Stuttgart - Nobody told Me about the party

Picture this in New York.  

You go to the subway to buy a ticket. The instruction are overly detailed and confusing. (I was born here, how the f*** do I know what f***ing zone I'm in!?) You get the ticket and walk to the train platform.  Notice that I didn't say, "go through the turnstile."  There is no turnstile, gate or guardian.  You go two stops.  You get off the train.  There is no turnstile, gate or guardian. "Gedouda here!"

Toto, I don't think we're in Hell's f***ing Kitchen anymore.

You're supposed to validate it yourself, though I'm damned if I saw any sign telling us to do that. I'm thinking that this ticketing system exemplifies German culture in ways Americans find wholly foreign.

So, I come out of the metro in Suttgart expecting to explore the wonders of Stuttgart Mitte, the old center of the city with its kitchen and probably a clock and some old German architecture.  What I see is lots and lots of tents and thousands of people eating and drinking.  I've never seen that much beer.   It was served in glasses! Imagine that at an open air festival in the States. ("Hey, Marge, souvenirs!"  "Keep drinking, Harry. I want a set of four.")

It never occurred to me to make this a gastronomic tour. It sure could have been...for twice the cost. Still, I had the best sandwich from an on the street kiosk kind of place.  It was a fresh salad sandwich on a toasty kaiser bun with a fresh yogurt dressing and a kind of chicken falafel.  Not part of the festival, but thoroughly satisfying for less than $5.25.

In the morning we went to the Mercedes-Benz Museum.  This is the highest design transportation museum I've ever been to.

STOP THE BLOGOSPHERE PRESSES! STOP THE BLOGOSPHERE PRESSES! 

MAJOR UPSET IN THE TRIP PLANS!  WILL ADAM AND NAOMI MAKE IT TO FUSSEN?

Up to now i have tried to avoid any long discursive portions on single events, but today's  travels fall into a different category.  Some would call it a travel nightmare, some an adventure.  I leave you to decide which it is.  And you might want to go get a snack and beverage of choice, 'cause I'm going to be long winded.

The hardest part right now is that everyone around us is talking about the problems today, but we can't understand what the hell they are saying.  But you can sure tell the subject.

There were two possibilities for us to get to Fussen today from Stuttgart.  We could take the 3:12 and connect in Ausburg with 10 minutes or take the 2:12 and wait the extra hour.  We opted for caution.  Then the train on the platform before ours jus st there for an extra half hour.  Na suggested we see if a new platform had been assigned.  Voila our train.

10 minutes late.  20 minutes.  30.  We sat there.  Finally someone translated the announcements for us.  A terrible storm had hit Ulm (on the way to Ausburg) with flooding and downed power lines. 40 minutes.  50. 60.

They announced that the train would not leave the station. 

We and half of Stuttgart went to see if the 3:12 had left.  It hadn't.  We and half of Stuttgart got on that train.

The laws of physics state, I think...or they ought to... that two bits of matter cannot occupy the same space in time.  That meant that some of us didn't get seats.  Actually, both of us.  After 20 minutes of waiting, they announced that there were more seats further up the train.  Leaving our suitcases, we walked the length of the train until we found the clog of people with the same thought.  We walked back as the train left the station too late for our connection in Ausburg.   

Somewhere along the way someone offered us a seat, which Naomi, bless her trouper's heart, let me have.  It was in a compartment of people all of whom were capable of translating the announcements.  "We don't know if this train will make it beyond Ulm."  "We still don't know if this train will make it beyond Ulm."  "This is Ulm. If you want to risk changing trains, it might not be a bad idea."

A compartment emptied.  We found ourselves with two 20 year old women who were very helpful in translating the announcements.  "We still don't know if this train will make it beyond Ulm."  "If you still want to get to Munich, you could take a train to (another city) , then a bus to Munich." "Remember that suggestion we just gave, you might want to try it, because this train isn't going nowhere."

Our friends checked the whole thing out, found out about trains to Fussen from Munich and led us to the new train...which had half of Stuttgart and a quarter of Ulm trying to get on board.

We got a hotel room.  It was hot.  No, we don't have air conditioning.  Yes, our wifi is 4.59 euros for the first hour.  Naomi, at the train station while I emailed our B&B in Fussen, braved the lines in the ticket office and found us a 4 train route to Fussen.  An American gave her an extra number ticket and helped translate.

Back to our hotel.  We got our bags and went to the front desk.  

Are you squeamish?  Here's where it gets creepy.  At the front desk I said we needed to cancel the rooms.  Then he said in a severe, innuendo laden voice, "No. You already used it." It was pretty damned clear what he thought happened in that room in the 45 minutes since we checked in.  I said we hadn't used it and he could look, then I pulled out both our passport and told him to read them.  By the time he looked at the room, with me at his side, he was eager to help us with perhaps a fan.  No? Can I help you make train reservations?  I suppose with a hotel in a train station he's used to it all, but he could have been polite about it.

Next was the chaos of buying tickets.  You need to understand that even with my hyperbolic prose there were lots of tired, stranded people.  The info desk had a couple of hundred in line at one point and the ticket office with three people on duty had at least 30 ahead of us when we got a number.  Not a normal afternoon in Ulm.

We were calmly waiting in line (Only 29 to go before us! 28!) a couple at one of the ticket windows had a minor argument with the agent. No big deal. Then everything ground to a halt. A different couple got into an argument with a different agent. It became heated. I don't speak German, as I said, but I believe the gist of the couple's complaint was "You guys suck and you suck specifically today and we hate you."  This went on for a while when another customer (Let's call him a potential passenger.  There was a lot of passenger latency in the station at that moment.) ran forward and started yelling. His German I understood: "I've been waiting in line for a long time! You're spending too much time with these people! You suck!" That seemed to spur the imagination of the guy I'll call the Skin Head because he had a shaved head, big muscles, and scary tattoos. He began to shout, too.  Naomi thinks he shouted about "This is what Germany has come to!" I'm fairly certain he threw in Big Banks.  

The police arrived 20 minutes after it all calmed down. 

Then began our mad dash to Fussen. Four trains with layovers of 14 min, 15 min, and 7 min. Train one was crowded with Ulm Station refugees.  Train two had two doors and people trying to ram in when we arrived.  Everyone from our train tried to cram in, too.

There's a nice comradery that can occur in adversity when no ticket agents are around. People were very helpful once they were on board. We squeezed in, held up by the press of bodies and luggage...for a 42 minute train trip.  Really, it would have been horrible if everyone there weren't so happy to be on a moving train.  We cheered when the doors closed.  We sighed together when no one tried to get on or off at a stop.  We handed luggage for the few who did need to get off. We laughed when we discovered that the platform at our station was on the other side of the train.  Then the train emptied and everyone rushed for their connection.

The next two trains only required running between platforms to get our trains. We made it. We didn't think we would, but we made it, helped in the end by three American women, one of whom grabbed Na's suitcase going up the last flight of stairs.

I'm done.  You can start the Blogosphere presses, again.

The Last Metro, etc.

We are saying goodbye to Paris, our garret, and Rue Montorgueil.  "Auvoir, Rue. Auvoir, Garret. Auvoir, Paris."

On our denier jour (That either means "last day" or it's some kind of cheese.  From what I can tell all words and phrases in French have at least two meanings: the thing itself, and some kind of cheese.) we started with cafe and jus with Olga Samoilenko, who owns the several times aforementioned garret.  She was in town because of press and television interviews about her solo show in Provence.  You can see some of her art at http://www.art-olga.com/  though I believe the show is all new work. She was charming and gracious and very interested in Naomi's art.

Na traipsed off for shopping and some freedom and I went back to Monmartre to see what I didn't before.  I would like to report that the next Picasso was in Place Tertre working on her art.  If she is, she's slogging it out doing tourist portraits and boring cityscapes.  I saw people drawings and painting; I did not see art.  I did see some lovely streets, and Parisian type architecture.

We had dinner at a fabulous Creperie in 3ieme arr. I can't verify that it's authentic Bretonnaise, but that's their claim.  As the former Breton crepe king of Burlington, VT. I can verify that the food was excellent.  The place is crowded, a bit rustic, and very friendly.  They kept the music so low you could barely hear it.  However, I heard just enough to know it was the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem.  So, the volume was either too low' too high, or just right depending on your proclivities.

Now we're on a train to Stuttgart passing fields of grain and vegetables. Na is going to sleep, having finished her coffee.

I have a few last things to say about Paris.  I don't want to appear to be a complainer, but if it must be said, it must.  First, there are entirely too many directional signs.  Speaking as a 17 year Massachusetts resident, this is confusing.  The streets are properly twisted, why do they muck them up by telling where you are and where you want to go?  Second, the language thing.  I came prepared for stumbling in my French, working hard to be understood and suffering the scorn of the French at my linguistic ineptitude.  Instead, almost everyone switched to English at the slightest hesitancy, cheerfully helping me, even when I clung to the mangled nest of cabled that I call my French.  Third, the Walk/Don't Walk signs.  The green is a green that I can see.  That's just wrong.  I know its time to cross when the red light goes out and the colorless light comes on.  i have no idea what to do if I can actually see the green. Lastly, I was just getting used to the stairs and we now had to leave.  Another 5 days and I bet I could have made to to 5 1/2 floors before my legs started to ache.  That's 5 1/2 French floors.  I've almost forgiven them for the floor counting.  Given time...

The train that we're on gives the speed! How cool is that?! The top I've seen so far is 319 km/h.  For you Massachsettsers, that "wicked fast."  For everyone else, it's 198.2174103 mph...or it's some kind of cheese.  

From The Color Master to Simply Rouge

Disclaimer: This blog employs such literary devices as metaphor, satire, truth, semi-truth, sarcasm, whimsy, and out-right lies.  Proceed at your own risk.

Have you been to see Monet's Gardens at Givenry? He created his canvas, then spent his life painting it.

Getting there was quite a journey. We left before the bakery was open for business.  This was a sad thing.  We had to settle for croissants at the Gare De Saint Lazare; a sorry second cousin to the local boulangerie artisan.  We took the RER A, the express metro specially designed to be unpronounceable by Americans, a train to Vernon, then a bus to Givenry.  It was about a 7 minute walk to Monet's house.

Les fleurs! Les fleurs! Les fleurs! Good gracious the man loved color and shape.  We wandered the gardens for a bit, then over to the pond for willows and water lilies.  What I would have liked was to stay past closing and wallow in the beauty of it all.  It's no wonder he painted it over and over.

Then we almost missed the bus back to Vernon for the train.  Damn gift shops!  I actually ran to try to catch it.  is that legal at my age?  But "almost" is the key word. We made it on and made it back.

As we got off the train, a dog with a raggedy bandana jumped out of a car from which a man was unloading plastic shopping bags filled with clothes.  The man yelled, a woman yelled, too.  I looked into the car and there was a whole pile of bags next to which sat a woman with crutches.  The dog came back, the man grabbed it roughly by the scruff, the bandana came off, the dog squealed, and all the nice people tried to give the whole thing a wide berth.  We left it behind with no idea about the safety of the dog or the people.

10:15 pm we were standing in another line - hot, sweaty line in Monmartre for ( drumroll, please) The Moulin Rouge.  What I liked: sitting in the tiered cabaret audience at a table with 4 people we didn't know, the first look at those lovely, topless women, the excitement, the glitz.  What I didn't like: with one exception, neither the musical/dance numbers nor many of the acts had a good sense of how to end.  I was left, not so much with a sense of wanting more; rather I felt incomplete.  Oh, yeah, and the champagne was very nice.

I was reminded after a while of George Burns on Johnny Carson. He mentioned that there was a woman in a see through blouse on his flight.  He added, "You know, if you've seen one, you've seen them both."  In this case, having seen then both, you've seen aaaaaall of them, over and over.  The women were all tall, young, slender, fit, beautiful and with surprisingly small variation in breast size and type.  The rocketed got nothing on this place for strict casting qualifications.

The show let out after the metro closed. We walked back, a 35 minute jaunt through a decidedly hot, but otherwise peaceful Paris night. We had no hassles nor, in spite of my fears, were we ever lost.  Clearly the gods want us to walk, rather than take the metro.  Luckily, we're leaving on Saturday, so the train station will be open, I presume.  It's not Tuesday, at any rate.  And I hope the metro is running,

Musee revisited

Disclaimer: This blog employs such literary devices as metaphor, satire, truth, semi-truth, sarcasm, whimsy, and out-right lies.  Proceed at your own risk.

We returned to the Louvre on Wednesday.  Because we got there after 3:00 am,the line was long.  ( I'm fairly certain. With the ends of two lines fairly close together, some people were confused over which line was for the Hermitage.) but the day was nice, the company in comparable, and the line moved quickly enough.

NOTE:  I COMPOSED AND ERASED A COMPLETELY SNOBBISH RANT THAT CROSSED SEVERAL COUNTIES BETWEEN HUMOR AND SARCASM BEFORE LANDING ON INTOLERANCE. THE BETTER COURSE OF WISDOM OR COWARDICE OR SOME SUCH CONVINCED ME TO START OVER AND TRY SOMETHING A TAD LESS EFFETE.

I think I understand the impulse to take a picture of a great work of art when on a trip, but in reality you can see a better picture in a book, or even on the Internet.  The impulse I can't wrap my brain around is the one that says, "I'll fight my way to the front of this mob just to take a picture of me standing in front of the Mona Lisa."  There they are with their backs to the thing that they figure is worth the effort to get a picture of. I guess to them, it's a trophy, like the trout they caught at Uncle Jimmy's Corn 'n' Catch when they were 9.

I shouldn't complain I suppose. At least they came to a museum.  The jostling mobs do make it hard to just stand and look, but Na and I braved them and managed to get to the front to see M.L. for a few minutes. Not long enough, but the mystique start to reveal itself.  The Venus de Milo was similar. At least with the statue I could stand back and marvel at how much humanity Milo got from that hunk of rock.  That is, until people realized I was in the way of their picture taking.

There were too many pieces of art that distracted us and we never made it to the Vermeer. You try just walking past The Death of Marat; we couldn't do it. Such is Museum going.  The Musee de l'Orangerie ( Rough translation: Museum of the Orange Underpants.) was a whole different kettle of art.  Two large oval rooms, each containing 4 Monets, door to door.  They were mesmerizing; it was like being inside his work, swallowed like an happy, aesthete Jonah. No photos allowed, either.  Ahhhhh!  It was the perfect prelude to a trip to Givenry.

The Eye-ful Tower

On Tuesday we got to the Louvre (a 15 min. walk from the garret) to find that it was Tuesday. That meant the musee was closed. So was the Musee de l'Orangerie (rough translation: Museum of the Orange Underwear), which was on our todo list for Tuesday along with an authentic Breton crepe restaurant that inI spite of its proximity to nothing, keeps museum hours - closed on Tuesday.

We decided to walk to the Eiffel Tower, which, judging by the distance we walked, is located in Albemarle County Virginia and was designed by Tom Jefferson. Then we decided to walk up it. Luckily our stupidity was stifled by the Eiffel, which only has stairs to the 2ieme etage. (Consult earlier blog for converting French Etages to US floors.). From there, you have to take an elevator to the top.  

I was dithering about spending the extra to go all the way, when a little man with a chair strapped to his back offered to take us on the overland route.  We were set on a price of 4Euros, then he told me it would be double to take us both at the same time. I allowed as how he'd be making the climb anyway, so a second chair wouldn't be that much more. We argued and I said forget it. He hustled off to pester a mother and her 6 kids and we got our tickets.

The view - well, you can imagine. It was all splendid and well worth the cost, the line and the crowd.  My vertigo did kick in on the elevator ride up, just enough to be uncomfortable, but not incapacitating.  Still, when I saw the little man up there with his chair, I tried to hire him for the return, but he said he was booked, then he clambered over the rail with a family of 7 strapped to his back.

We also spent some time on one of the bridges covered with locks. You're probably thinking this is some pun about locks and boats. But no, this is like real padlocks that people put little remembrances on (like "Michal & Enid"), attach to the fence under the railing, and Todd the key into the Seine. It's a kind of spontaneous art because of the kinds and spacing of the locks, and the light shining through them.

We did have crepes that evening, just not at the Breton joint.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

Notre Dame

She' not really ours, but who wouldn't feel a touch proprietary by this charming little chapel.  Lets be real, speaking as a Jew, the Catholics really know how to created a sense of awe in the public mind. Going into Notre Dame is a remarkable experience, even in this age of tv and CGI.  The windows alone leave the jaw agape. There are the statues, the paintings, the tapestries and most of all the splendor of the architecture.  Jews focused on the splendor of God and in that everyone should be awed. For all the show biz personalities we've racked up, it's amazing that we forgot that spectacle sells.

Na and I also walked about the area we're staying in.  Our street, Rue de Montorgueil, is known as one of Paris' market areas.  It is busy with cafes, brasseries, bistros and restaurants. There's also a fish market, several fresh produce markets, a couple of butchers, a cheese shop, a patisserie and a couple of boulangeries.  It's all lovely and very Parisian. 

We had dinner au plein air at a brasserie sitting, as is customary, both facing out so that we could be seen and could see.  It started to rain, forcing us to move further under the awning and creating a bit of camaraderie  with some of the other customers.

Then it as back to our garret - Did I mention that we're in a garret? Did I mention that I think the French call the 2nd floor the 1st in an effort to fool you into thinking that your 7th floor walk up is only six floors up? Let's call their language "Freedom" in protest. - which is owned, appropriately enough, by an artist. She's off in Provence opening a solo show, so we haven't met her. I'm disposed to like her, even though she threw in that extra floor when we weren't looking.

The Flights

Naomi and I left for Europe on Sunday July 28.  On our first flight - Boston to Montreal - there was one flight attendant. That's how small the plane was.  He, the attendant, was notable for more than his solitary state. He was paunchy, unshaven, and disheveled. His general demeanor was harried and tired. By contrast, the crew on the Boeing 777 from Montreal to Paris, operated by the same airline, Air Canada, was plentiful,smartly dressed, professional and attentive. There must be at least 8 of them, and even six hours into the flight they appeared fresh, crisp, and entirely in control.

I wonder if that first attendant was relegated to his solo work because he did not measure up? Was he not ready for the big time of trans-Atlantic attending? Was he bush league by nature? Or did he sink to that disreputable state because he was never given the chance to play in the big leagues, disappointment and career despair causing him to sink into a perpetual couch potato state?  Perhaps he was demoted for some infraction, such as stepping on the toes of a business class passenger or speaking disrespectfully of the maple leaf. 

I would rather believe that it was love that drove him to this condition. Years ago, He was working a flight with his dear one. It was her first trip across The Pond and, flustered by nerves, she forgot to make the coffee.  Ever gallant, our flight attendant took the blame, lost his place in the roster, all to save his true love the embarrassment of failure.  Now he languishes on puddle jumps, a broken man while she, gaining confidence, is a frequent Air Canada Attendant of the Month. Perhaps she is team leader on this very flight. She sees him only fleetingly as she and her colleagues leave together, they laughing and confident that their futures are secure, while he is a lonely, indistinct figure going home on the bus to drink Labatt and eat his Stouffers frozen dinner while watching highlights from his favorite Hockey Night games.