Category: Trips

France, day 2

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We got up at 7:30 this morning. Our bodies still weren’t 100% adjusted, but 12 hours of sleep made us feel normal again.

We got to the Louvre shortly after 9AM, and marvelled at how lucky we were that there were no crowds. We soon realized the source of our luck: the Louvre is closed on Tuesdays. Damn. Damn dammity damn-damn-damn. Sigh…we got some exterior shots anyway, and went to plan B.

We decided to walk around Ile de la Cite and Ile St-Louis instead. We walked by Sainte-Chappelle and Notre Dame, then up to Le Marais after cruising by the site of The Bastille. We stopped and sat in the Place Des Vosges before just wandering around the streets a little.

We grabbed some lunch on one of the main streets. Mozzarella + tomato (in either sandwich or salad form) has become my staple here…not a lot of veggie options on French menus. We then walked along Rue de Rivoli toward our hotel, stopping for a quick look at the Palais Royale. Short pit stop at the hotel to recharge and refresh, and then back out.

Took the metro to Montmartre. Walked up a spiral staircase at Abbesses station just about long enough to kill Nellie. We strolled over to the stairs, eschewing the funicular, and climbed the hill to Sacre-Coeur after being harassed by some Senegalese hucksters. After we got some great shots of the city it started to rain, so we hoofed it back down the hill and took refuge. Oh look! A bar! We had a few glasses to wet our whistles and jumped back on the metro, heading home to relax a bit before the restaurants re-open for dinner.

France, day one

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I’m completely knackered, so this is gonna be in point form.

Yesterday at 5.30 PM our cab arrived. We got downstairs and were greeted by a guy in a Mercedes. For a minute there we were excited, but we soon realized he mistook us for newlyweds. We get out of the Mercedes and into a minivan.

We arrived at Pearson, and at our gate, in plenty of time. I picked up the new Naomi Klein book and the NHL season preview. Nellie got some houseporn magazine.

We boarded a bit early. David Cronenberg was on our flight. Fresh off his win of top audience prize at TIFF, he was celebrating by flying first class. Smart boy: I couldn’t get comfortable long enough to nap, so I got maybe 30 minutes all told. Nellie got a few hours. We were both pretty messed up when we landed at 10:00. On the plus side, our vegetarian meals weren’t half-bad. For airline food.

Charles De Gaulle is one ugly-ass airport. Old, badly organized…makes me appreciate Pearson terminal one all the more.

Taxi ride: uneventful, except we noticed that many of the cabs are Mercedes. Suck it, newlywed chauffeur man.

Our hotel and room were very nice, very Parisien. Or what I picture Parisien to be, at any rate. Small, nicely furnished, windows that open wide to the small street below. We admired it for a few minutes then turn and head out.

We sat on a bench in the Jardins des Tuileries and split a sandwich. We walked through the Place de la Concorde, down the Champs Elysees, beating a path through crowds of tourists. The beating continued when we reached l’Arc de Triomphe, just long enough for Nellie to snap a few photos.

We figured that was enough and turned for home. After some twists and turns, an espresso and a pain au chocolate, and more twists and turns we arrived back at the hotel.

One more trip out garnered a baguette, some fine chocolate, a bottle of Bordeaux, some fruit and general exhaustion. Now that we’ve eaten we’re about ready to pass out. I’ve fallen asleep, while typing this, sitting up at least 3 times.

And now…I sleep. Nighty night.

[tags]paris, tiff, tiff07, naomi klein, david cronenberg, hotel therese[/tags]

À bientôt!

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

We’re off to the airport. We land tomorrow morning around 4 ET. I’ll try to blog, and upload the occasional picture, if/when we have the chance. Be good, everybody.

Ah, who’m I kidding? I’ll be blogging from the check-in line. I can’t help myself.

[tags]paris, france[/tags]

What a waste of a monkey army

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Nellie shot this last week while I was away. Not sure what she was doing up that early…

.:.

We just bought a new zoom lens for the camera, and a bigger bag to carry all the stuff in. New camera gear and a new bag…she could hardly be giddier. She’s off to the spa now, while I start packing. I have to keep reminding myself that I should be in bed around 8:30.

.:.

It’s stuff like this that makes me laugh at religion, even as I fear it:

Hindu devotees believe the area between India and Sri Lanka – now known as Adam’s Bridge – was built millions of years ago by Lord Ram, supported by an army of monkeys.

But scientists and archaeologists say Adam’s Bridge, or Ram Setu, is a natural formation of sand and stones.

On Wednesday the Archaeological Survey of India told the Supreme Court that the religious texts were not evidence that Lord Ram ever existed.

Hardline Hindu opponents of the government accused the administration of blasphemy and protesters carried out demonstrations in the area and in Delhi, Bhopal, and on a number of key highways. The next day the report was withdrawn.

Great message to send, Indian government. Way to stand up for reason and common sense.

[tags]toronto sunrise, zoom lens, canon s3 is, ambika soni[/tags]

I am constant as the northern star

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Fatblogging, ho:

  • Original weight: 233
  • Weight last week: 224.5
  • Weight this week: 223.5

Another week, another pound. At this rate I should be 67.5 pounds in just three years.

.:.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was messy, intricate and very funny. It’s a film about a film about an essentially unfilmable novel, and I think I may have missed one or more “a film about…”s. Michael Winterbottom is quickly becoming one of my favourite directors.

.:.

There’s an excellent piece in Esquire this month entitled “God’s Not Watching Baghdad” that you should read if you have 15 minutes.

I was back in Iraq to see the president’s surge, to see if pushing more troops into Baghdad had made a difference. I had last been in Iraq two years before as a sergeant in an infantry company, patrolling its farm fields and city streets. On a good day, the country looks the same as it did during my deployments. Usually it looks much worse. Being back in Iraq, I hoped, would be a brief sojourn to reality, a break from America’s version of the war, where the battle lines had been drawn by fearless sloganeers: “Cut ‘n’ Run” or “Bring ‘Em Home,” depending. Where the debate no longer has much to do with Iraq and its people — other than the shitty smorgasbord of daily violence touted as evidence of either the mission’s futility or the dangers of quitting. Mostly, I wanted to make sense of why this had gone on so long with so little progress and see how the war looked to those tasked with the salvage operation.

Read the full article.

.:.

An article popped up in my feeds this week that resonated on a couple of levels. The Coast, the Halifax alternative weekly paper I used to read all the time in university, recently ripped off Passive-Aggressive Notes, a blog I quite enjoy. P.A.N. reposted the article, including this picture, which made me laugh my ass off. Ha ha ha ha. Soyfucker.

It also reminded me of an east-coast delicacy: donair pizza. I never liked donairs themselves (that sauce always made me sick) and I couldn’t eat the pizzas, but I used to loooooove eating the donair meat. I don’t even know what kind of meat it was (ostensibly I think it was meant to be lamb) but I still crave it every time I’m in Halifax.

.:.

Finally, after my brain being rendered mush by work and school for many months, it has sunk in: I’m going on vacation in two weeks. My thought priorities now seem to be as follows:

  1. Vacation
  2. The film festival, even though I’m missing it this year
  3. Work
  4. Scarlett Johansson
  5. Rehabbing my wrist
  6. Losing weight
  7. Keeping my fingernails tidy and well-clipped
  8. School

[tags]fatblogging, tristram shandy, the coast, passive aggressive notes, donair, france, scarlett johansson[/tags]

Everything be broken

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The recent radio silence is due to a couple of things:

  1. Our den (aka, the BlogCave*) is being painted and my computer is piled in the middle of the room under a tarp. Because of my broken wrist I’m trying to avoid shlepping my laptop home at night, which means I’m forced to use Nellie’s laptop now, and I’m trying not to hog it too much.
  2. The TIFF bible came out yesterday, so I spent most of the night going through to see which films catch my eye, even though I can’t go to any this year. This essentially becomes half of my wishlist for the upcoming few years. After two hours I was only halfway through the book so I have another night’s work ahead of me yet. There’s no rush, really; I’d just much rather read about movies than study.

.:.

It occurred to me this morning that I am not at all prepared for my trip in a couple of weeks. I’m not talking prepared-but-not-up-to-my-usual-clinical-standards. I mean I’m not ready at all. I should get on that.

* note: I don’t really call it that. But I might, starting right now.

[tags]painting, tiff07, trip planning[/tags]

Can one glamp in Central Park?

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This is my favourite time of night. Not day, but not night yet either. That’s St. James Cathedral, by the way. It’s the structure that inspired my building.

.:.

Apparently I’m even further behind the time than JR, ’cause I’d never heard of glamping either. But I like the sound of it. Someone needs to make a canoe with a Bang & Olufsen stereo in it. I’m also in the market for an inflatable 5-star bathroom.

.:.

Porter is now cleared to fly to New York. Well, Newark airport, but close enough.

Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax, and now New York; I may never fly from Pearson again. Uh, until September when I got to Europe.

[tags]st james cathedral, glamping, porter air[/tags]

Richard Thompson = White Bear

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A few days ago I talked about how certain songs have particular — and often irrational — connections to certain places in my mind.  Another one just came to me as my Zen is on random: “1952 Vincent Black Lightning” by Richard Thompson, for some reason, makes me think of an English pub called The White Bear. My brother, his girlfriend, Nellie and I stopped there as we drove north to Scotland, and they had amazing food, a stunning view, great ambience and charm…none of which have anything to do with Richard Thompson or vintage motorcycles.

I have no idea why my brain makes that connection, but hearing the song just puts me back in that seat, eating a huge feast of duck in black cherry sauce, sipping whisky, ducking low ceiling beams, laughing with my family, surrounded by misty English hills as we started our European adventure two years ago.

I am a puzzle wrapped in a mystery inside a music-and-food-associating enigma.

[tags]richard thompson, vincent black lightning, white bear pub[/tags]