Vive la France!

May 2, 2006
Tuesday

Today I woke up in my own sweet time, took some Advil, went back to bed, then got up again an hour later. Advil is magical stuff I tell ya. Breakfast of champions. Vitamin I.

Went into the studio and worked until mid afternoon when my ibuprofen and I went home. Nothing much else to report – Venice is still oh so Venetian with the crowds and the canals and the occasional whiffy odors of canals at low tide and urine.

May 3, 2006
Wednesday

Woke up early in a bit of a panic – our presentations are tomorrow and I haven’t finished my work yet. I set off for studio early making my way past my Venetian landmarks. Since our vaporetto pass has expired, we’ve to take the much cheaper vaporetto from Zattere rather than from San Marco. So, I zigzagged my way through the city, past all of the shop windows with the familiar displays, over the bridge, past the church, round the corner, then onto the boat to the Giudecca.

Once on the Giudecca, take a left past the fishmongers and the internet café (not open yet) over the bridge, down a bit, over the next bridge then across to the rowing club. Gino, my pussycat, came over to say hello but he didn’t bring me a mouse today. The man sorting softshell crabs in his boat was there and tossed a crab up for Gino to eat.

From then on, in studio work work working all day. Left midday to check email and grab a sandwich, again in early evening for a bite of dinner, then again late evening to go home. Phew – finished all of my work. Some people are staying up all night to finish what they need to do, so it was a relief to not have to do that.

The city is more or less dead at night – only one in five windows is lit, as the city is grossly underpopulated, despite being totally overrun by tourists. Property prices are skyrocketing as the rich and famous of the world all want apartments in Venice, and most of them only turn up for about two weeks every year.

Now, I’m a big fan of Venice, and I do think that most people should visit this place for two or three days. I could also envision living here (even though I don’t particularly want to) as the place does have lots of charm. However, I could not remotely imagine wanting to return for two weeks each year – no way, no how. A one room shack in the Dolomites – sure, give it to me! Venice? Nope.

On my way home I swung by the Rialto area where some drunk tourists were still staggering about – one of them even being noisily sick into the canal, eww. Got some gelato and decided to eat it on top of the Rialto bridge to watch the boats go by and enjoy the breeze. Looks like that is a popular idea – the bridge was crammed full! I did find a spot well away from the sick gentleman, enjoyed my gelato (fior di latte and nocciola – plain ice cream and hazelnut).

The gelato here is good and my favorite thing is that you can get a tiny cup for a euro. The cup is just a bit bigger than a Dixie cup, and you can have two flavors. My favorites are plain/hazelnut, chocolate/orange, chocolate/lemon, and plain/coconut. Yum!

May 4, 2006
Thursday

Woke up, did the necessary morning ablutions, drank several espressos, then set off for the Giudecca for our final presentations. I thought the started at 9, so I set off well before my wiser roommates who knew that they started at 9:30. Ah well.

Got to studio, sat through all the presentations, presented, ate lunch, sat through more presentations, and then staggered home stiff and sore from all the sitting.

I presented with Lynn and Angela and we went just before lunch – we got a good review, lots of discussion and many favorable comments, so that was nice. This also freed us up to make liberal use of the wine at lunch (wine and pizza – heck yeah) so that we were a bit pie-eyed for the first few presentations of the afternoon.

When we got home, we drank more wine and watched videos on Sandra’s laptop until we all went to bed with gritty and puffy eyeballs, and a sense of great relief at actually being done with a class.

May 5, 2006
Friday

Got up fairly early, feeling great. I love this sulfite free wine – when I’m at home two glasses is my limit. Any more than that and Roman reminds me that I’m going to have a headache and feel icky in the morning – must be the sulfites. I’m going to have to hunt down some sulfite free wine when I return, or I’m just going to have to homebrew my own.

Lynn and I went straight over to studio to upload some files and do a little final cleanup on our projects for submittal. When that was done I rushed all the way back across the city to start packing my bags so that I can ship all of the heavy unnecessaries home so that I don’t have to lug them across Europe again on a bad back.

So, an hour later I went staggering back across to the Rialto post office with two very very very heavy boxes – one balanced on each hip. The calle out from our apartment is so narrow that I had to walk down it at an angle because with a box on either side I was far too wide to fit down it easily – luckily people made way for me as they saw me coming so I didn’t get crushed up against a grimy and pigeon smeared wall.

With cracking arms, I staggered into the post office, put down the heaviest box, and proceeded to kick it up to the queue. There was a big sign over one of the windows “Tourists are asked to only go to the Tourist window”. Well, the other window opened up first so I waved the person in line behind me up to it, then went to the Tourist window a few minutes later.

Well, I found the one guy in Venice who doesn’t speak English. Great. I’d packed my phrasebook in the box to send home. Great.

I smiled, said hello, and with a combination of bad Italian, grunting, and hand waving, I told him that I had two boxes to send to the U.S. I hoisted them up to the counter with shivering arms and his face fell. He said “Paper” and made wrapping motions with his arms. At this point my face fell – he wants the boxes wrapped in paper. Um… I did an exaggerated look around, shrugged my shoulders with my hands up, and shook my head. This is sign language for “I’m so sorry sir, I do not have any paper to wrap around these boxes.”. I followed this with a questioning look to the nice man, and another smaller shrug “Kind sir, do you perhaps have some paper I could buy?”. He shook his head politely “No, signorina, I’m afraid I don’t.”

After a bit of mutual headscratching he dove behind the counter and pulled out a large yellow box, pointed at it, pointed at me, and looked hopeful. Nod, nod, yes please!

Hands close together, hands far apart – What size would you like?

Hands far apart – Maximum please!

One finger up, two fingers, three fingers – How many would you like?

Headscratch, shrug, one finger up – I’m not sure, but let’s start with one.

Slow walking fingers, fast walking fingers – Slow mail or fast mail?

Slow walking fingers – Slow please

He then presented me with a box, a pen, and a form to fill out, drew a circle in the air with his finger and pointed at himself – Pack this box, fill this form out, then come back to talk to me again.

My shivering arms, my new purchases, and I hauled ourselves a decent distance away from the window, and I proceeded to unpack my boxes and repack as much into the new box as possible. Damn. Won’t all fit. The line was now much longer, and I took my boxes back to the end of it – kicking them along in front of me. Again up to the window. Point at yellow box, hold up one finger and say “media” – One more box please, medium.

Again with the kicking all of my belongings across to a spare bit of ground, packing another box, kicking them all to the back of line, waiting through the line, then back up to the window.

Exchanged big smiles with the nice man behind the window, gave him his pen back, then hoisted up the big heavy box. By now I’ve got the arm shakes so badly that even holding a pen is difficult. Marvelous.

Hand over the form that I’ve filled out, smile again, he smiles back. After a bit of industrious processing he takes the large box and sends it on its way.

I lift up the small box, point at it, point at the sky, make fast walking fingers – This one should go fast mail – airmail please.

Nod nod – Got it.

I hand over the box, he starts industrious processing again.

He looks at box, looks at the address tag (that I didn’t fill in), looks around comically, then makes a tossing motion over his shoulder – Signorina, you did not fill in the address – where do you want this to go?

Smack myself comically in my head, shrug, then do whirligig motion with my finger around my ear – My apologies, Signore, I must have lost my mind. I’d be happy to fill in the address.

A few more handsigns later, followed by a quick and earnest “Mille grazies!” and I took myself off to find a sandwich as I had neglected breakfast and had the arm shakes.

My sandwich and I sat in a nice campo nearby watching the tourists and the pigeons wooing their womenfolk, then I went off to buy a summery skirt from a shop I’d been eyeing. This is the unfortunate thing about packing in February for a three month trip – you pack sweaters, but you don’t pack light summery gear.

After that, I headed back to the apartment to hang out for an hour before heading back over the Giudecca for our going away party. Well, it wasn’t a party, it was dinner, and it was excellent!

Amid the wine and the cocktails and the talking, this is the meal we ate, courtesy of the three fisherman that they’d hired for a day. Everything the fisherman caught was to be our dinner. Mmmmm!

First was fresh sardines that had been grilled, then tossed with chilled vinegar and onions. Yum! Most people were squicked out by the bones so they made tiny little filets. I had no such problems and ate them whole. Down in one!

Next was pasta with sauce. In Venice, this means pasta with an onion and sardine sauce, and again it was excellent.

Next was pasta with Seppie Nero, or cuttlefish ink. When I had this before I wasn’t too fond of it, as it was the cuttlefish, their eggs, and their ink all mixed together – it was a bit strong and rich. However, over spaghetti, it was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Next was fish fry. A little filet of whitefish, a bunch of cuttlefish (sans ink), and a handful of whole tiny shrimp. They had all been deep fried and except for the shrimp, they were covered in a very light and salty batter. It was outstanding – the best fried fish I’ve ever had. The only disconcerting thing was the tiny shrimp – they were whole, and meant to be eaten that way, but they would insist on looking at you with these tiny black eyes. I was extraordinarily lucky as Lynn doesn’t like food with tentacles, so I got her cuttlefish. Score! (note: cuttlefish are like squid with shorter tentacles and a bigger body with a large bone in it shaped a bit like a spatula)

Shahv, I don’t think you would have liked dinner very much.

It was at this point that we learned of the train strike the next day – what joy. We’re supposed to go to Florence

Afterwards, we staggered our drunken selves back across the city and to bed.

May 6, 2006
Saturday

Don’t make plans in Italy.
Really, I mean it. The two days that we have tried to take train trips, there has been a strike. I don’t know if it is a fascist conspiracy or if it is just good old fashioned bad luck.

We woke early today with the intention of packing and creating all of our contingency plans for places to stay if we end up being delayed by the train strike.

In the end, none of us had to change our plans at all, which was nice – turns out only about 15% of the trains weren’t running. Ah, Italy.

So we packed, schemed, had lunch, then rescued some friends who were being kicked out of their apartment early due to the craziness of the landlord. Since we were vacating our apartment early, they took it over (along with the wine stash that we were leaving behind).

Sandra left first, escorted by the Birthday Girl, Miss Hannah, and Lynn and I left shortly afterwards. Sandra was on her way to visit her very good friend Vanessa up in Switzerland, and Lynn and I took off for Florence.

We arrived in Florence, got ourselves to the Hotel Piccolo (literally, the small hotel), and then walked down to the River Arno to scope out the Academia and the Uffizi for the next day.

We found a gorgeous little restaurant, and had an excellent and ginormous meal. First we had a raw artichoke and parmesan salad, followed by ravioli with butter and sage (me) and ribollita (tastes like stuffing, for Lynn), followed by a Florentine Steak (very good, and very large so we shared the smallest one they had) with delicately deep fried artichokes and squash blossoms. Yum yum yum.

May 7
Sunday

Art day. Well, I can’t actually say that I like Florence very much. I like the food, and the art is good, and the surrounding countryside is indescribably lovely. However, the city itself is grey, full of belching vehicles and tourists, and seems to almost universally lack charm. After the clean air of Venice, it was a bit of a shock.

Clean air of Venice??? I hear you muttering with shock. Yes, I mean it. Venice has the cleanest air of any city in Europe. Granted, the pollution plume from the port of Marghera to the south is a bit dire, but in Venice itself the air quality is quite good. Here’s why – no cars, no fuel oil. Yes, it’s full of boats – but there still aren’t many of them when you compare them to vehicle traffic in other cities. Fuel oil was outlawed in the city many years ago, so all they can burn is natural gas. Yes, the canals get a bit whiffy on warm days at low tide, and men and dogs can’t resist piddling all over the place, but in general the air is clean and bright and fresh.

Also, a lot of the foreign tourists were still enchanted by the Europeness of it all – and as we have just about had enough of European cities, this didn’t impress us in the slightest. Ah well, it turns out that when you are tired of Venice, Florence doesn’t impress you much. *sigh*

First stop, the Academia for an ogle at Michelangelo’s David. We had booked our visit ahead of time, so all we had to do was present ourselves at the front door at the appointed time and we were let right in (ahead of the crushing crowds). We didn’t realize that the Academia really only has a small collection, so despite ogling David for a good long while, we whizzed through fairly quickly.

Afterwards we went for a bit of a wander and grabbed some lunch. I was tired as I hadn’t slept particularly well so I was a bit quiet and grumpy. We sat on a variety of park benches and drank a variety of cups of coffee from different vendors, then presented ourselves at the Uffizi at the appointed time for our visit. We felt very lucky that we had booked our time previously, as the lines for regular admission were horrendous, and the next appointment available was on Wednesday (might I remind you that this was Sunday). Yikes. While we were in line to get let in, a tourist came by and demanded to know where we got our tickets and was horrified to look at the other line and know that that was his only option before Wednesday. Poor guy.

The Uffizi was worth it. Amazing… not only did we see the Great Masters’ Greatest Hits (Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Primavera, Titian’s Venus of Urbino, a whole whack of Da Vinci’s), but we got to see lots of other great stuff – a few El Grecos, a Rubens stuffed in a corner, early work of other famous dead artists. It took three hours to go through the collection and it was great – go see it!

Afterwards, we were very footsore so we headed back to the hotel, and had a lovely meal next door next to an American tourist who, to the great embarrassment of her friend, did not react well to the Europeness of it all – when presented with her dinner she pronounced it uneatable and demanded that the gnocchi with gorgonzola cream be represented to her as “gnocchi with red sauce”, she complained that whenever she ordered coffee that she got espresso, and was unhappy that the Mc Donald’s didn’t have egg mcmuffins or free refills, and was interested to know what channel we watched on the telly. Might I remind you that she was only 7 days into her trip to Europe and only had three days left. Funny thing is that she was on the same Go Ahead Vacations tour that my husband took a few years ago when traveling through Italy with his family – these guys do great tours, they basically provide you with transport and accommodations, and you only have to do the tourist shuffle with them if you want to – otherwise you are left to your own devices and can explore your destinations however you’d like to.

Ps. For dinner I had steak in truffle cream Nyaah-nyah nyaah-nyah-nyah!

May 8
Monday

Lynn and I woke, breakfasted, packed, and stashed our luggage before setting off for the other side of the Arno to visit the Boboli Gardens at the Palazzo Pitti. On the way we had lunch (ravioli with truffle cream sauce – I now know that I will always order truffles on the menu, provided that they’re not served with liver) and watched the wiry locals rowing up and down the Arno in sweaty formations.

The gardens were lovely and afforded some excellent views of the Tuscan hills. We wandered and wandered and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Before presenting ourselves back at the hotel to get our luggage and go to the train station ridiculously early.

Lynn and I hate to be late for things, and we’ve had ridiculously overprogrammed schedules as of late. Therefore, we didn’t plan enough things to do for today and planned a bit too cautiously, and found ourselves reading books on the trainstation platform for nearly an hour and a half before our train arrived and we could settle ourselves down and get some sleep.

May 9
Tuesday

The train ride was just the same as train rides at night usually are – one charming roommate who ate a bag of cookies, another drunk one with a snoring problem.

Now that’s not fair. He was not the one with the snoring problem. He was just snoring. We were the ones with the problem. Not knowing him in the slightest, I didn’t feel comfortable with jabbing him in his side with a sharpened finger and instructing him to turn over, the way I do with Mr. Snory Guy (aka Mr. Husband).

So, we arrived in Dijon quite grimy and a bit frantic because the train was half an hour late, leaving us with three minutes to catch our next train.

So, with cracking muscles and bleary eyes (I didn’t have my contact lenses in yet) we hauled our collective selves over to the next platform – hurled ourselves inelegantly onto the train, then frantically checking with the conductor that the train was indeed going to Lyon.

We got ourselves jammed into seats, then had to get up and move when the people who had reserved the carriage showed up. Luckily they had a couple of spare seats so we jammed ourselves back down, small bags on on our knees, large bags in the aisle.

It was therefore with a great deal of relief that we climbed off in Lyon and went to go wash faces and find our next train over to Carcassonne.

We got on, elegantly this time, and sat down in comfortable seats to snooze our way down south.

We arrived in Carcassonne to brilliant sunshine and cool breezes and faced our next challenge – what to do with our bags? We packed enough stuff for three months, and despite having shipped a great whack of stuff home, they’re still large and unwieldy – if not heavy.

We promised with hands on hearts not to tell you all where we managed to stash our bags, and all people we approached with the problem agreed that it was, indeed, a great problem and a common one too.

Then, we checked in at the Tourist Information Office to pick up a map, then wandered off into town to get a sandwich and a pastry in honour of Sandra.

After a bit we came back, collected our bags, then sat in the sunshine to wait for Sandra’s train to arrive and my Auntie Gilli to fetch us all to take us home.

Sandra and A. Gilli arrived within five minutes of each other, and we were soon on our merry way – enjoying the excellent French country side and chattering away.

Back at the house we got ourselves settled into bedrooms, greeted the menagerie, and settled down to an excellent meal of Duck followed by Paris Brest for dessert (choux pastry, cream, and strawberries – I thought Sandra was going to die of pleasure) and cherry brandies all round.

May 10
Wednesday

Today we decided to have a lazy day around the house, we punctuated walks in the countryside, sunning ourselves outside, and minor duties like laundry with an amusing array of cups of coffee, tea, and glasses of wine. It was incredibly civilized, let me tell you.

Sandra spent the day flitting off into the hills for walks and such, and I showed Lynn around as she hadn’t been here before.

After this heavenly day, with pink cheeks, we adjourned inside to dinner for an excellent repast of stale bread, moldy cheese, and tepid muddy water.

Oh, I’m lying. Trying not to make James jealous.

Ok, ok, for dinner we had Caribbean Beef followed by the stickiest and gooiest chocolate cake you’ve ever seen.

Again, I thought Sandra was going to die of pleasure.

More cherry brandies, and we all retired snoringly to our beds.

May 11
Thursday

This day, amid the fuss and flap of packing, we went to Lake Montbel to sit in the sunshine, let the dogs have a swim, and basically rove around enjoying ourselves. We sketched, watercolored, and marveled at the scenery. The lake is the purest turquoise, and the backdrop of snow capped mountains, charming farms, and thick forests added to the aura of tranquility. We also found hundreds of large floppy frogs and little darting lizards.

We were having such fun that we forgot to go back into town in time to have sandwiches or pastries, because the boulangerie was shut. We made do with beer at the café, and then made our way home.

While Sandra and Lynn were having their final baths and doing their final packing, I wandered around and did a few odd jobs. At one point Tom, the neighbor, brought over a handful of his homebrewed beer and I thoroughly enjoyed one in the sunshine. Tom’s beer is quite the concoction – it has a good half inch of yeast in the bottom and he instructs us “pour it softly – is yeast – not poison – very good if you are constipated”. He then asked how long we were staying, and upon learning that we had a Canadian and an American who were leaving that very day he told us “a Canadian once sent me maple sugar” (kisses his fingers with relish) “two kilograms – I added it to the beer” and then he kissed his fingers again, rolling his eyes with pleasure. He then eyed me up and down and asked “are you free?” and cocked his eyebrow in the direction of his house (it’s just next to Auntie Gilli’s and Uncle Mike’s) “you can stay and do the washing up”. Mike explained that I’m married and that my husband is coming in ten days. I then explained that my husband is very nice, and will enjoy Tom’s beer a great deal. Tom brightened up and said “if he is not very nice – I have herbs – I make something – pht. He is dead”. He then tossed me a lascivious wink, and wandered off cackling.

I must explain something about Tom – he’s a delight. He’s Dutch, I think, and has lived here for ages and ages. He’s had an assortment of wives, has two very handsome sons, and has been known to go outside, wave his arm in a wide arc and pronounce “I have found heaven – why would I move?” The entire top story of his house is open to the elements, he gets his water from a spring up the hillside, and doesn’t have a proper loo – just something called an earth closet. His front yard is a riot of flowers, and he’s got an extremely aggressive little Jack Russel called Bouffe (local slang for stick-to-your-ribs food). He eyed my Aunt a little while ago as she was carting hay down to the horses and told her “don’t worry – if Mike goes, I’ll take you on” again with a lascivious wink and a cackle.

He also once came out and announced “I have been to the supermarket – I saw them all – wheeling their carts full of cancer out – all their food is from packets – their children only know screens – they do not know how to run – they have not seen the sun” I do rather think that he has a point.

Tom is very good friends with one of the local farmers, Roget, who could be a character in a Peter Mayle book. He chews his words before he spits them out, and like all the locals he adds consonants to the ends of them – perhaps just to confuse those of us who learned our French from Parisians. We have merely exchanged bonjours, and I think that is as far as we will get.

So again, we ate an excellent meal (Chinese spare ribs, followed by Ginger Cake – I though Sandra was going to die with pleasure), then set off to take the girls to Carcassonne for their night train up to Paris.

May 12
Friday

Today I did nothing.

Oh, that’s not true and I know it, but it certainly felt like nothing. After a bowl of muesli I did some revisions and took one of my final exams online. The other one I was supposed to take didn’t turn up, so I emailed my professor who later assured me that he’d fix it so that I could take it later in the summertime.

After that, and a bit of lunch, I wandered around and read a bit, knitted a bit, played with my pen and ink set, hung out with the dogs, hung out with Gilli and Mike, and basically was a lazy lazy lump.

It was gorgeous.

That evening we had another excellent meal – pork chops with apricots, roasted peppers and tomatoes with anchovies and garlic. No pudding tonight as Sandra had gone home, so we just had Mojitos instead, and Gilli and I went through old family albums and tried to figure out who looks like who.

May 13 onwards

The rest of the trip passed in a haze of warm sunny days, trips into the countryside, trips to markets, and the pleasing tasks of smallholders – weeding, fencing, livestock maintenance, eating, drinking, and above all sleeping (I did get called Rip Van Richardson at one point.)

Sadly the trip has been cut a bit short due to urgent summons from home, so Roman and I will get our French holiday when we come back in August for the wedding of a dear friend.

Love to all of you, and thanks for indulging me in this!

Xxoo

Joanne