very simple

As I’ve mentioned before, my brother is the world traveler in the family.  Right now, after finishing up with the Peace Corps last month, he’s trekking through the Himalayas for a month, and then heading down to India for a while.

So that’s my brother’s life. 

A few months ago, one of my friends from Italy let me know that she was getting married, in a traditional Hindu wedding, in Singapore, and that I was invited.

So the gears started turning in my head, since Singapore and India are only a few hours apart from each other. 

The plan:

In January, I’m flying to Chennai, India, meeting up with my brother, traveling around the southern half of India (basically looping around the horn and ending up in Mumbai), and then flying to Singapore to go to a three-day-long wedding. 

It took me a few months of coordinating, but now the trip’s all booked, and I just have to get a visa for India and figure out what to wear (and how to, ideally, get my wedding clothes to Singapore without dragging them through seven different cities in India first).

So, after another weekend in the Berkshires with my family, I have come to the conclusion that I’m simply allergic to nature.  Got up here on Friday night, and by Saturday, I had a full-blown cold/sinus infection/allergy thing.  This morning, instead of going to my favorite restaurant up here for breakfast, I took some Tylenol Flu and crept back into bed until almost noon. My entire head feels like it’s stuffed with a layer of cotton balls between my brain and my skull. 

And the only thing I could bring myself to eat was some toast.

Fun times. 

Man o man. Things have been a little bit crazy around here. Got home all of two and a half weeks ago, suffered jetlag to the extreme (kept waking up at 4 in the morning), and then got dragged into a crazy urgent work situation that involved staying until 2 or 3 in the morning almost every night last week (from Sunday to Sunday, I billed 101 hours!).

Needless to say, blogging (yet again) has been pretty near the bottom of my list of things to do. I haven’t even gotten around to downloading the last photos I took in Milan (one of my colleagues and I took a long lunch my last day there and climbed (Ok, took the elevator) to the top of the Duomo).

Other annoying things since I got home? I ordered some cabinets from Ikea to fit in a space that was exactly 26 inches wide. The website and my receipt both say that they’re 26 inches wide. Then the boxes came, and the labels said they were 26 and a half inches wide. Argh. Now I’m trying to figure out how to return them, because the only room that they even matched was the bathroom, and the only open space was the one I had ordered them for. So that was annoying. Not just because of the hassle, but because I really wanted some cabinets in that space.

Hmm. what else. Oh, my dad and my stepmom both got some flu/virus bug going around, so I’ve seen them all of once since I’ve been home, and that was the day I got home.

In better news though, I’m going to see Lucinda Williams at Radio City tomorrow night, so that’ll be fun (and convenient, as I work all of a block from RCMH). And I actually have plans on Saturday with friends. And I just got a save the date for a friend who is getting married in the Canary Islands. So that’s a good excuse for a trip (and here I thought the wedding I was going to in Florida next month was going to be the most exotic one this year!).

I tried not to sleep on the plane, because I knew it would screw me up, but then? I fell asleep. for most of the flight from London. Oh well, I suppose I’ll have to take some sort of power nap later today, as I woke up at 5:30 this morning once I did go to bed in my apartment.

As always, traveling home from Europe is a singular experience. This time, I didn’t have to sit next to a senile old lady, but people may have thought that I was crazy, with the muttering under my breath at various points in the process.

To start off. When I booked the trip, I opted for the latest flight out of Milan possible. I didn’t know what my schedule was going to be the last week there, given that the deal I was working on was supposed to close that week (and when I was booking, the schedule was still a bit up in the air). Given that, I thought having as much time to pack over the weekend would be the ideal option. But we ended up closing on Wednesday, so after that, I really had nothing to do except pack. Taking the latest flight though, meant that I would have to change planes in London. Given what happened last time I had to change planes in London from Italy, I was, shall we say, a little nervous.

OK. So I get to Malpensa plenty early (no traffic). the BA flight from Milan to London is scheduled for 5:35pm. at 5:20, they haven’t started boarding the plane yet, and I start freaking out a bit (just to myself). Amazingly, at 5:25, they start boarding, and actually get everyone on the plane and seated in about 10 minutes. I’m duly impressed by this, and given our estimated flight time, we should land on time, at 6:35 UK time. Now, this gives me just under an hour and a half to get from terminal 1 to terminal 3 at Heathrow. The little pamphlet I get with my ticket says that it should take 75 minutes to get from plane to plane. OK. I’m cutting it close, but still within the allowable time frame.

Miracle of miracles, we actually land on time. The flight attendants, knowing that I have to hurry, actually move me up right near the exit door (along with another gentleman transferring to dublin) so that we can be the first ones out of the plane. And then we sit there. because there’s no one at Heathrow to operate the jetway so that we can actually get off the plane. For 25 minutes. 7pm rolls around, and they finally start moving the jetway. To the other door. So now I’ve got to push my way through an aisle full of people (A flight attendant actually pushed, I just followed in her wake). And of course, I’ve now got less time than the little booklet says, so I’m just a little stressed. I literally run off the jetway, through the terminal following the signs, and then I get to the security checkpoint. Where they tell me I can’t go through unless I somehow figure out how to make my carryon and my backpack (purse sized) into one bag. Because apparently at Heathrow, you’re only allowed one bag, even if your transferring between two different airports that allow two bags. And your flying business class, which usually means that you can bring a damn steamer trunk on board and they’ll just smile at you. And your in danger of missing your connecting flight if you don’t hurry. Needless to say that while I was cramming my backpack into my carry on, there was a bit of vulgar muttering. As soon as that’s done, I don’t even look at the guy and just push past him to be able to get in the actual security line. I knew there was a reason that I didn’t want to overpack my carryon before I left.

Security goes pretty quickly, as there are only three people in line.

Book it down the escalator, to the bus. Where the bus is sitting there, but the doors won’t open (the terminal doors leading out to the bus, not the bus doors). When I ask the woman why the doors won’t open, she basically tells me she’ll open them when she feels like it. There are now three other people with me, at least one of whom is trying to get on the same flight as me. Apparently, the door lady has been saying this to everyone. three seconds later, she opens the doors. Nothing like a power trip to stress me out even more. The bus ride takes about 10-15 minutes, and then we’re at the new terminal, in the main shopping area. If you’ve ever been to Heathrow, you know that it’s about 100 miles from the shopping area to the actual gates. So my new friend from the bus and I just start running. get on those moving passenger walkways, and push people out of our way (seriously, how hard is it to read the sign that says stand on the right, walk on the left?). Get to gate 16, check in, and realize that it’s only 7:30.

That’s right. I did a 75 minute connection, including a terminal change, in 30 minutes.

We boarded shortly thereafter.

And then we sat at the gate for another hour and a half.

Frankly, I was so happy about making it onto the plane and not having to stay in London overnight that I didn’t care. Plus, I had been able to do a mileage upgrade to business, so the free champagne was a pretty nice relaxant. No wonder I fell asleep.

Although I admit that it would probably be more pleasant to actually visit in the spring.

Pictures are being uploaded now.

Here’s a breakdown of my weekend.

I landed on Saturday afternoon, and immediately upgraded my room to one with a view of the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, the fog was pretty thick and it made actually seeing the Tower a bit of a challenge (it shows up less well in photos than it did in real life). and took a quick walk around the Saint Germain neighborhood, down to Les Deux Magots. It’s a spot I remember from my trip ten years ago, and back in my scrapbook buried somewhere in NY (back in the dark ages before websites and digital cameras), I’ve got a photo of myself, backpack and all, standing out front. All in all, a good way to orient myself for the first day (and confirmation that my decision to stay in the same neighborhood was a good one).

Sunday morning I woke up with my grand plan to go to the Musee D’Orsay. I’ve mentioned in previous entries the trials and tribulations I’ve experienced in the past with this museum, but this time? success! The Orsay was open, and I probably took more pictures than I really needed to. Here’s the entrance, and here’s some highlights…the building itself is a work of art, having formerly been a railway station…scale models of the Opera Garnier…Degas…Monet…Van Gogh…Cezanne…Toulous-Lautrec…and Gauguin. Just for a few.

After I was done with the Orsay (and I’m pretty sure I missed stuff, but that just gives me an excuse to go back again, right?), I walked all the way over to the Eiffel Tower (starting here), passing the National Assembly, a whole bunch of bridges, Les Invalides (where Napoleon is entombed), the Tsar Alexander III Bridge and finally hitting the Tower. Once there, I picked up one of the NY Times recommended boats run by Bateaus Parisiens, and took a whole bunch more pictures, starting here, and which took me past the Louvre, Ile de la Cite, Notre Dame, and the smallest house in Paris. Exhausted, I hit dry land back at the Eiffel tower, and took a cab back to the hotel in time to actually see the light show at sunset from my balcony.

Monday was Christmas, and, not surprisingly, everything was closed. So I took another walk, this time to the Louvre grounds, and wandered through the Jardin des Tulieres, where I ate a crepe and got stalked by some seriously aggressive birds, who finally won. At the other end of the Jardin des Tulieres, is the Place de la Concorde, where they used to behead people and now there’s a ferris wheel. I’m not sure this is progress. From there, I trekked up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc d’Triomphe.

Tuesday was my departure day, but I thought I could squeeze in actually going inside the Louvre before I left. Unfortunately, the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays (I am happy to say that I did get in 10 years ago, so I’ve already seen the Mona Lisa), so I resigned myself to wandering around Saint-Germain some more (and admiring how Paris makes even the subway seem pretty). Compare the hotel I stayed in 10 years ago with the one I stayed in now!

So that’s it. I didn’t take pictures of things like the hotel bar, even though i managed to have at least one drink there every day, or the craziness that is flying EasyJet (unassigned seating by group doesn’t work so well when you all have to take the same damn bus to the airplane way out on the tarmac, yet people still all push to the front of the "line").

All in all, I admit to only seeing a fraction of the city, but it was a good fraction. I enjoyed myself, drank some champagne, saw some pretty things, and managed to make that first trip (oh so many years ago) a bit of nostalgia rather than the city-souring experience it had previously been in my head. I’d definitely go back. But next time I’d go in the spring, when the trees and gardens are blooming. That would only make it better.

[Update 2015] In an effort to reduce the number of holdover pages on the blog, I am slowly (very slowly) integrating these albums into the appropriate historical posts on the blog itself. As such, all photos now appear directly below.

Like, for instance, that the really nice terminals at most international airports are saved for flights and/or airlines that are truly international. Upon leaving Paris, I decided to come to Charles de Gaulle airport a bit early, both because I needed to leave the city in the middle of evening rush hour and because, from my past experience flying through CDG, it has some pretty good shopping.

Well, apparently it’s some other terminal that has really good shopping (like, perhaps the one I transferred through when flying home from Prague a few years ago), because the extent of shopping at Terminal 3 consists of one duty free shop that consists of nothing but perfume, cigarettes and alcohol, and a bar. So that’ll teach me to get to the airport three hours early. Even though this is technically an international flight, it’s pretty much treated as domestic. I don’t go through customs, I don’t get my passport stamped, and we get to wait at the terminal that’s less sophisticated than Teterboro.

OK, so…the trip. The trip was awesome. I didn’t get to see everything I wanted, because I was only really in town for three days, one of which was Christmas (when everything was, obviously, closed), but I have finally fallen in love with Paris. It only took ten years and three trips, but I finally get it. I finally understand what other people had been saying all of these years. Paris is just…beautiful. Even when everything is closed, I could just walk for miles (and I did) admiring the outsides of buildings. This trip has all but erased for me the bad memories of that trip ten years ago. I haven’t even left yet, and I want to come back again. Maybe when it’s a little warmer, but definitely, I need to come back again. And again.

When I get back to Milan, I’ll post some pictures (and also this entry, as I’m not paying for wifi at the airport).

I’m really glad I took this trip though. I had been debating maybe going to London instead, because I know London, but then I thought I should give Paris another chance. And it was well worth it (even though my feet have pretty much rebelled at this point).

So, the NY Times travel section regularly does this little feature called "36 hours", where they visit a city for a weekend, and then essentially publish the itinerary, which consists of reviews as well as advice on what to see and what to skip when you’ve got limited time in a city. So earlier this week, I figured I’d see what they had listed for Paris. I’ll be there for more than 36 hours, but not much more when you discount Christmas Day, when I assume everything will be closed. But when I went searching on Monday, they hadn’t done one for Paris. Which kind of surprised me, but I set about printing out some of their other articles just to get myself oriented.

So then, I click on the Times this morning, and yup, 36 Hours: Paris was posted. It’s like they knew. At least now I’ve got my itinerary for the weekend (I’ll probably jumble things up a bit, and I’ve been to certain places before, so they get de-prioritized (not that I won’t fit them in if I’ve got time, but the Louvre can be a four day trip in itself).

I’m off to go finish packing, and to figure out how I’m getting to the damn airport. Again.

So, after much wrangling this morning with the easyjet website, much of which involved the fact that they kept rejecting my American Express card (which makes no sense, as I was able to use it 20 minutes later to book a hotel on Expedia) and my having to break out the backup, never used, Mastercard, I can now safely say that I’ll be spending Christmas weekend in Paris. Because it takes a whole hour to fly there. How cool is that?!

We get a four day weekend for the christmas holiday here, because apparently the 26th is also of religious significance in Italy. I have no idea what significance, as I am not even christian, let alone catholic, but four days seemed like a good enough amount of time to jet off to another city for a few days, particularly when everything in this city will be closed anyway. I had been thinking I should go to London, just to sate my apparently monthly need to speak english, but I’ve been to London plenty for work, and I was just there in May.

I have been to Paris before, twice, but the last time I was there was in the year 1999, and that was only for a day stopover between legs of my post-bar exam three-week bicycle trip through the French countryside. So it seemed like a good idea. Plus, it will (hopefully) make me actually like the city for once.

The first time I went to Paris was when I backpacked/Eurailed through Europe between college and law school, which is now over ten years ago. The first part of my trip, I was travelling with a "friend" from college who had been living in London for six months (and had previously studied in Paris). Unfortunately, said "friend" spent all of the money she was supposedly saving for the trip on a TEFL course, so that she could go to Korea and teach english for two years. Which was great for her, but severely limited her ability to do just about anything on our trip. So I met up with her in London, where she was living, so that was free. Then we went to Paris. We travelled by ferry, which was a high-speed catamaran-type boat, and I spent the entire way over just absolutely seasick. Just thinking about it now, ten years later, I still get green. We finally get dropped off by the bus, in the middle of Paris (not at the train station like our ticket said), with no French money, at five in the morning. This was years before the Euro conversion, so we had to change money every time we went over a border. So we finally, laboriously, find an ATM, and make our way to the cheapest hotel in the guidebook (remember, friend with very little money).

This hotel…well. About the only good thing you could say about it was that it had a great location. It was right down the street from the Pantheon, so it was easy to go other places. But the hotel itself. Friend and I got a "double" room that still managed to involve us having to share a bed. I have never been so happy to have a sleeping bag in my life – not because I had a problem sharing a bed with a friend, I’ve done that plenty, but because the bed itself was so disgusting that the only way that I could even go near it was to essentially wear a giant body condom. Oh, and the room had a distinctly funny smell. The bathroom was literally in the middle of a stairwell, and the shower…

…sorry, I had to go be nauseous again. You had to pay to use the shower, which we did on the first day, and when we got the key for the shower "room", we realized that we just wouldn’t be showering for our entire stint in Paris. This building was about 100 years old, and the shower had likely never been cleaned. So. three nights in Paris, no bathing. This is after an overnight trip from London, and a plan to take another overnight train to Amsterdam at the end. Which means that by the time I got to Holland, I hadn’t showered for almost a full week. A week which started with repeated vomiting off the side of a boat.

I saw lots of really great things in Paris (as was the case with all famous buildings everywhere I went, Notre Dame was of course covered in scaffolding), and I fully agree that it’s a beautiful city. But the hotel just overwhelmed things. Oh, and the fact that I was counting on my french-speaking friend to show me around? Well, the fact that she had no money, and had seen everything before, meant that she sat around our hotel room for three days (pointedly mentioning that she wouldn’t have even come to paris but for my wanting to) while I went out and did stuff. We lived on bread and cheese. But the kicker? was the last day, when we were leaving. We had saved the Musee D’Orsay for the last day, figuring that we could check our backpacks at the coatcheck and wander around for a few hours until our train. So we traipsed, in the rain, to the MD’O, to discover that the museum workers’ union had called a city-wide strike. So it was closed.

The second time I was in Paris, when I only had a day? I figured that I could check out the MD’O because I had already seen the Louvre and other stuff. So, I traipsed over there again (in much better weather), to discover that the darn place is closed on Mondays. Monday being the only day I was in Paris. I did have an excellent dinner in chinatown that night with a bunch of the bike tour guides who were also in town, but that whole thing was more like a layover than a trip.

So, I feel like I have to go for a few days just to redeem Paris for myself in my head. I’ve already checked the website, and the MD’O is open on both Sunday and Tuesday, even though it’s christmas, so I’m getting in come hell or high water. Seriously. that place has become my white whale. Ten years I’ve been trying to see those friggin’ paintings!

So I did manage to read another book which I completely forgot to list in the last entry. I actually finished this one on the plane on the way home.

I have to say that I didn’t nearly enjoy this book as I have the other Bryson books that I’ve read to date. Maybe because it was one of his earlier efforts (written all the way back in 1989), and I get that part of Bryson’s schtick is that he’s a curmudgeon – he makes fun of himself as much as he makes fun of others, but 90 percent of the observations in this book consisted of how fat, ugly and dumb everyone (and, in particular, the women) he encounters are. Broad generalizations about just how disgusting a bunch of people who are probably spending a lot more time working a lot harder than some guy who makes a living driving around making broad generalizations about the american population just doesn’t pique my interest. Very few attempts to actually ingratiate himself occur – if someone looks at him funny, he just assumes they’re a backwards rube and doesn’t even try to communicate. Oh, and did you know that people down south had unintelligible accents? Isn’t that just the height of social commentary and wit?

Oy. I’m glad I read some of Bryson’s later work first, if only because if this had been the first book that I had read, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have bothered to even pick up those far superior samples.

First, obviously, let me apologize for not updating for the past two months. Keeping up with a blog can be a bit difficult when the home internet access you insisted on as a condition of moving to another friggin’ country has yet to be installed.

Oh, they’ve been trying. Poor Alessandro, the IT guy in our Milan office, has quietly been losing his mind while trying to deal with the amount of red tape involved in getting internet into someone’s apartment. First, we had a contract with provider A, and we were told that it could take “up to a month” for the activation and the equipment. Now, a month seems a ridiculously long time to wait for me, but I was told by several people that this was pretty standard over there. So, a month goes by, and provider A never activates anything, and when Alessandro tries to find out where the modem is, it turns out that “they never ordered it.”

Needless to say, he cancelled the service contract. So then we decide to go with provider B. Now, provider B is actually a subsidiary of the incumbent telephone operator, so activation shouldn’t be a problem (cable TV infrastructure doesn’t exist in italy – everything is either run through satellite or the phone lines). Except, provider B screws up the contract, so they need to start over. Unfortunately, it takes at least a week to “cancel” the old contract and enter into a new one, even though the mistake was basically some data-entry lackey’s typo. So, we finally got the right “contract” about two weeks ago, meaning that activation should happen any day now. Alessandro was actually trying to get it done before I left, but that was probably wishful thinking on his part, so maybe (maybe!) when I get back it’ll be ready to hook up.

In the meantime I have some very funny e-mails from Alessandro, in broken english, that consist of him just not understanding why they don’t want to take our money.

Of course, I can’t actually deal with anything myself, because you need a codice fiscale to enter into any sort of agreement in Italy (it’s basically the Italian equivalent of a social security number, but it’s used for everything), and since I’m only technically a tourist, I can’t really qualify to get one.

So.

I actually wrote a bunch of posts on my computer, even knowing that I couldn’t post them, just to keep myself a bit current. But since they all basically consist of me bitching about the fact that I have no internet, and that I haven’t really done a whole lot other than work, I’ll try to summarize a bit.

I have no internet. I’ve been working too much. Milan is quite beautiful. The food is good. I’m really happy about the US election. I’ll be home for Thanksgiving.

So. The election. Needless to say I did a little dance in my chair at work on Wednesday morning. My dad (my dad!) sent me an e-mail that was practically giddy with excitement.

I actually wrote an entire post about this one right in the aftermath, so I’ll try to get that one up later, but I will say it’s been really interesting to see the reaction from an international perspective in particular. People in Italy normally don’t talk about politics. It’s considered rude. But I went to a meeting with a client on the Friday after the election, and when I mentioned that I was coming home for two weeks, he said, with a smile, “it’s like you’re going home to a different country now!” And I think that captures it pretty darn well. People here in the US can argue back and forth about the “meaning” of this election, but overseas, they all just think that we’ve finally come to our senses and given GWB the giant “fuck you” that he’s deserved for so long. More later.

But back to me…

I’m still jetlagged. I woke up yesterday to go to the airport at 5:30 in the morning, Italian time. then spent over 9 hours on a plane, with a crazy woman sitting behind me. No joke – she didn’t like her seat, so she threatened to get off the plane unless the stewardess forced someone else to move so that she could have the seat she wanted. Someone from ground crew and the pilot had to get involved. They were apparently about three seconds away from just letting her get off the plane when the girl behind me agreed to move. This woman tried to claim that they wouldn’t let her pick her seat when she booked the ticket, which is complete bullshit because everyone else pointed out, we all check the internet seat locater thing obsessively. Which means that she either booked her ticket at the last minute, or on something like priceline, where she thought she could have it both ways – book a super cheapskate restricted fare and then throw a fit until she got a premium economy seat.

(now, premium economy is exactly the same seat/same legroom as regular economy, except that it’s at the very front behind business class, meaning that you can get off the plane faster – you have to either pay a bit extra or be be a premium/elite flyer to get one).

So. that was self-absorbed bitch number one. The couple across the aisle from myself and I spent the entire flight pretty much making fun of her. really quietly. The flight attendants, needless to say, loved us (I’m not being sarcastic there – they actually gave us additional gossip about the whole situation when they got the chance).

Ordinarily, I would have been perfectly happy to see her get escorted off the flight, but these days, with the stepped up security, that would have meant also digging her bags out and getting them off the plane. Since we were about 10 minutes from our scheduled departure when this all started happening, it would have caused some pretty serious delays.

Self-absorbed bitch number two showed up when I arrived home and decided to go to the grocery store. At this point, I’ve been awake for at least 20 hours. I have a freshdirect delivery coming Sunday morning, but I still needed some real basics, like milk. So I dragged myself to the food emporium, bought the six things I needed, and got on the express line. where I waited patiently, and put my stuff on the conveyor belt when I got the chance. Then (and only then), the woman behind me on line, who is clutching a bag of goldfish crackers, pipes up in this super sweet voice to “request” that I let her go in front of me, seeing as she only has the one item. Now, on any other day, I probably would have let her without thinking about it, but I was pretty damn tired. and I thought for a second, and finally said back “you know, I don’t understand why you can’t just wait in line like everyone else.” It’s not like I had 100 items to ring up and she would have to wait very long, but she then starts responding, in this totally faux-sweet voice, about how she “really appreciates my kindness.” You know, trying to make me feel guilty because I wouldn’t let her cut the fucking line. I just ignored her at that point, but what I wanted to do was turn around and tell her to go fuck herself. Did I mention that I had been awake for, like, 20 hours at that point, and most of those had been spent in an airplane or Newark, New Jersey?

She didn’t know who I was, or whether I was actually in a hurry to get anywhere, or whether I was exhausted. She just assumed that her needs were somehow superior to mine and entitled her to special treatment, where she didn’t need to behave like everyone else at the damn supermarket. Now, if she had been holding, say, baby formula, or tampons, I might have assumed that she had some sort of emergency situation, but she could damn well wait 30 more seconds for her crackers (and don’t anyone tell me that maybe she was going into diabetic shock – if that were the case, no one would have objected to her eating some damn crackers in line and then paying for them after).

I know this pissed me off more than it should have, and I certainly have my own moments of selfishness, but yesterday I just seemed to encounter more than my usual share of people who seemed to think that the rules that apply to everyone else don’t apply to them. Maybe exhaustion and jet lag give me some sort of 6th sense for these things.

OK. A real entry later. I promise. Plus, I’ve read about 10 new books!