make the blog a priority one of these days, since I definitely won't have time to catch up today. Meanwhile it is finally a beautiful day, and I am spending it at the computer! grrr

I started my language class on Wednesday. The school is very pretty and comfortable. Everyone has been incredibly nice. I think i will just stay there instead of switching to the more well-known Alliance later. It's cheaper too. My teacher is incredibly sweet and only speaks French to us. This works fine except when I get tired and it is hard for me even to comprehend English. The level of the other students is well matched (despite that i never took the test). I find that more often than not I know (inside) how to put the sentences together, but the words come out all wrong anyway. I'm incredibly tired and I think I have been grinding my teeth. This too will pass.

My hosts, J&G, are great fun. G (who asked that his name be left out of the blog) has been creating a database of every train ride he has ever taken -- yes, he has kept all the tickets! In a few minutes, I am going to meet J for what at home we call "happy hour" with the girls. Then there is a small dinner party here also including Muriel (whom you will remember from my tales of Mallorca). Muriel loves to shop, so I think I can get her to take me shopping this weekend, since I plan to start trying to dress less like a mission hipster and more like a native. If I can handle it. So far, I have been wearing makeup. Don't worry. It's still me.

The school is also a good resource for social activity. This weekend, there's a party one night, and folks might be going to a club another night. I also read on tribe about open studios in a near suburb; I'd like to see what the artists are going here. I'm not sure what I will make it to, however.

Enjoying being in Paris is difficult because I am so knackered from my studies (and there is homework nearly every night). But yesterday we had a guided walking tour (in French) of some lovely parts of the city (Palais Royal, Jardin du Louvre, St. Germain, Ecole Nat. des Beaux Arts). I bought some flash cards afterwards bc I really need to get serious about my vocabulary.

The teaching philosophy seems to be very organic: we sing songs, we have exercizes and attempt conversation. However, I am approaching it rigorously; I have 3 books in front of me at all times (dictionary, book of verbs, and phrase book) and refer to them constantly. I give the teacher a wink bc I know she doesn't want me to be using them, but instead to be listening to her and learning organically. At least maybe she believes I'm highly motivated.

There's one guy in the class and at one point I asked him why he decided to learn French now. He said that it was always his worst subject in school and he wanted to figure out why. Me too! I can't understand why I am so naturally bad at this! But here I am....

I had an incredibly beautiful weekend in Switzerland (it looks like a green Kings Canyon without all the trees and with European villages!), but you will hear about that in another entry.

[not at] Burning Man

Obviously, I wasn't there this year, but here are the picture's Cecile (my campmate from last year) took of 2004's Camp Hootchie (or whatever they called it this year). I am looking forward to being there with all the hootchies next year.
delorme.cecile.free.fr/

I also always enjoy the sfgate photos:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2004/09/02/burningman2004.DTL&type=gallerypage

[London] A few more words

The pound seems to buy you about as much as the dollar. But for some reason it is worth twice as much.

I went for a walk after blogging most of the day. The sun began to set and the sky turned warm and sharp. The buildings and leaves came alive with color. It was both startling and familiar, and I realized that I have seen it before in English landscape paintings. The English sky is something altogether different.

I walked across Hampstead Heath. It isn't a normal park -- the swaths of lawn are so huge they dwarf the people who enjoy it. Life changes scale, and I become disoriented and awed.

Simon (Natasha's, the 22 year old's, boyfriend) recommended I go to Hampstead High Street for its cute shops and pleasant atmosphere. There I found 2 GAP stores, a Body Shop, Crab Tree and Evelynn, Monsoon, a bookstore chain I recognised from Norwich, a French Connection, etc. Maybe 10% of stores did not have names I recognised.

London has good pedestrian and bicycle wayfinding signage. The bicycle facilities are OK -- better than in the US but not as good as Germany. There are lots of cyclists, but unlike on the continent, they are all wearing helmets and reflective jackets.

Music is everywhere. The boys at the next table are discussing it. It pours from houses and cars. It's no wonder this is the birthplace of The Beattles....

This business about the cars driving on the opposite side of the road has been a very difficult transition. I think it indicates that my brain is getting old and less agile. It didn't confuse me when I was here 10 years ago (of course I was coming from a year of travel at the time).

I often have dreams where I can fly, but only when I am running away from something scary that's chasing me. Well, in Mallorca, I had a break through: I chose to run away in order to fly because it was fun, and it turned out that what I was running from was just some people trying to spray me with water. I made it to "base" safely and won either a vacation bungalow or a lifetime supply of toilet paper (housed in a tower), I am not sure which.

London/Norwich: catching up

Katriona lives in west Kensington, and I stayed with her for 2 nights before I went to Norwich. She met my mother and John in New Zealand, and I also stayed in her apartment in Rome a few years ago. She has a UK passport, but she grew up in Italy and went to grad school in Paris. In addition to her husband Oly (who is American and was in the states when I visited), she lives with 2 film makers, Alex (from Mexico) and Nick (from Italy). Katriona has written books (in Italian) on meditation, the psychological meaning of masks and performance, and what sounds like a kind of a Joseph Cambell type of thing about archtypes and psychology (what her degree is in).

We went to see My Architect (for her second time) the first night. (she is thinking about making a similar film about her Grandfather who was a famous Swedish doctor.) I didn't care much for the guy's architecture (except the building in medical research center in SoCal and the one in Bangladesh), but the son's effort to get to know his dead father was deeply moving. And it also made me uncomfortable. Maybe this is my own issue, but I didn't think this father, who was really not a very nice person (he had 3 families simultaniously, never publically acknowledged the filmmaker as his son or married the mother, and only very occasionally made time for any of them bc he was always working), deserved for his son to dedicate years of his life and make a film about him. I felt like the son gave more than his father deserved.

But upon further reflection, maybe the film (which has received critical acclaim, giving the son a name in the industry) is actually something that the dead father has given back to his son. Maybe we don't do things for each other. Maybe we do everything for ourselves, and in the end, we are the only ones who benefit or suffer for it.

I had one free day in London that time, and Alex created the itinerary. I walked along the south side of the Thames between Westminster and Tower Bridge, stopping off here and there, but mostly at the Tate Modern. Performance artists in crazy costumes stand still along the walkway until someone gives them money. This is common throughout the western world actually, but never have I seen them in such high concentrations and in such crazy costumes.

Katriona kindly offered to drive me, pick up my mother at Stanstead Airport, and take us both to Norwich. Crossing London was absolute gridlock -- it took hours -- this was not in the congestion pricing zone. There was also a lot of traffic around Cambridge. Once we arrived in Norwich, we toured the cathedral before it closed and then had some beer at the oldest pub in Norfolk, the Adam and Eve. Flowers poured out of the every available receptical. Maureen met us there.

I've already told you about NVC, which was how we spent that weekend. I only want to add that the class included lots of interesting characters.

My mother and I spent the rest of the week at Maureen's place outside Norwich (drinking all of her wine and trying to make a dent in the food in her freezer). She lives with her 18 year old son, Robert, and her 94-year-old maiden aunt, Bebe. There is a rail-to-trail pathway nearby which we took almost every day. My mother wakes up early, but strangly she seems to need to go back to bed around 9, which meant that we never got out of the house before noon. I noticed this when I visited them in La Vienne as well.

We biked to nearby towns to see churches and town squares, Blickling Hall (where Anne Bolynn was born), Norwich, etc. These trips usually involved a stop at a local pub for some excellent beer. We also took a day trip to Cambridge, where we did not make it through all the main sites, but we did have some excellent fish and chips.

I am sure I have a lot more to say about this, but I am all blogged out at the moment. Thanks for listening.

[London] Lovely. Cheers.

It's my last day in London, so I figured I would squander it catching up on the blog. Maybe not the best use of my time, but the best use of it I can think of for now.

I'm here at Kirsty's, Wendy's neice and Elizabeth's cousin, in north London... I think they said it was called Highgate, but I know it is near Hampstead Heath, in case that means anything to you. They just returned from the summer in Greece where they run a restaurant during the high season. They have 3 children (approx ages: 22, 14, and 10?) and usually also let a room out to a foreign student, but for now I am in that room.

Yesterday I went to Bedzed, a zero energy development in south London. Their website doesn't provide much information on their location, which kind of freaked me out -- I wondered if it was even in London. But getting there was actually a breeze. I took the tube to Victoria and then a regional train for about 15 minutes. It's in zone 4 of the public transportation system (I am staying in zone 2, just outside the center). I bought a day pass for 4.40 GBP, only a few pence
more than a day pass for only zones 1 and 2, which makes me think that, if the housing prices decline as you get further from the center, London's public transportation system is creating a perverse incentive to locate further out, ie encouraging sprawl.

This is consistent with my observations about much of England. Maureen (Norwich) and Nick & Morag (near Stanstead Airport) both live deep in the suburbs in completely auto-oriented locations (unless you bike, but they wouldn't consider it, at least, Maureen thought my mother and I were crazy to bike into central Norwich, 6 miles away). Even my London friends all still have cars, but Katriona says she might start leaving hers in Italy bc she lives very close to the center and the congestion charge can be hard to avoid. She said since they implemented the congestion charge, she doesn't even consider driving around town anymore, even at night when the congestion charge is not in effect.

At the station, the attendant knew exactly where Bedzed is (I asked using the wrong name at first, not realizing that everyone calls this place Bedzed). A couple blocks later, the postman (not the usual one for this area) also knew where it was based on my description (he didn't know the name). Bedzed involves a series of buildings with yards and roof decks, plants grow on the roof area. They are highly insulated and the rooms are small for more efficient heating. The south side of each building is comprised of windows to provide heat and light to the units. Obviously, the units are attached, but they have separate roofs. They are equipt with low energy use appliances, shower heads, etc. Much of the building material is reclaimed.

The marketing literature claims that Bedzed is a pedestrian-oriented development, but I found the environment overwhelmed with roads and parking spaces. There were a number of outlets for eletric cars, but none of them were in use and some had been vandalized. I read that there is a carshare pod at Bedzed, but I didn't see it (hopefully bc the carshare cars were in use).

All of the units appear to be occupied, but a few were for sale. The neighborhood has a central park area with benches made of reclaimed wood. I sat on one and ate my lunch, and it got my butt wet. There are live-work units and a few storefronts with offices in them (mostly sustainable development companies involved in the construction of this one). A childcare center is at one end, but I didn't see any activity there. Maybe it was nap time or they haven't started taking students yet. There is a "clubhouse", and I saw flyers for a Friday evening BYOB happy hour. I also saw flyers for book clubs and cooking classes. The game field was wet and therefor closed (fenced off!). I am not sure who is responsible but there is definitely a lot of effort put into building community here. I toured the area before entering the office, taking lots of pictures, only to learn when I entered the office that they ask people not to do that in order to respect the privacy of the residents. Oops! A resident also yelled at me for entering someone's roof garden (oops twice), but I thought this boded well for their community engagement. Jane Jacobs would be pleased.

I did not see a corner store in the immediate vicinity. However there were a few small businesses on the short hike in from the train station. The project provides delivery of organic veggies from a local farm to residents who choose to subscribe to this service, but I wonder if there is a good place to get other food stuffs. I was disappointed by the lack of connectivity between the development and adjacent neighborhoods -- there was a small path leading in from the main road towards the train station, but a fence between Bedzed and the neighborhoods on the other 3 sides and the childcare center yard blocked access to the main road at the other end, so if you were going to/coming from that way you have to take the main road.

I saw Bedzed at midday on a Monday (they told me they do tours on Wednesday and Thursday) and I saw 2 large groups (one from France) and a number of other random visitors meandering around. Odd that this development has attracted so much attention while the rest of the English are driving all around for no apparent reason and not sorting their trash (Bedzed has 4 different bins).

Afterwards I went to the Tate and breezed through their perminant exhibit. We had dinner last night at Linda (Kirsty's mother) and David's.

My plan on Sunday was to see the National Gallery and the British Museum. Silly me -- in 4 hours I made it from 1500 to 1600 in the National Gallery (about 2/5 of the museum). Most of the work was Italian but a few were German or Dutch. The reading materials mentioned that the people in the Italian pieces conform with their ideal of beauty at the time. I concur; the people in the Italian paintings were much better looking than the Dutch and German. That's my deep thought for Sunday.

Afterwards I went to the Transportation Museum shop and bought one of everything.
Sunday night Kirsty had her family over for dinner. I spent most of the evening talking with her Communist Astrologer grandmother Ruth (Linda and Wendy's mom). She moved to England from Hollywood because her husband was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. We spoke mostly about her writing and how easy she finds dialog to write. She was shocked that I had been biking on Friday because I could have been killed given the alignment of the stars. She said I will be moving house
in the next year (my and Kirsty's interpretation: or just spending 6 months abroad), and I should have had a love affair in the past year.
"I haven't met anyone like you in a while." Ruth told me.
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean.... You must be upper class." It was very sweet, but I had to laugh.

I woke up Saturday morning in Norwich. We stopped off at Nick and Morag's (the people I stayed with one night on my way to Berlin in July) on the way to Stanstead Airport where my mother and Maureen flew to Pisa for a vacation and I took the train (very fast and efficient) to London. The airport is expanding, and the residents are up in arms about all the sprawl in the community as a result. The town of Stanstead is actually incredibly cute. Nick and Morag used to drive to London for work, but now they both work in Cambridge which is a little closer and doesn't have congestion pricing.

Both at Maureen's and Nick and Morag's you have to drive on roads that have only one lane shared by cars going in both directions to get there. My New Deal American roadway expectations were shocked! That would never go over the our traffic engineers.

London is huge, and it seems quite spread out. The place is lousy with parks, which is nice but also makes me feel like things are even more spread out. Everyone I have met complains bitterly about the public transportation system, but I have
never waited for more than 5 minutes for a subway, bus or tram. Even when I have to transfer multiple times, it has never taken more than 30 minutes to get anywhere. I asked Harry, the 14 year old, to explain why the public transportation system is so bad, and he said the bus never comes and when it does there are 3 of them (sound familar, San Franciscans?). While this may be true, it has not been my experience. I can't help but wonder how often these people use public transit anymore. Maybe it has improved since they last used it, but its bad reputation persists.

It's great to talk with native speakers again. I don't worry that they understand the layers of what I am saying or if I am using a word that is too obscure. However, we are also divided by our common language. It took quite some time to ask for dish soap, for example. Not sure what they call it or why my name for it would have been confusing. "Cheers" is another oddity; why do people keep saying it when they don't have a drink in their hand? (It seems to mean something like "Thanks", but its very confusing. Maybe it actually means you have ink on your face. I wish I knew.) "Lovely" is another: they say it all the time. I figure the appropriate reply to "lovely" is "lovely", but half the time I try to say it it comes out "I love you" (always inappropriately).

[Norwich]Nonviolent Communication (NVC)

I must admit, when my mother asked me to come with her to this workshop and I agreed (in my usual way – “let me think about it…. OK, I guess,” which is code for “yes”), I didn’t have any idea what I was getting myself into. I think I imagined something slightly more global. Of course, NVC has been used in Israel, North Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, but in practice it is something you do everyday. “Let us become the change we seek in the world.” (Mahatma Gandhi) The personal is, after all, the political. But I experienced a certain initial fear when I walked in the room Saturday morning that the workshop would require we bear all (and in front of my mother!) in order to learn this skill.

To live an ethical life I must bike, walk and ride public transportation to get around, sort my trash into compost and recycling (yes, this has been a struggle), do my shopping at small locally-owned businesses, buy organic, etc., but it hadn’t really occurred to me until now that they way I communicated with my friends and family might in impact, as the proverbial butterfly flaps its wings (sure, I can be a butterfly in my own metaphor, it doesn’t mean I am flighty), the possibility for world peace.

Nonviolent Communication entails “learning a new language” to connect with people from the heart. It involves the following components: observation (without evaluation), feelings, needs, and request (not demand). The premise is that universal human needs (food, fun, fairness, etc.) are never in conflict, but strategies for meeting those needs can be. The most basic human need is to “contribute to life.” Feelings happen in response to needs being met or not met. Another critical component is empathy, because it takes a lot of practice to effectively identify ones own feelings and needs, sometimes people need help. The program includes a comprehensive list of feelings and needs for you to choose among. Feelings are your own, not reflective (used, misunderstood, abandoned) of anything outside yourself; they should also be feelings that are life connecting (hurt, upset, scared) and not disconnected from life (anger, guilt, shame, depression). So, a NVC statement might be “I feel _____ because I need _____. Would you be willing to ____ to help meet that need?” Once feelings and needs are processed on both sides, it becomes time to discuss requests or solutions to meeting those needs.

Once these observations, feelings and needs are expressed and heard, it is only a matter of identifying a strategy to meet those needs that works for all involved. As Marshall Rosenberg (the author of NVC) says “Please only do what I have requested if you can do so with the joy of little children feeding hungry ducks. Please do not do as I have requested if there is the slightest bit of fear, resentment, guilt or shame motivating you – that would be too costly to us both.” But more importantly, do not get too fixated on one solution to meeting your needs, because another one might be acceptable to the others involved.

In practice, people express themselves in four ways based on the combination of head/heart, inward/outward. They call head and heart the jackal and the giraffe. Yes, it is a bit silly, but it can act as a nice code. For example, when I say to my mother “you look like a duck; how cute you are,” and she responds with “why do you always have to be so critical of me,” I believe that I am creatively admiring her, but she is hearing my statement with jackal outward ears. Yes, it is a strange example, but it keeps coming up with her. All four ways of thinking have a role, but you have to move through the heart (giraffe) in order to connect with other people.

That pretty much describes it. Here are a few other notes I took at the workshop:
• “You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.”
• Imaginings can trigger feelings – be sure you are responding to something real.
• People can only hear 40 words at a time. When you bring up an issue, use fewer than 40 words before you ask for their response. If you aren’t done yet, continue only after you have received feedback.
• Observations are most effectively expressed in the present tense. Do not talk about how you felt about what happened yesterday, talk about how you feel about it today.

Requests should be:
• Concise
• Specific
• Realistic/doable
• Not a demand, you must be able to accept if the person says no
• In positive language; it is much harder to NOT do something than to do it
• Linked to your need
• Remember: your request is a gift. It can make a person very happy to be able to fulfill your need.

NVC says that people are only really saying 2 things: please and thank you. They just don’t always have the right vocabulary to say it. Everyone just wants you to see how beautiful they are (there is a song). Expressing met needs it just as important as expressing unmet needs. It is called gratitude. On the other hand, positive judgments can be just as damaging as negative ones.

www.cnvc.org

Normally, I would wait to post this, but Alison says she can’t wait for my next entry, and I want to meet her need for fun and connection. She says there is a heat wave in the SF, and I am jealous since today in Norwich was rather cold and overcast. Anyway, more soon….

Mallorca etc.

Tha landscape of Mallorca looks just like southern California. The rocks are scraggly and gray, the earth ranges from warm beige to red, depending on your location. The buildings mirror the earth in color. The land is dry. Their main agricultural product is almonds, and they have wonderful almond deserts as a result, but they also have an abundance of citrus, olive, and pine trees. Now, of course, the main product is tourism.

The Bousseau/Colon house is in Soller, on the north side of the island in the mountains. Like the main city, Palma, Soller is a tradition European city with a pedestrianized (mostly car-free) center. Truly lovely. The Cathedral and a bank along the main square were both designed after Gaudi.

Our days followed a certain pattern with some exceptions. After a light breakfast, we would walk around the town or something. Lunch was long and involved wine. Then we took a siesta until about 5, at which time we headed to the harbor for a swim until 8 when we returned to the house for dinner. The girls (including myself) walked to the port for the swim and took the tram back while the others would drive in a full car. Not a bad life really.

The whole group included Mido and Jean Pierre and their daughter Juliette, her friend Muriel, Mido’s mother, and Juliette’s sister’s 2 children, Axel (4) and Annabelle (2). When I first arrived everyone was sitting down for lunch, but Axel jumped up and threw himself into my arms (I had never met him before). Juliette warned me, “He’s very sticky” by which she meant that he sticks to you, not that he is covered in juice.

Axel became my best French teacher, although it was a little frustrating because he doesn’t yet read. He liked to torcher ants, snuggle, and he is a wiz with puzzles (up to 200 pieces). I read him French story books, and he corrected my pronunciation.

The house is in a citrus grove next to the main road near the town center. There is a train that connects Soller to Palma a few times a day. There is also a tunnel that just openned up about 5 years ago (4 euro for a car to pass through) which shortens the drive from 1 hour to about 10 minutes. As a result, Soller has remained relatively unspoiled by the tourism that has invaded the rest of the island(s).

Fortunately, we were there for the festival of devils (not sure what it is actually called) that happens every year in Soller, where people dress up as devils and run around holding fire works over their heads while others, soaking wet and wearing headscarves, run around beneath the fire. It was really something, and I took some good pictures of it.

We took several excellent hikes through the scrabbly mountain sides, up stairs and paths over to the sea. Except for in the port, the water is incredibly clear and beautiful, and much of the coastline comprised of volcanic rocks. Twice we went to very nice restaurants for elaborate meals which I can’t describe because a different wine came with every course. I know it was good, however.

Part of Mido’s family is actually from Soller. I think it was her great grandfather who used to take the bank deposits from Soller to Palma on foot with a donkey 3 times a week (about 25 km each way) by himself. The port is now lined with European-style shops with apartments above them, but they have pictures from when the only building there was the military base (now closed) and it was just a sandy cove.

I ended up staying 2 days longer than the rest, except JP who was staying to paint the interior of the house. He took great care to show me around, and did not only speak French to me as he had threatened.

Nicely tanned but covered with more than 25 mosquito bites, I’ve been in Paris for about 36 hours and I am headed to London in a few hours (for no apparent reason at this point). Yesterday I visited 4 French language schools and selected one to attend when I return mid-month. Considering the final break up with Kevin, all these new and beautiful things, and so many decisions to be made all the time, my mood swings between despare and elation. I am very pleased to learn that Jane and Calla had their baby girl, Lulu, a few days ago. There is a little more light in the world.

Ladies beware, it turns out Kevin not only hacked my blog to tell all my friends what an evil person I am (which hopefully I deleted before any of you saw it), he has also been reading my email (I changed the password, so it should be OK now). He chose to interpret what he read a certain way, and that determined our destiny (hence believing that I broke up with him when in fact I was very passive in the matter, maybe I should have let one of the 4 other breakups stick a long time ago). I just kept hoping this would turn into something that felt like an adult relationship, and look what I got. In truth, I can only blame myself for participating. Anyway, I mention this in case any of you noticed anything strange in my email over the past month -- that would be the reason.

All trains are going to Paris

First, I will need to get used to this French keyboard. That said, we have a lot to catch up on....

It took no fewer than 7 different transportation modes, and many hours, to return the short distance from Mallorca to Paris:
• Jean Pierre (father Bousseau) drove me to the airport
• 2 planes (change in Zurich, tho that doesn’t really make sense)
• bus from the departure area to the RER
• 2 RER trains
• walk from Nation in order to avoid having to take the Metro too
• TOTAL: 7
Why do I keep arranging this kind of travel for myself? (I know you are already crying with boredom, or you have skipped this part to a hopefully more interesting part that I am going to write. Hopefully, I will write something interesting tonight....) Yes, I paid too much for my ticket and both planes were late, but more importantly the RER did not come to Roissy for one hour. No RER train came for one hour. (OK, I feel better now. I have some rosé to help too.)

“All trains are going to Paris” that’s what it said on the RER platform. It reminds me of the BART train announcers who say “This train is destined for Daly City”. As if a train has a destiny. Maybe they do. Maybe we, all of us, are trains in different systems, passing each other at various speeds and times of day (night?) towards the station of our “destiny”, um, I mean, destination. ...Has it been too long since I had a real conversation? If so, I am getting very high maintence because Jean Pierre and I had a lovely time this morning at the beach, etc.

I finished reading Brick Lane (by Monica Ali) yesterday, and I must say, I was impressed. It’s a new favorite. (I will need to change my tribe.net profile.) In some way, this book is so deep and wide and clear (yes, like a river or maybe more like an ocean) that is seems to encompass everything, to address every love and fear and conflict, personal and global, everywhere. I have always wanted to write (and, for that matter, read) a book like that.

When I took my first City Planning class, in 1996 (Intro to City Planning, CP100 summer session at Berkeley), I could see that our TA (Asha) felt this way about planning. She was not yet discouraged by the NIMBYs, and the car-addicts, and people that feel they need a backyard for status or something even if they never use or maintain it. I was already discouraged by these things, but it was clear that Asha was too in love with the field to see them, or maybe she just didn’t care (like a lover who’s put on a few kilos?). She’d talk about what planning was and could be (in general) and get starry eyed, eyes uplifted. Was I supposed to ever feel like that about my profession? Or about anything/one? (This is actually something I am working on!)

Oh, I never gave you a clue about the transition... The book is about a young Bangladeshi woman who comes to London for an arranged marriage, always leaving everything to “fate” like her mother taught her she should, and eventually learns to take control of her life to the backdrop of anti-Moslem sentiments in response to Sept 11. Having wrestled with the idea of fate throughout my life, I love the quotes at the beginning of the book:
“Sternly, remorselessly, fate guides each of us; only at the beginning, when we are absorbed in details, in sorts of nonsense, in ourselves, are we unaware of its harsh hand.” -Ivan Turgenev
“A man’s character is his fate.” –Heraclitus; or Personality is fate.

I have a couple other favorite quotes from the book that are actually by the author to share with you:
“’Anything is possible so everything I wanted was possible,’ Chanu went on. ‘But what about all the other possibilities? The ones we never see when we are young, but are there all along. One day you wake up and say to yourself, I didn’t choose this. And then you spend a long time thinking, but I did?’” (pg. 374) Chanu (the husband), while brilliantly created, is not a character I particularly connected with, but these words, in a way, continue my conversation (with myself) from Le Divorce. What do we choose? What don’t we? What about all the other things? Do we really know what we are choosing (good and bad)? ...When I went to grad school I felt overwhelming uncertainly, but I also knew that doing something is better than being paralysed by my own potential and doing nothing at all. I still don’t know if I went for the right thing, but I am grateful (to my former self?) that I went.

Maybe this is not such a great quote, but it moved me deeply:
“’What is all this Big Man?’ She whispered in his ear. Sadness crushed her chest. It pressed everything out of her and filled the hollows of her bones. ‘What is all this Strong Man? Do you think that is why I love you? Is that what there is in you to be loved?” (pg; 477-8) Even typing it now, my eyes fill with tears. This is a driving force in the book and in my reality as well (balanced with the need to be understood and the need to be oneself, whatever that is.) If loved is what we want, why do we spend so much time alone trying to make ourselves lovable in artificial ways (Big, Strong, independant, smart, whatever)? Maybe outside the book, Chanu is my favorite character... as long as I don’t have to spend too much time with him.

All that having been said, I have still told you almost nothing about Mallorca. Hopefully, I will do it tomorrow.

[La Vienne] Le Divorce

Le Divorce (by Diane Johnson) is a nice middle-brow book about Californians in Paris. I wonder if we can trust its generalizations of both Californians and the French. With the exception of character, they might be sound. I like the book’s layers of concerns from the personal to the international. While the ending is a bit facile, it is happy. You’ve heard me say it many times: I prefer a happy ending (to a deep one?).

Here are my favorite lines from the novel:
“I was coming across Place de la Concorde on the 24 bus, at dusk just when the lanterns went on, and flakes of snow drifted down in this pinkish gray half-light, and it was so beautiful, tears sprang to my eyes. Then I realized they weren’t tears of beauty, they were just tears. It was I who was sad, just under the surface, where the sight of something fragile like a snowflake seemed unbearably to predict its loss." (Diane Johnson, Le Divorce, pg 180-181)

I have written about the moment before, it must have been February or March of 1998, 6 or 8 months after Grayson moved out, when we were walking together in Golden Gate Park and the double cherry blossoms were out in full, extravagant, cream-puff force. The trees looked like light pink cotton candy with tiny petals falling away in the pleasant spring breeze like snow. Their beauty made me short of breath, and then I felt overwhelming disapproval of them. Who did they think they were, looking like that public? What kind of a crazy world has trees that look like pink meringue in the spring when children are starving and hearts breaking everywhere? Someday, I hope to be able to see beauty like that without reacting in some shade of despair.

I have started reading Brick Lane, by Monica Ali, from my mother’s shelves. Coincidentally, I found similar sentiments on page 37: (the main character, Nazneen, is seeing figure skating on TV for the first time "Her (the figure skater’s) chest pumped up and down as if her heart would shoot out and she smiled pure, gold joy. She must be terrified, thought Nazneen, because such things cannot he held, and must be lost.”

Johnson quotes Proust (The Past Recaptured) later in the book: “But whoever it is who has thus determined the course of our life has, in doing so, excluded all the other lives we might have led instead of our actual life.” Years ago, I wrote a poem about this idea, likening it to the place in China where they have unearthed a life-sized, stone-carved army. Each solder is unique, like all the other lives we might have lead, people we might have loved or been.

Today my mother and I took a canoe down the river. Very beautiful. This evening I take the train to Paris for my flight tomorrow morning to Mallorca. I do not expect to have internet access while I am there.

[La Vienne]Tubingen part 2

Tubingen…. We left our heroes having seen, taken photos, and discussed the 2 significant new urban reuse projects on the south end of the city. They had had a good, if tipsy, lunch. They had found hidden, unofficial, living places where the residents had created an organic community. This left them with two final goals to their day’s adventure:
1) To drink some water (you will recall that it was quite hot) and
2) To explore that city center.

On our way towards the city center we passed a huge supermarket and sought drinking water inside. It had multiple floors that were connected not by elevators or escalators, but by long, moving ramps so that shoppers could take their cart from floor to floor in great masses. The guys were going to get just one water, but I insisted on a second, which Bertrand ended up hogging :-). We continued our trek towards the center (not far, and on the way back to the parking garage where we left the car). However, it required the use of several pedestrian overpasses above major roadways (implying that cars are more important than people).

I don’t know why Tubingen is not a major tourist destination. Maybe it is better as another hidden treasure. The historic center is lovely. People road boats along the river lined with beautiful, densely-packed buildings. Alongside one part of the river is a pedestrian walkway and another has a beer garden. The riverbank, the city, has a steep incline, and the transportation network in this area includes a number of small pedestrian paths with stairways between roads that could squeeze in a car. The town square, also on a bit of a slope a block or two to the river, is like other town squares I have seen in Europe, as pretty as the prettiest. Of course, the bridges over the river are old and stone, and because this is Germany, lined with flower boxes. In fact, flowers are everywhere.

We made a small loop through the center, and then settled down at the beer garden since we had about an hour before having to leave in time to get back to Strasbourg so that our architect and landscape architect could get their last train back to Colmar. More beer… I think I made a record for myself, but actually probably not. (Of course, Bertrand, the driver, had lemonade.)

I forgot to mention that we passed through the birthplace of the Statue of Liberty on our way to les Vosges the previous day. They have a small version of her on the main traffic circle as you pass through town. My companions that day were excited for me to see her there. Have you noticed that she has kind of a stern expression?

It has been raining off and on all day, and now my mother and I are hoping it will stay clear long enough for us to take a short bike ride to a nearby town. Our angel of a neighbor gave us a colorful bouquet from her garden. (My mother wondered if we ask to have tomatoes instead, but I advised against it.) The roads here are lined with hollyhocks.

I think that brings me almost up to date. I finished reading Le Divorce last night. But, I will discuss it in another blog.

[La Vienne] News

We had a lovely day today, despite 30 minutes of hail in the afternoon. Mom and I biked to a nearby town (John met us with the car; he has been very sick) and had a lovely lunch of salad, quail and mushrooms, some orange potato thing, (we refused the obligatory cheese) chocolate desert, wine and coffee. The roads over were long and straight with a fierce headwind. Cows, corn, sunflowers (dead), and grass fields defined the roads boundaries. The landscape here is rather flat in a sort of rolling hill type of way. I road back alone because 1) I try not to get in a car every day even in rural France, 2) my mother was too tired to ride any more (dizzy, made me a bit scared), and 3) the road was the hypotenuse, shorter and straighter than the way we came.

I am going to Mallorca on Monday for a week to see Juliette and the rest of the Bousseau family. The change of scenery will do me good. I don't think La Vienne has long term potential for me -- not enough going on. Or maybe I haven't sought it out enough.

For those of you keeping track, Kevin has broken up with me again, and I am not going to fight it this time.

When I left my job, I told my boss my parents needed help with their business in here. If anyone is interested, I have been working my ass of (tho it is not worth describing in these blogs). I was telling the truth (even if it was only true for a short period of time).

I have been trying to find a French language school in Paris. This has also taken up a good bit of my time.

One more short blog on Tubingen to go....

[La Vienne]Tubingen part 1

This morning (now yesterday) I woke up to another huge storm. The sky was so black it took me a long time to realize it was actually morning. Once again, the laundry was outside, but fortunately my mother had brought some of it in before it started raining very hard. Now it seems to have cleared up a little, and later it will probably be beautiful.

My mother wants to have a party tonight. I completely can’t understand this because the house is a mess and John has been sick in bed all day. Tomorrow we had planned to head to Brittany, but there are still so many things up in the air including our motivation. For one thing, my French sister, Juliette, is insisting that I come to Mallorca with her and another of her girlfriends as sort of a girls-get-away. So, I am considering that, and looking to the transportation options (ferry? flight? From where and when?). But the bottom line is that we don’t know what we are doing.

More than a week ago, Bertrand, 2 of his former coworkers (an architect and a landscape architect whose names I don’t think I ever caught), and myself went to Tubingen to see their sustainable developments. Like in Freiburg, they are former military barracks (formerly one of the largest in Germany). Like in Freiburg, it is a university town (the university was founded in 1477). This area was separated from the rest of the city by a highway, but includes basic infrastructure needed for an independent city. When the military closed their base here in 1991, the city used it as an opportunity to create an urban, small-parceled, mixed-use community.

The parcels are of various sizes, and a group who form a co-op purchases each one. An advantage to the various sizes is that they can accommodate groups with various levels of resources, thus creating a mixed-income neighborhood. The units cost about 2,000 euros per square meter inclusive and the land costs 500 euros per square meter. Public housing (or social housing, as they seem to call it) is designated for the center of this linear development, but has not yet been developed. In fact, the development process is design to create a community that includes families, seniors, non-German citizens, people with mental and physical disabilities, students and other groups. A different architect designing each building creates a diverse texture. Zone code includes a basic skeleton (height and bulk minimums and maximums, general outline, etc.). Between the buildings is a pedestrianized center designed through a community-involvement process. In fact, the entire planning process is designed to be “transparent”.

The city dedicated 15 million euros, generated by the sale of lots (they purchased the land from the military, repackaged and planned it, and the sold it to the individual co-ops), to community services including kindergartens, day-care facilities, other schools and community facilities. One of the zoning requirements is ground floor retail; however, they haven’t had much luck sustaining them. I noticed that many businesses here are architects, designers, printers and the like, whereas I think what the planners really had in mind was services for the community. Compared with other parts of Tubingen, the development is high-density, thus shortening distances to community needs.

We saw lots of children playing in the common areas. The neighborhood’s material states that the common space is designed first as “communicative spaces” and only secondly as part of the traffic network. Cars are not permitted in these areas.

Our tour began with a meeting with a city employee who works on the development. She very generously spent about an hour explaining it all to us (in German, which Bertrand then very generously translated in to French AND English. By the end of the interview, I was embarrassed by my limited language skills and acceptance of Bertrand’s generous translations.)

I know you are dying to hear more about the parking facilities. As I understand it, they are of the sophisticated stacking variety provided at one space per unit but are rarely used (65 euros/month; they think this is expensive). Residents have actually gotten stuck inside them, unable to get out. So far, the community doesn’t like them and prefers to park illegally in adjacent neighborhoods. Bertrand asked about car sharing, but apparently there hasn’t been much interest in it here.

Also, their utilities… all buildings are required to be on the heating grid unless they use some other variety of renewable/sustainable energy sources like solar.

We wandered about this neighborhood for several hours (getting over-heated and working up an appetite). Most buildings had balconies, the common areas young trees and play areas and “learning” facilities. Some of the more beautiful buildings flowed over with greens: flowers, vines, small trees. Historic buildings were tastefully and practically restored, contributing nicely to the variety of urban texture.

Our local gov’t friend recommended a nearby café, where we finally went to lunch near the end of the designed lunch period (lunch ends at 2 PM in Europe). It was a lovely beer garden, and we sat under and old tree at a picnic table. I believe it was our architect who started it, but by the end of the lunch, we had all consumed a liter of beer in addition to our food. The beer was good, the food OK.

After lunch, we walked over to another, older neighborhood of the same type. These buildings were more settled into the ground, painted lively colors, with grown trees, vines, shrubs and vegetable gardens. Again, many children played in the street. A couple dozen people waited for the bus, and as soon as I took a picture of them, the bus came and picked them up. (You can imagine my concern that maybe the transit system isn’t reliable.) The neighborhood included a huge old shelter for storing tanks, now for children to play ball (probably particularly useful in the rain but also on sunny days like this one). There was a certain odd flavor to me, maybe it is Germany, of the changing uses of this space. Let me know if you think of a better way to articulate this….

Behind the older development is another “squat” of mobile homes. I think we all agreed that it was incredibly beautiful on this perfect afternoon. The organic, humble-jumble, unplanned community of mobile homes seemed to work harmoniously together in a sort of half-agricultural (we saw farm animals, but I don’t think everyone who lives there has one), half-derelict kind of way. Maybe this is a modern version of our thousand-year-old European villages.

A special moment for all of us was, I think, when we put our heads under this fountain in one of the central courtyards. You will see the pictures, but I will tell you now that it felt pretty good.

[La Vienne]Three things that stink

I am cursed with a very sensitive sense of smell. It makes me unhappy when I shouldn’t be and is probably associated with my allergies. The house in St. Pierre smells bad for three reasons that I can surmise:

1) Cars
Cars stink. You know it. I know it. It doesn’t matter if they are old or new. They stink. The problem with being in the country is that there is no way of getting around (I don’t mean to the bakery, which is, of course, walking distance; I mean to see your friends, go to nearby towns, the doctor except on Monday morning) without internal combustion. Sure, some cars smell worse than others. But all cars stink, and they should be widely restricted.

2) Sewage
You are going to think that I am making this up, but raw sewage is running out the drain in front of the house. Usually it is just liquid and remnance of toilet paper, but sometimes human shit comes out. I kid you not. Our neighbors, a very cute older couple with whom we communicate in broken French, have called the Mayor about it. (My mother is so funny; she thinks the role of the mayor in a village like this is for more important things than raw sewage draining across the road and into the river. It is part of her general notion the important men can’t be bothered with the really important things – not the way she would put it, by the way.) It’s disgusting, and I try to keep the windows in front of the house closed, but I can smell it in the morning in my bedroom if it has been raining.

3) Dogs
I like dogs. I like people who like dogs. But you can always smell the smell of a house that has had dogs in unless the house and dogs are very well cared for (not the case here). Bella and Minou are good dogs, but I don’t think either of them has had a bath in their lives. The house has stone floors, and Bella is not allowed on most of the furniture, but house smells like dog. The corners smell like dog. The kitchen smells like dog. Dog is my copilot.

[La Vienne]Strasbourg and Les Vosges

Last night, we went to the Poiriers’ for dinner. Their home is truly magical – we sat in the garden for the first while enjoying the fading sun on their garden and the adjacent fields. The first course was pesto pasta, and Anne asked if I ever make it. Then she wondered if hers was as good as mine, and I told her it was (my grandmother is Italian). The meal, too, was an amazing work of art. The subject of Little Richard came up, so between dinner and desert we danced our heads off to oldies (from a record called “Roots of Rhythm”; Anne observed what a sorry place the US would be without African-Americans). I don’t know when I have ever danced like that with a group of my parents’ friends. It was super fun.

Yesterday was one of the first days since I have been here with no rain. However, the weather made up for it in the night with an outrageous and violent thunderstorm right over our heads. My bed has a metal frame, and I was careful none of me was touching it during the storm. We woke to the phone not working, but no other serious damage (other than my laundry which was almost dry when I went to sleep last night; darn it!).

Now back to catching up…. Last Saturday in Strasbourg, Bertrand wanted to work. But first, in the morning, we went to the farmers’ market and then a grocery store to get some food. He got some beautiful peaches. It was a natural food store; we discussed the importance of where you spend your money.

As a brief aside, my parents don’t seem to subscribe to this sort of thinking. They claim very progressive politics, and yet prefer to get their food at the European equivalent of Costco (a German store, LIDL, Bertrand says about them: "I never buy anything there, because they deliberately and consistently try to reduce the number of employees at the lowest possible level in order to reduce costs. And
they're proud of it and claim it. I don't trust what they're selling
either, they only care about the price. They just should be banned from
everywhere."). My mother says, “I would rather spend my money on Bali Children’s Project”. I don’t think she realizes that the global implications of her shopping decisions cost her and the Bali Children’s Project, much more than she knows.

After lunch, he had arranged for me to go the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art with his nephew, Gwen, and friends (an American girl named Leila, I think, and another French boy, Sebastian). We were particularly interested in an exhibit of works of a famous French cartoonist, who seemed to mostly draw images with sexual content that were very creative but I couldn’t quite relate to. I did enjoy a video (cartoon, no words) about a small village that is taken over by l’escargot. I stayed to see the remainder of the museum while they went for some food. They had some nice pieces in the modern section, particularly a Delanay (sp? whose work I really like despite the fact that he was a fascist) and some post-impressionists whose names I have forgotten. I couldn’t really relate to the contemporary collection. I met up with the group again in front of the cathedral and we tried to shop (it was the end of the sales) but no luck. They are all art students.

In the evening, Bertrand wanted to see a film. We selected Mystic River (with French subtitles, of course, which, incidentally, sometimes helped me understand what they were saying) because it was playing in the nicer theater with a balcony. I resented the conservative vision of what is a family portrayed in the film: these children murdered this girl ostensibly because they didn’t have a father; their father had been murdered by the father of the girl they murdered for turning him in years before. But, of course, lots of children grow up without fathers and don’t end up murdering people. Otherwise, I would say that it is a really good movie.

Sunday, we (Bertrand, Gwen, Sebastian, and I) got up early to hike Les Vosges (which was particularly difficult since we had been up late talking about the movie and such). Bertrand says that the area to the south is the most beautiful (more diverse topography), so that is where we went. The hike began with a long descent through a lush forest littered with tall purple foxgloves. Bertrand says they are native to the area. He wanted to hike quite a bit further (2 hours?) than we ended up doing, to a lake, but the rest of us revolted. The returning crest was covered with cows eating grass with large bells attached to their necks with leather belts. It was really quite an experience at the top of the mountain, rolling green hills surrounded by low forests, a cool breeze blowing through the humid air, the sun beating down, and the cacophony of 25+ cow bells ringing at irregular rhythms. I would like to go back up there and film it, but I am not certain what the purpose would be. Maybe some kind of post-post-modern music video.

Humidity doesn’t really agree with me (I am a Californian after all), and maybe I’m a bit out of shape. So, I was probably annoyingly slow esp. on the ascents. The hike was exhausting, and one of the best experiences of my trip so far. When we got back home, we had tea and marzipan on the balcony.

I am worried that these blogs are getting a bit disjointed. Meanwhile, I still have one more day to tell you about before being completely caught up. I’ll do it tomorrow. So, I don’t know, this too will pass….

Freiburg part 1

As I mentioned earlier, I took the over night train from Krumlov to Freiburg. I chose Frieburg because several people at the conference recommended it for its progressive environmental policies including good bicycle facilities. What I didn’t know what that Bertrand has been giving tours of the sustainable development there as part of his work. I arrived at 9 AM and took a tour of the city center. I was very nice, but did not vary significantly from the many other nice European cities I have seen over the past few weeks. The only unusual feature is the little streams (about 1 foot wide and a shallow rectangle) that run along the pedestrian pathways presumably for drainage. (You’ll see the pictures if I can ever get to a computer fast enough to upload them.) I stopped for a coffee (on my way to meet Bertrand in front of the train station at noon). While I tried to hide it, it quickly became clear at I am from the US. The man behind the counter didn’t speak English but one of the other customers did. “An American in Freiburg? Are you a student? Why would you come to Freiburg?” I didn’t bother to explain to him just shrugged.

Bertrand and I met at the station without a hitch. Nearby, there is a large bicycle parking structure (several stories) that also includes carsharing, bike-sharing, café and bike shop. There is a pedestrian and bicycle bridge overpass of good quality leading to the garage. Another overpass (over the major train lines) carries many tramlines serving the city. It’s pretty much everything you would need for a multimodal transportation hub.

I had left my bags in a very sophisticated left luggage apparatus, completely automated, where you pay, insert your luggage into the case, and get a ticket when the machine takes it away. Then, you use your same ticket to tell the machine to bring your particular bags back to you. Bertrand pointed out that he had seen similar systems for efficient storage of cars. More on this later (Tubingen).

We had a small adventure trying to find this center for solar research where Bertrand had to drop something off. (It reminded me of a similar adventure with Matt in Bangkok some of my readers may recall.) The office had relocated to a Solar Information Center on the outskirts of town (but Bertrand assured me that they have excellent public transportation despite the existence of parking). Getting into the building was one challenge and the finding the right office was another. After many twists and turns, we did in fact reach the intended individuals, but only after enlisting a lady with a nearby organization and gleaning all she knew about solar energy and her neighboring company (all in German, of course). So, that was fun.

By then we were hungry, and it was getting to the end of mealtime. We drove over to Vauban, the sustainable neighborhood he wanted to show me. There is a little hippy café (Susi) there where they were serving lunch very much like we had at the conference, played loud American music, and the walls were painted with murals (it is Germany afterall). It was noodles and rice and vegetarian curry. For desert we had “banana milk” with little flakes of chocolate unlike anything either of us had ever tried before.

First we looked at a group of new houses. An architect who specializes in buildings with low energy needs designed them. They are long rows of town houses, windows mostly to the south to absorb as much sunlight in winter as they can. Their rooves are covered with solar panels, and Bertrand says they actually produce more energy than they use. Each unit is painted a different bright color and about half are occupied (they are very expensive). So, the remainder of the area is being developed with cheaper, more traditional building structures, unfortunately. Along the main road dividing the neighborhood, they are in the process of developing a large building (the full length of the road through the neighborhood) that will house ground-floor retail, and I think parking above or maybe offices.

On the other side of the main road is a series of old military barracks. Originally, the city had some idea of what to do with them. As I understand it, people were already squatting in them, and told the city, no, this is going to be a sustainable community-planned neighborhood. The city cooperated, and the buildings were converted to co-ops. The residents got to decide what kinds of facilities to invest in (like wheelchair accessibility, an actual example) and how the common space would be designed. In general, they seem to have a lot of playgrounds for children. Throughout Europe, I see a lot of vegetable gardens. (I think American’s have some subconscious idea that if you grow your vegetables it means you can’t afford to buy them.)

[Continued in the next blog bc this internet connection is too slow the post the whole thing at once.]

Freiburg part 2

[Continued from previous post due to slow internet connection.]

Along one side of the neighborhood is a series of people living out of mobile homes along a long drive. They stay for one to three years, says Bertrand, and everyone believes they have a right to be there. To be perfectly honest, I found this strip rather unsightly.

The city is in the process of installing a tramline down the center of the neighborhood, and lots of people ride bicycles (it is Europe after all). There are several community buildings in the neighborhood with bike shops, cafes, childcare centers, and other community facilities.

From my transportation perspective, the most interesting part of the neighborhood was the parking arrangement. The city is concerned about providing sufficient parking, of course. There is no parking in front of the units. Instead, all parking is provided in a centralized parking structure. Residents pay 18,000 euros to buy a space in this garage if they have a car. Every year, the city requires every resident in every unit to sign a document stating if they have a car or not. If they have a car, they are required to buy a parking space in the garage. If they don’t have a car, they still have to pay for their potential future ownership of a car, but only 4,000 euros. The city has invested this money in some additional land at the back end of the neighborhood (near the main railroad tracks and the for-profit development, the worst land) where they may put a parking garage in the future if there is need for one. But for now, it is a park. There is a fire circle and a growing structure made out of trees (willows, I think, placed back into the ground and weaved together to form a dome; it is still filling in).

We saw children playing on most streets (they can, of course, because people don’t drive cars on these streets), bicycles left in front of buildings, and happy people chatting with their neighbors. This, I think, must be Democracy.

Bertrand also showed me the house of the architect who designed the buildings I talked about in the beginning. It is large and round, and rotates towards or away from the sun depending on the season and the temperature of the house. It has solar panels, and is intended to put more power back on the grid than it uses. Again, the house is very expensive to build; so, this is the only one.

I wonder if anyone has analyzed the cost of these energy-efficient houses vs. the on-going energy savings. I guess the real solution would be to compare the energy costs of the energy-efficient houses with the traditionally-constructed ones next to them once they are all inhabited. The only constraint here I can imagine is that the people who choose to live in energy-efficient houses may be more conscientious about their energy use than those who choose the “traditional” homes. Since this is a large purpose of the development, I trust someone else is taking care of this kind of thing. They don’t need non-German-speaking me.

Bertrand had another development he wanted to show me, and then he wanted to get some food or drink in the city center. But, you will recall, I was on the train all night. So, I insisted on being taken home (Bertrand’s home that is). I think Bertrand just generally has more energy than I do.

In any case, he took me back to Strasbourg to his lovely art deco apartment about 5 minutes from the center. I took a shower (really just a hose of warm water over a bath tub) and sat down for about 5 minutes before feeling mostly refreshed. After a light supper of salad (and amazing tomatoes, all from his CSA vegetable box), we walked around the city center. Strasbourg’s center is basically an island. The river forms a complete circle around the historic center. We encountered a light show for tourists along the way (several were going on simulatiously, kind of hokey), but the real highlight was just the city lights dancing off the river’s surface below tall, tightly-knit fairy-tale architecture.

Well, you are going to kill me (actually no, I am going to kill myself, because you don’t have to read all this but I feel obligated to write it), but that is the first of 5 fascinating days with Bertrand. I have a lot of work to do.

A horse of La Vienne

Days here are filled with eating, napping, walking around the village or visiting friends nearby. Today I took a long walk starting down a nearby alley where there is a beautiful black horse. The first few times I met him, he ignored me. I tried to use a coxing tone to bring him near so I could pet his nose, but he refused. I tried again the next day after a few kirs, a soft tone in French (I am able to speak a little French when I drink or, once years ago, after I hit my head falling off a bicycle). This time he responded to being told he is “beau” and “fort”. I was permitted to pet his neck and face. I think once my French is a little better, he may let me pet his nose.

I happened upon a bicycle race (I think my first one). I was amazed at the power and force with which the cyclists flew by making only a whooshing sound. Of course, it is always nice to see strong boys in those outfits. I was impressed.

Last night, my parent’s friends Katriona and Orley dropped in (at about 3 AM) driving between their Tuscan and London houses. This morning the town was all a buzz as it is having a brocante (basically a town-wide flea market that happens once a year in each town). Music played, the merry-go-round went round, and kitsch mugs featuring Joan of Arch are offered for 100 euros. We ate croissant and coffee/tea. Orley does work sort of like mine, and we discussed our various projects and ideas for the future.

But we all have work we should be doing, and sometimes we make a little effort to do it. My next project is to describe my days leading up to arriving here, when I stayed with Bertrand in Strasbourg.

Finally putting down my bags in La Vienne

Well, I just wrote this long beautiful blog and the computer lost it…. Here is my second attempt:

After many wonderful adventures, I have finally arrived in La Vienne, where my mother and John’s house is in the small town of Saint-Pierre-de-Maillé. See pictures of the house at http://www.hidden-worlds.com/text/grange_au_dimes1.html. It is very beautiful, but, as I should have expected, filled with dog hair. I am slowly cleaning it, but only out of absolute necessity. I think my parents just don’t see it anymore….

They have 2 dogs: little dog and big dog. Big dog (Bella) is a native Californian who they brought over for an exorbitant fee, and they found they could not afford to bring back. She is a tall yellow lab mix. Little dog (Minou, means small and cute in French) is a slightly darker shade of sand. She used to live alone in a shack down the road and cry at night out of loneliness disturbing my parents' sleep. Since my mother’s heart permanently belongs to small dogs like little dog (who reminds her of her old dog Trixie), my mother offered to buy little dog. Her owner refused. Some time passed, and my mother decided to take the issue a bit more seriously. She took the dog, informing her owner of this action. The owner had no choice, but he agreed as long as little dog was available to hunt on Sundays at 7 AM every week. So, John regularly delivered little dog for the purpose of hunting anything small enough for her to scare (not much, by the way). And after a while little dog’s former owner stopped requiring her services, and little dog has lived here, in the lap of luxury, ever since.

I encountered another small sand-colored dog at the Poiriers’, where I spent this afternoon with Anne (the mother of my highschool sweetheart). Lilie was purchase shortly after my mother got Bella, because Anne was jealous of my mother and her new puppy. Lilie is a great snuggler, only requiring a little bit of encouragement. (The problem of snuggling with children has long bothered me. I want it. I think they want it. But we have to go through this whole ritual of getting to know each other through play before we can do it. I sometimes feel like am practicing some kind of deceit.)

The last time I visited this part of France, it was to see the Poiriers 12 years ago (although Julien and I had long broken up). Their home was beautiful then, but they have made it into a wonderful and complete work of art. I won’t bore you with a complete description of all the improvements, but I will describe for you a portrait they have of Anne’s great grandmother. She looks, of course, exactly like Anne. She was from French New Orleans, but the portrait displays San Francisco in its background. It is very beautiful, and I wish I had something like that from my family.

So, Anne and I spend the afternoon walking by the river and talking. She calls our last election a fascist coup d'etat. She lent me Le Divorce to read; says it is much better than the movie. For those who are wondering, I asked Bertrand about the misogynist divorce laws portrayed in the movie and he says they are not true (at least anymore). Anne also suggested I read Camus in French to re-start my study of the language.

I finished reading Toujour Provence on the train getting here. It is a pleasant little book about food and dogs. Anne says Peter Mayle now lives on Long Island; an idea I find very disturbing for some reason. I mentioned to Anne that I didn’t like the way Mayle refers to his French neighbors as peasants, and she said that that isn’t derogatory in this country. However, Mayle is English; so, he used the word with full awareness of its meaning to Engish-speaking people. I think it is a problem with direct translation from his conversational French. Similarly, every time I use the word “vibrant” in English to a native French speaker, they comment on its use. However, I think the meaning is clear by context. On the other hand, I wonder about that – if a word is clear by context, why do we bother saying it? In an ideal world of getting to the point, shouldn’t the meaning of every word be a surprise?

Now, my mother and John have gone off to have dinner with someone. I chose to stay at home ostensibly to clean, but really because I have a strong desire to do nothing. After a charming afternoon with Anne, I need to add a little more nothing to the soup of my day. I have many adventures to describe for you, but they will have to wait until another day. Bon Soir.