Quote from Susan B.

"I'll tell you what I think of bicycling. I think it has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world. I rejoice every time I see a woman ride by on a bike. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammelled womanhood."
--Susan B. Anthony (1896)

Letter excerpts

I realized today as I was writing a daily email that some of my correspondence belongs in the blog. So, here it is, editted for popular consumption:

August 28, Paris
So, after I pulled my ... self together, I went for a walk. Mido suggested that near here is the place where Louis XIV's peaches were grown. I figured, I like peaches A LOT, and I like peach trees too, so maybe that would be interesting.... It was basically some clumps of very old (you can imagine) peach trees around a high-rise apartment complex. Kids played in the streets and guys sat around together chatting. As I left this important historic sight, I found some really cute little suburban cul de sacs overflowing with foliage surrounding cute little houses -- it felt a bit out of place among all these high rise suburban complexes, but it also felt like a relief. I wondered how one managed to buy one of those, just like 10, little houses (when you decide to buy in Montreuil, it can't possibly be what you are imagining).

That was east of the apartment; so, from there I headed south to Blois de Vincenne (woods of Vincenne, the chateau and city that is). There were leaves on the ground, and it almost felt like fall. It did feel like fall. weird. Little families walked and biked and jogged and strolled together along the pathways, sometimes laughing together, pretty below the big shedding trees. Once I hit the chateau, I headed north again, returning to the apartment about 2 hours after I left. It was a good walk.

Sept 2, La Vienne
Some neighbors on the other side of the river had us over for dinner last night. Actually, we cooked, but they hosted. They bought an old distillery (called La Distillery) and are restoring it to function as place for people to go for vacation (rooms, a gite, a dormitory) and also with performance and party spaces. It's really striking, actually. This big industrial distillery (lit up with different colored lights at night) out there in the French countryside next to the river. One of the people who lives there also plays the sitar, and he played for us a few songs, which was really neat. They've painted the walls with lovely designs and they have a large garden out by their pond (with boats!). It sounds like they plan to have an artist community and do environmental education. (I wish I could be the kind of person to do something like that. I am neither that imaginative nor that brave.)

Sept 6, Paris
After class today, I took a walk with Jennifer. After about 30 minutes it turned out we were both very hungry. So, we stopped off at the cafeteria of one of the big department stores and had a pretty nice lunch of salad and dessert (I had a charlotte, she had fromage blanc, the salad included a lot of cold meat products and was good). Then we walked for a little while longer and then got on to the Metro in our respective directions (opposite on the same line). I got home by 4.

Learning a language teaches you a lot about categorizing things. For example, today we learned about when you use "pour", "pendant" and "depuis". We have these same words in English, but as native speakers, we don't think about how we use them (they are "for", "during" and "since" respectively). You use "pour" for something of an non-absolute period of time, often in the future. You use "pendant" for a definite period of time, often in the past. You use "depuis" for something that is still going on. But if you asked me how to define "for", "during" and "since", I am not sure I would be able to do it. We also spent a long time on vocabulary and conversation, which was good. My new teacher is so charming, and that helps a lot.

Sept 7, Paris
I really like trying to learn another language bc it helps me to understand my own. That part about being able to talk to other people is also nice. But since English is the most common second language in the world (it seems), there is a lot less incentive to learn a second one myself.

I also have a theory that it is like vitamins for my brain, helping it grow. When I took calculus for fun between college and grad school (it was my first time taking it) I used to get this feeling like the wheels in my brain were turning for the first time in a long time, and while they were rusty, they were turning and it felt good and fresh and kind of like stretching or doing yoga. It made me feel alive. I never got that feeling from learning anything else, and I haven't had it since. I don't know what it is. But it feels wonderful when I study French.

Sept 8, Paris
I really tried not to take a nap today but it is a difficult habit to get out of. I think I managed to sleep for only an hour, which might mean that I will be able to sleep tonight. I would like that. Even the teacher noticed that I was tired in class today. I think I am tired partly bc it is getting to be the end of the week and partly bc when I sleep for a long time in the afternoon, I can't sleep at night and the whole system doesn't work. Not sure why that is exactly, bc I also believe that my body should be able to manage its own needs, but apparently not.
...

After class, I finally made it to the place where I had such an excellent chocolat chaud last winter. I ordered that and a quiche. The quiche was burned and the milk sour. I sent the chocolat chaud back, altho the lady tried to tell me it was just that it was too chocolaty, and the new one was fine. I didn't feel like I could send back the quiche bc it was obviously burned. Alas. I didn't leave any tip. I sat by the window with a view of the church en face de le Louvre and did my devior (hw). So, I won't end up doing it at midnight tonight again for the third day in a row. That was a win, anyway.

Sept 12, Paris
One problem I always have with public speaking is that I really don't know how to communicate without constant feedback: Do you understand what I am staying? Do you have anything to add? Am I explaining my point enough or too much? Speaking to a room of blank faces really throws me, and I have trouble pacing myself; I end up with long pauses between talking too fast. ...I started to wonder if it is another personality type, like introverts and extroverts. Does someone require feedback to create and communicate clearly, and can they formulate entire universes on their own? I have always really admired the latter group, and it has long been clear to me that I am the former. Alas! (However, my hope is that this characteristic, like most, has its upside, like being a good listener, or using resources efficiently. I hope to have those qualities.)
....

...Mido, JP and I spent a quiet Saturday night. I think I went to be early and slept for a long time, which I certainly needed. On Sunday, I hung out around the house for a long time. We had the rest of the Mexican food from Friday night (which was way too hot -- don't underestimate the power of the French hot pepper!) for dinner....

Around 4, I ventured out and walked the length of the Champs-Elysees, and then sat in the Jardin des Tularies reading until a French man in his late 50s came over and wouldn't stop talking to me. I got away with his phone number, but managed to convince him that I didn't have a phone. Then I walked back to l'Hotel de Ville (a long way in all) and took the Metro home.

Class was good today. We did a little que/qui/ou (boring) and then more passe compose/Imparfait. For the last 30 minutes, we played Taboo (in French, of course). I think it's the best exercise ever (for me anyway) bc my desire to win eclipses all self-consciousness about speaking incorrectly. I loved it. However, my team was weaker, and we managed to tie by the end despite the other side's attempt to cheat.

After class I decided to walk for while, and another guy, a short Tunisian man in a pink sweatshirt, wouldn't stop talking to me. I tried to tell him I was Chinese (I don't know why he didn't believe me?), but generally wouldn't answer his questions, which caused him to call me not very nice. It's strange, I really react when someone tells me I'm not nice, even if I don't want to be talking to them anyway.

Once I got rid of him, I had a pleasant walk and saw signs for a lot of affordable real estate around Republic, which is one of the areas that interest me. Hmm... I stopped at a cafe, had a deca, wrote some postcards, and did my homework, and then came home. I am craving lentils, so I am about to make some.

Artist biographies

I've been reading the Agony and the Ecstasy, a biographical novel by Irving Stone and really enjoying it. Since I have pretty much decided that my next career will be as a world-class artist, it makes sense for me to learn about about other artists (yeah, I mean more than I did as an art major in college; I do things better now). But I don't like to read crap. So, I decided to check the Internet (and the Internet is always right, of course*), and I only found one "best of" artist biographies list:
http://painting.about.com/cs/toppicks/tp/tpartistbios.htm
I'll probably also read Stone's book on Van Gogh, even tho it isn't on the list, not because it is fantastically written (it isn't) but it's good clean fun, sort of a highbrown topic in a lowbrow package. It appears that I like that sort of thing.

* As a brief aside, one of those dumb little things that some of us (those of us who spend too much time web surfing, say is "I found it on the Internet so it must be true", knowing full well that the Internet contains a whole lot of crap. My mother (I think it was) took this to a whole new level the other day when she said "my friend read it on the Internet," adding a whole new level of unreliability, like veils of gauze between ourselves and any possible truth.

I'm committed...

...for the next month anyway. I just bought a Eurostar ticket to London and a plane ticket from London to Zurich. From there the plan is to take the train to Dijon, where my mother will meet me and ostensibly we will take a bike trip. (I am just not sure if her health is up for it, and she is not terrifically talented at knowing limits.)

I considered going back to La Vienne instead of London bc Anne said I should in order to have time with Christian, but my mother told me not to. I think she's sick of me.

Anyway, after the bike trip which may or may not happen, I have one more week of French class. It should be a fun week bc Tina, from last year in Paris, and Michele, another former NN employee, will both be in Paris then too. And I have tickets to an opera and a ballet.

I moved up my return ticket to October 11, and I am going to see my Granny, who is 94 and has lung cancer, for 5 days shortly after I return. I like to keep busy, and I think I have succeeded. At the same time, I am a bit nervous about not having enough down time. Isn't that always the way.

So, here are my questions to you:
1) What show(s) should I see in London and what is the best way to get tickets?
2) What else should I see in London this time? I am thinking art.
3) I won't have much free time in Zurich, but what should I try to see there?
4) Any bike trip suggestions that I might not have thought of already?
5) (I like to have a good number of questions and 4 is not a good number) Anything else you think I should know?

Thanks much, and I look forward to your enlightening input.

Tina's Brown's Washington Post Column - New York's New Mood

Floods Scour the Political Landscape, Too
By Tina Brown
Thursday, September 8, 2005; C01

Even though it is so familiar in our imaginations, it is still a wonderful
moment in the upcoming Discovery documentary "The Flight That Fought Back"
when the doomed passengers on Flight 93 seize the food cart and race it down
the aisle toward the cockpit like a battering ram, united in courage and
rage. At the preview of the movie at the Bryant Park Hotel in Manhattan you
could feel the exhalation of tension in the audience during the reenactment:
the wish-fulfillment, the satisfaction at the virility of the gesture.

New York may have superficially recovered since 9/11, but the Bush victory in
the election last year left a hangover of self-doubt that drained the city's
mojo. Katrina's perfect meteorological and political storm has at least blown
away that mood. New York's sullen sense of carrying around a deviant secret
-- that President Bush is an empty flight suit -- has gone with the wind.

If 9/11 was Bush's Woodstock, Katrina is his Altamont -- the place where his
ability to unite people behind a flurry of flag-waving came to look like the
hollow sham it always was. John Edwards's mantra of Two Americas doesn't
sound so corny now that Bush's soaring vision of democracy on the march has
suddenly been laid as bare as an abandoned Superdome where the toilets are
overflowing.

But for New Yorkers, the dimensions of the pain mean there is not much glee
in saying "I told you so." Ever since 9/11 we've been endlessly stiffed on
"homeland security." Millions for red Montana, nickels for blue New York.
We had to grit our teeth and host the cynical hijacking of 9/11 by the
Republican convention last year, where even Rudy Giuliani franchised his (and
our) authentic moment of heroism to the Bush reelection machine.

The twin towers are still a gaping hole in the ground fought over by greedy
real estate agents, prima donna architects and culture warriors distractedly
arbitrated by a Republican governor preoccupied with national political
ambitions. The current plans for a third-rate office building on top of a
bunker with a censored museum seems like a strange advertisement for freedom.
But perhaps it suits the city's mood of lingering disappointment after 9/11's
squandered goodwill. Osama bin Laden's outrage goes unavenged while we
continue to suck wind in Baghdad.

But now, in Katrina's aftermath, there's something different in the air: the
scent of insurrection. The needless torment of New Orleans has reignited the
dormant passions of the election. E-mails are flying again between friends
who've been out of touch for months, enclosing Web links to new polemics of
disgust. The big donors with wallet fatigue after John Kerry's loss are ready
to write checks again, big time, for any Democrat who shows courage.

It's as if the tragedy in the Gulf Coast has awakened us from a deep
materialistic sleep to acknowledge the pain of poverty and racial inequality
for the first time in years. Those Democrats who still temporize for fear of
being tagged as "playing politics" don't seem to understand that being all
kissyface and timid is as over as strategy as it is as substance. Better to
play politics than play possum. Maybe Hillary should stop going on
fact-finding trips to Alaska with her new Republican pals. Even before
Katrina changed the landscape, her careful tactics of sleeping with the enemy
had begun to annoy the town that adored her.

Out, damned euphemism! We are in a blazing moment of truth-telling that is
holding the nation rapt before its TV screens. Two days after CNN's Anderson
Cooper bawled out Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana for her and other
politicians' "thanking each other" on the fabulous job they were all doing --
even as he'd just seen rats gnawing at a woman's body in the water behind him
-- we saw the real Landrieu on ABC's "This Week."

Red-eyed and combative, she gave George Stephanopoulos an air tour of
devastation and talked about the New Orleans sheriffs gripping handcuffs in
their teeth as they swam to secure prisoners who would have terrorized the
town further if allowed to escape. "If one person criticizes them or says one
more thing," she told Stephanopoulos, "including the president of the United
States . . . I might have to punch him literally."

Way to go, Mary! This is what America needs. The media-political axis has
enabled a culture of talking points and spin to the point that harsh reality
had nearly vanished from the national conversation. It's an index of the
president's disconnect that last week he could utter the words "Brownie,
you're doing a heck of a job!" to FEMA Director Michael Brown. Or that he
imagined he could actually suggest the administration should investigate the
scandal itself. (And drag its feet on its conclusions until after the next
election. We know the score now.)

In yesterday's New York Post, Dick Morris wrote that W's reputation will
surely recover because rebuilding New Orleans can now become a rallying
theme, a "new source of popularity. . . . A disaster like Katrina is just
what a president needs to anchor his second term." The cynicism is
breathtaking but also shrewd.

What's so troubling about Bush is not that he is incompetent, as many
currently charge. It's that he is dismissive, unless programmed to be
otherwise. His competence, as Justin Franks pointed out in "Bush on the
Couch," extends only to personal self-preservation -- to winning. When the
less fortunate are endangered, he reverts to the primal aphasia he learned at
his mother's knee. "Everybody is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," Barbara
Bush commented from Houston on NPR Monday evening, adding, with a chilling
matriarchal chuckle, "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know,
were underprivileged anyway. This is working very well for them."
Wow. How's that for one family's values? New York's only consolation this
9/11 is that we no longer feel so marginal as we recoil.

2005Tina Brown

Update: August 20-24

Eric arrived from San Francisco that Saturday. I moved myself over to Muriel’s beautiful and central apartment, and then headed over to the airport on the RoissyBus from Opera. (I had grand ideas of buying loads of fabulous foods and filling the apartment with flowers, but it turned out there wasn’t time for any of that.) I arrived at the airport without incident, although I nearly had an anxiety attack that Eric might get there first and not be able to find me.

But his plane was late. (Every time I bring this up, he apologises, which is silly bc of course it isn’t his fault the plane was late.) And there was another plane from London (where he changed) that came in first. Unfortunately, I thought that he should have come off the first plane (unaware of the second one, which he was on) and when people started piling out of the arrival porte with loads of baggage, I wondered how I could have missed him and if he had arrived when I was looking the other way and headed into Paris without me. Then I thought of something else. Maybe he wasn’t coming at all. Maybe it wall some big practical joke invented to embarrass me. I am not known for emotional generosity, and having been incredibly excited about his visit, I knew that this would be a really thorough way to humiliate for me. (OK, people, you know you all have these kinds of thoughts!)

Finally, at long last, he stepped out of the gate. I saw him first and was able to position myself so that he could roll out of the door and into me. We returned to Paris on the RER, per his preference, so that we didn’t have to walk with the bags, and probably also because trains are just cuter than buses. (Although, I have to say that I had a nice rapport with my driver on the RoissyBus, and it reminded me of how important bus drivers can be as community guardians. Trains can be painfully anonymous.) We installed ourselves at Muriel’s and headed out for a walk and a picnic dinner by the Seine just in time for sunset.

It was also the last night of the Paris Plage, where they convert the river’s usual side-highway into a public open space for people with games, cafes, services, music and activities. The idea is that the riverside becomes a beach. They even install large sandboxes where people can sunbath and then shower themselves off. Because this summer, Paris’s theme is Brazil, there was a Brazilian garden too. However, we chose to picnic on the western point of Isle St. Louis, with cheese and bread, a bottle of wine (but we forgot the glasses, making it that much more romantic) and of course pastries for dessert, the most memorable of which was the uber-chocolate “Opera”.

I had forgotten what we did on Sunday, but here is what Eric said when I asked him: “Sunday we wandered through the city looking for concert schedules at churches. We stopped by the one near Les Hales (just looked it up - St. Eustache), then walked over to Notre Dame and St. Chappelle, then over to the Left Bank, where we wandered through that quarter for a while. Sat at a cafe near St. Germain for chocolat chauds, then wandered back. Caught some of the organ concert at St. Eustache at 5:30, left early because I was falling asleep, then back to the apartment for a nap, then dinner at Julien.” The restaurant, Julien, is in the same building as Muriel’s apartment, and I have wanted to try it for a long time. It’s interior is decorated in a beautiful art nouveau style. It was good, but in the end ranked third (of 3 meals eaten in restaurants) among our culinary experiences together during this trip.

Likewise, I had forgotten what we did Monday too. Here’s what Eric said: “We wandered up the canal to the Parc de Villette to look at the big mirrored dome, took the metro to Bastille, back to Place des Vosges for cocktails, …wandered through the Marais, and bought food for dinner (we stopped by the minimart near Pompidou and got salmon, salad, cheese and bread).” Eric, like the French, is wild about baguettes. I am not sure how it is possible that I had never before seen that big mirrored dome in Parc de la Villette; it’s super cool. The whole park is pretty neat, and it was nice for us both to experience it together for the first time.

Tuesday morning we got up early and took the train to the Loire Valley. We travelled, checked into out hotel (which was not as nice as it looked in the web, IMHO), and headed out again to see the city of Blois without incident. The Blois Chateau is large and imposing above the cute town. The town center is pedestrianized and approachable, with lots of parks, but I found it a bit difficult to navigate. For lunch we got some savory pastries (quiche, something with sausages) and a “Brazilian salad” that did not include chicken (it was bamboo shoots or something that looked like chicken) as we had hoped but was good none the less. We ate it midway up a long, wide public stairway that led down to the town center with a fabulous view of the city and adjacent countryside.

The chateau has 4 distinct styles: feudal, gothic-renaissance, renaissance, and classical. We were most impressed by the François I staircase which winds round (it is a spiral staircase in an octagonal shape) on the exterior of the central court yard with a series of balconies off of it so that members of the court can see who is arriving from above. We also enjoyed seeing the coats of arms of the families which included strange animals: the porcupine, the salamander, and the duck…? On the first floor of the royal compartments of the François I wing is a room with many secret compartments used to hide jewels, etc., and possibly poisons belonging to Catherine de Medici. The fine arts museum is housed in the Louis XII wing of the castle, but I don’t remember anything in particular from their collection.

It is always important to take a nap in the afternoon, but even more so when you are travelling. My parents met us at the hotel in the early evening, and we went to a very cute sidewalk café for an aperitif or 3. Later, we found another delightful restaurant on a tiny, pedestrian-scaled side street that we think was this one: "Le Castelet" on Rue Saint Lubin, http://www.castelet.fr/. It was our best restaurant meal together that week and very affordable. I think for our plats we all got either duck or lamb, which were perfectly cooked, but the thing that really put it over the top were the sauces. They were both wonderfully complex and blissfully simple and harmonized perfectly with the food and the wine. And food is always better eaten outside in warm evening weather.

Our next day was a big one – we planned to rent bicycles and ride them out to various chateaux. In an attempt to kill neither ourselves nor each other, we decided to ride in one direction, see 2 chateaux, and then ride back that same way. The whole ride was probably about 40 km (is that about 25 miles?). A good portion of it was on a carless roadway thru the forest, which was really pleasant on the way there (on the way back it made the ride bearable).

We chose Chateau de Cheverny as our main chateau destination because of its furniture. Cheverny is built entirely in the classical style and forms an imposing white edifice rising up from the flat landscape. It is still owned by the family who built it in the 1600s. I guess I don’t really have anything to say about it other than what was most striking about this chateau to me was how imposing and white, and really out-of-place, it looked on the flat, flat earth.

Chateau de Beauregard is built in the Renaissance style. It is most famous for it’s portrait gallery, where we found a few familiar names like Catherine de Medici and Amerigo Vespucci. The floor is covered with tiles from Delft with white and blue designs, little people or farm animals against a horizon. They also have a modern garden designed in the Renaissance style, but the thing we liked most about the castle was a ruined church with no walls in a lovely meadow in a forest.

It wasn’t a perfect day. We got a flat tire. We didn’t plan our eating schedule very well and ended up missing lunch (we were carrying some snackies, but that doesn’t always count), and we accidentally took the long way both there and back. After we made it back to Blois, we drank beer at our favorite café before catching the train back to Paris (late). Then, of course, we quarrelled on the train (our first one, perhaps?). But nobody died as a result, and we made it back together and with all our belongings.

Past Journal entries

The following are excerpts from my journal that I have typed up for... I was going to say "your enjoyment" but I will stick with "the record" instead.

Paris to Budapest
The line to check in for my flight between Paris and Budapest was thick with human drama. Behind me in line, a middle-aged, average-looking man talked on his cel phone:
-I was at work all day after arriving here and now I’m at the airport. This is the first chance I’ve had to call you since I got here.
-It’s like that when I come here.
-I called you as soon as I could
-I will destroy all the photos and delete it.
-No, I don’t want to fight about it.
-It’s a digital photo, so all I have to do is delete it from my computer.
-There is no original bc it was a digital photo and I will delete it.
-OK
-If you change your mind and decide to meet me in Budapest, I’ll be there until the 28th.
-Well, last year we met in Budapest, and we had no future.
He turns away so that I can’t hear the conversation.
-Well, I have to check in now. I’ll call you later.
(He was not yet at the front of the line.)
In front of me in line, there was a woman with a 1-year-old and a 5-year-old. The 1-year-old kept crying and the 5-year-old drove the stroller into me and everything else around him. The woman wilted and rolled her eyes when I made eye contact with her. The 5-year-old had some of the widest eyes I had ever seen. The 1-year-old did not. The mother gave her baby a bottle that looked like it contained yellow juice but there was unmixed powder at the bottom.
Boarding the plane, there was a group of Albanians in front of me with red passports. Behind me, Americans with someone from someplace else who spoke excellent English with a very cute accent. They were discussing curry: “It’s like a spicy stew. I don’t like it. You know that yellow spice?” I felt sorry for them. I also wanted to get away.

Budapest
Things that Markus (a friend from the conference in Budapest) thought were funny about me:
- that I get excited by toy train sets (at the Transport Museum in Budapest)
- that I collect beer coasters and postcards
- that I carry a compass.
“You are such a strange girl,” he said.

Koper
“We only have toast,” replied the waiter to my attempt to have desert for dinner. Instead I had 0.5 l of beer. I misjudged this town – it’s good-sized but appears to have no restaurants. That’s fine. I’ll save my money and have my lunch out, but tonight it has left me unprepared.

There’s a little girl on the bus between Piran and Koper, facing me, licking the side of the bus and reminding me of how I used to like to lick the side of the bus or my mother’s car. I sometimes still have the impulse. Will she?

It’s pouring rain here and I am sitting in an incredibly pleasant café across from the palace. The music is good (later, Gregorian chanting of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven; does that count as Muzack?) and the chair comfortable. I say incredibly pleasant except for the fact that I am freezing my ass off. This can’t possibly be August in southern Europe.
I guess now I have to have some experiences so that I can write about them. I wonder what portion of the world’s human population is motivated by that need – to do things in order to tell about them to be interesting.

Recent Changes to London’s Public Transport System

My parents had 2 young houseguests (until this morning), an American painter (m, 24) and an English English-major (from Oxford, 22, f). Hannah is a Londoner, and this is what she said had recently changed about London’s public transportation system.

1) Fare collection
You are now required to buy your ticket at a machine rather than onboard in Zone 1. The problem is that many of these machines are broken and sometimes they eat your money. Hannah said that she suspects that people stick gum up into them in order to get the money out. The drivers are not helpful at all, and they ignore passengers who do not have a ticket and just wait for them to get off the bus before moving. These machines have been there for more than a year, but it has only recently been forbidden to buy the tickets onboard.

I asked Hannah if it was possible to get tickets at little stores around the city instead, and she that that was a brand new possibility, but obviously they aren’t always open late at night. Of course, the rational here is that loading will be quicker if you already have your ticket. However, ticket collection also takes time, and confusion about the purchase of tickets probably also delays the buses. Loading from a prepaid area might solve this problem, although it would be capital intensive to build these areas.

Hannah also said that she much preferred when there was a second person working on the buses who was responsible for ticket collection. Not only did this increase efficiency of loading, it also reduced confusion about ticket purchasing and frees up the driver’s time to drive (which is safer). These people also cared for the passengers, giving them the assistance they needed with directions, caring for young people traveling alone and providing other needed information.

2) Vehicle Types
London buses used to have an open back where you could jump on and off while the conductor dealt with the collection/distribution of your money/ticket. London has bought new, much longer and skinnier buses (probably to handle the increased capacity due to the congestion pricing/improved bus speeds) and taken the older, historic ones off the road. Hannah prefers the old ones.

3) Advertising on the vehicles
The new buses now have TVs on them that play advertisements and horoscopes (no sound). The ads include credit card offers. It can be difficult for the passengers not to look at the screen. Hannah said that the screens do not display any information relating to the bus such as schedules, next stops, or travel time.

Other: Response to the bombing
Hannah said that she did not see any reduction on passengers on the Tube or the buses because people simply don’t have any other option. However, she has heard people say that they want to change jobs work closer to home so that they don’t have to ride public transportation (or at least the Tube). Also, people are now reluctant to go on to the top deck of the buses because they perceive it to be less safe (from bombs and rowdy teenage gangs). This causes crowding on the lower decks.

Other: Response to Congestion Charging
People are now driving to the outer edge of the congestion-charging zone and leaving their cars there for the day, taking the Tube for the remainder of the trip. (I am not sure why they don’t have permit parking around Tube stations.)

The Piano Shop, book review

I am sitting here thinking to myself “stupid book review” but of course I only do it for myself. I brought a small pile of books on this trip, and the first one I picked up to read was “The Piano Shop on the Left Bank” (Thad Carhart). It’s not very long (compared with some of the others I brought), not very heavy, and not very intimidating considering that I haven’t actually read a book in months.

My mother says that Carhart took piano lessons from our family piano teacher and friend, Marilynn Rowland. The book is nicely written and to story very sweet, but there is nothing powerful about it. A middle-aged man with 2 small children develops a friendship with Parisien used-piano dealer, and re-discovers his childhood love of the piano. But I never fell in love with it, not even for a minute, though it was pleasant enough company for a while. As usual, here are a few of my favorite quotes from the book:

“I can still remember asking Miss Pemberton, plainly and naively, why I had to play Beethoven etude for others when I had mastered it to her satisfaction and had already become tired of it.
“’Music isn’t music unless we share it with others,’ she told me, but even then that sentiment seemed unsatisfactory to me.” (pg 59-60)

It’s a bit like the old tree falling in the forest question or Sex and the City’s variation: is cheating cheating if you don’t get caught? If you play music because you love to play music, what difference does it make if anyone else enjoys it? What difference does it make if a tree falls in the forest or not? Why would you say you aren’t going to sleep with other people if you have every intention of doing so? I mean, it would be wrong to schedule a concert and then refuse to play for the people who have arrived to hear you, but if you never schedule the concert, I agree with Carhart, no harm no foul.

But I think his teacher was trying to expand his horizons. He might have loved playing for others. However, generally, it works better for people to do things that they actually want to do.

“I hadn’t considered the suite, as the French put it, the follow-through to circumstances and events that lends life its air at once poignant and meaningful.” (pg 73)

“He would say in mock self-deprecation, “je ne suis qu’un bricoleur” (“I am only a handyman.”), but the born tinkerer’s love of a challenge gleamed in his eyes as he said it.
“Press key, hear sound: the fundamentals are simple but the particulars very quickly become complicated.” (pg 76)

“Luc and I virtually never asked about each other’s personal lives, although details occasionally came out as we talked. This was understood as respect rather than lack of interest, a sometimes surprising notion for an American used to divulging of facts and the urgent expectation of intimacy in new relationships.” (pg 84)

“’The interesting thing is that it’s not just pianists or even musicians who attend them (master classes). Everyone goes – writers, painters, people from the community – lots of people who don’t know anything particular about music. He (Gyorgy Sebok) teaches piano, yes, but at the same time he manages to teach something profound about life.’” (pg 216)

“’…one of the most prestigious grandes ecoles in France; only the smartest are admitted. And do you know what the French say about it? A polytechnicien knows everything, but nothing else.’” (pg 220)

“The most difficult aspect of a master class, Sebok said, is trying to get the student to an emptiness, to a still point, where he can truly hear what he is doing. ‘It’s not an absence, it’s an emptiness, and that is sometimes subtle point to grasp for a young person.’ For him, music had to flow out of the pianist, and in order for that to happen there had to be a quiet center.
“….
“Sebok continually made clear from his own example that there is no perfection, there is only a lifelong process of making music; once technique and commitment have been suitably mastered, you have to decide for yourself on the right interpretation. It is a complex message.” (pg 223)

This final quote is the perfect end to my list of quotes, as it describes a philosophy I believe. I remember Barbara Kingsolover (or was it Anne Lamotte?) saying that every time she opens one of her own books, she sees things she wants to change about it. The revisions are endless, and yet at the same time they must end in order for the book to be shared. What’s different about music is that it only happens in an instant while the words of a book lie on its pages until the book turns to dirt.

Relationships, likewise, are never perfect, but every minute that you share together becomes part of your history, part of your life, part of you. Carolyn pointed out in her comment a few weeks back that the relationship IS the destination. I don’t actually agree with that (tho she may be more of an expert than I). I believe something more like life is a journey and there actually never is any destination, only a series of milestones. Or, in the words of the great Janis Joplin (Ball and Chain), “I mean, if you got a cat for one day, man I mean, if you, say, say, if you want a cat for 365 days, right You ain't got him for 365 days, you got him for one day, man. Well I tell you that one day, man, better be your life, man. Because, you know, you can say, oh man, you can cry about the other 364, man, but you're gonna lose that one day, man, and that's all you've got. You gotta call that love, man. That's what it is, man. If you got it today you don't want it tomorrow, man, 'cause you don't need it, 'cause as a matter of fact, as we discovered in the train, tomorrow never happens, man. It's all the same fucking day, man.”

Update: week of August 16

Phew! So, I returned to Paris for 4 days of class. They put me back in the intermediate class where I had been before with the same teacher, Stephanie. This week, Stephanie had an assistant, a young woman whose name I never quite caught. She was pretty and nice, though not quite as pretty and nice as Stephanie. Stephanie is also a singer, creating very dramatic scenes on the stages of basement bars and clubs in central Paris. This means that she was fundamentally a performer, a nice quality in a teacher. The teaching philosophy at L'Atelier 9 is that students should never use dictionaries, but instead teachers act out the words that students don’t know. They believe that this will help us remember. So, Stephanie has performed for us extensive skits to show, for example, how one rendre visits a person (ah! Mon Coeur! – You don’t want a person circulating thru your blood stream as would happen if you visitered them), and in that case I actually do remember that the only thing you visiter is a place.

The assistant had none of these qualities. She was queit and for some reason her form of controlling the classroom was just annoying when Stephanie’s inspired devotion (in me anyway). I think that before a person can have a position of power over another person, they must earn that person's respect and admiration. I don’t know how one does that, but that’s what you need to do. The bottom line is that Stephanie is a really good teacher and this young woman was not. It makes me wonder if all teachers everywhere should be required to first be performing artists. The good news, for those of us who wish to learn, is that there are lots of teaching positions and very few are able to make a living performing.

The class included a middle-aged Dutch couple, 2 young Danish girls, a New Yorker (30?) with a penchant for performing himself and a French girlfriend, a young Australian girl, and an older Canadian woman. It was full. I realized, once again, that what I enjoy most is being with a group of people, working together. Stephanie is spending the month of September in Brazil, and I was relieved to learn that this assistant lady would not be her replacement.

The first couple days I was sure I was the strongest in the class. I understood more than the others and was able to ramble on and express myself with relative fluidity. However, by the third day I had had it. French? Ha! I could barely speak English anymore. I slept longer and longer and felt more and more exhausted. After that short experience, I am a little worried about how the first 2 weeks in September will go (when I am in class for 2 5-day weeks straight thru), but thankfully, with the company of my friend Jennifer.

Jennifer lives in Paris with her husband and 8-year old daughter. She’s officially become an immigrant mother, as her daughter Nell translates for her (after only one year) like the Chinese mothers and their children in San Francisco. On Tuesday, my first full day back in Paris and class, Jennifer and I met for lunch in front of the Pompidou Centre at 2 PM. There was a restaurant she wanted to show me (that was closed but Eric and I tried it the following week, more on that later). Maybe we would see an exhibition of some kind.

We ended up just having lunch at another, unremarkable restaurant. She has a really interesting theory about accents. Have you noticed that French people and English people say the word “France” in roughly the same way (considering the vowel sound at least)? Have you noticed that when you heard German’s speaking from far away, it sounds a whole lot like English? And of course everyone knows that American was almost German speaking at one point, it just ended up English instead. So, Jennifer’s theory is that the reason the American accent is different than the English is due to the influence of the many many German settlers there.

Another highlight of the week included dinner with Muriel in the Oberkampf neighborhood. We found a “traditional Parisien bistro” and ate on the sidewalk. It turns out she has a twin brother who works for the same company, and we had a very interesting conversation about competitiveness between siblings and how it influences are lives. We also talked out relationship patterns among siblings and their differences or similarities. As an example of how Muriel is different from her brother, she mentioned that he likes to talk about events and she likes to talk about feelings. Aside from the obvious gender stereotype at play there, as our conversation about feelings continued, I couldn’t help but noticed that what she said about herself was true.

I made yet another Mexican dinner for Mido and JP on Friday night, with the compulsory way too much food, but I think it was successful. Then Saturday arrived, and so did Eric, and I moved to stay at Muriel’s bc she had gone to Egypt to scuba dive in the Red Sea.

Thoughts on writing

So, I am here at my mother and John’s house, and my idea is that I am trying to help her work on her book. Of course, it is virtually impossible to get her to do anything at all (sound like someone else you know?), and all I end up doing in nagging her as she moves the fresh bread from one end of the kitchen counter to the other again and looks around for the phone number of someone I have never heard of before. I think to keep me quiet for a while, she has given me a copy of a chapter of the book that she finished some time ago (in an attempt to make me think she is actually working).

It’s a chapter I have read before and every time I find it completely emotionally devastating. I am about 10 pages into the 16-page chapter, and I have stopped to take a break. I just re-read my last blog entry (the one about the last time I was here 2 weeks ago) before posting it, and I realized that there’s a strange reflectivity in both of our writing. We talk to the reader. We try to guess what the reader is thinking.

A few years ago, I formed a writing group on Craigslist. It comprised 3 other women. It’s not important for me to characterize each of them, but one wrote fascinating memoirs about her adventures traveling. They were always skillfully crafted, always had a strong narrative, always followed a traditional storyline structure, and these were freewrites (when you compose for a given period of time without stopping or editing yourself and then read it aloud to the group, who is forbidden from giving any criticism other than perhaps mentioning if they like something in particular). Once, in celebration of our one-year anniversary, we exchanged works in progress. I don’t think this one woman had anything to submit, but she did have a whole lot to say about everyone else’s work. She commented on the fact that I like to address my reader directly, ask them questions, speculate about what they are thinking; she found it too aggressive, too direct. She wanted to read a nice easy little story with complete emotional disclosure. She didn’t want to be engaged in a conversation with the text.

The group fizzled out after that. I think we wanted different things. I didn’t want to be a leader. I didn’t want to hear what they thought about my writing (random people from CL have much less clout with me than my own friends and family, go figure). I think next time I will either charge money to coordinate a group or find a way to be clearer about my desired structure.

I guess that’s it for now. I have 6 more pages to read. That is, I have 6 more pages of conversation with my mother on paper before she wakes up from her nap.

Update: week of August 11

It’s been a nearly 3 weeks since my last update, so I guess that just means my work is cut out for me. The bad news is that that usually means that all the color and light is drained out of my descriptions as they have become distant and therefore just a list of events.

Back in Paris after my adventures on the train, I did very little. Part of the problem is that there isn’t an extra key to the downstairs lock at Mido and JP’s Montreuil apartment, which means that every time I leave I have to wait outside until someone lets me in again. It has never taken more than 15 minutes, but this very lazy person uses that inconvenience as an excuse to never leave the apartment. If you think about it, there are 9 floors with probably an average of 3 apartments on each floor (a max of 4). So, let’s say that 4 individual people live on each floor (it’s probably much more); 4*9=36 people coming and going, and many of them are bound not to have standard schedules. Granted, it’s August in France, meaning that two thirds of them are on vacation in the country. So, 12 people, maybe 4 of who do not work 9-5, each making an average of 2 trips out and back per day (assumed based on nothing at all). That’s 16 door openings over 8 hours (9 to 5), indicating that either my calculations are wrong or I have been very lucky never to have waited more than 15 minutes.

Yes, it’s these sorts of calculations that are exactly why you read my blog. (Assuming anyone is out there at all. Hello?) But the good news is that, having realized that being busy keeps me happy, I was only there for 2 days that time around. My mother was just arriving back from Bali, where she caught a bad cold and broke 2 of her ribs, so I gave her 24 hours of sleep it off, and then went to the heartland for a short visit.

Monday, August 15 is bank holiday in France, which meant that I had an extra day to kill before starting French class again. How do you call that when your time is such a burden on you? There must be a word. There are so many things in life I want to do, and at the same time I am racking my brain to think of them, and doing the same things over and over, and not leaving apartments…. It’s a matter of organization. I need to look at the big picture and work from that in order to determine how to spend each morning. I want to create huge amazing works of art, but I don’t have a room of my own or any physical materials. I want to see Brittany and Poland and New Zealand and Laos, but I don’t like to travel alone and I don’t like to travel. (In the words of the great David Byrne “I am tired of traveling, I want to be somewhere.”)

You read over and over that the thing that makes life worth living is relationships. That’s what all the wise thoughtful people say on their deathbeds. (I have also heard eat more chocolate.) My mother said yesterday that someone famous (Aldus Huxley) said that kindness is the only think that matters in life. Anyway, I buy it, lock, stock and barrel. But (sorry, there is a but) how do you know which relationships to invest in? By the way they feel about you? By how you feel about them? By who they influence you to be? By who you can influence them to be? By what is easy? By social expectations? To make other people happy?

Sure, it’s easy enough to be kind to bank tellers and telemarketers and people you pass on the sidewalk. Of course, it is important to invest in your family; you are stuck with them after all, so you might as well make the most out of it. People are like gardens and the more you put in the more you get out… if the soil is any good that is. So, first you have to check the soil. I guess the reason I am off on this crazy mixed-up tangent is that I opened a file I have on this computer called “notes for the blog”, and it includes a list of ideas I wanted to talk about, and one of them is “choosing your partner for love”…. I have read entire books on the nature of love, and I have no idea what it is. Did I know something last January 30 when I typed up this list that I have now forgotten? Can I blame it on the season? Maybe, in the words of the great George Michael, I “just gotta have Faith, Faith, Faith.”

Where was I? Oh, at my parents’ place in the French heartland, where we did very little (my mother was sick, you know). We had kir by the river. I think I went for a long walk on Sunday. My datebook says that John and I went for a short bike ride on Monday before I left on the slow train. I’m allergic to their house (I think it may be the bedding) and I took an allergy pill on Sunday that almost killed me (drowsiness). It’s strange but I usually go thru life forgetting that I have allergies, until I visit my mother or someone with cats. I could barely put myself on the train back to Paris, slept most of the way, and woke up the next morning with a terrible hangover from it. It felt like there was a brick in my head.

Before that near-fatal error, we tried to go to this new restaurant in Saint Savin, but they were full (reservations on this fine bank holiday). So, instead we had a picnic of magnificent baked goods by the river (that town also has a wonderful bakery). With them, we drank one of the fine bottles of wine I bought in Italy with Adam and Liz, a light bubbly thing perfect for a lunchtime picnic.

NYT article on buying property in Paris

On June 23, 2005, the NYT published an article on Americans buying apartments in Paris. While it included a lot of interesting and possibly important information, the references listed are below for my (and possibly your) future reference (feel free to add others in the comments sections if you know any):
* parisrealestatefinders.com
* abkaska.com -- finds and develops Paris property for Americans (and provides 2-year warrantees)
* Michele Imhoff, a French Banker who helps Americans (since 1991) with one or more account(s) at the Banque Transatlantic, 202-429-1909
* abodesabroad.net
* frenchpropertyinsider.com

photos of my trip

I uploaded photos in case you are interested:
http://amazon.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=ksr0nbj.1rlnmp9f&x=1&y=m86eje

Bike Powers PCs in Africa

Way better than nuclear for everyone.... Phew!



Bike Powers PCs in Africa

Former Silicon Valley execs bring cheap computing to remote African villages.
August 11, 2005
With help from former Silicon Valley execs, villagers in remote hamlets in Africa lacking power and phone lines are now making calls over VoIP, receiving voicemail, and sending email. The only hitch? Users must pedal on a stationary bike hooked up to a generator to get computer time.

Getting these hard-to-reach spots connected 21st century-style is the work of Inveneo, a San Francisco-based nonprofit started by a team of ex-tech industry workers. The outfit was started last year by Robert Marsh, a former entrepreneur and manager with more than 25 years of tech experience under his belt at companies including Innovwave and Document Tech.

The group's solution, to use a Silicon Valley buzzword, is the special bike that powers a computer system using Linux open source to give villagers access to basic computing, Internet, email, and VoIP.

Inveneo's first installations were in Uganda and the organization hopes to extend to villages in South Africa, Algeria, and Rwanda.

"Access to power is the big thing in villages," said Mr. Marsh. "Mostly, finding a source of power is the biggest roadblock toward having basic computing or phone facilities. We had to develop a solution that was not only low-cost but also sustainable."

Searching for an answer took Mr. Marsh on travels through Indonesia, India, and Cambodia, which is where he ultimately found the design he was looking for: A modified stationary bike that generates enough power to keep a computing system humming. Just 15 minutes of pedaling creates enough power for an hour of usage on the VoIP phone, said Mr. Marsh.

Solar Power Booster
If the heat's too intense for pedaling, Inveneo has come up with an alternative power source. A solar panel integrated into the system allows for longer periods of power with less effort.

"The whole system is very power-efficient," said Mr. Marsh. "The bike-powered batteries can be used as a backup since not everyone can pedal for too long."

Inveneo put together the rest of the system with simple hardware found at any computer store. Overall, the system has three major components: the solar- or bike-powered communication station, which is connected to a PC and a telephone; a hub that acts as the PBX (Private Branch Exchange) and Internet gateway; and a Wi-Fi relay station.

The PBX allows for free calls among connected villages. Every user is provided with a voicemail box to receive messages. Each also gets access to applications like word processing, spreadsheets, email, instant messaging, and file-sharing.

The entire system costs around $1,800 including the solar panel, which is the single most expensive component. Using Linux and Asterisk, an open-source telephony switching software, has helped keep the costs down and make the system rugged, said Mr. Marsh.

Plans to Expand
In western Uganda, Inveneo has already delivered the first bike-powered Linux PC and VoIP system to cover five villages. It hopes to extend the project to 25 villages in the Bukuuku sub-county over the next year.

Ultimately, the plan is to integrate the bike-powered communication systems into projects in areas where relief or developmental agencies already have a presence.

The U.K. relief organization, Action Aid, is Inveneo's big client now but Mr. Marsh said the team is talking to other organizations in Indonesia to create partnerships.

Funding for Inveneo comes from its founders and the company is staffed by volunteers. Eventually, Mr. Marsh hopes to get grants from the United Nations or the U.S. government to support his work.

Although Inveneo is a nonprofit, Mr. Marsh plans to spin off a commercial subsidiary in a few years to generate revenue and profits that could help the company do more research and expand further.

"In some countries, we can license the system to small entrepreneurs and create businesses that can generate profits by offering basic services," he said. "So we will eventually think of having a commercial subsidiary."
© 1993-2005 Red Herring, Inc. All rights reserved.

Rentabike in Lyon, France

I keep forgetting that I should blog these really interesting articles....

Rentabike moves up a gear from curiosity to runaway success

Jon Henley in Paris
Friday August 12, 2005
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1547732,00.html

The French are not short of groundbreaking cheap and efficient public transport. But now the Paris Metro and the high-speed TGV have a more humble, although no less hi-tech, equal - the Lyon rentabike.

Less than three months after its launch, the city's Vélo'v scheme, reportedly the largest of its kind in the world, is a runaway success. "Very quickly, we've moved from being a curiosity to a genuine new urban transport mode," said Gilles Vesco of the city council.

Some 15,000 Lyonnais are now registered users, and the 24-hour scheme's 1,500 sturdy silver-and-red bikes - which have three gears, a handlebar basket and a lock - are detached from their 100-odd computerised racks on average 6.5 times each a day. And this is just the beginning: by 2007, there should be 4,000 cycles and up to 400 racks in the city - which is one roughly every 300 metres.

Collective bike schemes started in the 1960s with the free "white bikes" of Amsterdam and Copenhagen, schemes which laboured under the hippy-era illusion that most users would be public-spirited enough to return bikes after use. They were not.

The Lyon scheme adopts a system pioneered, on a much smaller scale, in Vienna and incorporates strong incentives not to abscond. Users must register in advance so that their personal details are on record, and they are then issued with a security code and a prepaid card, which they can top up at each rack's computer terminal.

"Our success reflects a cultural shift that you could call collective individualism," Mr Vesco told the daily Libération. "Everyone chooses their own destination, route and timetable, but they use a collective means of transport."

But Mr Vesco is most proud of the fact that, among the scheme's many foreign admirers, the most enthusiastic has been Amsterdam, bicycling capital of the world.

Vélo'v is, apparently, a simple system to use, and is also cheap. With the prepaid card, which costs one euro for a week and five euros for a year, rental costs one euro an hour, with the first half-hour free.

In practice, that means borrowing a bike is as good as free, since 90% of all Vélo'v journeys last less than 30 minutes. It is funded by JC Decaux, the billboard multinational, which agreed to launch and operate the bike scheme in part-exchange for the right to sell advertising space on the city's bus and tram shelters.

The company refuses to say how much it has invested in the Vélo'v scheme, which employs some 30 staff.

Each time a bike is returned to a rack the brakes, tyre pressure, gears and lights are digitally checked and the results sent to the control centre; any malfunction means the bike is not offered for rent.

There have been a few teething problems. Some racks are used far more than others, leading to shortages in the most popular spots, despite a computerised warning system that alerts the control centre. But users can consult every Vélo'v terminal to find out which nearby rack has bikes, and soon bigger racks will be built where needed.

Journey to Paris

I'm back in Mido and JP's Montreuil apartment to my enormous relief. On Monday, I went to the French train web site and reserved a bed without incident on the overnight train between Pordenone and Paris for Wednesday night. But I wasn't sure if I would be able to pick up the ticket at an Italian station and there wouldn't be time for them to mail it; so, I never made the purchase. I was going to try to get the ticket at the station ahead of time but it just never happened. The site quoted me the price of 125 euros.

Fast forward to Wednesday, Adam drops me off at the train station on his way to his guitar lessons 1.5 hours before my train leaves for Milan (connecting to the TGV to Paris). The woman at the counter speaks a little English, but she tells me, thru repeated asking, that I cannot get a train to Paris for 3 days. All the trains are full. Does that sound right to you? It sure didn't to me! If this had happened a year ago, I would have been a blubbering crying fool out on the sidewalk, but it appears that I have changed. She said the only way to go is to fly and she flapped her little hands like a bird. I feel land locked, but I also don't really believe her. So, I ask, can I get on the train and sleep in the hallway? While I don't think she understood me, she stuck with her favorite word: no. I called Adam and Liz, not sure what to do.... Anyway, eventually, I bought a ticket to Milan anyway (21 euros) and hopped on the train.

Nearly 4 hours later, I arrived at the huge Milan train station. (The last time I was there it was after 2 weeks alone in Katriona's lovely Rome apartment. I remember drinking an espresso at a cafe table in the station and promising myself that I will never travel alone again.) I had 30 minutes to get a ticket to Paris and get on the train. But of course, it is 11 PM and no one is selling any tickets. I finally find a woman giving train information, who speaks neither English nor French, but I manage to ask my question and she manages to tell me that I must buy the ticket on the train.

The train is leaving in 10 minutes when the screen finally lets us know which platform it will be on. So, I go there and ask the first train guy "Can I buy a ticket on the train?" and he says almost exactly what the woman in Pordenone said, "The train is full. No, you cannot sleep in the train hallway." But I am persistent and he says I should ask other train guy (what are they called?). There is also a young man with a ticket for 310 euros that he is not going to use. I offer him 40, bc that is how much cash I believe I have on me, and he of course says no. I ask literally 6 different train guys, each giving me the same answer until one says, "yes, I have space." I am stunned to silence. "But this is first class. It will cost you 100 euros." No problem, do you take credit cards? "No, cash only, and there is no time for you to got the bank machine." ...I think for a moment. Will you take other currency? dollars? Yes, he will take dollars. Got to #11. So, I do.

But the thing I remember is that I have like 60 dollars and like 40 euros, which does not equal 100 euros. I am hoping he will take pity on me and not ask for anything inappropriate instead. #11 is in a very funky 1st class compartment with liquid stains on the beds and a broken window shade. Two big guys join me in the compartment, and at first that makes me nervous, but then I decide that they are harmless. They don't speak English, but we communicate in French and one of them keeps correcting my speech. They fold their bed back into chairs and sit next to each other, resting. I lie down in my area and hope for sleep.

Maybe 45 minutes later, the train has left the station, and the train guy pops his head in and immediately scolds them in English, "No, this compartment is only for women" and takes them away bringing back with him a small, scared but also rather wild looking woman dressed in a tiny lace tank top, transparent mesh thong underwear that show above her jeans and big spiky belt, pointy spiked heals, and a raspy smoker's voice (with which she only speaks French). He is gone another "2 minutes", and then takes my passport. This makes me worried that he won't give it back if I don't have the money, so I tell him that I want to pay now instead of later. I open my money belt, and much to my surprise I have 75 euros in there. While he tells me that I must give him 130 dollars, he accepts 60 dollars and 50 euros. Phew!

Me and this little woman set up our beds (the guy had to bring us sheets) and have pleasant conversation. She doesn't correct me. During the night, she startles a few times and asks me over and over "t'a ferme la porte?" did you lock the door? which I did, but at the same time I did not think it is critical.

I slept badly and the train was an hour late arriving in Paris, but the good news is that I arrived, survived and saved a total of 5 euro in the process. I am almost afraid to start thinking that I led a charmed life, but so many things have gone my way lately. I can only imagine that I am charmed or perhaps that if you just insist that things work out, they can surprise you and... work out.

Back in the USSR, um, I mean Western Europe

I've made it back to western Europe, and it does feel different despite my earlier claims that Slovenia is not really eastern Europe. I was wrong -- my observations were compared with Hungary which most certainly is eastern Europe. But anyway, I am at the home for my former classmate and co-worker, Adam Leigland and his lovely wife and fellow transportation professional, Liz Berdugo. They live here in a small bedroom community near Pordenone in northern Italy. He works at the nearby US military base as a project manager/engineer and she does freelance engineering, is releasing a new line of environmentally-sustainable-fabric clothing, and is writing several novels in her "spare" time.

I slept for another 10 hours last night. Eric says there must be a study showing that constant low-grade stress, like that from traveling, causes one to need significantly more sleep. I did notice that Kaori, after 2 months of traveling alone and having to speak a foreign language all the time, was sleeping like 12 hours a night. I have been fighting a cold for almost a week, which is probably also related. There are also 2 cats in the house....

I am actually amazed that I made it. After lugging my SUB (sport utility backpack, that can roll over any terrain) to the bus station, it turned out I had misread the bus schedule and ended up catching a bus that arrived at the train station in Trieste at exactly the same time that the train for Pordenone left. Fortunately, the bus was 10 minutes early and well went swimmingly. Italy always amazes me when the trains run on time and the buses are early. I guess there are real advantages to low-expectations. They can even make you happy. Adam picked up at the train station right on time in his new SUV. Then we had a lovely dinner of salad (you don't get many veggies while traveling, so this really was a treat) on the patio. Adam had Italian class, but afterwards we all went for gelato, which was yummy and rich and not too sweet. They kept speaking to the people at the ice cream place in Italian and the people kept replying in English. Liz and Adam wondered, how do they know that we are American? (Could it be the hiking boots and fleece?)

The night before last I went to see Monster in Law, with JLo, Jane Fonda, and that guy from Alias. I laughed out loud several times, cried at the end, and left with a smile on my face but I can't really recommend it. I think JLo actually can act, and it was good to see Jane again, but there was nothing interesting or thought provoking about the story. Alas!

When you go to the movies in Slovenia, your seat is assigned with the purchase of your ticket. What I didn't understand when asked where I wanted to sit was which part of the floor plan was the front. All the seats at the back were sold, and thinking that the front is more desirable, I assumed that that was the front. So, my assigned seat was surrounded by groups of teenagers in the third row from the back -- not my preference as all. Once the theater darkened, I moved to sit completely alone in the third row from the front. Don't teenagers in the states prefer to sit in the front?

What I like about sitting at the front of the theater is that the experience is as intense as possible. I mean, I have a big TV at home, and I can lie on my couch and watch it. (I used to have it connected to the stereo, but that changed for reasons not worth going into. Speaking of which, is this paragraph or blog for that matter really worth going into?? Anyway...) So, when I go to the movies I hold my fingers up a foot or so in front of my face to make sure that the screen is significantly bigger proportionally than my TV at home. If not, I might as well have rented a movie.

Afterwards I had a glass of wine at this cafe I went to like twice a day while in Koper. It was right across from the Palace, which is the "most magnificent site in Koper", and on the town square, also in a nice building with a good sized front porch area, and very pleasant. Yesterday morning they played Stairway to Heaven in Gregorian Chanting while I drank my tea. I have nothing really to say about it, but I wanted to describe it a little.

Because of the rain and the bad weather, I don't have much of interest to report. But catch me if you can once I am back in Paris....

Notes from Koper, not underground

It's been seriously raining most of the day, so much so that it is actually unpleasant to be outside. But now I am at the computer for a little while, and maybe that made it stop. Ah life. I waited like 1.5 hours for the computer, while this guy was using it who claims he didn't know I was waiting, but the fun part was that I spent a good bit of that time trying to communicate with this Spanish guy about transportation planning.

His English was very limited. I mean, it is better than my Spanish, but really only just. I think if I studied Spanish for like 2 days, we might be at the same level. So, we were talking and really trying, and he asked me about the conference I was going to in Swisse, Walk 21. Now, the concept of pedestrian planning is difficult to explain to native English speakers who don't know what it is, so you can imagine how fun this was. I was drawing pictures of roads and with and without traffic calming installations. He drew a picture of his town and explained to me that the road was very congested bc everyone who lives there drives from the same town to the same factory for work on the same road. Yes, he agreed that they should take the bus, but they drive anyway. It was really fun to promote this kind of consciousness (I really did think I saw the proverbial light bulb go on) and also to help someone with their English (he helped me a little with my Spanish as well, but he has kind of a strange accent, so I didn't understand him very well and frankly was afraid to speak Spanish like him).

He used to study computers but he no like. He only likes to travel. I hear this sort of thing a lot, and I think how lucky I am that I love all the things I do AND I don't like to travel all that much. (I just like to be different places sometimes to force myself out of my frequent ruts.)

Yesterday I road the bus (more than 2 hours in congestion to travel like 20 km -- no joke) to Piran for the day. It's a cute town, I can I see how it would be an incredibly pleasant place to vacation for a few days. It's a little pointy town with tiny narrow streets, tall buildings, and swimmable ocean on 2 sides of the acute triangle of its shape. Koper has a circular central area, also with these cute little streets, tall buildings, and the occasional park space. But both Piran and Koper are cities nearly ruined by the car. Their narrow streets and central squares are blocked by cars. Car noises bounce off the stone buildings, becoming louder. There isn't anywhere for the exhaust to go.

But the sea water felt like velvet to my lower legs and hands. I stood in it for a bit while listening to the David Sedaris stories that Matt loaded on my ipod. Now that I am traveling alone again, I am listening to the ipod all the time and so loving it. This part of the country is completely different than the Alps. The stone is almost a white sandy color, and everything is made out of it. The earth a warm brown. The trees are low and dark, juniper, pine or olive. It's dry dry dry and looks like Italy, except it isn't. But this velvety water is shockingly clear and warm.

I had an early dinner last night at a seaside restaurant of fried calamari and salad and a glass of dry white wine. I don't know if I should blame the wine or not, but I was passed out before 10 PM, sleeping long and hard and waking up at 8 this morning.

Oh, so, the other thing I was frustrated about the last time was trying to find a way from Koper to Adam's place in Italy. The bus web site was telling me I needed to go back to Ljubljana, when I know I am like 10 km from Italy now, and that I had to leave at 5 AM to get their at 11 AM, which is too early bc they work and can't be getting me at the station midday.

All those problems are solved. I am not going to Verona bc the opera schedule doesn't suit me, the hostels appear to be full, and I am just plain finished with this travelling nonsense. I want to go "home" to Paris and the nutella crepe and wait for Eric. So, after Adam's, I have reserved a night train directly from there to Paris, and I am really looking forward to it.

Speaking of chocolate, I don't think I have mentioned how sophisticated my pain au chocolat homing device appears to have become. In the Budapest train station I randomly pointed at a pastry. It might have been empty. It might even have been savory. I had no idea what to expect, but I needed to spend the rest of my Hungarian change. Low and Behold, and much to my surprise, it contained chocolate. Hurray!

I have loads of notes in my journal to type up at some point, but now just doesn't feel like the right time. I also have to finish typing up my notes from the conference bf I go to the next one, but there will be time in Paris for all that. I am just not in the mood. I think the rain has stopped.

Bicycling makes me happy.

At the moment I am incredibly frustrated bc
1) I can't seem to be able to book a hostel in Verona for next week.
2) the only opera playing in Verona isn't until next Friday, the 12th, which is longer than I wanted to stay there.
3) There aren't any cheap flights available back to Paris.
4) There isn't a convenient train between Pordenone (where Adam Leigland lives) or Verona for less than a gazillion dollars. And it is more expensive to travel after the opera than before.

Maybe everything will look sunnier tomorrow or something or I will think of some other way to do it. But what I really wanted to tell you about was my wonderful day moutain biking in the Bohinj valley.

This bike I rented was total crap. The front shifter didn't work at all, the crank was totally wobbly and needed replacing, the seat was trying to circumsize me, and the frame was too small for mine. That still being the case, we biked all thru the valley, thru farms and creeks and woods and got all muddy and lost and then found ourselves again, and it totally rocked. It's so green and lush and these mountains rise up abruptly into a state of barren, rocky, snow-covered-ness. I mean, it looked a little like beautiful countryside anywhere in Europe. Geraniums poured out of the window boxes in A-framed-type houses. Trust me, it's pretty. But it was also stunning in its own special way.

After we returned the crap bikes, we took a little swim in the lake, which was really cold, but clear and blue and full of fish, and washed the mud off of our pant legs. Karolina wanted to follow that adventure with some kayaking, but that was a bit too ambitious for me. Anyway, it never happened. Now I am starving and looking forward to a well-earned dinner. Hurray!