Old Age

AUSTIN, Texas, June 29, 2004 —I don't want to get old. No one does. But I'm at the age when I know it will happen. You feel yourself aging. You can keep the feeling at bay, sometimes. Then you see the next generation, the people twenty and thirty years older. And it's scary.

Dad and I went to Temple today to see his brother. He's in a Veteran's Administration Nursing Home. It's a nice place really. Only it's full of old men and women. A lot of them have a photo of themselves as young soldiers or sailors outside their doors. This makes it all that much more sad to see the bent bodies and vacant stares. My dad's brother seems to know us. There are books he is reading. But he asks about his mom and dad...are they still alive? Dad patiently explains that they died in '53 and '48. We also go see Forrest's uncle. He is mentally alert. But he is on oxygen and is doing a breathing therapy...years of cigarette smoking have run his lungs out of gas even though his mind is still there.

Dad followed me to the car place where I left my car for maintenance and a recall fix. Then we drove to Temple. We didn't stay long. One never does. Dad drove up there but wants me to drive back. It rains some. I feel the van hydroplane a little on North Mopac. I avoid the brake and hold steady until it grips again. A mile or two later we see a BMW that has hit another car and a pole. We were lucky it didn't rain on us that much because when I get home, it rains a bunch more. FFP comes home and he and the bookkeeper and I go to eat at a diner on Burnet. Then he takes me to get my car.

I spend the rest of the afternoon on this journal and watching a few movies for the film fest screening.

Routine

AUSTIN, Texas, June 28, 2004 —I'm trying to get into a routine. It's not easy to feel comfortable with the routine again, somehow.

Today my dad says he is going to water aerobics. I get to the gym a little early and ride the bike for thirty minutes, work up a sweat and then shower and put on my suit. The class feels weird. There are new participants, no real instructor and my dad has to leave before it's over although after I dress and intercept him, he says he 'did better than the last time he came.' We agree to drive to Temple tomorrow and see his (older) brother in the Texas Veteran's rest home.

I go home and settle in to try to catch up my journal and watch some films for my volunteer reviewer job. This journal goes slowly with various interruptions and with time taken to look through guides and receipts to answer the question, "What did I do?" It's hard to remember what one does. Which is one purpose for the journal. Of course, if you don't do it in more or less real time.... I was one of those people who believed Ronald Reagon when he said he didn't remember.

I watch movies (including some TV and Netflix as well as the ones I'm reviewing) and I we watch a CSI: Miami episode. We talk to people on the phone. A caller says she was looking for someone on google, some voice teacher and this site popped up. Go figure.

Father's Day Belated

AUSTIN, Texas, June 27, 2004 —I decided we should take our parents out for Father's Day, even if we are a week late. We are still getting up early so we have lots of time for coffee and newspaper and having a workout before our eleven o'clock lunch. I even make the Dads some cards, using old pictures that I find.

We go to Chez Zee. Boy are they crowded, even at 11. They have lost our reservation. But they accommodate us. In that front room with a large group with little kids, it is very noisy. So we don't have much of a conversation what with the hearing problems we all have. We all enjoy the food, though.

FFP takes his parents home and Dad leaves to go home for a nap. FFP has some work to do. I work on my journal. It's fun to look up stuff on the map and in the guidebooks to try to spell things right and such, when you have the time. I watch a little Wimbledon on TV, too. When the Longhorn game in the College World Series gets into the last endings, I watch a bit of that, too.

We have a dinner party in the evening. It is a group of people who are forming an organization dedicated to getting people to leave money to Ballet Austin in their wills. We are lighthearted with wine and food about the ultimate fate of all. FFP brings up Six Feet Under and one of the guests goes into that 'I don't watch TV' mode and another brags about having contact with HBO marketing people and getting show souvenir geegaws (while professing that he doesn't watch either) and another says that someone they know or are related to or something is an assistant director on the show or something like that. People are funny. I also find it amusing to talk to people about, say, Paris. Their favorite hotel or restaurant or cafe or experience is always held out as quintessential...they glaze over if you have actually failed to go their favorite spot. I like to think I don't do this. In fact, FFP and I ate twice in a little restaurant recommended by friends that happened to be in an arrondisement near where we were staying.

Home from the event, we watch the end of Six Feet Under (bizarre episode as usual) and then end up falling asleep watching that Woody Allen musical spoof Everyone Says I Love You. I can't help myself...I like this one.

FFP's folks a long time ago

I don't seem to be getting anywhere...

AUSTIN, Texas, June 26, 2004 —What did I accomplish today? Where did the day go? Well, you know what they say about the unexamined life? No, not the part about it not being worth living. The part about where you can either have a life or examine it! I worked on the journal today. For a few days. You can see the results now in this space. A few resurrected and imperfectly remembered days below. I've been editing pictures since I got back. The digital camera worked out pretty well this trip, I think.

I am still waking early, my usual reaction to east to west jet lag. I have to get a workout before the unaccustomed morning hunger sends me to the refrigerator. We don't get up quite as early as usual. I get a workout but I notice that I just quit at sort of unexpected times. I'm getting back into the fitness routine, though, I hope.

Between feeding myself, reading newspapers and writing the journal (and looking up facts, spelling and wracking my brain for when we did what and what we did when), I do some social planning, review a family financial planning spreadsheet FFP is having problems with and watch a couple of films I'm reviewing for the Austin Film Festival. In the evening we watch the Longhorn baseball team lose a game in the College World Series. We are asleep early as usual.

 

FFP, establishing his visit to the Eiffel Tower

our real life

AUSTIN, Texas, June 25, 2004 —When we were in Paris, we went to art galleries, ate out at typical Parisian restaurants and saw an artsy movie. I watched a little of the French Open, too, on TV I think. Not unlike our life in Austin, only different.

Today I had a tennis match. I thought I would also work out, before or after, but it didn't happen. Instead, between rain storms, I went to the Austin Film Festival office and turned in one set of films and got another set. I picked up cleaning. I worked over some of the pictures I took on the trip.

And we went to a gallery opening at the 2040 Gallery on South Lamar. A show of Texas artists including our friend Andrew Long. Then we decided to have typical South Austin food: TexMex. At first we foolishly went to Matt's El Rancho. Well, people are always talking about it and we hadn't been there in a long time. We remembered our last visit to the South Lamar location (who remembers when it occupied that land where Four Seasons sits now on what was First Street on Town Lake?) only by viture of rancid tortilla chips. The large parking lot had places but there were many SUVs lurking. The wait was twenty-five minutes. We opted out. A little dingy place on South First with images of Jesus called Little Mexico provided a couple of mugs of Dos Equis amber, some very nice guacamole and good enchiladas plus fresh chips and good salsa. No waiting.

We went home and watched some tube and had another early bed.

my reel life

AUSTIN, Texas, June 24, 2004 —I devoted myself to films most of the day. I did work out, though. I don't seem to want to do the requisite minutes on the bike or the reps but I'm getting back into and at least showing up each day. Watching the submissions to the Austin Film Festival is amazing in two ways: that some of them got made and submitted given their lack of a reason for being (in my opinion) and that some of them are so good given the obvious lack of funding compared to useless Hollywood junk. I try to watch them carefully and write up screening notes and keep up with administrative side of it. This is the type of thing that I'd hoped to volunteer for and it is certainly interesting. Should make the festival even more interesting.

I hate hospitals

AUSTIN, Texas, June 23, 2004 —Even when I'm not the patient, I hate hospitals. Today I got up and had my workout and then packed up a backback full of amusements (Palm, notebook, pens, books, newspapers) and went to get my dad. He was ready. He gave me his wallet, keys and a medi-haler to hold for him and had a folder with his medical stuff. We were early so we did a fair amount of waiting. They got to him early, though.

Hospitals just make me quesy even when someone else has to don a skimpy gown and go under the anesthetic and get IVs and all that. It's more to do with dread than a weak stomach. The gal putting in the IV spurted blood all over the place. That didn't bother me. But the whole scene: gurneys, doctors, nurses, the environment. I think my mom's time in the hospital has given me this reaction to the places...a feeling of loss and loss of control.

But this whole thing went as well as I could dream. They kept him overly long in recovery but after they returned him to the room it wasn't long before he had the nurse help him to the toilet and he got dressed and was ready to go. At his house, he heated soup and we ate. My friend SuRu came to get his pills. (He eschewed having the pain killer prescription filled.) I was worried about leaving him but he walked several circles of the house, went to the toilet again and encouraged us to leave. He promised to call later and he did, reporting he'd had a leftover supper, taken a walk and that his urine was clear.

FFP and I supped and watched TV and read. The usual. I was very relieved about my dad, especially when I heard from a travel buddy about problems other people's parents were having. I got another reprieve and he is still, for the moment, upright and having a pretty good time of it.

back to taking care of business

AUSTIN, Texas, June 22, 2004 —Boy we are having a lot of rain! FFP has been busy taking care of things...getting clothes cleaned, stuff repaired. Today he'd scheduled maintanence for his car. We both went to the club. He went home and showered but I went straight to the car place to collect him. I sat and read in the car while it rained.

After a while I told him I wanted to run an errand downtown...to pick up some films to review for Austin Film Festival. He said he wanted to go to the Ballet Austin, Dance Education Center and see some of the staff who have moved in down there. We did these errands and took some pictures at the DEC for one of his online newsletters. Then we ate lunch at NeWorlDeli.

My friend SuRu came by. We talked and looked at some TV. She took me over to get FFP's car. We decided to have an early dinner at Dirty's Hamburgers. FFP decided to come along and then convinced us to go to Central Market. This was a mistake, I think. My tuna sandwich was dull. SuRu later said the catfish made her sick. I think Dirty's would have been better. Not bland and, if you got sick, well, you were warned.

A Nancy came by to get something SuRu had for her. We talked a while. When everyone left, I was weary and I dozed in front of TV while pretending to read.

back to the enchilada

AUSTIN, Texas, June 21, 2004 —We are home now. In Paris they have a chain of 'Tex Mex' restaurants called Indiana with an American Indian in a headdress for a logo. No kidding. We didn't try one. Scary. But today our bookkeeper was here and since she cared for Chalow while we were gone we invited her out to eat. We all went to Fonda San Miguel restaurant and had some authentic food and drink.

Being back home means sorting through piles, moving stuff around and not seeming to make any forward progress.

don't leave the house

AUSTIN, Texas, June 20, 2004 —We get up and shower and wander the house all day. I couldn't sleep so I was up messing around on the computer in the wee hours. FFP manages to go out and get groceries but that is more than I could manage. I eat. I seem permanently hungry. I know it's Father's Day but I put off celebrating it. When you are retired and you return from a vacation you don't have to really bounce back so you don't. You give in to the lost sleep and the jet lag. I might have downloaded some photos and done some e-mails. I was a slug. And I enjoyed it. Our friend returned Chalow to us and she didn't seem too happy about it. I think she'd rather stay with our friend and her dog.

going home

AUSTIN, Texas, June 19, 2004 —We get up and shower and have breakfast and then we sit in the room a while and read. It's raining a little outside so we decide to go to the airport early. The place is a madhouse. I think because some Air France stuff had to move back here after terminal 2E collapsed. We have some lunch and then join in the fun of getting checked in and through security. It really poured outside after we got in the terminal but it quits before we get on the plane.

We settle in for the long trip home. I'm popping my decongestants. A huge person is between me and the TV screen so I don't even try to watch. I read. I eat what they offer and some of our reserve food. I have a drink. We arrive in Dallas late after the plane routes around storms. The whole Dallas airport is in turmoil after a shutdown of an hour or so because of the storm. We get to the gate but it changes. But the walk isn't bad. We are late leaving waiting for connecting passengers. But we are virtually home. We see people we know on the Austin flight.

We get to ABIA, get our bags (one arrived before we did) and find our ride at the curb. A little before midnight we unlock the house and see the piles of mail. Tomorrow we will have Chalow back. Home feels a little strange. I unpack some things, filling the dry cleaner basket and the dirty clothes bin. Today we were in Paris. France was fun. We burrowed a little into the history of the place but it's as mysterious and vast as ever. We don't live long enough to know all the world well. I'm extremely vague on the basic geography of places I haven't visited. And even as I take these trips and learn a few things, I go home and my comfort level starts slipping. I read a novel (The Book of Salt) where the protagonist has the streets of Paris memorized, including every little Impasse. I will do well to remember that the Rue Rampon runs between Rue Voltaire and Rue de la Republique and is 'sens unique' from the latter to the former even though our hotel for eight nights was on this street. And I'll do well to remember the colorfully named Rue du Pas de la Mule that exits the Place des Vosges on the northeast side and I may never know the story of the mule. I'll probably forget some of my new food words (rignons, hareng, pissenlit) and be searching for their translations on the next visit. Now I've got to find out more about Dublin and think about entering the world of the fictional Leopold Bloom.

Left Bank Redux

PARIS, France, June 18, 2004 —After our usual breakfast, checking the Internet and such we head to the Left Bank on the Metro. We go to the Village Voice and succumb to some books. What the heck: tomorrow we go home. It is here that FFP's Visa first gets refused. We will check a couple of bags so we'll have room to carry on books. We go to Deux Magots and sit and read and watch people. I decide that we should eat at Brasserie Lipp. We go in as soon as they open for lunch and get seats in the glass-enclosed outside part. I haven't had Steak Tartare and mad cow, bacteria or whatever...I really love it. Last day, might as well have it. FFP has a sardine dish he likes. We get into a discussion with an English couple from Bath who drove over to go shopping.

After the meal we need a walk. First we walk to the Bon Marché department store. A guide touts the Grand Épicerie. We find it and after some effort find the food floor. It's interesting but doesn't compare to Harrod's in London or KaDeWe in Berlin. I suggest we walk to the Eiffel Tower. FFP's Visa also got rejected at the Lipp. We stop to check our messages at a phone booth. We have a fraud alert from Visa. I guess putting our big meal at L'Auberge de l'Ill on our card had triggered this. That or flitting around France from the Alsace to Paris. We call and clear that up.

We get to the Eiffel Tower and get FFP's obligatory picture. The skies are getting cloudy. We have been so lucky with the weather: it has only spit rain once or twice. We walk up to Trocadero and get under an awning when it starts to rain. We have a drink and watch people coming home from work for the weekend, buying papers and magazines at the kiosk across the way. I feel weary. It's threatening rain. There is a Metro a few feet away. We go back to the hotel.

I am packing. I feel a little queasy. I've felt great the whole trip. Anyway, I tell FFP to go out and get himself something to eat. He does. I finish packing and make some tea. We don't have to go real early tomorrow to the airport because we have an afternoon flight. FFP comes back with a ham sandwich and some water. I relax and watch TV and read. I eat an apple and a Power Bar and have some more tea. I feel fine. Tomorrow, with luck, we will see Austin again.

stranger with shopping bag walks by the Lipp

Back to Paris

PARIS, France, June 17, 2004 —We get up and take a walk before breakfast. I am feeling a little nostalgic toward L'Auberge de l'Ill. I see a woman folding linens through a window. We eat and then start packing up the car. The rest of the gang is now having breakfast and we go say 'goodbye.' They are all headed to Switzerland for a few days.

We head toward Strasbourg. It seemed like it would be easy enough to find the train station and car place but we get a little turned around but we find it. We get the car turned in and go sit in the waiting room of the station. When we go to the track, we use the elevator and when we get off the car that we have seat reservations in is right there. We put the bags on the overhead rack and sit down and start reading. Somewhere after Nancy a conductor will put a miniscule punch in our tickets.

When we arrive at Gare de L'est, we get a cab pretty quickly. At Hotel Le General they try to tell us they don't have a room and that they are putting us in the Holiday Inn on Place de la Republique. "It's a superior hotel," the guy says. "Someone didn't move out and we don't have the superior room you paid for." First he says all this in French and finally in English. I insist they have a room. He says they have a regular room. I get the key and send FFP to look. I will try to get a small refund for the smaller room. We know we like the breakfast, Internet access and amenities here. The devil you know and all that. FFP comes back and says it is fine. We go up and rest a bit. The room is smaller but it's fine. Except. The A.C. isn't working. I unpack after telling FFP to go tell them 'le climatisation ne marche pas.' He comes back and says they know it that whole floors are out. So we open the windows. It's noisy but it's cool. But we are hungry. I don't know why because we ate breakfast and ate on the train (shared a sandwich).

We go to a bar around the corner and, sitting in an outside area that is inches from the traffic in the Place de la Republique but separated by some lattice and plants, we have some gazpacho and salad and drinks. We go back up and dress and walk to the Place des Vosges by a different route. We see some different art galleries than the last time we went this way and even go in and visit with some of the folks. They offer us wine and snacks but we don't take it. We go to La Mule du Pape and have dinner. Tomorrow is our last day in Paris. We walk back to the hotel and I'm thinking what should we do tomorow. FFP says he'd like to go back to the Left Bank.

Three Stars--L'Auberge de l'Ill

ILLHAEUSERN, France, June 16, 2004 —I don't know how many places currently have three Michelin Stars. The last time I bought the Red Guide was 1994. They listed twenty restaurants in all of France with three stars. Three is the most they give. None of this five star (or diamond or whatever). They give forks (up to five) but the stars are serious.

L'Auberge de l'Ill in sleepy little Illhaeusern in Alsace has three stars. Several of my friends have been here, multiple times. I have never eaten in such an annointed restaurant in France. We 'ate one star' the other week at the Manoir de la Drome. As far as I know, that was the only 'starred' restaurant I'd ever visited in France. Which is not to say that I haven't been to some fancy pants restaurants, especially in big U.S. cities.

The Haeberlein family has been cooking here for years. I think the younger generation is kicking in but we saw Jean-Pierre doing some front duty today.

How to prepare for a lunch such as this? (And it's a lunch because, after all, it has a beautiful garden and how could you eat for five hours if you didn't start until eight in the evening or so?)

We have breakfast. (Not a good idea to starve. Must lay a base.) We walk around the town. Maybe a couple of times. There isn't a mother lode of places to walk here. Walk a bit and you are out of town. We've seen the cemetery, the bee tree (a couple of trees, really, in flower alive with thousands of bees). We've seen the soccer field, the canoe launch, the Trout, the store, another bar/restaurant/game room that never seems to be open, gardens, barns, cows. The stork.

Finally it is time for lunch. (Reservation is 12:30.) We all get dressed up, pack our cameras and head out. We explain the absence of Al who has actually made the reservation and asked them to prepare terrine de foie d'oie truffée in brioche especially for us. We are taken to the garden for apéritifs (beautiful view) and to choose our food and wine. It is at this point that I realize that I'm unprepared. Sure, I'd peeked at the menu in the window earlier and even looked up some words I didn't know. But I hadn't thought the whole thing through. What would I have at each stage? So, I just go with the flow. I get the house apéritif which, if I understood correctly, had an infusion of woodruff or something. We all order. We are having the goose liver paté with truffle in brioche because Al has caused a whole loaf to be made. Then what? I want to order many courses. Finally I choose a strange sounding starter...it has dandelions, two kinds of herring, a poached egg in pastry, some potato chips and herring roe (eggs). Best as I can figure from my translation. If they have something that sounds that weird it must be great. For a main course, I pick ris de veau (sweetbreads). It's an organ meat kind of trip. I figure I'll have the terrine in brioche, these dishes, cheese, dessert. Our friends LG and Pam and Hal, Jill, Claire and FFP pick their food. FFP picks the wine. Well, he picks a Sauterne for the goose liver and Serge, the sommelier, advises on a white and a red from the area. Serge is well-known to everyone who has been here. We mention Austin and our friends who said to say 'hi' to him. Turns out he actually visited Fall Creek, he says, when we mention our friends who run this Lake Buchanan area winery. (The wines, according to FFP's little notebook from the Paris stationery store, were a 1997 Chateau Gravas Sauterne, a 1996 Fuchs Kierschberg Riesling and a 1999 Cave Vinicole Pinot Noir. Maybe. I realize I never looked at the wine list. I should have.)

Soon we are ushered into the dining room. Nearby the loaf containing the perfect pink paté with truffles is carved into slices and served. It is a monumental piece. Next comes my herring dish. My, my. It is excellent. And, by the way, that herring roe would be a nice substitute for caviar. The sweetbreads are not especially photogenic and not really out of this world like the other dishes. Good, though, and I don't leave any. Jill and Claire got the Bresse chicken and the drumsticks had their own silverware. Then it's time for cheese although I'm starting to fell, well, full! The five drinkers have polished off the three bottles of wine. We have the cheese course and order dessert. I got la tasse de cappuccino glacé, gâteau Hacienda de la Concepcion. I couldn't begin to eat it but it worth the price to look at it.

Then we are in the garden again. Taking pictures of each other and filling up the table with coffees and eau de vies after puzzling over the after dinner drink card. We were all still standing and our thirteen-year-old companion was thinking of taking up a career photographing food. (Did you, FFP and I ask each other rhetorically occasionally, get to go to three star restaurants when you were thirteen?)

Finally, we amble down the street to the hotel and change clothes. Hal has talked them out of menus for us to keep as souvenirs. Later some of us sit at a table playing card games the kid knows (most of which are too active for my state of fullness) and drinking water. When bed time comes I haven't eaten anything else although some of the gang has been nibbling chocolate. I have some of the beer left over from yesterday. Warm but not too flat. A nice night cap, really.

Tomorrow we head back to Paris and after a couple of nights, home. It's that point in the trip when you are glad to go home, sort of. But another part of me wants to wash my clothes and stay another month. I pack our bags so that we won't unpack a lot of stuff until we get home.

Sights of the Alsace

ILLHAEUSERN, France, June 15, 2004 —Our idea is to see some sights without going too far afield. There is a castle in the area. And we think we should go back to Ribeauvillé and shoot some pictures and have another look around. We drive over there and park and stroll around. You can see the castle (Haut Koenigsbourg) from the village. There are delightful baked goods and sausages and eaux de vie in the shops. I have a coffee and FFP has a Perrier and a pastry in front of a little place. A guy sweeps the street with a giant machine...which takes some of the street sweeper romance away. At least the Post is still in a nostalgic mode...we see an official yellow post bike delivering mail. We walk around basking in the sweet town's sights, FFP makes a phone call from a booth and we get a message for my Dad on our answering service. I take a bunch more pictures before we retrieve the car and head toward the castle.

We can see the castle from the village but we get lost a couple of times before heading up the steep road to it. We park a short distance away and take the gentle path up to it. The site has had a fortification for centuries. In ruins at the beginning of the last century, it was restored using fragments as guides. FFP hasn't been to a castle (except the Louvre, of course but it's more like a museum except in the restored castle rooms area which we did visit). So this is his castle for this trip.

After this it is: lunch time! I suggest we stop at a hotel up near the castle but FFP votes to go to St. Hippolyte. This town is dead for some reason. The first place we try to go is closed. We see through some windows what seems like a rest home. We find a hotel with a boisterous group of workers eating at wooden tables. We are pointed to a more upscale dining room. We eat but the glasses of wine we succeed in ordering are excessively sweet. I feel full and sleepy after this. We go back to where we parked the car and sit on a bench for a while, reading.

I think we need to have a rest. We go back to the hotel. Not long after we are ready for a drink or something but nothing is open in the town. We may have taken a walk. Some more friends (a couple from Santa Rosa, California and their daughter) show up, glad to see us and find that they are in the right place. They get settled, hear the plan to eat at the Trout and go off to the store we tell them about. I ask them to buy me a beer. When they return, our other friends are there. They've brought back wine and snacks. We sit in the courtyard and celebrate having succeeded in all landing in this spot on the planet.

We go off to the Trout, walking of course. We notice the stork has babies in the nest. We admire the menu outside with the trout theme. So, of course, several of us order trout. I have the trout with almonds.

We go back to the hotel and go to bed. FFP and I read and watch TV. Tomorrow...the big meal. We've all been peeking inside and looking at the garden and the menu in the window. I think FFP even got a brochure at some point from a lady who saw him looking in the window.

The Golden Age of Train Travel

ILLHAEUSERN, France, June 14, 2004 —Traveling by train is everything air travel is not. At least today, for us. We check out of the hotel and catch a cab to Gare de l'Est. It is a short trip. We get out and go check our train. It isn't far from the curb to the main part of the station. We find a waiting room and sit and read. When our train is on a siding, we go there, find the car where we've got a reservation. We find our seats, put our rollerboards and another bag on the overhead, keeping our backpacks at our seats. We settle into the comfy seats. No seatbelts, plenty of leg room. I have gotten us First Class but, on the train, this isn't as big a premium. Exactly on time, we pull out. A while later, the conductor punches our tickets. A cart sells us coffee and a sandwich. Nice scenery rolls by and there are a few stops at major junctures.

When we roll into the station (Strasbourg), it's pretty trivial getting off and getting out of the station. We have a bit of trouble locating Europa Car where I've reserved a car. Then we see it across the street. Unfortunately, they are closed for lunch until two. We got to a grill nearby and have lunch.

We get the car once the help has had their civilized lunch and FFP mans the maps. But it turns out to be quite simple getting to Illhaeusern. It's a sleepy little town, not even exceptionally picturesque except for the river Ill. However, the Haberlein brothers have a three star restaurant here. That is our destination on Wednesday.

We find the hotel, Les Hirondelles. It is a small family-run place. At first they don't seem to have our reservation but they do give us a room. It has a little balcony and it seems fine. I unpack and FFP takes a walk. He comes back talking about a little bar and restaurant by the river called La Truite. I will henceforth call it 'The Trout,' a name that reminds me of a small town place somewhere in the U.S. We both go for a walk and go to a little store we'd passed. I thought it wasn't open but it was. A tiny place in front of living quarters. You can hear kids in the back. We buy a big bottle of water, noting that they have wine and some charcuterie and a few toiletries. We go back by the Trout. It sits right on the Ill River and we go out there by it on the patio and have a drink while a woman moves tables and chairs in preparation for the evening. I have a Picon Bière, I think. I'm not sure what FFP has. Probably a Perrier. He has a Perrier a lot while I'm having alcohol or caffeine, it seems.

We go back to the room and read for a while and soon two of our friends return who are already checked in. They have been off seeking chocolate or cute little wine road towns, I'm not sure which. We say we were thinking of eating at the Trout but they ate there last night and say they made a reservation for all of us (including three friends not yet arrived) for tomorrow night, the night before the big meal and an important training meal in the scheme of things.

We rest a while more and then my friend LG drives us to Ribeauvillé, a relentlessly cute little town. We walk around the town admiring it and then pick a traditional brassiere for dining. I order kidneys on purpose and FFP gets them although he thought he'd ordered something else. LG eats choucroute or, more properly, choucroute garni...a sauerkraut base with pig meats of various kinds. I didn't eat this dish the whole trip. I like it, don't get me wrong, but I never felt hungry enough. We walk around the town some more after dinner and take in the 'picturesque' area which is no more scenic in our view than the rest of the town.

Then it's back to the hotel for a good night's sleep. We want to have just the right combination of sleeping, eating and sightseeing in preparation for our star struck meal day after tomorrow.

The Dead, The Movies and Moules Frites at Last

PARIS, France, June 13, 2004 —If you have consulted the eating section, you will notice that I suspended complete confession on the eating front for this vacation. (I do not seem to have gained perceptible weight, however.) Anyway. Eating still play a big role in my travels and when I was in Normandy I kept thinking I was going to have Moules Frites (mussels and French fries) which is kind of a local specialty. But I didn't ever get it.

The first thing we do today, of course, is have breakfast at the hotel. Then we take the Metro to Père Lachaise cemetery. I think this is one of the more interesting places in Paris in a way. Quiet, too. I am armed with a map of the place. I've been lost in this space before. We find the graves of Marcel Proust and Oscar Wilde. First time I've found these two. Oscar's is sort of interesting and it is covered with lip prints but I can't decide, you know, if this is graffiti or not. I've made my pilgrimage to Edith Piaf's spot before but we find that. This place is huge. There are avenues and lanes and paths and stairs. Supposedly there are about 100,000 crypts and a million people's ashes. It's like a dead city. FFP decides he needs a bathroom. We set about finding one that is marked on the map but it doesn't pan out and we end up in a botanical garden that has a locked bathroom. So we exit and go to a little bar and have a drink and use the facilities. We head back and find Jim Morrison (it's behind a fence) and it's as usual attracting the most visitors. One young man who asks to see our map to find his way there seems to be young enough to have not been alive when Jim Morrison died. I've read that Jim's presence there is paid up permanently. Some aren't and one day may be replaced.

We head back to the Metro and go straight to the left bank. I've located a movie house showing Coffee and Cigarettes, a Jim Jarmusch movie he's been putting together for years. It is showing in vo or version originale so it will be in English. We get off the Metro at St. Michel which is right in the Place St. André des Arts. We eat something at a sidewalk café there (I have a croque monsieur and FFP has a cassoulet which would seem out of season but which he says is good). We walk around and I get turned around but we find the theater on Rue Hautefeuille. There is still lots of time so we go walking along the Seine and when we come back they indicate that you can't really get in until exactly the time of the feature (not like here where the commercials start thirty minutes before...they have the commercials but they start at the time indicated). So we go sit on a bench on the boulevard St. Germain and read our books. We go back and see the movie and we both like it. The French subtitles add to my amusement.

What to do next? Tomorrow we will leave Paris and so I need to pack us up. And I've noticed a Moules Frites restaurant in the neighborhood of the hotel. So we go back to the hotel, rest a bit, pack a bit. And we go out for Moules Frites. I'm happy to say that FFP also succeeded in getting Picon at this place. The mussels could have been better, though.

Tomorrow we take a train ride and go to a bucolic village in the Alsace...to prepare ourselves for a very important meal. I get busy and pack our bags, taking care that we can get any one of them over our heads for the luggage racks on the train.

Religion, Crime and Ostentation

PARIS, France, June 12, 2004 —I'm not very religious. I have moral principles, though.

We start the day (it's Saturday) with a hearty Le General breakfast. Then we take the Metro and get off near Notre Dame. Everyone has to have the obligatory Notre Dame picture. I like the one behind the cathedral, where you can see the flying buttresses. We don't pay for the privilege of climbing to the top of the dome. (And waiting in line to do it.) I think it's about four hundred steps. I've done it before. FFP isn't interested. We do go inside. No line. We walk around inside and I light a candle for my friend Al's family. I like lighting candles and it's a way to make a donation to the old building. But, I'm not that religious.

Next, I declare, FFP will see Sacré-Coeur up close and take a walk around Montmatre. We walk by a flower market and find the Metro and head for the correct area. I'm a little turned around when we get off the Metro but we head in the right direction and walk up the steps to the plaza around the church. I take the obligatory picture. I'm beginning to feel Japanese taking FFP's picture in front of famous stuff. Anyway, we take in the view and then we are ready for...a cafe break. Somewhere in there we must have eaten lunch but (amazing, huh?) I have no memory of it.

We decide that we are going out to the Ritz in the evening. Well just for a drink, maybe. It's a ripoff, sure, but just to say you did it once. We dress up. I have run out of small bills in my 'open' wallet and put a fifty Euro note in there. (This will be mildly important later.) In the Metro, I decide we should buy a carnet of tickets and ask FFP for a smaller bill. He gives me a ten. I buy the tickets and put them in my open wallet which contains the fifty, our museum passes (although we probably won't use them again), some of my business cards and a few old ID cards (expired Costco, an Aadvantage card) for appearances. I put this in my blazer jacket pocket. My major money and credit cards and our passports and such are securely tucked away.

We exit the Metro at l'Opéra and head to an escalator. A couple of women with a baby carriage get on in front of us and seem to be leaning back a little precariously and FFP (in front of me) and me (in turn) got a little off balance. At that moment a guy behind me grabbed the open or decoy wallet out of my blazer pocket. I said, "He stole something from me," and he ran down the escalator backwards and disappeared. The ladies and baby carriage calmly walked away (confederates?) and a nice French lady led us to the ticket booth where, basically, they said, "C'est normal et ce n'est pas notre probleme and allez a la gendarmerie." The lady trying to help us seemed outraged that there was no help in the station.

FFP wanted to report it to the police. I wouldn't have, probably. After all, I was out fifty Euro either way. But he asked the bellmen in front of the Ritz about reporting it and they asked a guy in sunglasses who looked like security (who didn't speak English) and took us to the concierge. He would have been more accommodating if we were hotel guests (he as much as admitted) but he did tell us (sort of) where the nearest police station was (and as it happened the one for the arrondissement where the crime had taken place). Because, he said, you might 'get in trouble' for reporting it in the wrong place! Although I guess the l'Opéra station is questionable...part of it may be in the 9th and the 1st.

We wandered about until we found the police station on Place du Marché. The first thing they wanted to know was did I have my passport. A lot of people who get ripped off don't have them of course...because they've been stolen. But I'm a big believer in not having everything in one place and certainly having passport away from prying hands. I produced it. A cute policewoman who looked younger than twenty worked away on the computer with the scant information she got from us. A many page document spit out of a printer that her male colleague had to sign and stamp. Then I had to sign many pages of it. Mostly, I seemed to be swearing that I hadn't made a false report. It differed from my last experience with the Paris police when my niece was mugged in the Metro twenty years ago. She had lost money, traveler's checks, an airline ticket and her passport. We were told we needed the police report to get a new passport or something. There were hand-filled forms and such. Getting a new passport and such was a large pain. But an experience. We walked by the embassy a day or two ago and I'd noticed that I couldn't even see how to approach it to do business with the concrete barriers and fences and all. Basically we are just out a little money and some Metro tickets. And of course we feel a little pissed off and violated.

So, we go back to the Ritz and have drinks and some snacks in the Bar Vendôme at the Ritz. There is a sign that indicates that jackets are requested. But people streaming through to sit on the Patio don't seem to be observing this. The drinks and some tasty high end but small hors d'oeuvres cost more than the pickpocket got. A guy plays pretty good piano. FFP stumps him though, asking for something he doesn't know, and he also stumps the bar keep, asking for Picon. Picon is a bitter orange liqueur apparently served traditionally with beer (Picon bière). Our friend Al taught us this new drink and also to try to get it sans beer. The waiter and the barman seem to be muttering about us calling a drink they don't have for a while after we order. I have a Manhattan and FFP a Campari to sub for the Picon. We have the Deluxe Canapes. I have another Manhattan. The bill is criminal but the people are pretty nice especially the hostess. We want to see the Hemingway bar and she shows us where to find it. We would have had a drink there, too, but it looks cramped and uninviting and the people in there are not dressed up either. We go back to the front and ask our friendly hostess about restrooms. In the restroom while washing up I see that they have amenities. Just in case you forgot a comb.... I take the comb, in a neat little cardboard wrapper that says 'The Ritz.' FFP has asked about dining. (Imagine the prices!) But they are completely full. He says he saw someone getting a house jacket since they really mean it about jackets in the dining room, I guess. We go off to eat elsewhere. Outside, I say to Forrest, "I got you something." I show him to comb. I feel vaguely larcenous, but, of course, it was included in the price of the drinks!

We eat a so-so meal at this place called Nomad. I've agreed with FFP that we will take a cab back to the hotel. But first...how about a coffee at Café de la Paix?? That is another famous spot FFP could collect. He has a dessert and we have some coffees. People are coming in from a performance somewhere. After this we go look for a taxi stand but don't find it but FFP flags a cab.

Is there a moral here somewhere? Probably. Maybe...never carry all your valuables in one place but protect them all? Something.

The Louvre and the Magic

PARIS, France, June 11, 2004 —We will do the major swipe at the Louvre today. That's all I know for sure. So...it will be a right bank day. We have breakfast and take the Metro to the Louvre. We use our museum passes to get in and that works well except that it takes a while to figure out where we are and we finally go out and get a map and back in. I'm enjoying just looking at whatever but FFP has the idea that he needs to see Mona Lisa and some Vermeers. It's a nice day in the musuem, but seeing Mona Lisa is something we are years too late for what with the crowd control, the crowds and the protective glass. The Vermeers are a treat, though, and, as usual I enjoy the stroll through the sculpture court, the giant Rubens paintings and the occasional surprisingly interesting still life or allegorical painting.

After spending a few hours here, we get the brilliant idea that going back to Terres des Truffes for lunch would be a good idea. As we leave I shoot FFP's picture with one of the smaller I.M. Pei pyramids that admits light to the underground area. Soon we are settled in with a bottle of water, delicious salads featuring truffles and a couple of glasses of wine.

Nothing seems better after eating than a little rest. We take the Metro back to the hotel. We rest, read, watch TV, change, check e-mail in the business center. We decide to spend the evening near the Place des Vosges. We walk to the area, taking in some cool shop windows, especially those selling musical instruments. We look around and go in several art galleries and see some interesting work.

We aren't quite ready to eat dinner so we wander over to the Place du Marché Ste. Catherine and have a drink in one of the little sidewalk bars. It turns out the spot we pick is called Le Double Fond and is a magic club. (I translate this as The False Bottom.)

After our drinks we go back to a little street extending off the northeast side of the Place des Vosges, Rue du Pas de la Mule, to a restaurant recommended by friends called La Mule du Pape. I'm sure the mule's journey and the Pope on the mule are an interesting story in this area that was once a marsh and once a high end housing area and once a mainly Jewish area. But it's a story I don't know. The food and service is good here.

We decide to go back and see the magic show. It starts late because the only other people coming have reserved but are late. It's an OK show in a weird little basement theater. Except the guy has to try to translate the funny banter. An interesting experience anyway, seeing a magic show in Paris, in French.

We walk back to the hotel. I've decided that tomorrow FFP will see the major cathedrals.

the Left Bank

PARIS, France, June 10, 2004 —This will turn out to be a long day, too, although we will not walk quite as far, I don't think. My idea is that the first thing on our agenda should be the Musée d'Orsay. I love this museum and the Impressionists. FFP needs to see it. We have breakfast first, though. They have a lot of choices from bacon and scrambled eggs to cheese, yogurt, cereal, croissants, deli meat, honey, jam, fruit, juice. And good strong coffee. Although I try to wait until the rush hour has died down, I don't quite succeed, and we emerge from the Solférino Metro station and get to the museum before it opens. We retreat down the Rue de Bellechasse for another coffee.

The museum passes I purchased let us escape a long queue that has formed to buy tickets when the museum opens. We start wandering about on the lower floor, seeing paintings and the miniature opera house and sets. Then we go up to look at the Art Nouveau furniture which I like and see the long view of the pretty museum that once was a train station. We wander up to the cafe to get a water, admire the big, transparent clock that is the centerpiece of the cafe and to see the view from outside. Then we look at a lot more paintings on the upper levels.

We reach the museum saturation point and take off to walk down the Boulevard St. Germain. We stop for lunch and do lots of window shopping. We see neat men's shops, design stores and a shop dedicated to the manufacture and sale of umbrellas. (Or, en français, les parapluies and les parasols. Literally 'ward off rain' and 'ward off sun'.)

We go into the St. Germain des Pres and light a candle for my friend Al's family. (No, I'm not really religious but I like lighting the candles and figure the Euros go to keeping up the old historic churches.) We find the English language bookstore Village Voice on the Rue Princesse and, of course, have to buy a couple of things. I want FFP to experience the high prices, snooty waiters and great people watching at the famous cafés so we go take a table at Cafe de Flore. We wander around some more.

On my way to show him Le Petit Zinc, we see a stationery store. FFP wants a pen and notebook. (I brought these for him but they aren't to his liking. And, of course, who wants to miss one of these cool little stationery stores?) He picks out his purchases and notices that there is good jazz playing. He discusses jazz with the woman running the place and we discover that there is jazz in the evenings at the place next door, Le Bilboquet. We start thinking maybe we will eat there and then see the show. We walk around a bit more, we do some more cafe sitting and then we go back and make a reservation there. We try to set a record for sitting at Deux Magots with one drink (FFP has a pastry, too) while reading our books and watching people go home from work. Of course, many more desperate and serious sitters have preceded us here and we set no record. We wander around window shopping and peeking at some gallery openings that are kicking off. Finally, it's time for Le Bilboquet to open for dining. The food isn't great but it's adequate and when the jazz kicks off it's very good. We stay out pretty late and then descend at the St. Germain des Pres Metro station to go to the hotel. Tomorrow? The Louvre. FFP's first trip to Paris. Gotta do it.

going the distance

PARIS, France, June 9, 2004 —There is always a day on a trip when you walk a little further than you should, drawn from place to place, eschewing the public transportation. This was that day. We fortified ourselves with a hearty and free breakfast compliments of Le Général. I must say that the electric kettle (and instant coffee) in the room, the business center with Internet access and the breakfast here are great. Bar service last night was confused. The menu announced a Bloody Mary but the barman (Italian? he kept saying my one word of Italian: prego) didn't know how to make one (the front guy was saying "jus de tomate' and something). They did beers all right. And the laundry was returned promptly and in good form.

FFP said he wanted to see the Champs Élysées. And well he should. In fact, in my opinion he should see everything everybody thinks he should as much as if possible so he can say he has and get on with finding his own Paris. We walk to the Rue de Rivoli in this spirit. We see lots of things walking including a large face on a building. I point out the Louvre but we save it for another day. We walk into the lobby area for the Meurice. I stayed there a couple of nights on a trip paid for by my company during the golden age of software companies. It has been renovated since then. It's even more fabulous.

We head into the Place Vendome and stop nearby for a refreshment. FFP asks me who Vendome was. We ask a passerby. ("Qui est là?" I say to the woman gesturing. She understands me (miracle) but she doesn't know.) He will ask me questions like this. (How old is Notre Dame? Stuff like that.) I have been here but these are the types of things I never knew or don't remember. There are the stuff of the Michelin Green Guide which I have at home, have thumbed through but have not brought along for weight reasons. On our way to the Place de la Concorde, I stop in a souvenir shop and pick up the Green Guide. The passerby had speculated that the man on the column was Vendôme. According to the guide the Duke of Vendôme was the illegitimate son of Henri IV and Gabrielle d'Estrées. But the man on the column is apparently Napoleon as Caesar. I am a poor student of history and not much for the mind-numbing history of plazas, statues and buildings. I quote the Green Guide here to show you why.

The Green Guide is simply too demanding requiring you to remember Kings and Dictators, battles, and painters. Also, at the end of this exposition, it is unclear who put the thing back after the Commune tore it down but, there it is, and, I guess, atop it is a replica of the original Napoleon statue as Caesar...it certainly seems to be a toga-ed figure. My quick glance at the book in the souvenir shop had revealed that Vendôme was the bastard son of someone and I liked the idea that it was he, but, alas, no. I like FFP asking these questions. One should know what one is seeing. But I'm not good at looking up this stuff nor remembering it.

We continue walking to the Place de la Concorde for the obligatory picture. Himself does not ask about the Obelisk. It has always fascinated me, this thousands of years old monument from Egypt that ended up here.

Next on the agenda is Place de la Madeleine. I want to show FFP Fauchon. And it's nearing lunch time. We look in the Fauchon windows. I briefly consider their tea room in the east side branch and their wine and snack tasting tables in the cellar of the north part. We look around at the wares. I have brought along guide 'cards' to some neighborhoods and the one for this area says there is a cheese store cum restaurant specializing in cheese dishes on the nearby Rue Vignon. I decide to find that. It seems to be there no more. But in its place is a place called Terres de Truffes. A little truffle shop and restaurant. Should we? We do. What a wonderful discovery this is. Nice waiters (Dominique and Eva, who has been to the U.S. and is married to an American who is the pastry chef here), stunning food all with truffles featured. We vow to come back before we leave and we will. I actually have pigeon here. It is in a pastry, though, not 'cutted like a frog.' There are truffles. It is delicious. FFP's beef with truffles and foie gras is pronounced one of the best dishes he's ever had.

While on the Rue Vignon we also bought some soap for gifts and after shave for FFP at a Provence scent shop.

Next I show FFP the entrance to the Galerie de la Madeleine that we have a Renoux seriograph of and take his picture there. We then head for the Champs Élysées. Construction on one facade is covered with giant Louis Vuitton luggage. I like how scaffolding gets covered by these vinyl illusions. Even when they are shameless ads but especially when they are something in the tromp d'oeil vein or, as I saw in Venice at the Palace de Doges, a vision of what the renovated building will be. It isn't long, though, before I want to stop for another refreshment.

We find an optical shop. One pair of my glasses got the frames broken in Normandy. I hate not to have a spare pair of glasses. I pick some frames and pull out my prescription and ask to get some distance only glasses. I can read without glasses in a pinch. I can't drive without my distance correction. They say that they'll have them done in a couple of hours. We do the Arc de Triomphe. Our museum passes allow us to go to the top. That and our good legs — it's a couple of hundred steps. On top we look at the twelve avenues, the various views, the Eiffel Tower and the confused traffic in the roundabout below. Glad not to be driving there. It starts to spit rain at us. This is one of three bits of rain we will see. We were very lucky with the weather except today and in Normandy I could have wished it to be cooler.

We kill time walking and looking in stores, stopping at Monoprix for razors for FFP. Maybe we had another drink or snack. Finally it's time for my glasses to be ready and soon I have them. They are fine, too. I can't say that they are all that much more fashionable than my Austin glasses, though, but this pair will be always and forever my Paris glasses.

We are weary. My feet hurt like they may have developed a blister or two. We head into the Metro, get a pack of ten tickets and make our way back to the Place de la République and the hotel. We rest a bit, have a drink in the hotel bar and decide to eat at the Indian Restaurant across the street on Rue Rampon from the hotel. This turns out to be a good choice. The curry and naan and an Indian beer providing a nice contrast to all the organ meats and French sauces and such.

Tomorrow I declare it will be the Left Bank. We return to the room for rest, soccer and a dead ex-president on TV (still not buried?) and reading.

FFP atop the Arc de Triomphe

on our own

PARIS, France, June 8, 2004 —Today we are on our own. I have been travel buddies with some of these folks we have been hanging out with for years. We like to take trips that overlap. Spend a few days together, have some meals, then go our separate ways. It's an interesting way to travel with people and yet not.

We have breakfast together and then bid adieu to the gang in the van. Part of the crew left yesterday. Just before they leave, they meet a Red Cross donut van veteran, a lively lady from Dallas. We also talk to some of the re-enactors. There is a cute fourteen-year-old boy and we almost forgive the re-enactors. (They created a lot of the traffic that separated us yesterday.)

After they leave, we bid Al goodbye and head to Paris. It's an easy drive. We stop for gas to top off the tank. Of course, when we get to Paris we are confused. Nonetheless we manage to get on the Périfique and going the right way. We find the exit, we find the parking garage near the Gare du Nord where we are supposed to leave the car. And with a little help from a passing rental car worker, we find the office in the station to turn in our paperwork. We are relieved to not be driving. We get a cab and in rush hour inch the short distance to the hotel...with a stop to get some cell phone accessory for the cab driver. We don't mind, we are relieved not to be driving. We says he will deduct the waiting time and he does.

Le General hotel was picked from hotels.com because (1) the bathrooms looked good; (2) they seemed to have lots of amenities for the price; and (3) although not in a top tourist neighborhood, they were near the interesting Marais and close to five different Metro lines. It is on a tiny street between Rue Voltaire and Rue de la République. It's a relief to be ensconced in our room. I unpack and FFP looks at the Where guide in the room. He hones in on Bofinger. Which, happily, is a pleasant walk away. We get dressed and walk through the neighborhood. There is an eclectic set of stores, specializing in musical instruments and motorcyles with the usual cafes and oyster bars and boulangeries and such. I even spy a tanning salon. We go down to the Rue de la Bastille. At Bofinger, are seated by a friendly staff, happy to see early tourist diners apparently. I have kidneys for the second time this trip (the other was just last night at l'Albatross near the Omaha Beach golf club but that seems so far away now). Perhaps I'm propelling my consumption of organ meats to new heights in preparation for a trip to Dublin in the near future. Leopold Bloom relished the inner organs, I've heard, although I haven't read Ulysses nor much about it.

We have a pleasant meal. FFP has a restroom break before we leave and declares the urinals a fantastic edifice. We take a pleasant walk around the Place des Vosges, peaking in the three star restaurant l'Ambrosie and locating a small cafe (La Mule du Pape) on the Rue du Pas de la Mule that has been recommended by friends.

We are happy to return to the hotel, walking, to relax and get ready for a big tourist day.

losing touch

NORMANDY REGION, France, June 7, 2004 —We have in mind to put some commemorative ribbons on the Engineer Brigade monuments and generally have a lower key day. It is a day of losing and finding each other, but it is much nicer than yesterday.

LG goes off somewhere to find out about a badge that her dad is supposed to receive. We are leaving a note on our car that we are having a drink when they find us again. We all have a snack at a place in St. Laurent on the beach. We all wander about, put a ribbon on the 6th monument for the 136th. We wander some more looking for a place where a guy lives who has written a book we want to buy. I see some re-enactors setting up miniature stuff including a transport ship floating in a make shift pond. We can't find the guy. We decide to go to put a ribbon on the 5th monument. We kind of lose the gang but we know where they are going. But when we get to the cemetery entrance the gendarmes wave us off, telling us it's full or something. Fine, we figure that the van got in with the "we've got a vet" story line. We go back to the hotel by a little back route we happen to find. We have a shower (the hot water was off this morning) and a nap. We wake up and dress and meet Al and find, to our dismay, that the rest of the group hasn't come back.

We can't figure out what to do and then we decide they will meet us at the restaurant on the beach where we know we have reservations. I've been there before and so I drive and Al navigates and we get there. They don't have the reservation but there is another couple, that we have never seen before, waiting for our party! Turns out this is a guy from the Netherlands and his wife. He's a pen pal of Paul's about D-Day stuff, I guess. We worry about the group and then they appear. We have food and wine. Life is good. We are seated in the bar (because the reservation is lost?) but that turns fun when a group of seventy-nine and eighty-year-old paratroopers come in for drinks and to watch themselves on TV. They made a commemorative jump!

a pleasant snack

official ceremonies

NORMANDY REGION, France, June 6, 2004 —We are up and dressed in the dark. Our friend Al has distressing news about his father's health and decides to not go with us. That means I have to drive lead to the parking lot, in the dark. Okie, dokie. It's not like I have to land on a beach in cold water with people shooting at me.

I don't make a single wrong turn. We pull into the parking lot of a Super Marché in Isigny that we found two days ago. The gendarmes and waiting buses greet us. That was the logistical highlight of the day. Our friend Pam has provided some croissants and cheese and fruit. We have a banana FFP bought. I wish I had coffee, but I don't. A ride to the cemetery that should have taken thirty minutes takes one and a half hours. There are stops. Some are explained when dogs sniff the open and empty bus luggage compartments. Some are unexplained. Finally we arrive in a parking lot and are herded through metal detectors and searches. We run into Bruno and his grandsons here. That guy has a way of showing up whereever we are. It's magical. By then almost everyone has to use the restroom. Today the cemetery's facilities are off limits to the commoners, reserved for congressmen, Tom Hanks, the presidents. Someone officious is threatening to move the porta-potties even as a line of people waits to use them.

We go to the seating area. Thousands of chairs arranged in the open sun with no rake. They say that only the vet and one person can sit where one can actually see the proceedings. Somehow Bruno has a vet badge (well, he is a vet). The rest of us go back and back to the area where 'visitors' are allowed. Family members are allowed closer up but we don't have many family badges. Soon it is hot. It is hours until the ceremony. We eat. People go off to find porta-potties and find water being distributed. It is so hot. There is music from bands we can't see or hear piped over loudspeakers we can barely hear. There are plasma TVs protected by plexiglass so that all you can see is the nearby crowd's reflection in the plexi-glass. Gradually things turn into chaos. Because few family badges were given, thousands of empty seats separate us from the back of that group. Eventually there is no more room in the back and they open it up. We still can't see or hear anything. It's still in the blazing sun. We have arrived about 7:30. The ceremony is supposed to start at 9:30. It starts at more like ten. Chirac and Bush sound particularly inane, especially Bush. (I guess he just lost me when he didn't greet the vets first or at least immediately after the Chirac.) Of course, we have to slip outside the ropes and get near a speaker to hear them. Bruno's grandsons and several others simply get under the trees and relax. What else to do? The shade is welcome. Finally, mercifully it's over. We walk up and up through rows and rows to try to reconnect with Paul and his wife. Finally, standing on the seats, we see Bruno, doing the same. Then we have to wrestle with security to actually all get together. The vet is ready for a porta-poppy. I don't think anyone has asked them in these hours of waiting if they needed facilities or even water. They seem happy enough, though. They got to meet Tom Hanks. We go to the porta-potties and I see Tom Hanks myself, making his way to some VIP exit.

But that's as bad as it gets, right? Well, no. We head for the buses. We try to commandeer a cart for the vet and his wife. But they have more important things to do. How funny is that? We see a big cart full of congressmen. Oh, well. The vet walks. Then the big surprise. Mr. Bush's helicopter hasn't left so no buses can come or go! We are, fortunately, advised of this before we enter a big holding area from which no re-entry is allowed. Good thing, because this area has little shade, no seating and no facilities to speak of. And the wait? Well, it was hours, I know that. These vets waited hours. There was no air conditioning on this unexpectedly hot day. The buildings where vet services and U.S.O. were serving stuff were hot. They soon ran out of water and juice. Fortunately, some fine army officers commandeered water (probably from their own mess) until that disappeared and they commandeered juice. We found some coffee but it soon ran out. We had food with us. We took chairs from the stuffy buildings and put them in the scant shade for our vet. We used the increasingly putrifying porta-potties. We cursed the big boys and their damnable security. The French Red Cross had an aid station. But when everyone should have been gone, they loaded it up and left!

Think about it: to be a veteran of this action you have to be at least eighty. You probably take some drugs, might be weak or lame. But because Mr. President wants to hang out at the cemetery you are stuck with no food to speak of (there was a long line for the U.S.O. hot dogs). Heck it reminds you of the faux pas of Omaha Beach a là 1944. Yeah, George, sometimes your actions have unintended consequences. We are exhausted from the tedium of it all. There is no way to do anything else this day because we would have to drive to another bus terminal and put us all through who knows what security.

We caravan from the bus parking lot to the hotel. We welcome our hot little hotel rooms. I watch the International Ceremoney at Arromanches on TV. Later we will find out that our friend Al made it to that, driving his car through innumerable checkpoints. I'm happy to watch it on TV. It looks like a good show. The seats are shaded, too, and raked so people can, um, see. Boy Americans are idiots sometimes. But together with our Allies we did liberate this land. Mostly because, like the soldiers at the cemetery liberating that water and juice from somewhere, our guys improvised victory.

We all end up in the dining room. A Viet Nam era vet raves about the ceremony (he toured the cemetery after and didn't realize that buses were stopped for hours). When I point out the problems, he says, "Well, did anyone die?" Heck, with people that old put in that kind of situation...maybe. Hopefully, not. Our friend Al shows up with his tale of the International ceremony. We are glad someone saw it. He is making arrangements to go home because his dad is ailing.

All I can say about today is that yesterday with our own improvised ceremonies and in spite of the traffic we had a much more satisfactory experience. Who needs presidents?

cemetery, with flags

our personal remembrance

NORMANDY REGION, France, June 5, 2004 —Tomorrow is the official anniversary. We mostly did our own ceremonies today.

It took a while to get the whole gang through breakfast. FFP and I had breakfast and then read on the patio, waiting for everyone. We finally head out in two cars down the narrow road through the bocage to the beach, with our friend Al driving the lead.

We go first to the cemetery where LG goes off to check on credentials and we take the gang to the restrooms. Outside the restrooms, 'our vet' as we will come to call him (Paul Gray, 146th Engineer Combat Batallion, who arrived at H hour plus three minutes), holds court. People ask for autographs and pictures. A congressman expresses his gratitude, children look on in awe. We will get used to this. But this first bit of vet celebrity takes me by surprise. I try to move the group to some place where Paul and his wife can at least sit down. It doesn't work.

We go to the area above the beach where the Big Red One and the 5th Engineer Special Brigade have monuments. There is a plaque on the 5th's monument honoring the 146th Batallion. (These batallions, with combined army and navy forces on D-Day, were assembled to handle beach obstacles. In fact, in the first hours of the assualt most of these men were pinned down by heavy fire and unable to do much but try to stay alive. In the days that followed they worked with the Engineer Special Brigades, 5th and 6th, to clean up the beaches. Then the army guys at least went into combat, sometimes building bridges and things, sometimes fighting as infantry. The 146th was in combat for over three hundred days.) Paul poses and talks.

Sixty years ago tomorrow, Paul jumped into water up to his neck and waded or ran ashore. We try to find the spot and, among people wading and enjoying the beach, he talks about the day and looks around and tries to puzzle whether this is the spot and his daughter reads a letter he wrote home and his unit's action reports. We have our own little crowd and it occasionally swells with people walking down the beach who become interested in it.

Then we head to the the Vierville area. Somehow we find a place to park at a museum. There is much traffic on the beach road. We go to a snack bar and order food and water, including a few of the classic croque monsieurs. Paul talks to citizens (a young mother buys his lunch and introduces her young sons to him with awe) and he has a long discussion with an Airborne vet. A lot of re-enactors go by (they have an encampment at a close by intersection) including some bagpipers who stop across the way for a beer.

With everyone fed, we head to the 6th Engineer Special Brigade and 29th Infantry monuments. The famous Vierville Draw has the old and new in sharp contrast.

We meet a woman who runs a little museum down by the beach and go down there and look around for a while.

Then it's time to go up and get our cars and go to St. Laurent. Paul and his wife have an invitation to a dinner with the mayor. There is much traffic. We lose the van and assume they have talked their way past the gendarmes onto the beach road. We park and walk the mile or so down. Part way down, our friend Al remembers he left the cell phone in his car...and LG needs it to locate the folks with the credentials for her parents dinner or something. FFP and I volunteer to go back up and back down. Not a hard walk. We are fit.

We finally find everyone at the l'Omaha restaurant and have some drinks. There is a ceremony going on with soldiers and bands and vets and music. LG somehow gets the credentials her parents need and we get a table for our assembled multitude (including Bruno and his grandsons) and everyone eventually eats. Then the parents are back, it is dark and there are fireworks up and down the beach at each beach town.

Then it's time to go home. We have to walk back up the road. There is a throng of people. And then it is worm into the traffic and back to the truck stop. Tomorrow we will go very early to get a bus for the official U.S. ceremony at the U.S. cemetery.

describing that day, sixty years ago

mission

NORMANDY REGION, France, June 4, 2004 —We are on a mission for the day. OK, we don't really have to do much. We are supposed to find a route to the parking for the June 6 event. That's it.

Why are we here anyway? Well, to pay homage to what happened sixty years ago. We go to the cemetery. There are lots of people around but we find a parking place, no problem. We look at the cemetery, the chapel, and take a nice walk down to the beach.

When we come up from the beach, it is starting to spit rain. So we leave and go to Isigny, with lunch and finding our route for June 6 in mind.

In Isigny, FFP is seduced by his first Patisserie/Boulangerie. He doesn't buy anything but he admires the pastries and thinks the girl manning the counter is pretty. I think the shops are interesting with their local specialties and their decoration for the D-Day anniversary. We head toward Hotel de France and are intercepted by a Stars and Stripes reporter who basically wanted to know why we had come. To be part of the entourage for Paul Gray of the 146th Engineering Combat Batallion was, basically, our answer.

After lunch we stopped by a memorial to a speech given after liberation.

We wanted to be on hand at the hotel (or truck stop as we affectionately called it) when the rest of our entourage came. So we went back, carefully figuring out the location of the parking for the June 6 ceremony buses and the route from there to the hotel. Mission accomplished, we settled in for a drink at the hotel.

The first person who arrived was a German! Actually, I suppose he is a citizen of U.K. I met Bruno at the 55th anniversary of D-Day. My friend LG and her dad met him at an earlier anniversary. Bruno was a seventeen-year-old German soldier in 1944. He was captured soon after the invasion, back from the beaches. Transported to POW camps in the Southern U.S., he learned English there and, when he was in the process of being repatriated, spent some weeks in the U.K. There he met Audrey. He returned to marry her and raise a family. He arrived to intercept LG and her dad. I recognized him. He took off with the two grown grandsons that he had in tow to see Balleroy where he'd been stationed and promised to return.

We started watching the re-enactors arrive. These folks are French (sometimes German!) and they collect U.S. vehicles and uniforms and equipment. They restore them, dress up and drive about. It is eerie and unsettling but, I guess, some sort of tribute. They are often in the way, it seems to me. A number of them were staying in the truck stop which, of course, had lots of parking.

About the time we were ready for a second drink and went inside to procure one we found five of our friends had pulled in back and were engaged in a multi-lingual meltdown with our hosts. Finally it was sorted and everyone had a room. We gathered outside, still waiting on three other relatives of the vet's. Bruno returned and some of us were drinking. Yes, of course, me.

We got a table for eleven of us, Bruno and his grandsons taking the place of the family we would later learn had to return one rent car with transmission problems and get another. I was amused by this dish and its translation on the truck stop menu: "Pigeon grillé en crapaudine sauce à la diable" translated as "Grilled pigeon cutted as looking like a frog with devil sauce". I didn't order that. I think I drank some wine and had a toast of some sort. We had some great talks around the table and over coffee and worried about the missing folks who would, it turned out, arrive shortly after we turned in at midnight.

my travel companions and the map table overlooking the beach

arrival

NORMANDY REGION, France, June 3, 2004 —We touch down at CDG after flying over the coast where we will be visiting shortly. The pilot says his father was in the invasion.

We don't see the collapsed terminal when we land. The chaos of moving gates is somewhat evident, though, when we get off a bus from the plane into a chaotic crowd that we can barely see is queuing to go through immigration. However, it doesn't take that long to get through it. While we are trying to figure out for sure where our luggage is going to come out, I see our one large checked bag. We wander the terminal but we are in terminal two and the rent car reservation says to go to terminal one. So we catch a bus and finally get there. We find the rent car offices in the garage and there isn't a line for ours. We get a car called a Picasso with a diesel engine. I check that I can lock and unlock the car, turn on the lights, find reverse. Things that have seemed surprisingly hard with rentals of the past. To this list I will add, after this rental, finding the buttons to raise and lower the windows. (We realize at the first toll booth that we don't know where these are.)

We head out. Me driving and FFP armed with a folder of maps and driving instructions I downloaded from Via Michelin. It seems impossible that we will escape the sway of Paris roads and exits. But somehow we do it and without seeming to actually make a mistake. Then we are on the péage (as my friends call the toll roads...this is the French word for toll and you see it on the roads that require one).

I relax a little when the necessary exits and such are farther apart. We only worry about the toll booths and the Michelin instructions have kindly told us the amount of each toll. FFP counts out Euros.

Finally, dazed and exhausted and hungry we stop at an 'aire' (the rest areas are identified as aire d' this and aire de that). There is a restaurant and a buffet called L'Arches. We choose the buffet and FFP is suitably impressed with the quality of local cheese and charcuterie and the coffee dispensed from a machine and a fresh little salad. It is good. We are in France. Roadside food is edible, even nice!

We continue and, without a hitch, it seems, reach l'Embranchement at the crossroads on D572, D10 and other roads and the location of our little truck stop, Le Relais de la Forêt. A confusing discussion ensues with our host. We are expected tomorrow in spite of our e-mails to the contrary. We are given a room, however, a small one on the back with a slanted ceiling. It will prove servicable, however. We found our friend Al in his room. He had already secured our credentials from the U.S. for the ceremony at the cemetery over Omaha beach and had reconnoitered a road to the beach. We rested after unpacking, had a drink and Al drove us to the beach. The cemetery was closed so we took another route back, stopped at a Second Division monument where we ran into a vet who'd come ashore June 12 and his French hosts. We wandered around until time for Al's reservation at a one star. We were agreeable to go with him and ask forgiveness for being three not one.

Le Monoir de la Drome was an unexpected pleasure. Sporting a Michelin Star and tucked on the road to Balleroy off our l'Embranchement.

We ate for three and a half hours. Had a bottle and a half bottle of wine. They seemed to have amuse bouche and sorbet or something between every course. They had a bunch of little desserts in addition to the one you ordered. The chef showed us a fresh lobster and an ugly turbot. He took our order, too.

We were tired and turned in with the idea of an 8:15 start for a little touring and another reconnoiter.

Roissy-CDG in another era

the golden age of air travel

AUSTIN, Texas, June 2, 2004 —Yeah, there is nothing golden about it. But ABIA (Austin Bergstrom International Airport) is not a bad place to enter the system. Sure, you have to fly some place else and transfer to actually get anywhere, but at ABIA the lines aren't too bad, security isn't too abusive and, after you get through security, you have all these nice Austin-style vendors like Schlotzsky's and Amy's.

We are up early today even though our flight isn't until after twelve. We do last minute things to get our computers the way we want them and get our stuff together. We have a friend who arrives to drive us to the airport. She is early and so we are even earlier than we expected to be at the airport. Dallas has experienced some storms and things are a little backed up but now sorting themselves out. FFP has a salad. I drink water and swallow the decongestants that make flying less unpleasant on my unyielding ears. (A flight long ago that seemed to have bad cabin pressure perhaps combined with some congestion has made my ears a battleground during pressure changes.)

Before I know it we have made our way to Dallas and gotten on the plane for Paris. There is a crying baby. There is some guy actually using one of those inflight phones and speaking very loudly into it.

I force myself to sleep because I know that when we arrive I have to drive almost two hundred miles. Maybe I don't sleep but I do close my eyes. We listen to the headsets, go to the noisy scary little bathrooms and eat the food. (They offer croissants but no butter for breakfast. And raisins in a package we cannot open and which, of course, we have no sharp implement to cut. Jam but no butter...I can see them calculating the cost savings.)

When we arrive...it will be tomorrow.

not

the day before the trip

AUSTIN, Texas, June 1, 2004 —There are the last minute things into the bag...some earplugs and glasses cleaning solution and rag. There is the last minute fretting and telling people what to do about this and should that happen. There is the last meals of favorite foods that may be absent (albeit good food, even great food may be available).

So, yeah, I spent my day just getting a workout, fretting over packing and last minute things to tell various people. I ate out and I threw things out of the frig that might be truly interesting science experiments in seventeen days.

As the minutes until take-off tick off, we worry about our dads and then hear that they are rallying a bit from some non-specific complaints. Hopefully the trip will be fine. We have worried enough in advance.

bags packed