All out France assault

didn't mean to spend so much time/space on air france, i got sucked into a wormhole. I have not forgotten that I was after all on vacation in France...


This place [Fontevorud Abbey] was the tomb, and still contains the headstone, of Richard the lionhearted. King of England, never spoke English. He might be a major reason why the middle east is such a seething bed of turmoil today several hundred years later. But pretty cool, right?






I've managed to see a lot of stuff in my stay in Europe. You tend to get a little jaded. For us Estadounidense, the mere presence of something older than about thirty years is remarkable. But it wears off after a while. You don't stop liking the beauty and history, it just becomes old news like your favorite movie you've seen 30 times. With that in mind, the Chateaux of the Loire valley were unlike anything I had seen yet. The Chateaus are castles, grand houses, hunting lodges, etc. of nobility. Many were elaborated from medieval fortifications, but in the Renaissance became rather fancy and dolled up. Chenounceau is a grand building that actually spans a river like a bridge. Chambord was the king of them all , and featured a central double-helix staircase which led to the roof, purportedly designed by DaVinci. The center of the staircase also houses the eye of Sauron, and has the property of permanently altering the structure of DNA. Louis the 14th once holed up here. His bedroom features a bust with his glorious luxuriant curly hair-boat, an old baseball glove, and a few playboy centerfolds and a Pink Floyd poster tacked to the wall. He hunted foxes in frilly ballet shoes. At night they added the projected christmas lights, handed out acid, and put on "Dark side of the Moon".

"Ni!"

So far, my favorite architecture in Europe has been the French gothic style that was copied all over Europe. I just like the crowdedness of saints and monsters, the massiveness of the naves, the impenetrable medieval symbology and the ridicuolus Saint stories that people used to believe and are depicted in the stained glass. And I like the way that age will turn a glorious white church into Castle Grayskull. The cathedral at Chartres is known for its outlandish amounts of stained glass, and it didn't dissapoint. Even more amazing was that any usage of the word Chartres (pronounced like "shart"), made 5 adults crack up multiple times a day for about 10 days.

We traveled north to the Normandy coast and its cliffs. They were made especially famous when some impressionists decided to paint some blurry pictures there. Nearby is the site where William the Conquerer set off to invade and conquer England. Before that he was Bill the Sheepshagger. Also nearby is the site of the D-day invasion. I reenacted the battle when I slipped in some mud and slid down the hill to a blasted out bunker. This heroism in the face of the enemy was rewarded with "You are like a five year old" from my adoring girlfriend. This brings me to why do French people purportedly dislike United Statesians, when 10,000 of us died in a few days on these beaches just for the chance of liberating occupied France? The answer is they don't, I dont think so anyway. I think it's a myth or cultural misundertanding. In my experience the French are a nice, quiet, polite people. I like them even if their kings used to wear frilly ballet shoes. Our two countries have a 200 year history of being the best of friends [we financed each other's revolutions, they gave us our favorite green lady statue, we were allies in the first world war, they loved Josephine Baker when we were too racist to do so, we rescued them from the nazis] why should there be any animosity? Why the freedom fries treatment, can't we just be friends like in the old days.





We learned on the trip that hindsight is fifty-fifty. In hindsight, going to a monastery to party for New Years seems kind of silly, but it worked out well. I have decided that Mont St. Michel is the finest synthesis of manmade and natural surroundings I have ever seen. It looks made up- like something from the cheesy cover of a fantasy novel with unicorns and dragons and shit. Granted I have not been to Petra, but I'm just going to say its for sure top five in the world. Its a tiny island capped by the extremely steep monastery with a city wall and tiny town. It is situated in a tidal flat and twice daily changeds form land-locked to island. We spent the day touring the city, then we were going to hit up the bars that night and bring in the new year on the ramparts. Theres was only one bar and its beers cost 7.50! We had the foresight to bring along a whopping 6 beers for 5 people. Luckily in addition to their own wine, the French like Belgian beer, and that shit is powerful. I have to admit the pink sky there is a little disconcerting, but we just went with it.

Frodo leads the battle charge only to chartres his pants

our lady of what the fuck is growing on your face

Oh yeah, then there was Paris. I'll confess, it was not a lifelong dream of mine to go there....I was more interested in seeing the beautiful mountains, farms and countryside like you see in the Tour de France. When we arrived at the apartment we were renting, I saw a little corner market and thought Paris looks just like I thought, like in the movies. It turns out by chance this was the market from Amelie, so it was in the movies. A few blocks away we visited the bar where Amelie worked just to keep up the theme. Theres just too much stuff in Paris to tediuosly describe it all, but for me it was just cool to be in the birthplace of art noveau [the metro entrances and the interior of the Sacre Coeur church are both examples of this], not to mention the city where Dali met Bunuel.

Our last day rocked. First we got into a screaming match in the train station about the ticket vedning machines or something, while trying to find the train to the airport. Then, at the airport, Becky lost her passport while peeing apparently. Miraculously, we found it, but then we were going to be late because it was taking so long to get through security. While in line a family of about 8 Spanish people tried to jump the line. Their reason was they were going to miss their plane (also our plane) because they were last in line and travelign with children. Seriously, only Spanish people would even think of trying that. When we finally did get through the scanner, we were in such a hurry we lost my only warm hat, becky's water bottle, and her belt. After all that crap the plane was delayed. For better or worse, we made it back to madrid.

Chartres.