Ecuador

After three weeks back home in Cincinnati, it was pretty weird to be packing up and hitting the road again.  The time we spent at our house provided us with a great sense of familiarity, which we soaked up after ten months of staying in more than one hundred different places in 24 countries.  The familiar became exotic for us, as we got to see family and friends and places we had missed in more than 300 days on the road.  The challenge of routine everyday activities was gone, replaced by a welcoming ease of language and setting, which was very relaxing.  Now, it was time to leave that comfort level behind and dive back into the daily experience of living with a different language and culture.

Travel is enticing, however, and it took less than 24 hours for the thrill of the road to get us in its grips once again.  Our first stop was Quito, Ecuador.  We were on our way to a house-sitting assignment for 20 days in Cuenca, a 45-minute plane ride from Quito.  Our flight arrived in Quito at ten at night, so we booked a hotel for the night and would head for Cuenca the next day.  The Hotel Antinea was adorable, with great architecture and a welcoming feel, that started right in the cozy lobby.

My expectation upon traveling after being home for three weeks was that I wouldn't want to be living in unfamiliar surroundings and getting clothes out of a suitcase each day once again.  But those feelings faded away,  replaced by the sense of adventure of communicating with people in a different land and also by the sense of unity that we felt as a family.  Our ten months on the road from December of 2011 until early October of 2012 had created an unspoken bond that we all felt, even as we were seated apart on the flight from Atlanta to Quito.  It's what we'd done for almost a year now, and we really enjoyed it.

One of the more enjoyable parts of the trip was landing house sitting gigs.  We got the twenty-day house sitting job in Cuenca through trustedhousesitters.com, the site we used to take care of 5 labradoodle puppies in France back in July.  Our quality care of the property and pets there resulted in getting a glowing reference from that homeowner and paved the way for our next job through that website.

When we saw the listing for the house sitting job in Ecuador, we were immediately intrigued.  It was from a couple in a condo who needed someone to take care of their two older cats, plus it also featured Direct TV and wireless internet.  As much as we like to experience the local culture, it's also a nice perk to be able to have a bit of a taste of home, so the satellite TV and internet helped trigger our applying for the job.

Kathy and Maik, the cat owners and condo people, were originally uneasy about the whole house sitting concept, but Annie exchanged a couple of messages through the website and convinced them to do a video chat session to try to help seal the deal.  We chatted for about 15 minutes with them while we were in South Africa, and agreed to head to Cuenca at the start of the South American phase of the trip.

After a comfortable night in Quito, we headed for Cuenca on a Wednesday afternoon.  A 45-minute flight landed us in the capital of the Azuay province of Ecuador in the southern highlands of the small nation on the western coast of South America. It's nestled among the sierra of the Andes mountains, with an altitude of about 8200 feet, or roughly three thousand feet higher than Denver. 

The condo where we lived with Whiskers and Spirit was part of a multi-family building on the western edge of town.  On the ground floor of the complex were some shops, including a hair dresser, fish place, a couple of clothing shops and a mini-market.  There was only one woman who worked there the entire duration of our stay, and her name was, predictably enough, Maria.   She spoke exactly no English, but we had a great time chatting with her during our nearly daily visits to her shop.  It was a fun experience to converse with her in our "gorilla" Spanish and her patient toddler-level Spanish. (Me in Spanish: "Me like eat food.  Me like Cuenca and those beer!" Her:  Esta Bien!") 

One of the more appealing aspects of life in Cuenca is the large ex-pat population.  Cuenca is considered one of the top spots for foreigners in all of South America.  It's a city of about 500,000 people and the locals are friendly to gringos, plus there is a very well-organized gringo culture that meshes well with the Cuencanos.  Annie signed up for a daily email from a service called the Gringo Tree, which contains a handful of notices about activities in the community, along with a classified ad or two, sort of a Craigslist type of thing.

Taxis are very affordable, costing only about $2 to get into the center of town, but most of the time we headed into Cuenca, we chose to walk.  With no major hills in the way, the stroll was fairly easy.  We made that walk pretty much every day at least one way.  Three times a week, we took Spanish lessons at a bookstore in town where the people we are house sitting for took lessons and we slid into their two-hour spot while they were back home in Chicago.  

Maria Elena, our instructor, was very patient with us, especially with Ben and Marley.  Annie and I had some lingering Spanish knowledge tucked back in the distant recesses of what's left of our brains and some of that actually bubbled back to life.  The kids caught on reasonably quickly, and it was fun to put our limited but increasing knowledge of Spanish to use on the streets and in shops and restaurants.

We also put it to use during our second week in Cuenca, during the tres dias de fiestas the city was having as part of it's Independence Day Celebrations.  Vendors were selling a wide variety of wares in tents set up in locations all across the city.  Annie jumped on the chance to buy some alpaca blankets at a good price but most of the time we just tent-shopped, enjoying being among the crowds who filled the city from all around Ecuador.  

One of the highlights of the three days of celebrations was a parade held on the middle day, which we watched from the central square in town, Calderon.  The parade participants included a wide variety, with some sporting wild outfits and putting on a brief performance in front of the reviewing stand just to our left.

My favorite was some girls dressed in indigenous outfits who danced their way down the street.

The parade and festival were great ways for us to really get into the local culture as well as feel tall.  One thing that really stood out as we walked around the streets of Cuenca for almost three weeks was how much taller we were than most of the locals.  Gotta admit, that at the height of 5'8", I enjoyed that aspect of life in Ecuador.

Annie's daily email from the Daily Gringo updated us on the events that were happening in Cuenca, especially those targeted at Gringos such as us.  Various restaurants had "gringo" nights during the week, and we checked a few of those out during our stay.  One of the first we tried was a bit of a dud, as the food wasn't very good and the prices were high.  Plus, at the table next to us, what looked to be a first date was going on. They both looked to be in their 60s, with the woman at the table talking quite loudly, and the man trying to act patient while at the same time having a look on his face like he couldn't wait to get out of there.  Then at the end of their evening at the restaurant, he whipped out some dental floss and started digging into his teeth like he was starving and wanted every last morsel of food wedged between his pearly whites.  I don't know if he did that to try to make sure that he would never have to sit through a dinner with this woman again or not.  Turns out that we ran into him a few other times around town in our three weeks there, and he chatted us up once at lunch and turned out to be a very nice guy.  He was a Texan who had just moved to Cuenca a few months before.   As we were wrapping up our meal that day, I was tempted to ask him if he had any dental floss that I could use, but I managed to restrain myself.  

A more enjoyable Gringo night was our second Friday night there when a cute restaurant where we had breakfast once early in our stay was having a Mexican night.  That's one food group that we all enjoy, so we got in a cab and told the driver where we wanted to go and he headed in that direction.  As we got to where the restaurant was, I wanted to say something along the lines of "here is fine" which in gorilla Spanish would have been "aqui is bien" but instead I gestured and said "Estoy aqui!", which is "I am here!" I realized my mistake and tried to correct myself, much to the amusement of the driver and my family.  

Another popular gringo hangout that appealed to us was at a place called the Inca Lounge.  On Sundays, they showed NFL football games.  We stopped in there three of the four Sundays we spent in Cuenca, making some new friends and enjoying hearing from people who had decided to take the plunge and move from the U.S. to Ecuador.  It was a fun atmosphere, and one of the best things was that we only saw one Steelers fan our entire time there.

One of our inspirations for this trip is Anthony Bourdain and his TV show, No Reservations.  He has one of the best gigs in the business as he travels the world, going to locations of his choosing and eating the local food and drinking the local drinks.  His show has been an influence on some of the locations we have picked, especially San Sebastian, Spain.  In his shows, he frequently has what he calls a local "fixer."  That's someone who can guide him to some unique places to go and help him avoid unsavory spots.  We had a fixer in Cuenca:  Gladys the cleaning lady.

Gladys worked for Kathy and Maik, the Chicagoans we were house-sitting for.  She comes in once a week and cleans their condo and does a great job.  She also speaks pretty good English, it's certainly better than our Spanish.  We got to know her a bit and talked to her some and she offered to take us to some Inca ruins about two hours outside of Cuenca called Ingapirca.  She had just gotten a new car and was excited to take us for a drive in it.  She even said she knew of some places to get cuy (pronounced coo-ee), the local delicacy better known north of the border as guinea pig.  We'd seen Anthony Bourdain eat some cuy in one of his shows and he seemed to enjoy it, so we just had to give it a try.

The first two-thirds of the drive were on a nicely maintained highway, called an Autopista.  Gladys was an excellent driver and we enjoyed the smooth ride.  Things got a little bumpier once we took the turn-off at the decrepit sign that pointed in the direction of Ingapirca.  There were as many potholes as there were turns on this winding road, and Gladys did a fearless job of guiding her new Chevy Sail around the suspension-bending obstacles while somehow not losing any of that new car smell.  

Ingapirca is well known among the locals, apparently so well known that the government decided there was no need to put up signs saying, "hey gringo, Ingapirca this away!"  Gladys patiently stopped and asked directions from time to time.  At least that's what we thought she was asking.  She could have been saying, "hey, I've got a carload of gringos, and they must be loaded!  They've been traveling the world for almost a year, and you should see all the Apple devices in the condo they're staying in.  I think their last names must really be Jobs, can you help me find some people to tie them up?"  Okay, maybe she wasn't saying that, or maybe she couldn't find anyone to help carry out her evil plans.  Whatever the real story is, we made it safely to the ruins, which are supposedly the best-preserved pre-Spanish Inca ruins in Ecuador.  

The ancient walls and pathways at Ingapirca aren't exactly Macchu Picchu, but they were impressive nonetheless.   The complex was originally built by the local people called the Canaris, and the Incas came along and did something that rarely happens when two differing groups of people collide:  they co-existed peacefully.  The Incas adopted some of the Canaris traditions, while the Canaris accepted some of the ideas and customs that the Incas brought with them.  What a concept!

After about forty-five minutes or so, we had seen enough ruins and were ready to check out a couple of restaurants open near the entrance that we had spotted on the way in.  But before we could get to those, we noticed a small one-story white building with some tables out front and a sign listing some food offerings. 

At the top of the list: cuy!  Turns out one of the little buggers is enough to feed three people, so we knew that would be just right for Annie, Gladys and me.

The restaurant was run by an indigenous woman who was very friendly, and served up a local cheese that Marley had grown fond of, while frying up a fish that Ben just loved.  

As for the guinea pig, Annie liked it, probably more for the experience than the actual taste.  Gladys happily took the head of the guinea pig saying that was her favorite part, including the brain. 

For me, the effort it took to get what little meat there was off the bones was not quite worth it.  It tasted a little gamey to me.  I can eat chicken until the cows come home mooing your praises for not eating them.  I like big juicy hunks of animal flesh, not little slivers.  Still it was a great experience, and a testament to having the services of a local fixer.  

The route back to Cuenca happened to go through the home town of Gladys, Canar.  She was very proud of her birthplace, and even stopped to show us her adorable grand daughter.  

It was a display of grandmotherly love that needed no translation.

Another discovery we made in Ecuador is that Cuenca is actually the birthplace of the Panama hat.  The hats, which are hand-woven, gained popularity in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  They were shipped to other parts of the world through the isthmus of Panama and since that's where they were first purchased they became known as Panama hats.  Stores, or tiendas, all across Cuenca sell the hats, but we decided to go directly to the source:  The Panama Hat Museum.   Inside were tables filled with Panama hats of all shapes and sizes, and they would take special orders for the regular retail price of $25.  I actually had to get an XXL for my big American noggin and Marley got an XL in a very pretty purple.  We picked them up the next day and had fun wearing them around town, while also enjoying their protective nature from the equatorial sun.

Our Spanish instructor Maria Elena wound up being a great resource for us on life in Ecuador.  She was very enthusiastic about showing us and the kids how the locals lived.  One Saturday, she took Ben and Marley on a half-day field trip to a couple of small towns outside of Cuenca.  Marley bought a beautiful locally made guitar for a fraction of what a similar guitar would cost in the States.  Our daughter looked adorable with the guitar strap over her shoulder, like she was ready to hit the streets and do some busking to help us afford to get back home.  

On our final Saturday in Cuenca, we got together with Maria Elena and her two children at what had become our favorite restaurant in Ecuador.

Chitople featured some great burritos and tacos and quesadillas, with fresh ingredients and a fun atmosphere.  It was great to see Maria Elena with her children, who were very well-behaved, especially considering we took about two hours to eat lunch.  

As has been the case with so many of our stops in more than two dozen countries, our best memories of Ecuador will be the people we met along the way. 

I came across a quote in the beginning of a book called Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann that sums it up pretty well.  It is attributed to Aleksandar Hemon in The Lazarus Project who wrote:  "All the lives we could live, all the people we will never know, never will be, they are everywhere.  That is what the world is."

Paris , part deux! (MBDPSW edition)

When one thinks of getting around in Paris, driving a massive, Mercedes-Benz diesel-powered station wagon (MBDPSW) probably isn't the first thing that comes to mind.  The Metro system in Paris is one of the best in the world.  The lines run everywhere you need to go, you rarely have to wait more than three minutes for a train, and they are for the most part, clean, safe and affordable.  Plus there are taxi stands everywhere and the cab fare isn't that bad.

The house where we were staying in Garches, outside Paris, gave us access to a MBDPSW, and we took advantage of said access to make a day trip to the American Cemetary at Belleau Wood.  Belleau Wood is the site of a major battle in World War I.  The Germans were advancing on Paris, and the French were in trouble.  US troops were called in, many of them Marines.  Retreating French forces urged the Americans to do the same, when a Marine commander said "Retreat?  Hell, we just got here."  The Marines helped beat back the Germans and it became a seminal moment in U.S. Marine history.

Annie has a fascination with cemeteries and we have stopped at random cemeteries in various countries over the past eight months or so, but this trip was personal.  Her great uncle, James Wallace Costigan, died at the age of 19 in the battle of Belleau Wood.  The American Legion Post in Newport Kentucky is named for him, and Annie actually stopped in there once.  She has some relatives who have made the trek to the memorial which is about an hour and a half northeast of Paris.  So we piled the kids and the yellow lab we were watching, Lucy, into the MBDPSW and dove into Paris traffic on a sunny Tuesday, July 31.

Traffic on the freeway that runs just south of Paris was busier than we expected and the Garmin we had was a little slow in keeping up-something that would be a major factor in a later foray into Paris.  Once we got on the A4 heading out of town, it was a smooth ride through the pleasant French countryside.  It was difficult to imagine a bloody battle playing out in such beautiful surroundings.

The Belleau Wood Monument is part of the American Battle Monuments Commission, and is quite impressive.  The ABMC is a government agency, funded by US taxpayer money.  After what we saw during our brief stop at the Belleau Wood Monument we all felt it's money well spent, which you can't always say when it comes to government spending.  From the moment you drive in, it's apparent that the people taking care of the grounds take their responsibility very seriously.

The visitor's center includes background information on the battle and also has a notebook where you can look up the gravesite of individual soldiers.  It didn't take us long to find the listing for James Wallace Costigan.

There was also a page that listed when each soldier died.

The young Costigan soldier from Kentucky died on July 31, 1918.  It took us a moment, but Annie and I quickly realized that we were there, purely by coincidence, on July 31, 2012.  That added even more meaning to an already emotional visit. 

We left the visitor center, searching for Row 3, grave 46, which was situated in the series of graves to the left of a central grassy area with a flag pole flying the Stars and Stripes.  

As we walked down the third row, we read the names of the other soldiers who had died in this battle.  They were from all across the U.S. and most died in June or July of 1918.  Some had special notices of bravery or heroism, while most just silently listed their name, rank, home state and date of their death.

Finally, we found what we were looking for.  The white cross with the name James Wallace Costigan, a private with the 6th regiment of the U.S.M.C., 2nd Division, who was from Kentucky.

Annie and I both teared up, thinking of what it must have been like, (but really having no idea) being so far from home seeing your fellow soldiers wounded and dying by your side every single day.  It was a good history lesson for us and for the kids and for them, personalized what was at one time called the Great War.  Talk about an oxymoron.

We took our time strolling around the grounds, reading some of the other names etched into the crosses, wondering what it was like for the families back home to get the bad news about their loved one who wouldn't be coming home.

Annie had been carrying around some of the ashes of her step-dad Tom, whose death in 2010 helped trigger us taking this trip.  She found a spot up on a hill overlooking the graves, and left some of Tom behind, knowing he would appreciate the history of the spot.

The following weekend, Annie and Marley hopped on the Eurostar train and took a trip to London.  We have friends of friends from back home in Cincinnati who live about an hour north of London in Northampton and they offered to put the girls up for three nights.  It would be the first time on the trip that all four of us would not be together, so that would be interesting to see how we felt about that.

Ben and I accompanied the girls to the train station to make sure they got there okay, (they are delicate flowers you know!) and then we made plans to find super cars for Ben to see.  Our first attempt at that didn't turn out so well.

On the day after the girls left for London, Ben and I got up, grabbed the SCNF train in Garches to the La Defense station which was only three stops away, about a 15-minute ride.  La Defense is where we could get the Metro into Paris and the area of town where Ben had discovered several dealerships selling supercars, including Lamborghini and McLarens.  The problem came when we arrived and discovered that like much of Paris, the car dealers took two-hour lunch breaks.  The sign on the dealership door said that they would be open the following day, Saturday, until 12:30, so we made plans to get an earlier start the next day and get there in time to see if we would see the cars.

We still had much of Friday afternoon ahead of us, so we walked a few blocks to another Metro stop which would connect us with a line that would take us to the Franklin Roosevelt station.  That's within walking distance to the Palais De la Decouverte, or Palace of Discovery.  Ben is into science and astronomy and cosmology and I thought it would be something fun and educational for us to do.  It was either that or an afternoon show at the Moulin Rouge, and I'm not sure Ben is ready for that at the tender age of 12.

The only thing that we really discovered at the Palace of Discovery was that it was a mistake to buy a ticket for a planetarium show that you think is going to last a half an hour when actually it's 45 minutes.  We also discovered that my mastery of the French language was much more limited than I thought and that the lunch at the cafe at the Palace was barely edible.  The cafe did have wi-fi, but all that did was allow us to see all the Facebook postings that Annie was making about what a great time the girls were having in London.  Made us feel kind of like losers.

Ben and I drowned our sorrows in our disappointing day with some really good homemade cheeseburgers that I whipped up at the house back in Garches.  He liked so much he requested them again the next night.  And that would help finish off what would turn out to be a great day for the guys.

Our day on Saturday started out a bit earlier than what we did on Friday, making sure we got to the part of Paris where we hoped to be able to see Lamborghinis and McLarens.  We had the routine down pretty well when it came to the timing of the train from Garches to La Defense.   That familiarity got us to Boulevard St. Cyr about 45 minutes before the 12:30 closing time for the day.

As we walked down the street, we passed the showrooms displaying a couple of Lamborghinis, but there was no sign of any salesmen or women around.  In the next showroom, there they were:  McLarens.  They looked gorgeous and fast even standing still.  The door closest to where the cars were was closed, but we could see through the window that there was an opening that led into a larger showroom.  As we walked down the sidewalk in that showroom's direction, we found that there were about three Rolls Royce cars on display.

The doors to the showroom were locked, but we could see some salesmen inside.  I wasn't sure what sort of reaction we would get, but I went ahead and pressed a silver button by the side of the door.  One of the salesman looked in our direction and we heard a click and the world of luxury cars was ours.

I approached a salesman, explaining that my son just wanted to see the McLarens and he motioned toward the cars and told us to go right ahead and take a look.  They were stunning.

We carefully circled the cars, showing them the proper respect under the watchful eye of a very friendly salesman.  Ben and I discussed the cars with him, and I think he was impressed with Ben's knowledge of the super car world.  That may have been why he invited Ben to sit inside one of the cars.  Ben did that with a smile as big as the car's price tag, which was about 238,000 Euros.

We made sure not to overstay our welcome and walked back out onto the streets of Paris, happy to accomplish one of the major goals of the trip for Ben.

He doesn't say much very often about how he's feeling about things, but as we made our way through the Metropolitan toward the Rue Cler area for lunch, he said "I'm happy."  For him, that's like jumping up and down and shaking me by the shoulders in glee.  That made my day to have him say that, and our good moods continued after a nice lunch on what was becoming our favorite area of Paris.

Rue Cler is in the 7th arrondissement, not too far from the Eiffel Tower, and the street becomes a pedestrian walkway on Saturdays, with a market that gets going early in the morning.  Most of the market activity had wrapped up by the time we got there for lunch, but it still had a great vibe on a beautiful day in Paris.  I had gotten tipped off to the area by a former co-worker who had traveled pretty extensively in Europe and he is an "off the beaten path" kind of guy.

After lunch, Ben and I strolled through the streets toward the Eiffel Tower, passing by markets and shops and cafes.  As we got ready to cross the Avenue Bosquet on Rue Grenelle, Ben spotted a man sitting in a window seat of a cafe drinking a Dr. Pepper.  Ben LOVES Dr. Pepper and it was a fairly rare occurrence to find it in the course of our trip.  So we walked over to the cafe and went inside. 

The McCoy Cafe was filled with drinks and snacks and food items that we hadn't seen since we left the States almost eight months earlier.  We happily bought Ben a Dr. Pepper and continued our walk toward the Eiffel Tower.

The approach to the tower from the south and east as we were going is great because the buildings on the surrounding streets are about six stories tall and there are a lot of trees in the neighborhood, so you don't really see the tower until you get to the wide park that spreads south like an inviting green blanket.

It was the kind of summer afternoon in Paris that keeps postcard companies in business and we really enjoyed strolling through the park, seeing locals having lunch with baguettes and cheese and wine, while tourists bustled about, getting on and off buses to capture the moment digitally.

While we had seen the Tower from afar in the couple of weeks we had been staying in Paris, we hadn't gotten up close and personal with it.  It's an amazingly graceful and delicate structure for its size.  The supports seem to sprout from the ground like a tree, and rise elegantly into the sky.

The lines of people waiting to go up inside the Tower were very long, probably meaning a wait of an hour or more at least, so we kept walking toward the Seine on the north side of the Tower. 

We were just soaking it all in, taking in the vibe when Ben heard a super car.  He has a great ear for them, and when we turned toward Quai Branly, sure enough, there was a McLaren.  We had never seen one in action on the street and fortunately for us, it had to stop at a traffic light.  I told Ben to go stand by the car on the sidewalk as we sprinted through the tourists to get a photo.

The color of the car even matched the Dr. Pepper can Ben had in his hand!  What a day we were having!

By this time, it was only about 2:15 and I wasn't ready to head back to the house in Garches, so I decided to have us do some reconnaissance.  Annie's mom was coming to stay with us for a week or so in a little over a week, and we had purchased tickets to see Vivaldi's Four Seasons performed at Sainte Chapelle while she was there.  I wanted to see what it would be like to have her navigate the Metro with us because I really had no desire to drive the MBDPSW into the heart of Paris.  Plus I love the Metro system and this gave me an excuse to try out a couple of different lines we hadn't been on.  The metro stops are all different and in some of the busier stations where there are frequent transfers, musicians will gather and play music that echoes through the long hallways.

Sainte Chapelle is located on Il de Cite, the same island in the Seine that is home to Notre Dame.  Ben and I determined that Annie's mom should be able to make it there on  the night of the concert without too much trouble.  She's 81 and gets around pretty well for someone of that age, but we didn't want her to have to walk too far and the Metro stop by Sainte Chapelle was short walk away, plus there was an elevator to exit the depths of the subway system.  We felt pretty good about her being able to do that without too much effort.

Annie's mom, Janet or Mimi as we all call her, arrived in Paris early one Monday morning, about half-way through our month-long stay in Garches.  We drove the MBDPSW all the way out to Charles De Gaulle airport, about a 40-minute drive.  Fortunately, a family that lives three houses down from us in Madeira was on the same flight and we asked them to look for Mimi and help make sure she got to the right place, which they did.  It was great to see her for the first time in about 8 months.

She enjoyed spending time with us at the house in Garches, and we passed a lot of time watching the Olympics from London.  We laid low the first couple of nights, then came time for our big trip into Paris to see the concert at Sainte Chapelle.

Annie wasn't completely comfortable with the idea of having her mom try to navigate the train and Metro combination to get into Paris, so we decided to drive the MBDPSW to the train station in Garches and catch a taxi.  I figured the main challenge would be getting a taxi big enough for five people, but Garches is a fairly major stop and we had seen taxis there in our frequent trips into Paris.

The concert started at 7 and the website where we bought the tickets advised us to get there around 6:15, so we figured if we got a taxi around 5:30 we would have plenty of time to get to Saint Chapelle.  However, when we got to the train station, it was sans taxi.  Not a cab anywhere in sight.  The train really wasn't an option as one had just left the station and another one wasn't due for a half an hour, which would most likely get us into Paris around 6:45 or so and that's not taking into account taking longer to go at Mimi's pace through the Metro.

We waited around for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do and hoping a taxi would magically appear.  Annie finally said was I was afraid she would say:  "We could always drive in."  Meaning I would be driving the MBDPSW into the depths of Paris on a Thursday evening at rush hour.  It was the second-to-last thing I wanted to to, the last being missing the concert.  I really wanted to hear that beautiful music in that gorgeous setting knowing it would be something we would all remember the rest of our lives.

It was with a minimum of grumbling that I got back behind the wheel of the MBDPSW and we punched the address of Sainte Chapelle into the Garmin and started toward Paris.  The ETA on the Garmin was about 6:17 so I figured with a missed turn or two which seemed inevitable, we would probably get there around 6:30 or so.  Not ideal, but not bad and we would still see the concert.

Traffic wasn't bad and the ETA didn't changed much as we cruised along the main highway that takes traffic south of the central part of Paris, and I knew we would be making a left at some point.  The highway had exits on top of exits and the Garmin was having trouble keeping up and sure enough, we missed our turn.  Recalculating.  Okay, all we have to do is make a turn where the Garmin says, oh wait we just drove by that!  The Garmin continued to have trouble keeping pace with the MBDPSW, and the next thing we knew, we were heading on the highway towards the Orly Airport, which is well south of Paris and in the opposite direction of Sainte Chapelle.  Super!

The ETA on the Garmin was now saying 6:47 and that included the effort of turning around at some point.  Unfortunately, there is only one exit between where we got on that highway and the airport and it lead through a gas station which didn't look like an exit to me as I sped by.  After about six or seven miles we made it to Orly, and considered abandoning the car and flying somewhere just because we were at Orly.  We let those thoughts pass and made it through the arrival and departure zones and got back on the highway, heading for Paris and Sainte Chapelle.  We hoped. 

Once we got back into Paris and got off the highway onto the surface streets, traffic slowed to a crawl.  The Garmin ETA continued to inch it's way toward 7, (what is it with us and 7pm deadlines in Paris?) and there was some discussion of doing the French thing and giving up.  I had visions of anytime I heard Vivaldi's Four Seasons for the rest of my life collapsing in a pool of tears, so I was determined to forge ahead at least until we were still not at Sainte Chapelle and it was after 7.

Fortunately traffic cleared up some just in time and we managed to get to Sainte Chapelle at 6:55 without breaking many traffic laws or social customs of Paris.  Let's just say no pedestrians were seriously wounded in arriving at our destination.  Annie and Marley and Mimi got out of the car while Ben and I went and parked it in the garage right across the street.  It's a healthy walk from where you enter the complex where Sainte Chapelle is located to the chapel itself.  For whatever reason, the French Supreme Court is located there, so there are gates to go through and stairs to climb, but we made the walk and the climb and saw a woman urgently directing people down one final hallway.  Right at 7pm. 

I figured we would make it just in time when the girls decided they just had to go to the bathroom.  Really?  After nearly leaving the country and making it here just in time, it's time to powder your noses?? Following what seemed like an eternity, the ladies emerged from the restroom and we got to the lobby just outside the chapel just in time to hear the familiar opening strains of the first movement of the Four Seasons.

A staff member patiently ushered us inside and motioned for us to stay standing for a bit.  We had purchased tickets in the medium price range, fairly close to the front and after the first movement was over, we made it up the aisle and to our seats.  That's when I finally exhaled and tried to put the tension of the ride into Paris and the prospect of missing the concert behind me and just soak in the sights and sounds. 

Sainte Chapelle is world-renowned for its spectacular stained-glass windows that are currently undergoing a restoration project.  It was still light out, so the brilliant colors of the glass lit the cathedral with a warming, soothing glow.

The music being played was up to the challenge of matching the beauty of the setting.  Six musicians were led by a violinist who had a very charismatic way of playing.  He would make facial expressions implying that he was not in control of the music, that it was just coming from his instrument of it's own volition and he was simply along for the ride.  The musicianship was stellar and the other players were fun to watch as they reacted to the flamboyant style of their leader.

I had forgotten how much of the Four Seasons I was familiar with and how much I loved it.  The quality of the music and the fantastic setting made it the highlight of our time in Paris with Annie's mom and one of the highlights of our entire time in France.
After the concert we had a decent dinner at a restaurant right across the street from Sainte Chapelle.  Normally we try to get a bit more off the beaten path, but convenience won out and we accomplished our goal of getting done with dinner before it got dark for the drive home.  Driving in Paris was enough of a challenge in the daylight, I didn't want to add darkness to the equation, which is pretty much a 365/24/7 policy for me.

The Garmin in the MBDPSW had a "home" feature which conveniently calculated the route back to Garches and we punched those directions in as we emerged from the parking garage in the twilight.  As we followed the guidance of the GPS, I realized it was taking us toward possibly the most famous street in the world.  

It was thrilling to make the right hand turn and start up the Champs Elysees, which by that time of the day was lit up by lights strung on the trees and lamp posts on both sides of the road.  At the top of the Champs Elysees, there is a tunnel that takes you under the roundabout circling the Arc De Triomph, but after having made it to the concert barely on time and being rewarded with one of the best musical experiences of my life, I wasn't about to cheat myself and my family of the thrill of driving around the Arc.  
  
I had noticed on two previous visits to the Arc, that when there is open space, drivers hit the gas hard, trying to beat the traffic feeding in from the other spokes funneling traffic into the roundabout.  When the traffic light on the Champs Elysees at the Arc turned green, I had some open space and I gunned it.  I made it past about five feeder spokes with no interference, but as I spotted the street that would take us back toward Garches, a line of traffic started to enter the circle from the right.

It was right about then a line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off popped into my head.  It's from the scene when Ferris, Cameron and Sloane are leaving the fancy restaurant after lunch and they run into Ferris' dad, who somehow doesn't realize who he has almost literally bumped into.  Cameron says, "we're pinched for sure!" to which Ferris replies, "Only the meek get pinched, the bold survive!"  With that cinematic inspiration in my head, I boldly hit the gas and raced past the oncoming traffic, and sped down Avenue Victor Hugo toward the safety and serenity of the suburbs.

In the days following the departure of Annie's mom from our home away from home in Garches, we made a few more trips into Paris.  Our final one was on the day before our departure to Scotland.  We re-traced the trip Ben and I made on our boy's day, having lunch on Rue Cler, meeting a former co-worker's of Annie's who lives just outside Paris.

After that, we took a final stroll through the picturesque streets and spent some time enjoying the ambiance of the Eiffel Tower.  We were graced with a spectacular summer Saturday in Paris, drawing a picture-perfect conclusion to our time in a magical place.

We're certainly not the first people to fall under the spell of Paris and we won't be the last.  Plenty has been written about the city, much of it by far more talented writers than me.  With that in mind, I thank you for your patience in reading this long entry and close with the words of Harlan Coben from Long Lost.

But more than that, Paris makes you feel alive.
Makes you want to feel alive.
You want to do and be and savor when you are here
You want to feel, simply feel, and it doesn’t matter what.
All sensation is heightened
Paris makes you want to cry and laugh and fall in love and write a poem and make love and compose a symphony

We left Paris with a symphony of memories in our hearts, dreaming of the next time we would be fortunate enough to experience it's many delights.

Paris, part un! (Ricky Bobby edition)

The timing of our stops in various places along the way has thrust us into some interesting scenarios, and most of the time unexpectedly.  We spent New Year's Eve in Auckland, New Zealand, one of the first major cities to mark the changing of the calendar every year. Seeing as it happens every year, we knew we would have that experience while in the land of the Kiwis.

Our first surprise was being in Australia during the celebration of Australia Day.  At first, we thought all the decorations and banners on display and festivities being held were to welcome us on our trip.  We had heard Australians like people from the States and we are a pretty big deal.  But no, it turns out the Australians like any excuse to have a party and they threw one, which we enjoyed being part of in Melbourne.  That's also where we got to enjoy the vibe of the Australian Open tennis tournament.  We didn't go to any matches, but soaked in the excitement on the streets as well as cafes and restaurants.

When we were in Sydney, we happened to book a place in Manly Beach just north of the city , having no idea that the Australian Open of Surfing was going on right there.  We loved checking out the surfing action and being part of that excitement.  Then, when we got to Paris in late July, we arrived just in time for the end of one of the best-known sporting events in the world.

The timing of our trip to Paris was based entirely on the availability of a house-sitting gig through a friend of a friend.  The homeowners needed someone starting July 20th, which just happened to be two days ahead of the final stage of the Tour De France, which concludes with the competitors doing a few laps on the Champs Elysees.

I've paid little if any attention to the Tour De France over the years, even when Lance Armstrong was winning 56 in a row.  Wait, that was Joe DiMaggio, wasn't it?  Or not.  Anyway, my apathy about the TDF was worn away by the constant coverage on TV while we were in the south of France and on a few of the drives we took around there, we saw road signs with dates and times of the TDF, apparently when the bikers would be coming through where we saw the signs.  The closest town of any significance to our puppypalooza in the Pyrenees was Foix, and the TDF was coming through there two days after we left there, and preparations were being made as we headed out of that area.

When the bikers hit Foix, we were in Biarittz and watched some of the TV coverage of that stage, enjoying recognizing some of the places shown.  So as we headed toward Paris, we thought maybe we would try to check out the final stage on Sunday afternoon, in part because the weather forecast looked great. 

Kristin, who we would be house-sitting for, said that the racers would be hitting Paris around 4:30 Sunday afternoon and suggested going into town a couple of hours before that, getting a bite to eat while drinking in the atmosphere.  So, as per her recommendation, we made plans to check out the action on Sunday.

We arrived in Garches, just outside Paris on a Thursday evening.  Our travel that day began around 10am as we left the new love of our life San Sebastian, Spain.  The rental car office where I was going to drop the car off was open until 7, and when I had researched the drive online, it said it would take about 8 and a half hours give or take, and I figured with stops, traffic etc. the more likely scenario was that we would drive to the house in Garches that evening and I would take the car to the office the next day.

When we got in the car and punched in the destination in the GPS in the car, it said the drive would only take about 7 and a half hours, putting us in the Paris area around 6pm.  Hmmmm, maybe we could take the car back that night and not have to mess with it the following day. Sounded like a good plan.

The GPS estimate of our arrival in Garches was hovering around 6:15pm for the first two or three hours of the trip.  It was a smooth ride on a well-maintained major highway for most of the way.  The road had tolls, which put a little bit of a hitch in our giddy-up at one point.

I had noticed in the first two or three trips through a toll plaza, or peage as they are called in French, one or two lanes had the image of a card with a strip on it and the word Cartes above it.  I figured instead of having to dig out the right amount of money, the next time I hit a peage, I would use a card.

It didn't take long to reach another peage and I confidently pulled into a lane with the sign of what looked to be a credit card and again the word Cartes.  When I got to where you pay, there were two stickers of what I think was thought was the European version of a MasterCard and the other was a some other symbol I didn't recognize, and both had a red X marked through them.  I thought maybe my Capital One MasterCard would work, but it got denied.  I fumbled for another card that I never use on the trip because it has international transaction fees, and it also got denied.

By this time, two cars had pulled up behind me and I also happened to drop the ticket that you insert to find out how much you have to pay.  I was in the process of pondering the possibility of changing my name to Clark Griswold as I grabbed the ticket off the ground before it could be blown across the French countryside, which was very scenic by the way.

I clearly had no choice at this point but to do something very French:  admit defeat and turn around.  So I held up my ticket, gestured toward the car reading machine and shook my head and motioned to the drivers to back up.  I expected to be greeted with a hail of croissants and foie gras and shaking fists, but instead, both drivers calmly backed up, almost like it was something in their DNA.

I did get an angry glare from a man in an adjacent lane that took cash who had let a little bit of room get between his car and the car in front of him as he got his money together.  I just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, so I somewhat aggressively took advantage of that opening and happily gave my cash to the attendant and sped north toward Paris.  We had a quick family meeting in the car and decided from that point forward, any encounter with a peage would be a cash-only affair.

That episode pushed the estimated time of our arrival back to about 6:30pm which I still figured would give us enough time to stop for gas when we got close to fill the tank up and get to the rental car office by 7pm.

Being the largest city in Europe, Paris has it's share of traffic and we ran into some of that as we got closer to the city.  It slowed down enough that the ETA on the GPS was getting closer and closer to 7pm.  It wouldn't have been the worst thing to happen on the trip if we got to the rental car office and it was closed, but we had invested enough energy and we were so close to making it that we really wanted to beat the deadline.

The address we had for the rental car office was near a major roundabout southwest of the city and the GPS was going to at least get us to the roundabout.  Which it did.  At about 6:55 after fighting through the traffic in Paris.  We put the kids on alert for the yellow Hertz sign as we eased around the roundabout, and before we had made one complete circuit, Marley spotted the sign we were looking for. At about 6:57.

Of course, there was no big yellow arrow saying "return cars here" and the only drive I could find had an arrow pointing out.  As I pulled in, the kids said, "dad, that's an exit" to which I replied I was making it an entrance for now.   Just a temporary thing, you know.  I jumped out of the car, (at 6:59) and saw a woman behind the counter inside the office.  She saw where I had parked the car and said I couldn't do that, and I said I need to return the car and wanted to know where I could do that.  She said it was behind us, just in front of the entrance to the gas station that was right before the Hertz office.

Fortunately in the course of our trip driving a car in New Zealand, Australia and Greece, I've become skilled at making illegal u-turns.  That experience translated well on to the streets of Paris, as I turned the car around, and got to where the Hertz clerk described going into a driveway and down a ramp where I could return the car. Mind you, no where was there ANY signage of this being the place to return a rental car.  And that trend continued once we got inside the garage.  At 7:00pm.

I stopped the car and asked a man who seemed to be doing some repair work on a car, and he pointed me back in the direction we came in.  That's where there was an office, not for Hertz but for something else and a man there, pointed me in the direction of the very end of the garage and then made a swirling motion in a downward direction.  Kind of like a flushing toilet, which is how I was starting to feel about this entire escapade.

I finally noticed the small Hertz sign with an arrow pointing to the left, that led to another pointing to a down ramp.  At 7:03.  We get to where there are some Hertz signs hanging over filled parking spaces and I see that there seems to be some sort of drop-off box, where you can leave your rental agreement at the keys to the car.  At 7:05, or two in the morning it doesn't matter.  You get a ticket from the parking garage automated machine when you enter, and that has a time stamp on it and you leave that with the keys and the paperwork, so they know when you returned the car.

At that point, it was pretty much like the scene from Stripes, when Bill Murray and Harold Ramis are going to the Army recruitment center ("we're not homosexuals, but we are willing to learn!) and they park their car in a no-parking zone.  Someone says, "you can't park that car there!", to which Murray replies, "We're not parking it, we're abandoning it."  I just wanted done with that car and that garage.  And at about 7:15pm, I was.

On our first Saturday night in Paris, a former co-worker of Annie's contacted her on Facebook and said she was doing a stop over in Paris.  Jennifer had never been there, so we offered up our limited experience in the City of Lights to show her around.  We met her at the Pompidou Center, and briefly talked about going inside and checking it out.  But I thought if you're doing a layover in a great city like Paris and haven't seen the sights, spending time inside on a beautiful evening would be a waste. What better place to start than the Eiffel Tower?

One of the most impressive ways to see the Eiffel Tower, especially for the first time ever is to view it from across the Seine just to the north.  We got out of the Metro at Trocadero, and walked toward the Tower which was not yet in view due to the height of the surrounding buildings.  As we got close to the area of the Palais de Chaillot, I told Annie to have Jennifer close her eyes before we turned the corner to see the Tower.  I got that from a tour guide we had at the Taj Mahal who took Ben and Marley separately to view the Taj and the did the same thing with Annie and I.

We got Jennifer in position and when she looked up, she literally gasped.  I was standing between her and the Tower so I hope she gasped at seeing the Tower and not me.  I have that effect on women, you know.  The smile that broke out on her face was one of pure joy and wonderment and gave me chills.

Jennifer kept saying how much she loved the city and she had only been there a few hours.  After getting the appropriate number of pictures with arguably the most recognizable man made structure in the world in the background, Jennifer was ready to see the Arc de Triomphe.

One of the many great things about Paris is that the Eiffel Tower and the Arc De Triomph are fairly close to one another.  From the viewing point of the Palais do Chaillot north of the Seine, it's only about a 15-minute walk to the Arc.

The roundabout that swirls around the Arc is amazing to watch.  There are no painted lanes and the Arc is the hub of traffic from ten spokes coming in from all directions.  I'd never had the chance to drive it, but I'm afraid I would put on a Clark Griswold-like performance.  Little did I know that due to a wide variety of random circumstances, I would get the chance to test my driving skills in that very roundabout before we left Paris.

Among the hundreds of cars we saw spinning through the roundabout was a white Lamborghini Gallardo.  That made Ben's night and set the stage for what we would do on our "boy's days" when the girls took their weekend trip to London the following weekend.

After checking out the Eiffel Tower and the Arc, we found a cozy sidewalk cafe and enjoyed a prototypical Parisian dinner.  It was great to be with Jennifer and see her excitement over being in one of the greatest cities in the world.  She, like us and millions of others, was smitten.

The following day was Sunday, the final day of the Tour De France and the weather was perfect as we headed into Paris to be there around two hours before the cyclists arrived on the Champs Elysees.  Emerging from the Metro, we were met with bright sunshine, blue skies and the sidewalks alive with people. 

We certainly weren't the only non-Parisians taking in the action.  People from many different countries were sporting their native colors in support of cyclists from their homeland.  Norway had an especially noticeable contingent on hand as we grabbed a tasty lunch as we waited for the herd of bikes to fly down the Champs Elysees.

Some of the support teams were making their tours of the Champs Elysees, with their cars and vans adorned with the logos of whatever their team sponsor was.  Many of them had people on top of their vehicles, clapping and dancing to the music they had blaring from loudspeaker systems.

Before too much longer, we joined in the crush of people up against the barricades as the cyclists drew near.  We could see the overhead TV cameras moving into position and finally, they were here!  A stunning splash of color sped by as the cyclists hit the home stretch and the crowds welcomed them with enthusiastic cheers.

We couldn't tell who was winning and honestly didn't care.  It was just a blast to be part of the experience and the excitement.

The urge to buy a Tour De France souvenir was quickly squelched when I strolled to a nearby van that was selling all kinds of things related to the TDF.  It was the color scheme that sealed the deal for my decision to not buy anything.

Everything--every single item, every t-shirt, hat, wrist band, key chain, booklet, even the set of playing cards had the awful combination of black and yellow.  Ugh.  Steelers colors.  I could never ever wear anything with that horrible duo.  I once bought a golf bag for 20 dollars from a friend that was yellow with black highlights.  I played two rounds with it before ditching it and giving it away.  I've thought recently that if I get to the point (hopefully much later in life) where I know the end is near, I want to be wearing a Steelers jersey, listening to country music and eating Lima beans so I will welcome the arrival of the Grim Reaper.

So anyway, we left the Tour De France with no paraphernalia, but great memories, which is all you really need anyway, isn't it?

The house where we were staying in Garches, just outside Paris, featured a Mercedes-Benz station wagon.  I had never driven a Mercedes before and I was honestly a bit relieved when Kristin, the homeowner, showed me the healthy scratch that was over the rear wheel well on the passenger side.  This car had patina, it was broken in and not in pristine condition.  I was not a big fan of driving a large vehicle through Paris and didn't really plan to, considering the ease of getting into town by way of train.

We did take a couple of trips outside of Paris using the diesel-powered MB.   The Palace of Versailles is only about 20 minutes southwest of Garches by way of some backroads.  The palace is beyond spectacular, with a thick coating of gold on almost every surface.

After walking down hallway after hallway into room after room, filled with sparkling glass and gold, you kind of get a nagging urge to revolt.  I'm not saying anyone necessarily needed to be beheaded, but it's just so over the top.

It just goes on and on and on.  The opulence is a bit nauseating after a while, and the only part I actually liked was the outside.  The gardens are beautiful and at least the area provides a home for wildlife.

The day we were at Versailles was close to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, one of the hottest days of the summer in Paris and much to our chagrin, (that's a French word for parched throats), there was no water for sale on the grounds of the palace.  Turns out there was a selling bottles of water from a cooler outside the gates, much like at Reds and Bengals games, but we didn't see him before going inside and he was gone once we got done.  So we decided to try to make a quick stop on the way back to Garches for some water.

After about ten or fifteen minutes of driving in the big blue MB diesel-powered station wagon (maybe I'll shorten that to MBDPSW the rest of the way), we spotted what looked like a supermarket to the right of the road.  The parking lot was very small, only about twelve spots and not much room between the cars on both sides.  I drove to the end of the lot searching for a spot, and couldn't find any.  I noticed the white reverse lights come on on a car to our right, so I decided to put myself in position to grab that spot, but it was clear that the driver somehow didn't see the MBDPSW and was heading right for us!  I put the MBDPSW in reverse and hit the gas, which turned out to be a short trip as I backed right into a mini-van with a fairly loud collision. 

Sacre Bleu!  I've managed to crash a car that I don't own in a country where I don't speak the language.  Super!  I got out of the car and was confronted by the driver of the mini-van, a fairly large man with shoulder-length kinky hair and two or three poodles, (probably of the French variety since we were in France), who were barking their little kinky-haired heads off.  The driver started barking something at me in French, so we had quite the tableau unfolding:  Three or four kinky-haired animals barking things at me which I didn't understand. 

Fortunately the bumper of the MBDPSW and the bumper of the mini-van were at exactly the same height, so there was no damage to either vehicle.  I know the phrase for "I'm sorry" in French is something like "Je suis desolee" but all I could come up with in this time of crisis was a string of French gibberish, something like "parle vous Inglais, au revoir, merci, croissant, foie gras" which i repeated over and over as I quickly got back in the car and on the road back to Garches.  A major international incident narrowly avoided.  That would be just the first of a few adventures in and around Paris in the MBDPSW.