Omid Abroad

London: Wiping My Hands of This

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Thu, 19 May 2011 00:07:00 +0000

I've been traveling and eating weird shit since before Andrew Zimmern got elevated from Minnesota morning TV to the the US iteration of the Travel Channel. Hell, I've been writing about it (if not particularly well) since before the first typewriter ribbon was installed for Tony Bourdain's first travel and food tome. In that time I've visited most of the continents, overlapped the stamps on my bulging passport pages in every way imaginable, and eaten one of everything in the animal kingdom. And a few insects to boot. Once cooked. Once raw. Probably once fermented for good measure. I've achieved this not through intestinal fortitude, but by maintaining a steady travel regimen of alcohol to kill the bad stuff and local yogurt to keep the good stuff alive. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the key to eating anything you like (or dare) in almost any locale in the world, and why in about a decade, I've never been victim to Montezuma's Revenge. Until now. And I'm going to make sure it never happens again.

But sometimes we intrepid traveler-eaters let our guard down. Sometimes we don't do enough shots to kill the intestinal buggers. Sometimes we forget to have a cup of cultured yogurt with our breakfast. Sometimes we forget that the first-world industrial food system is just as dangerous – if not more perilous than – eating freshly killed whoosiwhatsit in the jungle. And sometimes, forgetting that, we have a bacon burger with runny egg. In a pub. In London.

And that's how my weekend of ass-clenching and desperately-trying-not-to-vomit began.

Mind you, living a two and a half-hour train ride away from London barely makes a trip there warrant an entry in a so-called travel blog anymore. While this site has existed since late 2005, I wrote up my first travel journal nigh on a decade ago... From London. And I've written about the place ad nauseum since.

So there has to be a good story to warrant a blog entry, right?

This trip was supposed to be epic for other reasons. Chiefly, because the weekend was marked in indelible red ink on my calendar for Short Circuit presents Mute, a two-day festival at the Roundhouse in Camden celebrating 30+ years of the record label that helped form my own identity as a youth and to this day. The wife and I – as well as friends from around the world – got tickets the moment it was announced, knowing what a big deal this festival was, reuniting and cross-pollenating – in one place – many of our lifelong favorite artists.

Things started out well enough. We arrived well before the festival on Wednesday and were met at the English end of the Eurostar track by our friend David. He happens to be my old roommate from San Francisco and now lives in London, and we joke that we've seen more of each other now that we're a train ride apart than when we were actually in the same town.

We lugged our suitcases over to his flat in Paddington and got to the business of enjoying London, with a couple of free days to quaff some decent beer, do some shopping, and scout out fun locations for my sister's wedding the following month.

Pints here. Ethnic food there. More pints. Scouting out locales. We'd brought two suitcases and a duffel bag with us – which is now our modus operandi when taking the train (no baggage limits, hooray!) to places that have a) things you can't get in France or b) things that are much cheaper than in France. We capped off our night by gorging ourselves at the damn-near-impossible-to-get-into new Heston Blumenthal joint. (Yes, yes, as always, you can expect to find a culinary recap of this trip over at Hungry Amateurs.)

Thursday saw us go to yet another fancy restaurant for one of those languid Michelin-starred lunches that seems over-the-top even at absurdly low prices, and that make you wonder when the business people who go to them actually get any business done. We then strolled through Bloomsbury to meet up with our American friend Micah for pints, pints and even more pints. Then wine. Then a classic chip shop that fries their fish in beef fat. (I told you I have an iron stomach.) And then we hit another pub for good measure.

The Old Fountain. Home of the best cask ale selection in London.

The best part of the day wasn't the amazing meal or the fantastic local cask ales we were having, but to be in the company of a first-timer in London. Although we're not there day in and day out, we kind of take the city for granted: Just another nearby destination from the hub of trains that radiate out from Paris dozens of times a day. Newcomers notice things that old hands often forget to look at. And we enjoy this aspect as much in Britain as we do in France, even if we're just visitors there ourselves. So thank you, Micah, for the new set of eyes.

Friday morning came and we were feeling good. The sun was shining brilliantly. The air had an uncanny perfection to it. I got up early and shot some video for a project at work. Then we went shopping. I found trousers that fit my non-existent ass. Books that Alannah and I have been wanting for a long time. Great English pastries. Can't-get-'em-in-Paris groceries up the wazoo. We returned to David's with our booty to fill up one of the suitcases, then it was off to Camden to start pre-partying before the evening's shows at the Roundhouse.

We made some calls to other internationals who'd be at the gig. Our friend Christian from Paris. Micah, again. JR from Norway. We Tweeted. We Facebooked. We set up our potential rendez-vous points. And in the meantime we went to grab a pint. And maybe a bite. "Hmm, bacon burger with egg, eh? Does that come with chips? Good, I'll have that, please."

An hour or so later we were at a nearby, much classier pub with Christian and Micah, killing whatever bugs may have been in the grubby pub grub with craft cocktails made with the finest (mostly) English booze. Gin. Another kind of gin. Yet another kind of gin. Everything that was England, we were drinking it in.

Soon enough we were all inside the Roundhouse, gathered in one of the side rooms to see Komputer (formerly Fortran 5, formerly I Start Counting). It was packed and rather hot, and after a couple of their iconic tracks from yesteryear we made our way out of the room to jockey for a good spot in the main auditorium to see Recoil (aka Alan Wilder of Depeche Mode plus Paul Kendall). The performance was fantastic, and it included not only their cover of The Normal's (aka Daniel Miller aka the founder of Mute Records) "Warm Leatherette," but also the original vocals from Nitzer Ebb's Douglas McCarthy on "Faith Healer" then on Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus." For good measure, McCarthy was joined on stage by the rest of Nitzer Ebb plus Architect (aka Daniel Myer of Haujobb) to perform a scorching rendition of Nitzer Ebb's "Family Man" which was, of course, originally produced by Wilder himself. This was all followed up by a full Nitzer Ebb performance.

If the rather tightly-knit relationship between artists on the Mute roster over the years seems a bit incestuous, you can imagine this festival as a once-in-a-lifetime family reunion full of potential for awkward or explosive moments. Oddly enough it was Alannah who provided the first bit of awkwardness, as she announced her need to go to the bathroom and disappeared for a good while. Concert. Long queues. Seems logical, right?

It was while we were trying to enjoy a none-too-abstract and surprisingly melodic set by Thomas Fehlmann that I started to feel odd. Perhaps it was the blips and chimes over the throbbing bass making me flash back to chemically altered nights back in Club Six or Sno-Drift in San Francisco. Or maybe it was all the draught Old Speckled Hen catching up with me. But something was amiss. My shoulders were tight. I was uncharacteristically sweaty. I felt like I really needed to take it easy. I chalked it up to all the decadent eating, that it was my body's way of saying "enough with the black pudding and the chicken livers and the deep fat fried foods." Fair enough, body. But you're not making me give up the beer. (Alannah wisely urged me to have water. Smart girl.)

Despite having a premium pass that would afford me entry to the after-parties and exclusives going on 'til three in the morning (thank you for the upgrade, Christian!) we had to bail and get back home to the west side of town. Then came the explosive part.

I'll spare you the details. Suffice it to say I spent more time on the throne (and not the one at Buckingham Palace or wherever the Queen rests her royal derrière) than in bed. Alannah wasn't faring any better. We traced our gastronomical (or perhaps gastrointestinal) footsteps back over the preceding few days to find the culprit, eliminating places we'd eaten with others (all our friends share all our food), places we hadn't eaten anything remotely food-poisony, and places that simply shouldn't provide the opportunity. By our magical, Sherlock Holmesian deductive reasoning, all the fingers pointed at the pub burger.

By morning I had the wherewithal to find the nearest off-licence and pick up some ginger ale and probiotic yogurt. Too little, too late, sure, but at least it would be of some relief and prevent the puking of bile. It also gave me the opportunity to unload seven-odd quid worth of shrapnel on the shopkeeper, having amassed in three days enough copper coins to weigh down a body in the Thames. (All the non-copper bits were used for beer.)

Having another suitcase to fill, we did manage to get some shopping done at midday, and while Alannah declined to even bother taking such risk, I was somehow able to eat half a grilled cheese sandwich without vomiting. Unfortunately, I had to run into a piss-soaked toilet stall at Borough Market to have my "Trainspotting moment" not long thereafter. This relieved me long enough to put together a serious English craft beer haul to bring back to Paris, and we somehow managed to survive the rest of the day without having to buy me yet another pair of trousers.

Shopping done, we could focus on our new deadline: To leave for the Roundhouse again by 7:00 p.m. Saturday's action had started at noon, but neither of us were in any shape to go any earlier. As evening rolled around we made it to the venue, and Micah and Christian had kindly saved us some lovely, easy-on-the-ailing-ass balcony seats right next to the Recoil Boss himself, Alan Wilder.

I sat and politely applauded through a solid art-rock set by the Residents – a band I'd never had the opportunity to see in our shared hometown of San Francisco – and then sat and impolitely heckled and Tweeted and Facebooked through a sad DJ set by Depeche Mode's Andy Fletcher. (On that note, cheers to the Roundhouse for free and functional wi-fi throughout the venue.) A rumble came over my stomach but I was immovable. Vince Clarke stepped behind a keyboard on stage, followed shortly thereafter by a beautifully voiced, surprisingly svelte Alison Moyet who performed several Yazoo (Yaz if you're North American) songs.

Andy Bell came on to join Clarke for the scheduled Erasure set, making many in the audience speculate who the two other mics were for. Could it be the full Depeche Mode mega-reunion people had breathlessly (if unrealistically) speculated about?

No, they were for two backup singers, but it didn't make the Erasure set any less fantastic and sing-alongy and the starkest possible contrast to the Residents act that preceded it. Bell did announce a surprise, not-at-all-Depeche-Mode-related appearance to follow him, as Feargal Sharkey came out to perform the one (chart-topping) track he did with Vince Clarke as The Assembly, "Never Never." To be honest, I never knew Feargal was a dude... Listen to the chorus and you'll understand my childhood error.

If all that's a little too effeminate, the stage took another 180º turn as Laibach came on with their martial, industrial Neue Slowenische Kunst. As much as I hoped they'd do their cover of Europe's "The Final Countdown," the covers they delivered were their classic "Life is Life" and once again The Normal's "Warm Leatherette." No complaints here, though I'm sure Alannah would've been amused with "Countdown."

Laibach's set included a projection of a woman giving a deep throat blowjob, making me wonder why all of a sudden on-screen sex was making me squirmy and uncomfortable. Then I realized that, no, it's not the balls-deep action giving me sweaty palms, but the fact that I'd been clenching my ass for the last three and a half hours.

I did something I never thought I would ever do in all my years of clubbing, concert-going, festivaleering, and traveling. I dropped a deuce in a venue toilet.

Luckily, this is the Roundhouse. They have good beer at reasonable prices. They have good food at even better prices. I already mentioned the wi-fi. And the toilet? As pristine a public toilet I've seen outside of a five-star hotel lobby. Had I known this, I wouldn't have missed so much of the festival. Up here, on the third floor, was possibly the cleanest bathroom in the house, well stocked with toilet paper.

Oh. My. God.

Sure, Martin Gore of Depeche Mode was in the main room now putting together an epic set of good, danceable techno (like, real techno, not that clubby shit that people often call techno), but I was more in awe of the fact that I was going number two in public.

This revelation complete, it was soon time to check out the after-party. Alannah made her way back to the flat and I joined Christian and Micah for an evening of DJ antics, starting with Mr. Mute himself, Daniel Miller. He put together a respectable set of Mute tracks that – while not groundbreakingly mixed – had a sense of rhythm and flow and cohesiveness that was barely detectable in Fletch's earlier set.

Then came Rex the Dog. I don't know much about Rex. Or at least, I didn't until I suddenly developed a little bit of a man-crush and read every page of his site after the ass-kicking DJ set he threw out on Saturday night. Rex was on fire, leading me to declare to Micah (and then the whole geek world via Twitter) that he MUST produce the next Depeche Mode album. Previously, to me, he had been "that house DJ who did one of the few respectable Depeche Mode mixes in recent years." Now I'm mounting a campaign to put him behind the recording desk for my favorite band ever.

I'm not saying this just because he masterfully twiddled the knobs on some remixed versions of Depeche Mode songs in Ableton Live, but because for the first time in years, I fully, genuinely enjoyed a DJ set, where heart and soul and talent were shining through.

And it's not because I'm older or married that I don't go clubbing anymore. It's that almost every time I go to a club in Paris, besides the irritating crowds and shamefully overpriced drinks, the DJs can't spin worth a damn. They can't work a crowd. They can't even match a beat. I'm a mediocre DJ myself with only a couple of moderate club gigs under my belt and it takes every fiber of my being to not jump into the booth, strangle the hipster motherfucker not mixing in there, and take over the decks myself. So to see, in this day and age of iTunes-on-shuffle-is-considered-DJing, a guy who actually has technical skills and a love for the music... I was impressed. And his body of work kicks a good deal of ass.

I came to London figuring I'd see a lot of old-time favorites and heros and maybe hear a few youngbloods I might actually like (label head Miller has quite good taste, I trust the man) and walked away being most impressed by... the closing party DJ. Go figure.

On our way out, I hit the bathroom once more. One for the road. I washed up, only to find that the air dryer was no longer working. No worries, my hands are clean, and it's not like I need to scrub in for surgery.

Christian spots Daniel Miller Himself in the Roundhouse lobby. We go up to say hi. Introductions are made. My turn comes. I extend my hand simply to tell him "All I can say is thank you. Your work has made my life better." He returns the gratitude. We get a group photo on Christian's phone.

Despite a rather wicked case of food poisoning, I hung in there not only for a great show but to end up meeting one of my heroes and properly thank him. I'm sure in my one short utterance he got that I implied "Thank you for giving rise to and influencing and – decades down the road – assembling the musicians who were there for my first dance, my first breakup, my first guitar, my first car, my first car accident, my first mosh pit, my first bungee jump, three of my four broken ribs, my first turntables, my first keyboard, and every significant moment of my life with which I can associate a song." If not, he should know that.

However, I couldn't help but feel like an ass the whole time. Not because of what I'd said. Or what I was thinking when I said it. But because after I shook his hand, I saw Miller discreetly wiping it on his pants. My hand was still wet. Here I stood, meeting the guy responsible for – quite literally – the soundtrack of my life, and he was probably thinking, "Good god, this bloke pisses on himself."

Down and Out in Denmark

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:50:00 +0000

The stereotypes are true about Copenhagen: The constant parade of beautiful, rosy-cheeked blondes streaming by on bicycles. Bountiful beer on just about every corner. Baked goods to die for. And it's expensive as hell.

The view from Nørre Sogade

One of the guides I'd looked at claimed that those on a backpacker budget should steer clear of Denmark, but for those of less meager means, it's still cheaper than London or even Paris. Well, considering I live in rip-off Paris and think London is a comparatively cheap-o spot to spend the weekend, this whole "Scandinavia is so expensive" thing should pose no problem.

Wrong.

The thing is, the wife and I aren't on vacation when we're in Paris. We usually eat in or at our favorite ethnic dives. We avoid overpriced bars, overrated restaurants, and we have our own ways of amusing ourselves. Hell, even in London we have our spots and our friends to be our guides.

But after only a few days in wholly unfamiliar Copenhagen, the ol' bank account was well beyond overdrawn. Sure, we have friends there, but they'd only moved in a few days before we arrived!

Beyond not knowing all the ins and outs of CPH, there's the problem it's just too easy to spend a ton of cash. While the plethora of bakeries and bars and cafés are no more expensive than in Paris, they're just too damn good to pass up. Yes, I was subject to some terrible Danishes and some bland glasses of Carlsberg – but despite those failures, the EPIC WIN rate is entirely too high. And even reasonably priced beers direct from the tap at Mikkeler and affordable breads from Meyers Bakery and pennies-on-the-dollar pastries from Sankt Peders add up after you have a lot of them. This is enough to leave any traveler without a huge bankroll down and out. And that's not even speaking of the new wave of Scandinavian cuisine that's put the city on the foodie map.

Despite coming home in the hole, every moment on the trip (except those on the phone with my bank) was worthwhile.

15 hours by train or 2 hours by plane
We had the choice of flying in and out of Copenhagen from Paris, or taking the train, both at roughly the same price. Since we had the sneaking suspicion that we'd be coming back again, Alannah and I figured we'd try both, taking the train in and the plane out.

Taking the train gave us the enviable option of riding the Thalys from Paris to Cologne, Germany. Thalys trains are not only smooth and comfortable, but in the negligibly more expensive first class car, the food is remarkably good and the wi-fi is free. Score one for trains.

Stopping over in Cologne gave us the opportunity to see more of the town we'd previously only seen for only a couple of short hours. This time around we had over seven hours to kill, which meant we got to see some friends from the area (and make some new ones!) and drink our livers into submission.

Staring down the barrel...

The copious amounts of cheap, free-flowing Kölsch beer made the next leg of the journey easier: A 12-hour overnight ride to Copenhagen.

When booking the trip, we assumed Deutsch Bahn's awkward translation of "moving bench" for our compartment meant the type that folded down into a bed. We learned upon boarding the train that it means "fully upright seat with the capacity to move forward roughly one inch for relaxation/sleep."

What else are you supposed to do in a sparse compartment

for 12 hours than shoot one another?

Add to that the very nice but motion sickness-prone family who ended up sharing our compartment, and it was the least restful all-nighter I've experienced since giving up chemically enhanced party aids. We now know full well to pay a few euros extra to upgrade to a proper couchette. Score one for planes.

Shock therapy
We arrived in Denmark with nary a scratch and after checking into the Hotel Kong Arthur, it was time to relax. One of the reasons we chose our hotel was because – even though we didn't know we'd be spending the night with Pukey the Kid, Barfy the Baby and their band of German cohorts – we knew we'd want to take advantage of the attached Helle Thorup spa.

And that we did. Soft, voluminous robes. Bubbly jacuzzi. Hot steam room. And is there anything more Scandinavian than a nice, hot sauna?

Yes, yes there is. And that would be the koldt vand spand. Translation: Cold water bucket. After each round of heat in the tub or the steam room or the sauna, I'd position myself under this bucket of ice water and pull the rope.

Pure masochistic bliss.

But even more fun is watching and listening to others as they dump ice cold water on themselves and shriek like little girls. Especially Alannah. Even purer sadistic bliss.

This spa ritual became our daily retreat from our everyday lives, and even from the moments of stress on the trip itself. Work issues on your mind? Sweat it out. ATM card not working? Nothing a cold shock can't eliminate. Realizing you can afford only one nice night out? Luxuriate in the jacuzzi like a boss.

Brain bath
All that bubble and steam is great for reducing stress from the outside, but sometimes we want to massage our brains from the inside. Like our previous trip to Amsterdam, Denmark is an up and coming destination for beer lovers.

Needless to say, we largely eschewed the local Carlsberg and Tuborg for much more local Mikkeler and Nørrebro brews.

Mikkeller single-hop tasting event? Yes, please!

One of the beautiful things about Copenhagen is that it's a beer drinking city. Stroll along the touristy Nyhavn canal and there are sidewalk cafés lining the entire length, each with beer taps out front. Better yet, across from all the tourist traps, locals sit along the canal and drink their own beers, seemingly non-stop. It's not uncommon to see people walking around with plastic crates full of half-liter beers.

This penchant for public consumption does have one ill side-effect, however. No, it's not broken glass or litter or puke on the streets. Copenhagen is one of the cleanest cities I've ever seen outside of Japan. Even the habitual drunks know where to find the recycling bin... It's the day-and-night presence of staggering drunks almost everywhere, to the point that it's seen as normal.

This guy stumbled into a phalanx of bearskin-capped guards in front of the Royal Palace and had to be shooed away. Interestingly, not a single one of the dozens of drunks I saw in town was belligerent or mean. Just drunk.

Sunny dispositions
Perhaps it was the amazing weather we had while in Copenhagen, but it wasn't just the drunks who fell far from the mean tree. Despite a few indifferent people here and there, one could largely conclude that the Danish people are staggeringly (ahem) nice.

Maybe it's the relative lack of vehicular traffic. (1/3 of people commute by bicycle.) Maybe it's the impeccably clean public transit. (Often with free wi-fi.) Or perhaps it's because a higher priority seems to be placed on relaxing and enjoying one's surroundings rather than me-me-me consumption and attention whoring. This isn't to say that there aren't sinister aspects here and there, but this is – again – the first time since Japan that I've seen people more than willing to park their baby buggies outside of stores while they shop. With the babies still in them.

Even the highly ethnic 'hood that is Nørrebro – unlike many ethnic enclaves in large cities around the world that seem to house a more marginalized population – appears just as bright and happy-go-lucky. The only difference is that it's, well, ethnic.

You hear a lot of Farsi being spoken in Copenhagen. So it

was unsurprising to find an Iranian restaurant in Nørrebro.

Aside from the massive construction going on there, the sidewalks are clean, people are polite, and like many ethnic enclaves around the world, some of the best shopping and eating is to be found there. Certainly as a visitor there are some issues I'm unaware of and I'm sure the great shopping and eating has something to do with gentrification, but in general it was one of my favorite parts of the city.

On the tourist trail
We literally followed the tourist trail provided on the free city map given out by the tourism center. On it there's a dotted line in a large loop, taking you from place to place, including the famous Little Mermaid statue north of the city center.

Is she sad because she's surrounded by smoke stacks?

Or because she has useless legs?

Alannah and I had initially planned to use the Copenhagen's free bike program which, at the price of completely free (a 20dkk deposit is given back to you the moment you return a bike to its stall), edges Paris' €29/year scheme. Its disadvantage is that it doesn't start running until May, and so we ended up taking in the unseasonably warm weather on foot. Hence the tourist loop.

Close to running on empty, this was actually a great thing to do for our last full day in Denmark. We opted against having a pricey dinner and decided instead to follow the tourist trail and hit various snacks and street food along the way. This added up to a lot of pastries and sausages and cappuccinos, not a single one of which was bad.

Our tour also started a little on the late side, so the sun was setting by the time we got to the area where you find the Little Mermaid. Moving further to the north, it was just about nightfall when we arrived at the new "Genetically Modified Little Mermaid," and the eerie silence and lack of human presence around us made it that much more creepy. We picnicked in front of it.

The genetically modified Little Mermaid.

This is where industrial tuna comes from.

By the time we started making our way back to the city center, it was completely dark. We were able to walk through the Kastellet, a pentagon-shaped earthen fortress. Slowly making our way through the old barracks in peace, I decided that the time we spent after the sun had set in this less populated part of town made it feel like the whole of Denmark was ours.

Ghosts of the Kastellet

The sadness of departure
We performed our now ritualized last-day-in-a-country routine that includes hitting the markets and shops for food and drink we can't easily find in Paris, meeting some interesting characters along the way. We had our last traditional Danish lunch. Our last beer. Said our last goodbyes. And, of course, survived our last koldt vand spand.

Despite having spent only a few days in Copenhagen, I think I can speak for the both of us and say that Alannah and I felt very much like we were at home. This feeling last occurred while traveling during our first visit to Paris together...

And no, that doesn't mean we're moving to Denmark all of a sudden. We happened to arrive at the beginning and left at the end of a serendipitous burst of excellent weather, and the Miserable Weather Season lasts longer than it does in Paris. I bitch enough about the weather here as it is!

What made it hard to leave was being around so many of the things we miss. Cinnamon rolls. Good beer. Bicycles. Wide sidewalks. Clean streets. And above all, our friends from California for whom we are so thankful that they can drop by Europe every so often. Even if it requires a 12-hour train ride to see them.

Bye bye, awesome Danishes. We're not sure when we'll

see you again. Say hi to rye bread for us!

The last moments in Copenhagen were spent wrangling with our luggage to make sure each piece of Danish market goodness was distributed properly to avoid weight surcharges, security issues, and potential damage in transit. Then we waited and waited 'til boarding time, and then takeoff, and then for our baggage on the other end, and then to finally arrive home via the busted-ass RER commuter train. Total door to door time: 6.5 hours. Amount of which was pleasurable: 0.

This round goes to: Train.

As usual, for a more food-oriented account of this trip, see the upcoming entry on our cooking site, Hungry Amateurs and the full complement of photos on my Flickr page.

Life, Love and Amsterdam

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 22:25:00 +0000

The last time I was in Amsterdam was for an epic trip through parts of Europe with a group of friends. It was four years ago, I was single, living in San Francisco, and I had not a worry in the world.

This time around, I’m living in France, I’m on a much stricter budget, and I went to Holland with Alannah to celebrate our third wedding anniversary.

We also went in for her first ultrasound two days before the trip, so yeah – that changes everything.

Everything the typical American would want to go and do in Amsterdam was out. Cannabis and magic mushrooms – out. Bike rides among the canals – out. (Alannah had recently fractured her tailbone, meaning bike seats were out of the question.) Whorin’ it up – out, unless I wanted our third anniversary to be our last.

Just as my life has changed in the last few years, so have our priorities when traveling. Whereas I used to be all about seeing and experiencing as many things and meeting as many people as possible, we have narrowed down our travel focus to the things we love most: Food, drink, and the people that make them.

Just as we did in Italy last summer we eschewed the museums and sightseeing for a real taste, so to speak, of local culture. Being that we have a moderately well-read food porn and cooking blog and are constantly looking to expand our own cooking repertoire, we took this opportunity not only to get away for an extended weekend, but also to try food and drink we’d find inspiring.

Getting to Amsterdam from Paris couldn’t be any easier. The slick Thalys high-speed train leaves Gare du Nord regularly, taking three and a half hours to get to the ‘Dam with stops in Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Schiphol Airport along the way. As usual, we opted to sit near the bar car so we can get the party started right... Although Alannah could not partake of the lovely (and affordable!) on-board Belgian beer this time around.

To meet our budget for staying in Amsterdam, we had several choices, none of which one would typically equate with an anniversary trip. We could hole up in a hostel with a bunch of backpackers – we generally don’t mind this at all, but past experience has shown a great majority of Amsterdam backpackers tend to be on the drug tourist track: Not exactly our idea of a couple of relaxing nights. The other was to grab one of the many affordable hotels right on the central axis of town, the Damrak – which is flooded with said tourists. A third new option, however, fit us best: Using the power of social networking and ingenuity, Air BnB lets individuals rent out rooms to other individuals, often at a very reasonable price. We found a room for rent from a nice local named Mense, just across the River IJ from Amsterdam Centraal Station. He even picked us up at the ferry port to bring us to our cozy, well-appointed little room. At €35/night, it could not be beat, and the location – despite being only minutes from Amsterdam’s city center – was quiet and peaceful. Taking the free ferry back and forth across the IJ every time we wanted to go into town or go home was actually pretty novel and cool, too.

What was novel but not so cool was the German-style shelf toilet in our bathroom. The last thing you want when you’re on a diet of beer and cheese and bitterballen is a toilet made to examine your stool, but hey, we travel to experience other cultures, right?

We got settled in and sent out some emails to local friends to possibly meet up, then made our way back into town for our first order of business: Lunch. Dutch pancakes? Fried meatballs? Aged Gouda cheese? Nope. Burgers.

Getting a good burger in Paris is like pulling teeth. Only more expensive. So it was a relief to get to Burger Bar – right in the tourist bustle of the city center – and sit down for a giant wagyu (Kobe beef) burger for the price of a shitty frozen steak haché at a typical Parisian brasserie.

Our growling stomachs settled, it was on to the next order of business: Beer. We made our way through the tiny streets of the southwestern city center to find a couple of fantastic beer shops – De Bier Koening ("the beer king") and The Cracked Kettle – both of which sell some amazing local brews, as well as import beers we simply can’t get in Paris. Knowing we could get the Dutch beers fresh at the bars, we picked up some cold, hoppy American and Danish beers I could drink while finding our next stops. A certain amount of cold efficiency is needed when you have a huge list of things to sample over three days.

We spent the afternoon weaving back and forth through the western canal belt around the Jordaan neighborhood, finally making our way up the Prinsengracht canal – one of the prettier but more yuppified parts of town – to stop for what would become our new addiction: Dutch apple pie and mint tea. Our friends Melanie and Andrei had recommended pie at this particular shop when they’d visited us in Paris previously, and it automatically went on the “When in Amsterdam...” list. They did not steer us wrong.

As if a burger and several beers and gigantic apple pie isn’t enough to stuff the belly, we trekked on to our next destination: De Keuken Van 1870 on Spuistraat. Fearing that nothing but chain restaurants would be open past typical Dutch dining hours (i.e. when we Parisians usually eat), we loosened our belts and sat down for a meal of traditional Dutch food – and local beer, of course – in what was once a workmen’s lunchroom. The food was fabulous – and huge – and neither of us were able to finish. That’s impressive when you consider that between the two of us, we’re a greedy pig and a pregnant lady.

Toward the end of dinner we got a text from a local friend whom we’d previously only known via internet. Many years in the Depeche Mode fan community has resulted in many, many friends around the world, the majority of whom we haven’t met. So we took the opportunity to meet up with fellow fan Marcel, who hopped on his bike to join us. We ended up at a local beer bar – a really local one – that exclusively serves Dutch beers, 30 of which are on tap.

The only trouble is that Alannah is currently not drinking and Marcel doesn’t drink beer, so I couldn’t sample all 30 drafts at ‘t Arendsnest. Despite doing my best to drink for three, I only got through four beers before throwing in the towel. The delicious, delicious hop-laden towel.

We called it a relatively early night, taking the ferry back across the IJ to get to our cozy little room and sleep in.

By noon the next day we were a bit bleary-eyed but awake, ready to take on another day of Dutch culture via food and drink. A lot of drink. In order to get some soakage first, we ferried across to Centraal Station, bought 24-hour transit passes (€7, not bad for unlimited tram, metro and local train travel) and took the tram southward to the famous Albert Cuypmarkt.

In one of Europe’s biggest street markets, vendors sell everything from junk to cheap underwear to organic produce, to lovingly-made street food. Alannah immediately keyed in on stroopwafel (big ol’ waffles covered in syrup) and poffertjes (miniature puff pancakes). Not having had enough starch and sugar, apparently, we got an even bigger fix at the amazing Bakken met Passie, a bakery just west of the market that seriously puts most Paris bakeries to shame. The sheer variety, artistry, and – most importantly – deliciousness of everything on display was a bit overwhelming. We wanted to eat everything. We settled on dining in, restraining ourselves to a couple each of surprisingly complex cheese sandwiches, pastries, and drinks.

As much as I wanted to compare it to our own efforts I resisted buying a round of Passie’s San Francisco sourdough. After all, we came for the Dutch food and drink, right?

Speaking of drink... I couldn’t go another moment without a beer. Our next destination was a grueling haul across town (ok, maybe 15 minutes taking two trams) to the Funenkade due east of the city center. There, attached to an old octagonal windmill, is the Brouwerij ‘t IJ. It’s one of two actual breweries in Amsterdam (Heineken doesn’t count – it’s only a tourist attraction, and the actual brewing takes place elsewhere), and they feature five beers on tap at any given time. For the non-committal, flights are available.

The brewpub is like many other brewpubs. There are lots of beer guys with beards hanging out. There’s a lot of sampling and note-taking and sniffing going on. There’s a tour of the brewing facilities that really is the same pretty much the world over. The stark contrast between European beer culture and American culture comes in only one aspect: The presence of children. I’d say a third of the patrons were there with toddlers in tow, and the servers were happy to oblige them with glasses of juice with a little lollipop set into the straw. The wealth of decent non-alcoholic options at Dutch bars is a godsend when traveling with someone who can’t booze it up. Alannah discovered the breadth and depth of organic and conventional apple juices available in Holland, as appelsap seems to be the non-alcoholic beverage of choice around here.

With more than a strong buzz going, I needed to feed the baby. That’d be MY belly. We had just enough time to make it to Frank’s Smoke House before closing. It is not a “coffeshop,” but rather the only smoked fish specialty shop in Amsterdam. We were able to gorge ourselves on sockeye salmon sandwiches while chit-chatting with the lovely lady (Maria, was it?) behind the counter. Before our trip, my mom had commented on Facebook that we need to find a good smoked fish joint (herring in particular) in Amsterdam. Marcel commented that most Dutch ate their herring raw, and he’s right. But somehow Alannah found this humble smoked fish palace. Now we know where to send my mom next time she’s in Amsterdam. (Which is surprisingly more often than you’d think.)

Then it was back to the city center for more beer. Several glasses of American brews that are nearly impossible to find in Europe, some conversation with a Scottish immigrant and his Dutch wife, and the overall gezellig atmosphere made In de Wildeman a surprisingly kick-back, cozy stop in the heart of the otherwise touristy city center.

It was about dinner time, but the thirst for otherwise unattainable beers would not relent. We made it to the relatively new Beer Temple, a more slick, modern beer bar – not unlike what you might find in Southern California – specializing in craft brews and, more surprisingly, American craft brews, with many of them on tap. Ok, so there was a little mission creep in sampling Dutch culture, per se, but you simply cannot get beers from Anchor, Left Hand, Flying Dog, etc. on tap – and rarely even in the bottle – in Paris. We did maintain some Dutchness by eating a huge hunk of oudekaas (aged Gouda) with mustard.

Marcel had come out to meet us again (I felt bad for dragging a non-beer drinker to beer bars, but he assured us he’s used to it!) so our sampling of fine beer and fine cheese was nicely accompanied by great conversation.

Alannah noted once again how in all our travels, when meeting up with people I know through the Depeche Mode fan community, we are in the company of extremely nice, welcoming souls. I had warned her before our first concerts together that we’re like neo-Deadheads in a way – but I think we only picked up the positive aspects. And not the patchouli.

One late evening round of street frites (drowning in mayo, of course) and then it was back on the ferry and in for a very sound evening of sleep. Even the horror of using the icky shelf toilet couldn’t keep me from sleeping soundly and contently.

Our final morning had us getting up early. We had to get to the Albert Cuypmarket again, and I was dead set on doing this before our 24-hour transit passes expired. Also, we had to get to Bakken met Passie before their pastry selection was picked over.

Mission accomplished.

We then hooked around the western canal belt (Grachtengordel - try pronouncing that right the first time) to get up to the Noordermarkt and check out the organic foods on display. Fulfilling our mission of acquiring things one simply can’t get in Paris, Alannah picked up a kilo of kale. It also made for a fun little linguistic exchange, with us learning the Dutch word for kale (boerenkool) and us teaching the spelling and pronunciation of it in English to the market lady. K-A-L-E - kayyyl.

Our checklist pretty much being done by midday, we figured we’d move on to more pedestrian things one does in Amsterdam: Eat a pancake. Eat bitterballen (fried meatballs). Maybe hit a coffeeshop.

During the lunch hour, trying to get pancakes was a big failure. The few pancake houses out there were packed and had a nasty line full of tourists (like a croque monsieur in France, pannekoeken are something typically made and eaten at home, not at restaurants). And bitterballen are apparently non-existent until after 4pm, when bars turn on their deep fryers. We settled for apple pie and mint tea, which is a pretty damn good consolation prize if you ask me.

An hour or so later, we stumbled upon (or stumbled up) to Pannekoekenhuis Upstairs, a tiny, über-gezellig pancake house up the steepest set of stairs you can imagine. Being at the bottom of the Red Light District, it was largely full of English-speakers (and a few locals) but no matter – the couple running the place (I assume they’re a couple: one big burly guy, one dainty Asian guy) were about as Amsterdam as it gets.

It’s a good thing we handled those stairs before popping into my favorite, mellow, mostly-locals coffeeshop nearby for a tiny taste of what Amsterdam is famous for: An incredible variety of teas and infusions, served not in cups but glasses so you can appreciate the color more. I had the mint tea. And a spliff of AK-47.

And this is where people ask (every damn time) why I would write publicly about the latter part. It’s simple. I have no political or career aspirations. It’s 100% legal. And I’m from California, where if you don’t have at least one hook-up and don’t have a story of that one time you were soooo high, you’re not actually a Californian.

And to clarify, my non-partaking wife did not do so much as look at my spliff.

With all that out of the way, the experience was, well, whatever.

Again, as a Californian, herb is more a less a part of la vie quotidienne. In fact, not having immediate access to medical-grade bud at any time is one of the very odd things about living in Paris. Occasionally at a party or concert, someone will light up a joint of the cheap shit and pass it around, the cannabis equivalent of an unpalatable Miller Lite. So – like hoppy beers and good burgers – taking a few puffs was a tasty reminder of my native land.

And after three years of dealing with the I’m-so-pushy, I’m-always-right, I-don’t-know-how-to-queue, I-can’t-take-a-fucking-risk-to-save-my-life chaos that is Paris, it was a much deserved moment of unwinding.

Luckily, I didn’t fall into a freezing cold canal as I dodged and weaved my way to the next location, thanks to Alannah keeping an eye on me.

With the clock winding down to our train ride back to Paris, we found ‘t Arendsnest Dutch beer bar again and planted ourselves in for one final session of beer (and appelsap) drinking and bitterballen eating. Still extremely relaxed from the previous stop and with no “checklist” to follow, our last couple of hours in Amsterdam were chill, mellow, and full of smiles.

Alannah and I whiled away our time, talking about our newly forged memories, the totally gezellig vibe of old school bruincafes (old brown pubs, such as the one we were sitting in), and how amazingly friendly and welcoming every single local has been. We determined we’ll definitely go farther afield on our next trip, but even while generally remaining near the city center, we managed to largely steer clear of the bachelor party groups and collegiate drug tourists, and to find some very comfortable, serene spots.

Despite Amsterdam’s distorted image as a “cesspool for sex and drugs,” Alannah caught on to what I’d been talking about before – how it’s an OK place to visit as a tourist, but how it seems a fantastic place to simply live. We can’t imagine living anywhere other than Paris right now, but seeing how kid-friendly, bike-friendly, and generally friendly Amsterdam is, we can’t feel but a twinge of jealousy for the families riding to the organic market, kids in tow in their bakfiets, with a jongkaas broodtje in hand.

One ultrasound and my priorities have totally changed. Proost!

--

The full-on foodie account of this post will be found on Hungry Amateurs.
The full set of photos taken on this trip can be found at my Flickr page.

Feelin' French for Bastille Day (+ video)

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 09:26:00 +0000

My wife and I both have a mantra that we often have to repeat not only to ourselves, but to others: "I'm not an expat, I'm an immigrant."

While technically speaking there may not be much of a difference, we often find a mentality gap between those who consider themselves "expats" and those who'll admit (so to speak) they're an "immigrant." Socially, the term "expat" often implies white collar work or wealth, that someone has moved to another country other than theirs at their own volition and stays on their leisure. "Immigrant" is often perceived to mean someone who moved out of necessity or to forge a more livable life.

Though we're most definitely white collar and came to France purely of our own volition, we definitely put ourselves in the latter category. We're actively trying to integrate into the culture while fiercely holding on to what we like about our own, as all immigrants should. We're most definitely not living some fabulous life of luxury. In fact, almost every day is a struggle.

A month doesn't go by where we don't worry about making enough money, visa statuses, sending enough money home, better mastering the language, figuring out new ways to make ends meet... Anyone back in the US who thinks immigrants come in (anywhere) to live a fat, lazy life is an asshole.

Yes, we do travel, and yes, we do some fabulous or frivolous things, and you see those things on the internet because those are the memories we're trying to forge. I don't bother photographing or writing about the weeks we have to spend stretching one sack of beans, four vegetables, and 200 grams of meat into five meals for two people. (I'm saving that for the book, which will help pay 2% of our rent next year, of course...)

All that aside, after about two and a half years here, things are gelling. We've already felt Paris has been our "home" for quite some time now, but things are really kicking in. I complain as much as any natural-born Parisian (of which there are maybe 6). I curse the government and pray for revolution as much as any 68'er. I will declare something "merde" or an "arnaque" immediately upon hearing about it. I coo at the first sight of babies or puppies.

Ok, so I was always like that.

But there are little everyday things that make us feel more in our skin now than ever before. Nary a day goes by when we don't see someone we know in the street, at a shop, getting coffee, etc. Alannah now feels more comfortable speaking French with strangers. And just the other morning at 5 a.m. I called the cops (!?) to complain about noise from a huge fight down the street, and not only did I not have to repeat or awkwardly re-explain anything in broken French, but... They actually showed up and took care of it!

Furthermore, our local know-how is getting better and better. On the eve of the Fête Nationale, we turned up at the Bal des Pompiers (the fireman's ball to celebrate Bastille Day) at the Rousseau fire station in the 1st arrondissement just early enough to spend two minutes (as opposed to two hours) in line, but just late enough for it to be lively inside – where, of course we ran into some familiar faces from around town. For the 14th of July itself, we dispensed with the picnic amongst 1,000,000 people on the Champ de Mars (mostly because it pissed early on in the day) and instead watched the fireworks from a more serene locale on the river. For probably the 90th time since the weather got nice this year, we very economically popped open a bottle of wine and watched the Seine flow underneath us...

It's a long process, but we're figuring out the system and almost fitting in. We don't shun the anglophone community entirely: You gotta stay true to your roots, you can't discriminate who your friends are, and there are some cool expats who aren't on the same immigrant wavelength that we love nonetheless. And we know we'll never really be French (maybe on paper, someday...). But as much as we miss American work ethic (no, really), California cuisine, and Mexican drunk food, we feel very lucky – and dare I say proud – to be here.

Now enjoy the fireworks.

(Sorry 'bout the video quality. It was taken with a mobile phone from a distance.)

#americaFyeah

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 10:45:00 +0000

That's the Twitter hashtag the wife used the morning of July 4 as we were getting our asses up way too early, all in order to go to Disneyland and see some fireworks or something.

It's just a model.

Yeah, that Disneyland, the one near Paris.

We don't do inane touristy things like go up the Eiffel Tower or the top of the Arc de Triomphe, even when we have visitors in town. But there we were, just the two of us, going to freakin' Disneyland. Because it's the only damn fully American thing you can do in Paris. Not that we often want to, but sometimes – especially on the national holiday – we want a taste of the nation formerly called home.

Sure, you can go to some American-run coffee shop/juice bar and pay €6.50 for a lackluster bagel sandwich that would be panned by any New Yorker with half a palate. You can go to an "American" restaurant and spend €65 on a more than regrettable meal of questionable provenance and even more questionable culinary merit. Or (providing you can hook up a discount pass) you can spend practically nothing to while away a full day of 100% genuine USA! USA! USA! Americana at Parc Disneyland Paris. Or whatever they're calling it now.

Yes, the food is crap. And yes, once you're inside – pass or not – they're going to milk you for every crisp Euro note in your pocket. But isn't that what it's all about? For one day, you can take in the crass commercialism, mass merchandising, and continuous hard sell that is America's gift to the world. And hot damn if it isn't FUN.

Very old San Francisco

For something like 14 hours straight we did seriously American stuff like have our spines realigned by Thunder Mountain, queue forever for Indiana Jones, watch janky video that hasn't been updated since 1987 on Star Tours, and sample all the marvels of hallucinogenic-inspired psychedelia in any attraction having to do with Alice in Wonderland. Pirates of the Caribbean brought back a flood of adolescent memories from Southern California, with the plastic artifice of SoCal (minus all the fake boobs) quickly replaced by the genuine faux San Francisco veneer of the Victorian Arcade alongside Main Street USA. It was disturbing how comfortable it all felt, especially the little vignette of San Francisco.

While others were rushing to their favorite part of the park or lining up for one of the umpteen parades down Main Street, I found it perfectly acceptable to park our asses in a booth in the Cable Car Bake Shop and futz around with my camera. Surprisingly, the cheesecake and carrot cake we had were much more authentic than almost all others we've had in Paris and – y'all ready for this? – cheaper.

Alannah about to take her first – and last – bite
of a candy apple. Thank goodness we have
an awesome dentist.

This set up the order of the day. As others ran berserk trying to get on to every ride and see every show, we took it easy and soaked up the America all around us. Cartoonishly giant hot dog? Check. Disgusting, tooth-rotting candy apple? Check. Rolls of fat pouring out over elastic-waisted shorts? Double, triple, quadruple check.

To be fair on that last point, we weren't surrounded by stereotypical fat Americans. Not the whole time.

(Which begs the question: Why do so many Americans come all the way to France to see a carbon copy of what's in California or Florida?)

Because when you leave the rarified air of Paris for even more touristy locales, you will inevitably run into our European cousins, who seem to have equal love for huge waistlines, racing team baseball caps, and talking loud. Really loud. In fact, over the course of the day, I started to suspect that the reason they stopped calling it "EuroDisney" and simply changed it to "Disneyland Paris" is because the former made it too easy to lampoon the park as "EuroTrashDisney." It was like People of Wal-Mart, only we're in Europe. Yet it was all so middle America.

Despite a few chuckles here and there, though, we didn't really mock that much. Yes, I sent out a few snide missives with the #americaFyeah tag throughout the day, but really, we did just have a lot of fun setting aside all the Parisian bullshit pretense and being as American as we could be.

Steampunky Discoveryland

One exception to all the USAiness of Disneyland is Discoveryland, the French version of the woefully outdated Tomorrowland from the original theme park. In a very smart move, Discoveryland is almost completely themed after French sci-fi master Jules Verne's aesthetic – call it Victorian space-age or Steampunk or Art Deco Futuristic. Rather than a stark 1960's-1970's vision of the future, Discoveryland is an almost romantic, dreamy vision of copper and brass and swooping lines and shiny rivets and... Well, it's just pretty. And the adapted version of Space Mountain to go with it is possibly the most awesomely insane roller coaster I've ever been on in my life. Without a single loop or suspended car or stand-up gimmickery, it kicked my ass every which way and then back several times again, combining the classic charm of the original ride with the how-many-Gs-can-you-stand brute force of modern amusements.

Space Mountain – like so many of the things we did – made me giddy all over. And I needed it. We spend so much time in Paris finding the best foods, visiting the coolest galleries, queuing up for sold-out shows, or simply trying to make ends meet. It was liberating to get barely 40 minutes away and suddenly not give a shit. Alannah made fun of me that evening for how I jumped up and down like an excited little kid upon seeing Remy from Ratatouille (or rather, some pimply kid in a furry suit) on one of the parade floats.

I can't remember the last time an exclusive run at an art exhibit or an amuse-gueule at a fancy restaurant made me feel that way. But this is to be expected. Cuz you can take the boy out of America, but you can't take the America out of the boy.

And for one day, all this boy wanted was an ice cold Coke, ballpark quality food, thrill rides and some big fuckin' fireworks. Check.

__
You can see the whole set of Disneyland Paris photos here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tavallai/sets/72157624305757587/

Italy: It comes down to style

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 21:43:00 +0000

This is three weeks overdue. I've been back in France for 20 full days now, and I've barely bothered to do much chronicling for myself. It's not that I'm overloaded with work. Or too busy. Or have better things to do. It's just that since being in Italy, I went from do-everything-at-a-breakneck-pace American style to a bit more of a Mediterranean tempo. Maybe it's the heat. Or maybe my head's still in the clouds a bit. Never mind that there were hardly any clouds.

Or maybe it's because I enjoyed Italy so much this time around, that the old lady and I have been chasing that high, a futile endeavor as any addict will tell you. It's never as good as that first hit... or the second, as the case may be.

Biking around Lucca: Far more rewarding than any
museum packed with tourists.

The first time we went to Italy, we didn't particularly love it. Some parts of it we just hated. The constant fleecing by vendors and restaurateurs. The hidden charges. The lines. The lines to get in line and be fleeced by hidden charges. Italy was like one big tourist trap. It was up and down for me last time around, but mostly a downer for Alannah as she stayed on for another week, playing tour guide for my mother and aunts who'd come from Japan.

The difference, this time, was major. No, it was not my mom and aunts – they're wonderful to have around. We'd want them to come visit every year if they could. Rather, it was the style of travel. Whereas in the presence of middle-aged Japanese ladies, one has to hit every attraction in the guidebook and eat what's supposedly "typical," this time we did it our way: No big museums, no cafes on main piazzas, and most certainly not any place with an English or Japanese menu. We just hung out, ate, cooked, and most important of all, spent time with our friends and family and locals instead of dashing from point to point.

Granted, we did get around quite a bit. We blazed ourselves a nice rail-trail from Pisa to Portofino to Cinque Terre to Florence to Lucca, back to Florence and Pisa again [click links for photo sets], but with no stress. No real schedule. No must-do's. Other than eat, analyze, and rate gelato at every place possible, of course.

The ginormous brioche gelato. A little bird told
me this Italian treat will be served in Paris soon.

Like last time, we stopped near Portofino on the Ligurian coast to see my cousin, the rockstar sushi chef. This time around, he's got a wife and new baby – it's amazing how much can happen in a year and a half – which made the family time that much more special. Since we'd already done the tourist thing of strolling the entire windy coastal route between Portofino and Rapallo last time, it gave us more time for family bonding over beer, wine, sushi, and more beer. I'm not sure anything can match the sushi-high we got there, so we haven't even bothered going to our favorite joint in Paris since we've been back. (Sorry Andy, we'll be back soon!)

We left Santa Margherita bummed that we only had one night to spend with our growing family, but we knew what was next: The awesome beauty of the Cinque Terre (see previous blog post).

Vernazza - one of the five towns that comprise the Cinque Terre

His royal gawkiness Rick Steves may have blown the place up, but even with gaggles of tourists hunched over their guidebooks, the rugged natural beauty and fresh ocean air trump anything the ugliest of mankind can throw at it. For centuries these five villages were the symbol of steadfast resistance to Genovese rule in Liguria. Now the vertical-gardening rabblerousers are holding their own against millions of tourists, and they're doing a damn fine job of it. The whole region was even declared a national park to keep it from being spoiled by t-shirt vendors and faux Prada bag hawkers.

Only half a day was spent there, hiking the stone steps and paved seaside trails and smelling the ocean mist and lemon trees on either side. But we took note of all the vacation rental signs – in the stunning Vernazza and Manarola in particular – vowing we'll have to spend one of our long, French-style vacations here in the future. At the very least to eat Ligurian-style seafood again...

Spaghetti all'inferno at La Scogliera, Manarola.
We've recreated this one perfectly at home,
except the octopus isn't nearly as fresh this far inland.
Chase, chase, chase the dragon...

Alas, we had places to go and people to see, so after a brief stop to change trains in sad little La Spezia – where at least there was a so-so gelato shop open – we got into Florence by evening to see my other cousin (from the US) and family.

We had a blast in Florence. (See previous post.) Reunited with one of my lifelong best friends, his lovely wife, and two adorable kids, it was at once a bit odd (I feel so old!) and at the same time refreshing (it's a whole new gig!) playing the family role as a traveler. That, and we had our own kitchen.

The best meals are the shared ones. Cin cin!

There was nothing more inspiring than to have the Mercato Centrale just steps away from the front door. It's not that we lack great markets in Paris, but to have one gigantic one that's open every day (except Sunday, of course) was fantastic. Each morning, I'd get up with the burning desire to go to the market, if only to get a couple of items. Of course, I was largely motivated by the fact that Nerbone starts serving lunch at 7:00 am.

Nerbone is a Florentine institution that's been feeding market people for years. That means having lunch in the morning. Their traditional best-sellers are bollito (boiled beef) and lampredotto (tripe, from the fourth stomach of a cow). And while neither may sound appetizing to the typical palate, believe me when I say I still wake up in the morning wishing I could run downstairs for a sandwich made with these.

This dragon, by the way, has been halfway chased down. While I haven't yet found a proper triperie in Paris to make my own lampredotto, I was able to recreate Nerbone's panino bollito, albeit using baguette for the bread. In fact, I've been able to pack it and assemble it for lunch at work in times of need.

In addition to laying waste to some ginormous bistecca alla fiorentina and mountains of gelato, we also drank like kings – and for cheap. During one of our hunts for local foods, we stumbled upon a mescita (stand-up wine bar) and bottle shop that I found highly reminiscent of my favorite Parisian joint. The guys at Fratelli Zanobini, while perhaps less bearded, are a lot like the guys at Le Baron Rouge: Friendly, happy to recommend plenty of wines (many of small, local production, and most at below 2 euro a glass) and willing to humor tourists. Needless to say, we ended up making a pitstop in here every day.

To burn off all the calories, we did some biking in under the sweltering Tuscan sun in Lucca. A remarkable change of pace, the town was almost moribund, and it seemed almost everywhere we went short of the central luxury shopping district (ugh) we had to ourselves. Our group took over a backyard patio and scarfed down lardo pizzas and huge German beers (a happy alternative to the Heineken-owned Moretti pisswater that's all over the place), cooled off in a gelato shop (of course), and freewheeled all around the ancient city walls on our baby seat-equipped cruisers that cost hardly anything to rent.

Cousins and the kidlets and cameras.
I swear, I'll get back to shooting myself bungie-jumping
and partying with half naked drunk chicks again. Maybe.

After a couple more days of Florence, we went our separate ways, with family off to Rome and beyond, and us to Pisa before catching our flight home. It was lucky that we'd decided to spend our last night there... I had thought of maybe going back up to Liguria – it's not very far – for one more night (and more sushi), but we thought better of it and stuck around Pisa. It's best not to rely on Italian regional train schedules when there are flights involved, after all.

This was the best decision, because Pisa fucking rocks. Simply doing a day-trip to Pisa to see the leaning tower – as most people do – really doesn't do the city justice. Granted, we were gifted a killer room in a luxury bed-and-breakfast due what may have been a booking mix-up (I can hold my own in Italian, but not enough to know what a front-desker is furiously discussing with a hotel owner), but all we did there was sleep anyway.

And even then, if I'd had any energy left, I'd have opted to stay out all night... on a Sunday, at that!

Once you've seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Battisteria and the Piazza dei Miracoli (which are all in the same place, hence why it's such a simple day trip), Pisa begs not to be explored for its sights, but to be thoroughly enjoyed. It's a university town, so it leans toward being funky, alternative, and affordable. The Piazza della Vettovaglie, which serves as the central market during the day, becomes a hub of affordable but hoppin' bars and restaurants, bustling during aperitivi (early evening drinks and happy hour buffets) and beyond.

Aperitivi in Pisa. Excellent wine at reasonable prices,
all the happy hour food you can handle, sunshine in the evening.

We drank there. We nibbled there. We had late night drunken street food dinner there. And in the morning we had breakfast there. And all that on top of a marathon of going out elsewhere... The finest Italian microbrew (as in, brewed on premises, hoppy, and not Moretti or Nastro Azzurri) at Orzo Bruno. The reputedly best cecina (chickpea galettes, not unlike socca from the south of France) in all of Italy at Il Montino. (Their pizza was only so-so.) And – naturally – the most amazing gelato at De' Coltelli, an ice creamery run by descendants of the man who first sold ice cream to the public in Paris.

Again, we avoided the tourist traps (save for the leaning tower and trying the Bottega del Gelato) so we could simply hang out instead, and we were rewarded mightily. We skipped going in the Duomo – one of a gazillion cathedrals in Europe, whoopie – and dispensed with getting pastries at the well-known but overrated Salza. Instead, we followed our nose – and admittedly some pointers from Lonely Planet – and wound up having a brilliant night.

By the time we had to catch our 8-minute train to the airport the following afternoon, we were sad to leave. Sad to leave our family and friends. Sad to leave Italy. And surprisingly enough, sad to leave Pisa. Most people only give it a few hours, and we found that even one overnighter isn't enough.

Drinking chilled beers with the arty kids... Cooling down with a cup of gelato while sitting on the banks of the Arno... Walking under the yellow-tinted streetlights over centuries-old cobblestone... Sipping wine in the piazza... Talking with local artisans about things as simple as coffee or cured meat... Watching the local pizzaiolo blow his top and start yelling at someone in the way you only see in movies... (That last one was awwwwesome!) We were able to take in all these stereotypically Italian things in one place, without the hassle of trinket-vendors or cover charges or multilingual menus. And yet there was plenty more I still wanted to try out.

This time around, we were able to enjoy Italy on our own terms, in our own style: Eating and drinking our way through it.

Along the way, I think I picked up some insight and expertise.

Insight: The way and the reason I travel continues to evolve. Whereas I used to hunt for adventure and new experiences by going out of my comfort zone (bungie jumping, swimming in crocodile-infested or shark-infested waters, eating bugs), I now find that it's perfectly fun and rewarding to do more "family-oriented" things. Perhaps because for such a long time, that's what was outside of my comfort zone. Playing with infants and making sure the little ones like what I prepare for dinner is a bigger test to me than launching myself off a bridge. I can throw myself down the side of a mountain for no good reason, but can I rise to the challenge of keeping a child entertained or quiet on a two-hour train ride? I can party past dawn with a bevy of hot Scandinavian backpackers, but can I actually be happier going to bed after a quiet bottle of vino rosso with my wife? Yes, on both counts.

Expertise: The search for authenticity is often bogus. You can look for what's "real" based on your experiences or a particular paradigm, but does it matter? It really boils down to what you like. This trip I hunted down and tried what's supposed to be the best of the best food and drink from the best purveyors. Pesto from Liguria. Limoncello from Cinque Terre. Lardo di Colonnata. Prosciutto di Parma. Salsiccia di cinghiale. Brunello di Montalcino. Gelato from every freakin' reputable gelateria in Tuscany. And I gained an appreciation for new flavors (lampredotto, for one). Through it all, I learned the paradigm for what is best: Whatever is the freshest, simplest, and most true to the base ingredients. Because that's what I like.

So in coming back to Paris, despite how hard we chase the high, we're never really going to catch it.

The things you enjoy when you travel are often satisfying not only because of what, but when and where. The panino lampredotto is good not only because Nerbone makes tripe, of all things, taste like heaven, but also because you're having it at the unusual hour of 7:30 am with a €3 carafe of red wine on the side. The Chaianti classico riserva is enjoyable not only because it's well made, but because it's the man who made it pouring it for you.

That said, we have run into some success in the dragon hunt.

After our long project of trying every gelato shop in Paris (a lot of which are barely edible garbage), we found one that fit the above paradigm of freshness, simplicity, and respecting the ingredient. (I wrote about it, Mary - the Gelato Shop, for VINGT Paris magazine as soon as Alannah had sniffed it out.) The snowball effect of others catching on to it has apparently been really good for their business, and although we have to wait a little bit longer to get a scoop, we still get the individual treatment and passionate talks about the ingredients that made us love the spot in the first place.

Our neighborhood Italian favorite Rossi and Co. – fully subscribed to the fresh/simple paradigm and on the newly-appreciated family-friendly tip – was recently discovered by the trendoids at Le Fooding. This means that while they'll probably be inundated with the foodie version of mindless fashionistas, they'll probably also keep their 5 little tables occupied and be raking in the dough to keep them in business. Their food is dead simple, but it's – bringing in time and place again – the hours you spend yakking with the proprietor and his wife and making faces at their baby that makes it that much more like what we loved about Italy.

In all, via the latest travels I've stopped looking for what's real, but instead for what's good and provides a good experience. What traveling and sampling and tasting and talking has done is help me establish my own baseline for good.

And that's starting to be what traveling and visiting are all about for me: Not where you go, but what you bring back.

(For the record, I brought back a huge supply of cuore di prosciutto and lardo di colonnata. Come on over.)

Have you met David Wang?

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 06:19:00 +0000

Two nights later, I'm still haunted by one striking, iconic image of renaissance art. It's everywhere in Florence, from the original at the Accademia to reproductions around town to tourist stands to the side of buses.

Yes, you could say Italy has a rejuvenating effect: It has turned me into a 14 year-old boy again.

I Like Pisa. A lot.

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:55:00 +0000

Before I make my usual trip retrospective – which may take a while to compose – I'd like to say that Pisa is highly underrated as a destination, and that it merits more than just a day trip to see the Leaning Tower (Torre Pendente). It really has a lot going for it, from excellent microbrew to cycle-friendly paths.

That said, here's my take on the the typical stupid tourist photo of the Leaning Tower:

What, you thought I'd actually stand there and pretend I was pushing the thing over?

Manic Florence

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 21:23:00 +0000

The last time we came to Italy, I had to bail on the trip early to go back to Paris and work. Alannah continued on with my mom and aunts whom – while nice – are about as fun to travel with at three older Japanese ladies can be. Which isn't to say that they're lousy company. On the contrary, they're fantastic. But they're of the see-every-monument-and-museum mindset.

When she found an unsecured Wifi connection, Alannah got on to Facebook and posted:

Without constant November rain & with my sweetheart, Firenze is a bit more enjoyable than last time (view from my bed) http://img.ly/1rqg

I hope she was talking about me. Inspired by her picture-says-a-thousand-words mentality (and because I rambled on and on and on in the last post) I present to you the expected sadness and the surprising joy that Florence has brought in the last couple of days.

Being in an area packed with tourist-trap restaurants makes us sad.

The poorly timed thunderstorms make me sad.

Sudden sunshine and having to borrow cheap ladies' sunglasses makes me sad.

Going from rainy to hot-enough-to-instantly-melt-your-gelato makes Alannah sad.

Some loud Spanish puta getting in the way of all my shots because her
dumb ass kept dropping her coat in puddles makes me mad.

Sharing an ice cold Duff beer with my cousin makes me happy.

Peering out the window and seeing our neighbors drying bacon and other
piggy products makes me happy. And hungry.

Boiled beef (bollito) or tripe (lampredotto) panini at Nerbone make me happy.
Especially with a carafe of wine for breakfast.

Bistecca a la Fiorentina makes us 1 kilo and 50 grams happier.
(We shared it.)

Making dinner for the family makes me really happy.
(And hopefully them, too!)

Being the dynamic duo of Aunt Alannah and Uncle Omid makes us happy.

But above all, seeing my gal happy makes me happy.

I'm going to bed. Happy.

As Advertised

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 21:15:00 +0000

When does the 3-hour journey from Rapallo to Florence take over 11?

When you do the right thing and catch a bit of Cinque Terre along the way.

I've been wanting to go to Cinque Terre for years. Ever since I first saw Europe Through the Back Door (which wasn't at all what I thought it would be, but instead a travel show by Rick Steves) I thought, "If I ever get to Italy, I'm going to Cinque Terre."

Our train ride from Rapallo to La Spezia (the nearest city with left luggage facilities, we were told) was nothin' but class. Three minutes before the fast train was set to depart Rapallo, I rolled up to the ticket window. "Due biglietti per La Spezia per favore," I asked. The lady behind the bullet-proof glass machine-gunned something back. Uhhh... "Lei capisce l'inglese?" I sheepishly replied.

"Dee tren leaves now. Impossible to sell tiiiicket! You take next train. A el dieci. Ten."

I felt as though I was being scolded. It's not my fault Ligurian cab drivers take their sweet time getting you to the station. I bowed my head and bought the tickets for the upcoming slower train. For 2 euros or so, I couldn't complain.

Alannah had already made her way to the platform with our bag. The idea was if I could buy a ticket quickly enough, we'd hop on the fast train. I passed under the station and got up to the platform to deliver the bad news, but the 9:23 express to La Spezia was still there. A conductor was walking by.

"Scusi, scusi!" We ran after her, waving our ticket and asking, "This train – go – La Spezia?"

"Yes, but not with this ticket." We fully knew this and put on our dumb American sad puppy faces. "You can pay supplement. But you must get on now. Follow me."

We followed her to the front of the train and hopped on. She punched something into what looked like a relic of a Palm pad, accepted a 10-euro note, and set us on our way. "This is first class car, but it's OK. You can stay here."

Thanking her graciously, we installed ourselves in a private compartment with its own sliding glass door, reclining seats, electronic blinds, and blessed air conditioning. All of a sudden, we wished this was the slow train all the way to Florence.

La Spezia was a mess. The train platform was absolutely packed with every American with a passport who'd heard of Rick Steves, sporting Nikes and clutching their copies of Europe Through the Back Door. (Again, not nearly as enticing as it sounds.) The left luggage service took forever and two days for me to drop off one article. And by the time our local train that would backtrack us into Cinque Terre was ready to board, it was already hot and packed with loud Americans. As if hearing the repeated "Oh mah gawds" of a bunch of Florida sorority sisters wasn't enough, imagine putting up with it when getting stuck in train tunnels over and over.

So far, I was not impressed by my Cinque Terre experience. Thanks, Mr. Steves.

Vernazza

Any and all disappointment melted away after peeling away from the train platform and into Vernazza. After about three minutes, it was already decided that our next Italian vacation travels require at least a few days here. A cove with a tiny beach and turquoise water... Cute little pasticcerias with delicious little pastries of which we had to partake right away... Twisted little alleys and stairways... Despite being firmly on the tourist track, it was a place I was happy to explore. At least while waiting for our ferry to the next town. No more hot trains, thankyouverymuch.

What I really wanted was to tuck into some seafood at one of the numerous – get this – affordable trattorias and ristorantes along the cobbled streets. "It's as slow as France," Alannah warned me. "Maybe slower. We would miss our boat."

Mia moglie

Curses! Foiled again! We'd have to eat in the next town along the way, but at least I had a boat ride to look forward to. I'm not sure the boat had a name, but if it did it'd have to be Italian for "The Vomit Comet." This boat was so buoyant, it would pitch up and down at the slightest ripple in the water. Despite having pretty decent sea legs, I was almost ready to hurl off the side of the boat as we made our way along the Ligurian coast to Manarola. Between the bouncing and the diesel fumes of the engine, I was feeling a bit queasy. Yet, somehow, it was all still fun. Probably because watching a bunch of old pensioners hang on for dear life while a vessel rocks violently is, well, funny. And because my wife looks awesome with a sea breeze blowing through her hair like some 80s rock video.

The rockin' boat tugged and pulled at its ropes when we arrived at port, and the gangplank nearly kept popping off. It's as though we were on a stormy sea, all while enjoying warm, gorgeous weather. It didn't make much sense, but I was happy to be off the boat and ready to find some food. Manarola seemed a touch more modern and a tiny bit less charming than Vernazza, but that's like comparing Greta Scacchi and Isabella Rosselini. You'd find nary a captain who wouldn't still dock his ferry there.

And while Vernazza's a touch sexier, Manarola's where you want to eat out. At least, so we felt looking at all the menus. We finally decided on La Scogleria which, eye-rollingly enough, has a little temple to Rick Steves out front. But the man knows his stuff, and the food was spectacular in that simple-but-astounding way we've come to expect in Liguria.

A bombing run of rain

We sat on the covered terrace, sucking down various seafood, pasta, and Cinque Terre specialties and polishing off a bottle of the local white. Then we realized why the boat was rocking earlier: A giant thunderstorm moved in, dousing the coast with a torrential downpour. The waiter brought us our check and told us we can stay as long as we like. No one else would be coming in in this weather! "This is like one of those summer storms," I assured myself. "It'll go away in five minutes. Ten, tops." But it didn't. It just kept pouring and pouring. The thunder and lightning getting bigger and bigger.

And finally, as if by magic as is usually the case with these things, it went away. And thus we could start our walk along the Via dell'Amore (Lover's Lane) to the next town. While utterly cheesy, it's appropriately named. The 1km paved walk between Manarola and Riomaggiore is disgustingly romantic, with a beautiful vista along every inch of it. There's even a bar mid-way, perched over a cliff with views of the swirling ocean below, and local grappa and organic limoncino at enticingly low prices. Add to that some obscure 80s new wave on the sound system, and you had my ideal bar.

With a grappa buzz and gorgeous sunshine – that's how you enjoy Lover's Lane. Of course, it helps to have someone you love with you. We didn't do the cheesy thing and buy an 8-euro padlock to put our names on or anything like that, but we did get pretty gross with the picture taking and all that.

Locked in

The path led us to Riomaggiore, which was.. umm.. there's a train station there. And – contrary to all the info out there – a left luggage office. Exciting.

Sleep train

Fortunately, the train back to La Spezia – while still packed with fellow Americans – was a bit more roomy and a lot more air conditioned. Despite the trip back being only 10 minutes, it seems everyone took advantage and took a nap. Again, I wish the train could've been longer. La Spezia was hot. It was dry. And with Wednesday being a national holiday, everything was closed.

Well, almost everything. We managed to find a gelateria that was open. And if there's anything Alannah won't say no to, it's an offer of gelato. I had something that was like a marshmallow fluff meringue. She got the golosone, which means "gourmand" or in some cases "fat kid." Maybe that's more my flavor!

The main drag in
La Spezia

The most excitement we got in La Spezia was at the left luggage office. While we got back to the train station in time for our 5:41 to Florence, the guy holding my suitcase hostage had other ideas. As is often the case in Italy, the left luggage job isn't a busy one. Which means a lot of smoke breaks. Or really, it's a day-long smoke break punctuated by occasionally having to take or give back people's luggage.

I rang the buzzer once. A minute later, a second time. Two minutes after that, a third time. I told Alannah she'd better just go to the platform with our ticket, and I'd run over if I ever got the bag out. Five minutes later, I started pushing the button repeatedly. The trouble with a remote buzzer is you don't hear it. You don't know if it's working. Or if someone on the other end is listening. I buzzed a few more times.

Eventually, a man in a green Trenitalia shirt started walking down from the other end of the platform, waving, "I'm coming!" He certainly didn't look like he was in a rush. Never mind that he works at, you know, a place that works on tight timetables.

Well, we made it on the train. Barely. But we made it.

Having enjoyed our experience in the morning, I bought first-class tickets to Florence. We'd enjoy reclining seats, air conditioning, and our own private compart –– what the? For the next 2 hours and 40 minutes, we enjoyed stifling heat, stiff seats, and Italian youth with no concept of voice modulation.

Oh well, you can't have it all. And despite some wonky transport, we'd had an ace day. We arrived in Florence in the evening, in time to meet up with my cousin Neema and his family (who've come from California) at the apartment we've rented for the rest of the week. They'll mind the kids. We'll cook. But for now, we sleep.

Nessun dorma

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 23:45:00 +0000

It's currently 1:45am. This will likely not be posted until I can get to the room with the CAT5 cable. Maybe check my email.

Sushi in Italy? Si, signore!

The plan is to get up early in the morning and hike (part of) the Cinque Terre.

The trouble is, I'm still sleep deprived, dead tired, and sloshed on a melange of Ligurian white wine, northern Italian Gewurztraminer, and Japanese beer. All at the hands of my cousin, who beyond being a kick-ass sushi chef apparently makes the best Genovese pesto and trofie around. Needless to say, I'm stuffed.Yet I'm a bit restless. After sunset aperitivi overlooking the Ligurian coast, the most amazing salmon sushi I've had in forever (the finest salmon in Paris pales in comparison, even though it's all from Norway – must be magic fairy dust), and bonding with new family members, the first day of this holiday has set the bar pretty high. Tonight's sushi exemplifies what we ideally want from our experiences: Simplicity of purpose, clarity of expression, and the need to say "wow."

Cinque Terre better be as cool as advertised. The leaning tower of Pisa better have some gangsta lean. And Florence, well, I better to go into an actual food coma there. Or I'm just going to come back here and eat sushi.

Besides sushi, my cousin
serves up cute baby.

All posturing aside, I could pack up and go home tonight and not be disappointed. Despite the impossible roads, dearth of internet, and some of the most horrendous fashion sense this side of the Châtelet-Les Halles train station, the Portofino area is without a doubt somewhere I could come back to over and over, even if just for one night. The Mediterranean gently lapping at the rocky shore... The colorful sailboats and even more colorful beach huts... The walls of star jasmine and various other flora allowed to grow wild... The friendly locals who won't hesitate to introduce themselves. (I must've said "Ciao!" at least 96,000 times tonight.) If anything, for a cranky city boy like me it's all very humbling and, as I sit up in bed meditating on plans for tomorrow, a little bit zen.

Santa Margherita di Ligure

I have a tendency not to relax nor – as you can see – unplug on vacation. If it were up to me, I'd probably be cliff diving or free climbing at every opportunity. Luckily I'm surrounded by people who are ensuring I simply go with the flow.

Hmm, isn't one of the villages of Cinque Terre perched on a cliff?

Ran off to Italy

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 15:14:00 +0000

Crazy Train

I'm writing this on a rather nice Trenitalia "Eurostar" train (not to be confused with the Channel Tunnel train) making its way from Pisa to Genoa. There's air conditioning, a set of power outlets, reclining seats, and just about everything I've come to expect from France's high-speed TGV. Only it's slow. Butt-ass slow.

But that's how it is in Italy. While it may be the home of Ferrari, it's also the home of Fiat, which as everyone knows means "Fix it again, Tony." They say that because it doesn't work. Much like the train ticket machines here. Or the bus ticket machines. Or the ticket validators. So you take your sweet time. Which is fine, because so far it means we've skipped waiting in line, ridden transit for free, and despite being way behind schedule, I'm feeling like I'm on vacation. Because I am.

We've been on the ground for less than two hours now but I'm already immersed in stereotypical Italy. Old men of few words. Public employees who don't give a damn. And getting hook-ups for speaking Italian. Never mind that I don't, really. I just know enough words to come across like those old men of few words. My little bit of Italian is delivered in a curt manner but properly accented, with a goofy American smile. I probably look psychotic. Which in local terms probably translates to "cut me a deal or I'll cut you." Or perhaps I've watched too many spaghetti westerns.

At any rate, I'm proud of my ability to communicate. Which will really be put to the test tonight. Before the train reaches Genoa, we'll get off at Rapallo on the Ligurian coast, spitting distance from the ritzy Portofino. He're we'll meet up with Makoto – my cousin who's appeared several times in this (suddenly realizing it's very old) blog now – which makes him a bit of a recurring character. We're about the same age, sharing the same love of food, drink, and travel, and some crazy people say we even look related (no small feat for mutts). The one thing we don't have in common, though, is language. His English and French are about on par with my Japanese and Italian. Which is to say we're going to sound like old men of few words. Luckily, I imagine there will be a lot of food or drink between us.

Our wives, who probably don't share any common languages with one another, will fortunately have a baby between them. (Theirs, not ours.)

All in all, it's the start of a week with family from afar, all converging on one magical, boot-shaped wang dangling into the Mediterranean. Of course, I may not get to actually post this until the end of the week. Because like change machines, ice cold drinks, and classy sunglasses, internet is hard to come by in Italy. Which only means you have more time to actually enjoy it. And I'm going to start doing that by closing the laptop cover, and staring out the window... NOW.

Ciao!

P.S. - Wow, I'm able to post this mere minutes after arriving in Rapallo. There's DSL at this house! Only I'm tethered to a little stool in the corner using a CAT5 cable, as fully functional wireless is a distant dream. :-/

The End of the Universe

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:48:00 +0000

The previous post wrapped up with "it was exhausting, so you'll have to wait 'til I recover a bit if you want to know more about the trip itself."

Well, it's been over a week and I'm still exhausted.

Going from not traveling nearly enough to suit my tastes to two foreign trips in two consecutive weeks can take it out of you. Follow that up with a pretty busy week (work, marathon eating and drinking events, and more concerts) and you've got a pretty tired boy. Add to that the dangerously low serotonin levels brought upon by devastating travel withdrawal, and you've got yourself a worn-out addict with a case of the DTs.

And all I did was go to two neighboring countries. (Three, if you count a couple of hours grabbing a beer in central Brussels.)

But going to Germany, despite the transit hassles we encountered, may have saved my sanity. Because I needed a fix. I needed an encounter with the unfamiliar. A language I don't quite understand. Social mores different than my own (and those I've grown accustomed to). Food and drink I can't easily get. Figuring out how to get around. Ümlauts över vöwels.

Our arrival in Cologne (Köln if you like the aforementioned umlauts) was unspectacular. You learn after you've gotten off most European trains a number of times that it's the same drill... Find the exit from the platform, go to the main plaza in front of the station, scope the old town center architecture, and try to find some overpriced place to grab a bite. This is made extra de rigueur when you're carting around a wheelie bag over cobblestone for the umpteenth time.

Then you look at the ornate detail of the Dom, its unpolished facade of hundreds of years of rain and grime, its massive size, and you stop thinking of how, yes, it does like every other cathedral in Europe, and actually take in its glory, its unique spot in time and space, that you are indeed miles away from home.

And then you take your first sip of a freshly brewed Kölsch beer, and order another glass, and another, and yet another... You're only a few hours from home but in an entirely different dimension when it comes to beer. And sausage. Bring on the Leberwurst. Bring on the Blutwurst. Bring on anything that's been cured for cryin' out loud. We're in Germany!

That's just the first stop. A few more beers and a Bratwurst later, we were traversing the plaza in front of another train station, in another town center, making a beeline for Düsseldorf's... Japantown. (As mentioned previously, the city is home to Europe's third largest Japanese community.)

I'd handled myself just fine in Köln, mostly squeezing out what little I remembered from my year of German in high school. (Please don't ask how many deca-- er-- years ago that was.) Besides, ordering beers is a matter of holding up the right number of fingers, starting with the thumb, as any fan of Tarantino movies probably knows. After all, how hard is it to hold up your thumb and index finger every five minutes to have two fresh beers brought to you?

Ordering at a Japanese restaurant is another story. The thumb-index finger thing will only go as far as getting you a table for two. I stammered and stuttered and stalled, failing to get out enough German to order two kinds of ramen and a large bottle of still mineral water. Then it hit me: Speak Japanese!

I was relieved I could actually complete my thoughts (despite my 2nd grade-level skills). The very Japanese waiter also seemed relieved not to have to speak German. Alles klar, ウエイターsan! At this point, it officially became one of those days: French in the morning, Dutch (or Flemish if you swing that way) at midday, German in the afternoon, and Japanese in the evening.

(We went back for more German at night by downing a bunch of Altbier at Brauerei Uerige.)

By the time we were making our way to Dortmund late at night – hooray for 24-hour train service – my brain nearly hit language overload whilst overhearing some passersby speaking Farsi.

Beer of the Universe

Our Dortmund-based friends Alex and Thomas were real champs for hosting us, as well as Amanda and Tara who'd come over from California and Canada, respectively. We got a little sleep after a (very) late night chat session – something at one point dubbed a "DM Pajama Party" by one of our motley, sleep-deprived crew.

The next day saw us getting up early (well, noon is early when you get to bed at 5:30 in the morning) so we could get back to Düsseldorf for lunch. The mission: Meet up with more of the Black Swarm for a pre-concert session at the local Brauerei.

The venue was Braueri Im Füchschen, the beer was Alt, and the Leberkloße was pretty damn good. (All the food deets and pix can be found here.) And I never thought I'd say this regarding a trip to Germany, but the service was – at all points during our sojourn in the Rheinland – warm and friendly. Germans have a reputation for brusqueness, and it can definitely come across that way, but I can see right through that facade, dammit. Well, at least *I* think it's funny when you order a Coke and the waiter repeats it back as Amerikaner Champagne. But maybe I've already become a haughty Frenchman at heart.

As most of the group made their way to the concert venue to snag good seats, a handful of us walked through the Aldstadt and to the Rhine, taking in the glorious sunshine and the surprisingly magnificent views.

Before this trip, all I knew of Düsseldorf was that Augustus Gloop, the fat boy in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was from there. And he's not even real. After strolling the old town, Japantown, the fashion district and the waterfront, I'm now sure I want to come back and explore a little further.

Naturally, the abundance of beer and sausages is a bit alluring, too.

As much as I could've spent all day and all night trying to immerse myself in Düsseldorf, we did have a concert to catch.

The Depeche Mode concert was the focal point of this trip, as it was the raison d'être of pretty much all my non-business travel in the last year. It's something I find a bit shameful. Here I am, a travel junkie living in one of the world's greatest jumping-off points for all kinds of adventure, and what drags me out of my Parisian hermit cave? A freakin' band I've seen a gazillion times since the 10th grade.

But in all, I think it's a good thing. After over two years of being beaten down by French bureaucracy, adjusting to life in a new country and culture, and having little to no "fun money," it was good to have a motivator to get out and do what always brought me so much joy, and to share it with my wife. So what if they practically never change their setlist? Who cares that over the last three tours, we've seen essentially the same show day-in, day-out? My favorite band going on tour gave me the push I needed to get back on the proverbial travel horse again. A show goes on sale, I buy my ticket, then I worry about how I'm getting there.

And it turned out really well. Our first show of the tour was the band's first, too: The warm-up gig in Luxembourg. On the home front, we saw them at the ridiculously huge Stade de France, and then made our first trip to the Alsace region for the show in Nancy with a busload (literally) of French (edit: and South American and English and East European...) fans. The sudden addition of a charity gig in London made for not only the best Depeche Mode show ever (with insane surprises and actual setlist changes), but also helped me fall back in love with London after a few years of discord. And the Düsseldorf trip only happened because the re-scheduled gig became the last one of the entire tour. This made it a special night for the band, the culmination of a tour that at the beginning started to bear the nickname "Tour of the Uni-curse." It was also a very special night for the fans, who were treated to the band's most energetic performance ever, on a stage uncommonly loaded with humor and emotion.

Though it was exhausting (and I only went to a handful of dates!) and though I'd gotten more than my fill, I was, as the picture might indicate, a bit bummed that it was all over. Because as with all the bands I follow religiously and with all travels on which I embark, it's never so much about the activities as it is about the people.

Depeche Mode could break up tomorrow and I'd be upset because it'd mean fewer opportunities to meet and commune with the fans I've come to know, love (and sometimes loathe) over the years. It's like a really big, often dysfunctional family that see each other every few years when a new album comes out and we figure out which shows we can attend, who can crash where, and which will be the "special" must-go gigs. We're like Deadheads, only we have jobs.

It may be the music of Martin, Dave and (I suppose) Fletch that bring us together, but when I play back all the tour experiences in my mind, it's the folks on this side of the stage barrier I think of most. So thanks to the Tour of the Universe, I'll be looking back at memories of Alex, Thomas, David, Robert, Jean-Baptiste, Christian, Jan, Tara, Amanda, Mike, Sandy, Carsten... you get the picture.

Most of all, I'll remember one night at the Royal Albert Hall, hearing an unfamiliar voice, and turning to my left to see my wife. I felt like a proud father. Or perhaps a successful cult recruiter. Because there she was, singing along to every song.

----

Just before the start of the Düsseldorf show, I tweeted this photo and message. I'm not sure if Alannah got how sincerely I meant it. Putting up with my travel jones (and often punishing pace) is one thing. She knew about that coming in. Finding out your husband is an obsessive fanboy and accompanying him to shows, waiting in lines, getting crushed amongst fans, walking home from venues that let out well after public transit has closed... Well, that's just a sign that I've truly found the "Somebody" that Martin Gore sang about (with Alan Wilder on piano, of course).

Everybody's Jumping Everybody Else's Train

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:32:00 +0000

Legroom (on the Thalys
from Köln to Paris)

Several years ago, I was interviewed for a USA Today article about why I prefer flying over taking trains within Europe. Young, single, impatient me expounded the virtues of speed and price. Less time in transit meant more time to drink the local libations, after all.

Fast forward to 2010. I'm older. Married. And wiser, though that's debatable. What's not debatable is that flying sucks, almost without exception. If it's not the airlines nickel and diming you, it's the security establishment mocking your sensibilities by putting you through its theatrics.

The 45-minute flight from the aforementioned article now takes at least 4.5 hours door to door, will cost you at least triple in hidden fees and surcharges, and will generally be an unpleasant experience. The 5-hour train ride it was compared to may still be slow despite the greater number of high-speed services, but nowadays, it will likely cost less, make it on time, and allow you to get on board with all of your luggage, your own lunch, and your dignity.

Furthermore, with most rail services being nationally owned (or at least government subsidized), there's little chance you'll be left high and dry by a bankruptcy. You know, like when a group of you book tickets to a bachelor party on a discount Slovak airline, and due to said airline's bankruptcy, leave the bachelor and the best man high and dry in Bratislava. (True story. Ask the assholes at SkyEurope.)

Beyond all that, as I mentioned in last week's post on Hungry Amateurs about eating in London, trains are bringing glamour back to travel. Maybe even a little romance.

A first-class ticket on a high-speed train is certainly nice... Our Eurostar trip to London in late 2008 was an absolute pleasure, however brief, with champagne, lunch served with proper silverware, and chatting with a few dozen of our newest Welsh geezer friends.

Being on a Belgian train network
means big Belgian beers.

But you don't need all that to have a relaxed, comfortable, and leisurely ride through Europe. If you're looking to move about freely, chit chat with other passengers, and even get a little boozy with your honey bunny, I've got two words for you: Bar car.

Not that anyone doesn't know about the bar/snack train that's available on just about every main line in Europe... But on this past weekend's trip from France to Germany and back, we found serious bliss in the bar car.

First, there are often (as is the case on Thalys trains) four sets of quad seats on the bar car. If you can get these seats (and don't mind a bit of noise and passers-by around you), take them. Being with a maximum of 15 other people in the car – and likely no snotty kids – you're better off than even the 60 people per car in first class.

Even if you can't land these seats, don't worry. Hang out in the bar car anyway. If you're paranoid, you can bring your luggage with you, and if you're somewhere in between, you can leave your luggage in the rack at the end of the car, looking up from your Duvel or Leffe or champagne once in a while to make sure it's not gone.

The clusterfuck at Cologne (Köln) Hauptbahnhof after
most regional trains were canceled due to Atlantic
storm Xynthia on 28 February.

Of course, train travel isn't without its share of headaches. While they don't get up in the air, they're also subject to delays and cancellations during storms, what with trees falling on tracks, building materials flying through windows, and snow shorting out entire trains.

Yesterday, for example, our scheduled 4-hour trip from Düsseldorf, Germany to Paris, France (via Cologne, Germany and Brussels, Belgium) took somewhere in the neighborhood of seven hours. This was due to the massive storm raging all over western Europe, as well as unrelated delays caused by the previous week's head-on commuter train collision in Belgium.

On a plane, this sort of delay would've been a nightmare, an irritation, and a royal bitch all rolled up into one. But thanks in no small part to the bar car, it was still a pleasure – more time to spend with my squeeze, and with some good beer.

Of course, it was exhausting, so you'll have to wait 'til I recover a bit if you want to know any more about the trip itself.

No Sleep Til Dortmund

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 10:51:00 +0000

Eight more beers, one more train station sausage, a fried pie, and hours later, we're in Dortmund.

What was supposed to be a near full day in Düsseldorf ended up being one extended evening. Upon arrival at the train station, we stowed our luggage and started exploring the town. All I have to say is that train station lockers are freakin' magical. If not the need for a bed, you wouldn't even need hotels!

Not that we'd see a bed for a while.

"Stamina Ramen" at Na Ni Wa

We started off exploring Düsseldorf's Japantown area. Who knew that Europe's third largest Japanese community (after Paris and London) lives here!? We stopped into Na Ni Wa and had some amazing ramen... Yes, I had the best ramen I've had outside of Japan (or New York City's Ippudo) in Germany. Seriously. Rue Ste-Anne in Paris, your Japanese community has just been given notice!

Wowed (and utterly stuffed) we walked through the center of Düsseldorf, through the ritzy shopping district and into the Altstadt (old city). One of the first things we saw in the cobblestoned, charming part of town was... a Hooters!?

Despite my love for wings, boobs, and pantyhose paired with hotpants, we gave it a pass and beelined it to the first old brewhouse we saw. Brauerei Uerige fit the bill, so we figured we'd run in for an Altbier or two before exploring more of the Altstadt.

Eight beers later (six for me, if you insist on accuracy, two for the Dame) and we found our butts firmly glued to the old wood bench. The fact that they started closing down cued us to move along and head back toward the station, where we'd be meeting up with our friends (and hosts for the night) before moving on to Dortmund.

Of course, things took longer than expected. In waiting for them, I picked up a dodgy train station Bratwurst. When we finally met up, it turned out no one else had eaten dinner, so we went to late night favorite... McDonald's.

Alannah and I weren't hungry, but believe it or not, we were thirsty. So we had a couple of large Cokes – which disappointingly weren't gargantuan American sized liquid diabetes in a cup – and I couldn't resist trying a McVeggie Burger (not too good) and a fried apple pie. Yes, health-conscious friends back home.... McD's still fries their pies in Germany.

Friends united and post-midnight snack complete, we caught the commuter train to Dortmund. Even though it took an hour and a half, it was mindblowing to see that there's 24-hour rail service.

We were in by 3:00 am, in bed by 5:00, and I woke up after six hours, ready to take on the day... And judging by how many times my sleep was interrupted by trips to the toilet, this day will NOT include any train station Bratwurst.

Cheap Cologne

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:20:00 +0000

We pulled up at the station to Cologne, full of Belgian beer after our stop in Brussels (and subsequent onboard Duvels)to see a freakin sausage stand on the platform. "I've GOT to get a train station sausage on our way out," the street food junkie in me vowed.

Of course, we had two other things to take care of in Cologne (Köln): Get our tickets to Düsseldorf, and drink some fuckin' Kolsch.

Buying the train ticket was easy. The light, golden beer went down even easier. Seven of them, in fact. Along with a plate full of cheese, Blutwurst, Leberwurst, Speck and potato salad, it was a perfect antidote to an interminable travel day...

I'm on the train to Düsseldorf right now, enjoying aone of those train station sausages. A local would probably laugh at me, but to me, this is 2€ of why I travel.

Off to a screeching start

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:48:00 +0000

My first trip to Germany is starting off about as smoothly as a gravel-filled Liverwurst.

Sitting on the Thalys high speed train from Paris to Cologne, I feel lucky to have a seat and only be delayed a few hours.

Due to a recent accident requiring extensive clean-up, services between Paris and Brussels (our waypoint to Cologne) are seriously reduced. This means open seating on the trains.

Luckily, we're savvy travelers who arrive early, read web alerts, and look at the signs in every language. So even though a Paris Métro problem forced us to take the slowest taxi ever to the train station, we were still comfortably seated without queuing or crowding on the platform.

Not so for some unlucky folks who have given up their seats to other passengers who showed a ticket, claiming it's theirs, not having read the signs that it's all open seating to Brussels now, regardless of reservations.

What turned out to be a hassle for many (who are duking it out for standing space in the aisles or bar car) turned into the happiest moment for me...

For two years now, Ive been subject to French authority on everything. From l'administratiom to la Sécu to the cashier at the grocery store, THEY are always right, and YOU are wrong.

So when a fellow passenger showed up 30 secconds before the train took off, pointed at Alannah's seat with ticket in hand, feigning passive-aggressive non-chalantness with her white iPod earbuds still in her ears (this is a skill mastered by all Parisian women), I was for once the authority, saying flatly, "Non."

She waved the ticket at me and said she had a reserved ticket, I was able to muster all my vocabulary and all my French functionary you're-wasting-my-time indignation to say, "I'm sorry Madame, but it's all open seating on all trains between Paris and Brussels until March 1st. We, too, have reserved seats, but die to the tmeporary policy of open seating, it is first-come first-served.

"I understand, Madame. I, too, reserved tiickets months in advance. However, it is - as stated on the signs and signaled by staff - open seating until March 1st."

I in no way feel like a better person for telling this lady off, as she stomped off in indignation, looking on the verge of tears. But in the name of balance in life, DAMN it felt better to give, for once, than to receive.

(My) Metropolis Has Nothing on This

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:50:00 +0000

As we hurtled toward our destination, you could hear the thick, icy rain pelting the TGV. This didn't bode well. And although the rain had stopped by the time we hit the terminus, the weather was still bitingly cold and wet when we disembarked at the station.

"I don't understand how it can be so cold and icy here," I said to my wife.

"Paris is south of London, for crying out loud. It should be warmer."

No, really, this is Hyde Park in mid-February

We'd just gotten back from the UK, where it was dryer, sunnier, and – dare I say – the food and drink were better.

Of course, this is all a matter of perspective. Today marks two years that we've been in France, and I've already said many times that it feels like home. As such, you start taking many things for granted, start whining about the things that bother you, and start pining for things that are markedly different. I started noticing this just over a year ago, when I wrote the unimaginable – postulating that beer is cheap in London. Good beer, at that.

My previous trip to the UK was also part of a trip to France, all while still living in San Francisco. Afterward, I wrote a post trying to quantitatively compare the two rivals. It all seems so naïve now, but at the time, I didn't know I'd be living in Paris, just a hop skip and 180km/h jump away.

So I know that I say the following with no authority or consistency whatsoever, and that my perspective will likely change again in less than a year: Food and drink are now better in England.

Warning: Foodie Talk. Skip down to the following heading if you don't care.

The Countless Feasts Laid At My Feet
Now before you get out the torches and pitchforks, I don't buy into the current Michelin brouhaha fueled by Chef Alain Ducasse's statements that London is now the world's fine dining capital. Ducasse is no longer a chef but a businessman, and he likely makes far better margins promoting his UK joints. And Michelin sells more books whenever it stirs the pot. Besides, I can't afford to eat at places like that, so these gastronomic titles are moot.

I furthermore don't believe Michael Steinberger's doomsaying in Au Revoir to All That, a book claiming that French gastronomy is all but dead. There are plenty of innovators on this side of the Channel. It's just that, again, their stuff falls in the budget of Sarkozy-voting suits who don't even live in Paris proper: The suburban nouveau-riche whose kids, ironically, eat at McDonald's and make American-style consumerism appear chic.

So I'll repeat, from the perspective of someone who loves to eat, travel, go out and fully enjoy life, yet also has to deal with a severely limited household income: Eating and drinking is better in London.

Part of this has to do with the near-parity of the Euro and the Pound Sterling. When Alannah and I first came to France on vacation (and wound up really liking it, so much that it was a no-brainer to move here) it was because we knew we could stretch our dollar farther than in the UK. But beyond exchange rates, my newfound appreciation for London has to do with the quality of what's accessible to the common traveler. Or resident.

Two towers of afternoon tea

For less than the price of a barely passable, likely-made-of-frozen-ingredients two-course "meal" at a typical Parisian shithole of a brasserie (a misnomer if ever there was one, as I don't see any beer being brewed locally), we were able to have a fairly regal afternoon tea at the swanky St. Pancras Grand.

Even if we'd thrown in a couple of flutes of champagne, it would've cost less than what passes for a decent lunch at a typical Parisian resto. And St. Pancras Grand is on the high end.

In Paris, if I want to have lunch for less than 8€ ($11), my choices are fast food, pathetic "wok" fare, cockroach-infested Chinese take-out that's been sitting under a sneezeguard for three days, hygenically questionable kebabs, or some inauthentic crêpe made with industrial ham and cheese. Granted, there are some tastier options like boulangerie sandwiches or falafels, but I'm talking about a hot meal that fills you up.

For £7 in London, while you won't eat like a king, you can pick up a best-in-class Fish & Chips or enormously satisfying Pie & Mash, all made freshly with proper ingredients. Maybe even a drink or two. (For a full run-down of what we ate in London, see our food blog Hungry Amateurs: Eating London Out.)

While you can't beat Paris' multitude of outdoor markets – many featuring excellent products – the supermarket is starting to rule the roost, filled with industrial, processed garbage from across the world. London, on the other hand, seems to be having a food renaissance not only in its gastronomic scenes, but even its supermarkets are now replete with a dazzling variety of organic fruit and veg, locally sourced convenience foods (!) and information on responsible consumption. My local Picard, on the other hand, recently patted itself on the back for carrying frozen sushi.

Chugging ale at St. John. The hulking
figure in blue partially behind me is chef
Fergus Henderson.

The real coup de grace, though, was having lunch at St. John. While the maitre d' apologetically informed us that there were no tables available in the dining room for lunch, we were more than happy to order a few pints from the cavernous bar, where the menu overlaps that of the restaurant and comes from the same cooks in the same kitchen. For the same price as mediocre tapas in Paris, Alannah and I shared a few plates of fantastic, beautifully interpreted, and – yes – Michelin-starred renditions of classic British food. (Again, I don't hang out in that strata, but why not grab it when you can?)

I oohed and ahhed and licked my fingers and sucked the marrow out of bones and savored slices of ox heart and enjoyed the housemade whole wheat bread, vowing that we'd come back each time we're back in London.

All that and we were able to wash down our lunch with multiple pints of hand-pumped real ale, with no silly fancypants markup or that-doesn't-pair-with-your-meal scowling from the waitstaff.

And as much as I love a good wine (I'm polishing off a bottle of Gaillac as I write this), it's refreshing to go somewhere it's not frowned upon to have beer with your sit-down meal.

This is More Than a Party
While the English may be known for binge-drinking, it's also obvious that the wide availability of good drink makes for a more convivial atmosphere in general. Even if you're not a drinker, there's a happy vibe to a warm pub, a cozy booth, or a concert where they're not gouging you at the door or jostling you on the floor.

Happy just to be here!

When it was announced that Depeche Mode would be headlining this year's Teenage Cancer Trust charity show at the Royal Albert Hall, I told Alannah I'd sacrifice going to their Paris shows to come to this one – if I could score tickets. I did, it coincided with our wedding anniversary, and we agreed that a smaller, more historical venue like the RAH would be more romantic than a giant box like the Palais Omnisports de Bercy anyway. Score another for London.

Needless to say, the show was Depeche Mode's best in decades, notably due to the brief but triumphant return of Alan Wilder. (HD video of the best moment of the show here.) Throw in a string section, an intimate venue, and all of it being done for a very good cause, and it made for a special night indeed.

There's no point to comparing this to any night out in our homebase, but overall, I haven't been incredibly happy with the live music scene in Paris. Poor ticketing services/alerts, overpriced tickets, overpriced drinks, overcrowded venues, and an over-coked-up crowd (probably because drinks cost so much) make for lousy nights out, which is painful for a music junkie. While London concerts aren't immune to these problems, I simply find it easier to have a big night out over there.

Another Hole to Feed
Besides eating and drinking, one of the things I've learned to love in London is shopping. Despite my anti-consumerist leanings, I still like... stuff. And thanks to France's boutique culture of highly curated items, shopping can be a bit frustrating here.

Alannah made the Martin Gore style hat.
I made the giant scarf. All in my fave color.

For example, I recently got into knitting. This is actually good for my anti-consumerism, because it means I've started on the path to creating my own clothes. To some extent. It's bad, though, in that I now obsess over finding the right yarn for a project. (I can thank Alannah for turning me on to this neurosis... Thanks, honey.) Unfortunately, yarn stores in Paris – even the highly-touted Droguerie right in our neighborhood – carry a limited selection of what they find appealing or is trendy enough to sell. And because no one likes taking risks in this culture, every damn mercerie carries the same limited yarns. What's the fucking point? Who's dick do I have to suck to get a skein of Debbie Bliss "Como" cashmere-merino yarn?

So yeah, thanks to being turned on to knitting, I'm now one of those assholes who goes to London to shop. I couldn't believe I was telling the lady at the fantastic and charming Loop (Islington) that we were going to come back from Paris more often to shop there. She even gave me a loyalty card.

Again, I'm not loaded. But when I do choose to shop, I'm going to go where there's good pricing and variety and quality of product. (And before you get on my case about buying locally, most of the textiles at the grands magasins are Made in China synthetic blends.)

We even did a huge duffel bag's worth of grocery shopping in London, since not even the hippy organic stores here carry certain vegetables like kale. (Which grows like a weed in continental Europe... WTF, man?)

Feels Like Home – I Should Have Known From the First Breath
With that cold blast of the icy Paris air filling my nostrils on the Eurostar platform at Gare du Nord, I smelled that I was home. Paris has a particular scent to it – a moistness mingling with the faint scent of baking bread and stale cigarette smoke. It's "the Paris scent" as far as I'm concerned, and I find I long for it whenever I've been away for too long.

As much as I complain and always see the grass being greener on the other side, it's magnificent living somewhere that not only everyone wants to visit (for very good reason), but that I actually do love on a daily basis. Whose smells I love. Whose sounds I love. Whose irritating idiosyncracies I love, much like the quirks of any loved one.

Even being away for only four days, I missed baguettes. I missed being able to blindly pick a wine and pretty much never go wrong. I missed our local market people (even if they don't have kale). I even missed, believe it or not, the Métro. (Though not the craptacular Ligne 13. Nique la motherfucking Ligne 13!)

We've become so Parisian, in fact, that everywhere we went in London, we were surrounded by French speakers. At our B&B, at nearly every pub, at half the restaurants. Then Alannah had an epiphany: "We now are French tourists!"

Now that both of us have our residency cards, root for the French rugby team, and feign indifference with the best of them, we've become pretty integrated. But as I went to yet another mediocre lunch during work today, walking past the skinny undersized cans of fizzy yellow Kronenbourg in the beverage section, I really missed the chippie and the pub. And the gigantic serving of Welsh rarebit at St. John. *sigh*

Side note: Yes, all the headings in this post are Depeche Mode lyrics, as I still can't get over how awesome that show was. And yes, I did take my wife to see my favorite band during our anniversary holiday. And she sang along to every song. Except for the kinda boring ones where we went and chugged Old Speckled Hen. For less than the price of a soda in Paris, naturally.

SantaConneries

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:10:00 +0000

While for me I don't feel that writing about France is so much writing about being in a foreign country anymore as it is about writing about what I now consider my home, there are times that I feel like I'm in an alien land.

Take this last weekend's SantaCon, for example. Santa Sparkle and I prefer to Frenchify it and call it "SantaConnerie." Not because we're calling for the sainthood of Sean Connery. He's already a knight, for crying out loud... but the French word derived from con, meaning "idiot," and its inherited form connerie, meaning "shit only a goddamn idiot would do." Because, to us, SantaCon is about going out en masse and getting stupid. While fueled on liquor. And, well, there was plenty of that. But there were also plenty of those alienating things that you'd think I'd be used to by now.

Let's rewind to last year, SantaCon Paris 2008. Here are some pictures. Really tame, right? It was mellow, and we Yanks were the only ones to show up with flasks, but it was pleasant – we really did roam around Paris spreading holiday cheer. It was almost naïve and innocent, and while not at all what we expected, we liked this nicety-nice version of SantaCon. Even if it wasn't the booze-fueled anarchic mayhem we're accustomed to.

So it was nice to see earlier promotion this year, and more people showing interest, with the Facebook page gathering more "Will Attends" in the first month than we had in total last year. And suddenly it really grew. With a new flyer design and a few promotional videos (ummm, okay) there were hundreds interested in joining the fun. Was this going to be the Naughty version we'd left in our beloved San Francisco? Or was it going to be like last year's Nice version we'd come to like, only on a larger scale?

So once you get past the cheesy ending (sorry, sometimes I can't help myself, but I wanted an excuse to use some slappin' bass), did you see anything else wrong with the picture?

Let's start with the Santa pageant. Or whatever the fuck that was. While Santas participating in SantaCon are encouraged to come up with a Santa "persona," and there were certainly some admirably creative ones, it's meant to be a group movement. In no past SantaCon have we highlighted individuals, but celebrated our coming together en masse to delight, surprise, and sometimes disgust passersby. The eventual winner of "Miss SantaCon" had invited Sparkle to come out and participate, but she refused on principle. As she kept asking me during the whole timefuck, "When are we going to start drinking?"

Luckily that was a rhetorical question. Santa Black and Santa Sparkle, like all good bad Santas, came equipped with flasks. Again, we were the only ones, but I'll chalk that up to something Paris does better: There's no open container law here, so you don't have to hide your hooch... Still, a flask (or two or three) is SantaCon tradition, god dammit.

What was wrong in the beverage department was the Red Bull. While I'm not opposed to the taurine-powered mixer (it is a MIXER, not a drink on its own), I was appalled to see two women in Red Bull jackets carrying a portable Red Bull-branded cooler, handing out the little silver cylinders of energy drink. Last I remember, Santarchy began as a cheeky rebellion against commercialization. Here, people were glad to suck the corporate dick 60ml can.

The over-organized march was fine. While extremely lacking in drink stops, it brought a distinctly French flavor to SantaCon: That of the grève, or strike, if you will. Striking is ingrained into French culture, and it was actually a ton of fun turning typical strike chants into Santa-related mockery. Liberez les sapins ! Liberez les lutins ! Liberez [whatever we happened to be passing by]! Taking over a Left Bank boulevard was pretty awesome, too. But would anyone have had the cojones to do it if we didn't have a police escort?

When we finally did stop at a bar – one of many same-ol' same-ol' Anglo-Saxon themed pubs throughout Paris – at least there was a drink special on hand, helping the lightweights around us get wasted.

We got moving again, on to the crescendo that was Notre Dame, and in all spent a couple of hours dicking around before the second and (what... the... fuck...) last bar stop. Worse off, at another English pub (ok, the first was Scottish) in our very own neighborhood that Sparkle and I don't particularly like. We'd been there before for the Couchsurfing pub quiz on Monday nights and decided that we hate The Lions. The bartenders are slow, don't know how to manage a crowd, and spend more time chatting with their buddies than doing their job.

"Wait," you might say if you're familiar with SantaCon. "Why did you go there? Why didn't you just storm another bar?"

Well, Sparkle and I did (the much more locals-oriented Le Tambour down the street), and didn't look back. The real trouble with the Lions wasn't the Lions itself: It's shitty, but it's roomy. No, it became clear that we were led to a Couchsurfing spot, by Couchsurfing people, catering to a Couchsurfing crowd.

Let me iterate, I like Couchsurfing. It's a good organization (despite some dickheads trying to turn it into a for-profit venture a while back) and makes for fantastic networking. But to be led at the end of the evening to their shit hangout to get shit service at shit prices... What. The. Fuck.

You may as well have hung up a Couchsurfing banner over Place Monge where we met up. Oh, what? Someone was wearing one as a cape? You don't say...

The trouble here is that SantaCon isn't supposed to be owned, sponsored, or cater particularly to anyone. It was born of an anarchic spirit of self-expression and anti-commercialization, to bring joie de vivre back to the now long fucked-over holidays. How that's expressed is entirely up to the city and the crowd participating in it, but for the love of Saint Nick, do it as differently as you want, but remember what it's all about.

Now I'm not claiming San Francisco's superiority. While I'll stand by the statement that we are the world champions of drinking, SantaCon SF started to lose its way a few years ago, starting with its advertising of the event (again, WTF!?) on a douchebag nightlife web site. I won't mention any names, but it rhymes with ViteNibe. There are now three official routes, and many official bars. Can I say "WTF!?" again?

Back in my day, there was a starting point, a rough ending point, and every bar along the (not particularly rigid) route was ripe for an unannounced invasion. Some bartenders didn't like it. Some welcomed the opportunity to do a week's worth of business in less than an hour.

But don't take this as a curmudgeonly gripe. My crankiness comes from nothing more than misplaced hope. I was hoping that with SantaCon Paris being a relative toddler on the global scene, it could bring back some of the anarchic, free-for-all spirit of the old days. Channeling the soixante-huitards and Théatre de l'Absurde into one glorious day. A haven for the slightly surly but loving Santa in all of us, who's both a mean drunk and a genuinely fun person to be around.

In the process of editing the video above, I received a friendly note from one of the organizers, who's got no problem with my gripes. This rundown is a bit more developed than my Tweets and status updates to which he was responding, and potentially more inflammatory. (Just in case it isn't inflammatory enough: FUCK YOUR LIONS PUB.)

BUT... We'll be back again, flasks in hand, regardless of how over-organized or over-commercialized it may get. No one can crush these two Santas' spirits. After all, we'll full of 'em.

Please Help Me Get Back to New York

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:24:00 +0000

No, I'm not throwing in the towel on France. In fact, things are rolling rather smoothly on the otherwise-maddening-bureaucracy side. And despite less ethnic food, shorter opening hours, and overpriced cocktails, I still like Paris better than New York.

But hot damn, I want to be on Air France's inaugural Airbus A380 flight between Paris and New York. Firstly because it'll give me some serious travel geek cred. Secondly, because New York and I still have some unfinished business. (Three days simply wasn't enough.)

Sure, tickets went on sale for the first "official" A380 flights a while back, and many people who already had flights on AF001 and AF002 between CDG and JFK were surprised to have been bumped to the new supermegajumbo. But I wanna be on the maiden voyage. They give you cool shit on these things. And yes, I know that they are auctioning seats for this particular flight, but I'm too poor for that.

That said, I still want to take my wife on a brief trip to New York, and it's still going to happen.

How? Because you are going to watch the video below over, and over, and over again.

Why? Because you're generally a nice person, and you can't wait to hear about what it's like to fly the A380.

No really, how and why would watching this video do anything? Because Air France is holding a "lipdub" (lipsync) video contest, and three winners get on that coveted flight.

So without any further ado...

If you wanna be really awesome, click on the video above to go to the YouTube page and give me a 5-star rating. And if you wanna join me on this flight (if I win) leave a comment. In French. (Those are the rules.) Because according to said rules, people who leave the most "fun" comments will win a New York/Paris ticket. Not bad, huh?

Stuff people are asking
Beyond wanting to know how watching a video will get me on a flight to New York, people have been asking a ton of questions. Here are the answers.

THE SONG
No, I am not singing, nor playing any instruments. The song itself was commissioned by Air France and is performed by French artist PV Nova. I selected the "electro" style. "Rock" and "Hip Hop" were also options, but I wanted to stay true to my geeky genre of choice.

The lyrics are pretty simple but optimistic. If there's enough demand, I'll provide a translation. In the meantime, here's the original PDF of the words.

THE CONTEST
The video will be judged by a jury, but another factor is how many views it gets on YouTube. So please, view view view view!

Also, I've been alerted that I've broken the rule about how the video is supposed to be one continuous shot, and not edited. This seems not to have bothered them, as they accepted it and put it up on their YouTube channel along with many others, so I guess I'm not DQed.

THE LOCATIONS
This was shot in Paris, New York, and on an Air France plane over the Atlantic. I found out about the contest just before my Atlanta/New York trip, during which I had to shoot a ton of video anyway. So I grabbed some footage in New York (some with the help of my friend Julien), a tiny bit of cell phone video on the plane back to Paris, and the rest was shot in Paris over the couple of weeks after my return. Poor Alannah had to bear most of the burden of holding the dinky camera steady while I shouted out director orders, much of the time in freezing conditions.

GEAR
I hadn't previously tried out the HD camera I got for work, so I took some test shots at the airport when - Eureka! - I realized I could start making a video for this contest. While a little of that footage is from said Sony HD camcorder, the majority is made on the Sony Webbie, a cheap, toy-like HD camera I picked up in the States. The on-plane shots were taken with my iPhone, since I was in a window seat and couldn't easily go get either HD cameras out of the overhead.

The video was mostly edited in Final Cut, taking up probably 12-14 hours of my evenings and a weekend, primarily while sick, not including all the rendering time between edits. Don't I deserve to win?

ANY MORE VIDEOS IN THE FUTURE?
Ever since the rousing success of my YouTube videos from Japan, I've been amassing a collection of video footage of all sorts of stuff. Not in a creepy way like that neighbor kid in American Beauty but like most people take photos. I continue to take tons of still photos, but video has really caught my attention - especially with how cheap and accessible HD is.

That said, in two years, I've edited together maybe 3 personal videos, none longer than two minutes. And it's hellaciously time consuming. I'm not sure if the results are worth it.

If you think otherwise, then please, click the ever-loving shit out of this video, rate it high, leave your comments, and help me win this thing. Then I'll know it's time to make more videos.

Back from a Land I Thought I Knew

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:45:00 +0000

This is my first post in quite some time, as I haven't really been traveling to new lands to write about. I know, I know... I'm right here in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, with high speed train tracks radiating like the oft-compared bicycle spokes to all points in Europe. I'm within transit distance of two international airports, and if I lose any semblance of sanity and want to fly RyanAir, there's a third airport within reasonable distance. I should be populating this blog with all sorts of stories that scream, appropriately, "Omid Abroad!"

The thing is, I have a job. My wife does not, and by the good graces of labrynthine French immigration policy, can not. This means that not only do I not have time to fly/train off to various parts of Europe - as close as it may all be - we're also flat on our ass much of the time. So anyone who thinks we're living a glamourous life in Paris should check themselves. The cost of living is higher, our combined income has been cut in half, and I'm too damn tired to do anything in my free time anyway.

Enough bitching, though. To be honest, we have traveled. We spent our year's leisure allowance on a trip to California and Washington this summer. Sure, that's exciting for some people, but other than the pleasure of seeing our family and friends (and attend weddings and see new babies), it's like a Thanksgiving trip home, not a vacation. "Travel" is only a functional part of a trip like this. Even when road-tripping the entire west coast of the United States, it's all familiar territory. Nothing to write home (nor blog) about.

Why, then, am I now bothering to write about my more recent trip to the US? Particularly one mostly mandated by and covered by work? One where the lack of sleep and aching fatigue at the end is due more to nights spent actually working than hedonistic overindulgence?

Because in less than two year's time, the United States of America has become a foreign land to me. After 21 months of living in France, I find myself as bewildered and bedazzled in America as the poor saps who have to be finger-printed and retina-scanned when they arrive in the country.

Of course, this could be because I went to Atlanta.

I made friends with another American in Paris this summer, and when I told him my next trip back would be to "the ATL" (as the ~~rappers~~ locals call it), his words of advice on his old stomping grounds were, "Vaya con dios." Not very encouraging. I chalked it up as perhaps some deep-seeded resentment against one's old home, much as I dislike the suburban wasteland surrounding San Francisco, and thought to myself "It can't be that bad."

It can.

From the moment one lands in Atlanta, it feels as back-assward and fuck-tarded as possible. That's because once you arrive at the airport, you pick up your baggage, cruise down the concourse and... Check your bag again. Then you exit the baggage claim area... And go through security. Mind you, this is on the way OUT of the airport.

IN WHAT BATSHIT CRAZY WORLD DOES ONE HAVE TO CHECK HIS/HER BAGGAGE AND GO THROUGH SECURITY TO EXIT AN AIRPORT?

After waiting at the carousel to pick up my luggage (a second time), I managed to find a shuttle to get to my hotel for the week...

The W Midtown Atlanta Hotel, like other W hotels, is nice. The rooms are well-appointed. Service is adequate for business. And the decor is modern chic. They call it "Techno-Glam." My US colleagues better summed it up as "Ghetto Fabulous."

As shiny and new as everything seems, it's all of cheap build quality: Made more to look good than perform well. Like all the Chrysler 300Ms and similar cheap luxury cruisers pulling up out front, there's a lot of flash but not a whole lot of substance. The parallel was sadly true with Atlanta itself.

There's only one downtown Atlanta, but three "centers" with glimmering highrise buildings and public thoroughfares. Going by my cursory rounds through them, many of these buildings are half (and some fully) empty. On our first jaunt out - on a Sunday - some colleagues theorized that being in the Bible Belt, it was unsurprising that things would be closed on the so-called day of rest. But this is capitalist America, I reminded them. Someone's always up for makin' some money. Apparently, that someone is whomever hung up all the "FOR LEASE" signs on all these buildings. Religious observation, my ass...

Certainly, though, there is some charm to the whole Bible Belt thing. I don't mean the whole quaint closed-on-Sundays thing. We have that in France and I actually do appreciate having one day a week that's not all work and commerce. I mean the earnestness of outwardly religious folk, especially in the South. I mean, where else would you see the Je-bus? Hellfire coming from the front wheels and all!

In an economically depressed and/or disadvantaged area, sometimes religion is the only light that shines for people. And if it helps them keep their chin up and stay motivated, then more power to them. It's oddly comforting that the force keeping a Downtown Atlanta crackhead from attacking you is the Bible-thumper intervening to teach him the Word. Divine intervention? Maybe.

The other interesting thing in areas with an economically lower stratum: Public transit! While in world metropolises, underground and elevated trains are how the masses get around without the hassle of car ownership or traffic, in sprawly American places like Atlanta (or Los Angeles) they're the domain of people who can't afford cars to get to their jobs serving the upper strata.

MARTA - Atlanta's transit system - is somewhat limited, the subway stops are pretty far in between, and your chances of being accosted by a crackhead at the station is pretty high. On the other hand, it runs smoothly, moves fairly quickly, and the cars are spotless. In fact, MARTA puts the San Francisco Bay Area's BART to shame in terms of cleanliness. Although the cars are practically identical, MARTA uses shiny plastic seats and linoleum floors - surfaces that can easily be kept clean. BART for some reason uses bum piss-absorbent cloth upholstery and shit-absorbent carpeting.

It's while riding the MARTA train between fancypants neighborhoods like Midtown and Buckhead that the economic disparity starts to get in your face. (Sometimes literally.) One of the things I love about Paris (and loved about San Francisco) is that the glam and the grit are interwoven, within mere meters of each other. Sure, both have their wealthy enclaves far from the seedier districts, but in general there is much more of a mixture. I didn't feel this in Atlanta. Between the wealthy, well-to-do "islands," I found run-down tracts and many have-nots hanging out in them. I wondered how often they're run off by the doormen and valets of the highrises in thenicer areas, surrounded by manicured greenery. I felt a true sense of segregation. The only thing they really share is that there are shit-tons of parking lots. More parking spaces than people.

While I find this sort of extreme stratification a bit depressing, I still think it's terribly fascinating. More so than the CNN or Coca-Cola tours some of my colleagues were happy to indulge in. Why didn't I bother with those? Well, I'm not partial to lousy sensationalized news nor high fructose corn syrup-based soft drinks, so why would I want to see the PR version of how they work? That'd be like me taking visiting vegan friends to a French foie gras farm.

Also, I worked too much to go sightseeing. Night and day. It's what I do at these company events, and why I get sent thousands of miles and get to stay at (somewhat) fancy hotels and order room service. I sleep a couple of hours a night, and mostly stay confined to the event. As such, one might think that I'm not qualified to judge Atlanta since I spent the better part of the week cloistered in my "Techno-Glam" surroundings. But I'm pretty seasoned at this stuff and I had seen enough.

As the BET Hip Hop Awards rolled into town at the end of the week - and with it all the rappers and their entourages in their 300Ms (and sometimes real luxury cars) - I got an even better glimpse at Atlanta. In the elevator with Big Someone and Li'l Someone-Else, one said to the other, "Man, it's all rappers in this hotel this weekend." The other replied, "It's all rappers in the ATL all the time. Everyone in Atlanta's a rapper."

The elevator door opened to the smell of insanely huge amounts of unsmoked weed. By the time evening rolled around, the entire hotel floor (or several of them) smelled like a Rastafarian wedding. And can you blame them? If I had to live in the 404, I'd want my reality to be as blunted as possible, too.

I've been to numerous places around the world. And numerous places around America. Yet I'd never been so happy to get on a plane and get out of a town as I boarded a Delta flight at Atlanta airport that Saturday.

I tweeted that day, "On the way back to civilization." (Gotta love in-flight Wi-Fi!) A few people mistook me to mean that I was on my way back to Europe. I was actually on the way to New York. My father-in-law then joked "Atlanta must be bad if you call NYC civilization???" Hey, I needed to decompress before coming back to Paris, and flying via New York actually cost less anyway.

But New York City? Civilization? My in-laws weren't the only ones questioning my sanity.

Despite my love for farms, mountains, and the great outdoors, I'm a city boy. Words cannot express how much I dislike suburbs, suburban sprawl, and big parking lots. I love the city and will counter anyone who says city life is awful. Anyone who tells me that you can't breathe in the big city obviously hasn't heard of this word: Rooftops.

Or parks. Or playgrounds. Or well-planned public spaces. Efficient transit. Bars. Restaurants. Amazing ethnic joints.

Certainly, you can get these things in suburban-sprawl-land, but not in the sort of concentration that a place like New York offers. When I wasn't sleeping (which is what I do after working without pause for a week), I breathed in, drank up, and - mostly - ate whatever NYC could offer. To me, my brief jaunt to New York was a chance to rest, catch up with friends, and partake in a three-day orgy of food and drink.

Of course, one can't live on halal street carts and trendy ramen alone. I walked up and down Manhattan, strolled through various parks, and got introduced to the community gardens of Alphabet City. One of them even has a bit of urban beekeeping going on!

Here, I was, in one of the rough-and-tumble neighborhoods around the East Village. As my friend explained about Alphabet City when we made our way to his Avenue D apartment, "Avenue A, you're alright. B, you're brave. C, you're crazy. D, you're dead." Yet somewhere between Avenues C and D, I was in a tranquil garden, enjoying the harmonious buzzing of honeybees.

Take that, Atlanta!

The final night of my sojourn in New York, we went by one of the Lower East Side hipster hangouts, the Cake Shop (which actually does serve cake), to drink some beers and catch some live music. On the bill, they had four bands. None of whom I'd never heard of, none of whose songs I knew, but any of whom could probably hold their own at any of the crazy overpriced venues of Paris.

Admission was only four dollars.

Of course, this is probably because for every rapper in Atlanta, there are ten indie-rockers in New York. It's the economics of things, and New York has more than enough supply to meet demand.

I've spent much of the time here trading in blanket generalizations. And maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps rich and poor hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" as they stroll through some amazingly cool parts of Atlanta. And I'm sure there are folks in Jersey or Long Island living a much more fulfilling life than they ever would in Manhattan.

Frankly, I'd love to find out more about that.

Yes, I can easily cross one of the surrounding borders and then write and write and write about different lands and funny customs and show you how to use the odd contraptions therein.

But sometimes it's going on a business trip to a land I once thought I knew that raises the most questions.

Lost in Luxembourg

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Sun, 10 May 2009 17:02:00 +0000

I've been back from a short trip to Luxembourg for a couple of days now, but it's taken me a while to recover enough to write about it. I've been wearing my baggiest pants, hiking socks, and some highly unfashionable sandals while I recuperate, looking so hideous that I don't want to venture outside for fear of being deported. I'm tired. I'm bloated. My feet are destroyed.

Our mission was twofold: To meet up with my friend and fellow fan Alex – who now lives in Germany with her husband Thomas – so we can go see the very first stop of Depeche Mode's "Tour of the Universe"... And to drink beer. We were successful on both counts.

While in my hardcore-fan-for-whom-nothing-is-ever-good-enough, the concert was fairly decent (I was hoping for better for Alannah's first!) and just to be at the first show of the tour at a smaller venue was a distinct pleasure. Tickets had sold out in mere seconds, so we knew we were among the privileged few at Luxembourg's Rockhal.

In this same venue, home to Luxembourg's biggest concerts, the beers - as in big drafts in pint cups - were only 2 euro each. I'll say it again: Pints of real (i.e. Luxembourgish pilsner, not Bud or Miller) beer for only 2 euro.

Luxembourg, being a world financial capital, is one of the most affluent places on Earth. Yet we found that - like at the Rockhal - everything is cheap. Not just beer.

With it being Octave, the Luxembourgish Catholic period observed after Easter, the Place Guillaume II was turned into a special fair, with stands featuring everything from cotton candy to nougat to carnival games. And, of course, plentiful beer and food on the cheap.

One thing we've missed since moving to France is street food. As much as people may mention kebabs and crêpes, there really is no street food in Paris. Occasionally, you can buy a grilled ear of corn from a Pakistani immigrant roasting it over a can full of charcoal in a shopping cart – and believe me, it's some seriously sublime stuff – but in general, you're unlikely to see Parisians munching on the street.

Scratch that for Luxembourg. Even at 10:30 in the morning, it wasn't unusual to see a local tucking into a giant sausage sandwich and several beers. Personally, I opted for the speck/lard sammich to go with my brews.

We also sampled grompere kichelcher (potato pancakes, German style) with apfelmüs, Luxringer (barbecued bratwurst), Currywurst, and anything else they'd hand us for just a few euro coins at the stands.

Vegetables seemed to be few and far in between, so in order to stay regular, we figured we'd try the uniquely Luxembourgish specialty of gezwickelte beer. This is an unfiltered brew available exclusively at Mousel's Cantine, downhill from Luxembourg City in the Clausen/Grund area, and well worth the hike. I complemented our waiter on the simple but remarkably delicious, smooth beer (I was expecting something more hoppy, tangy, or even gritty) and he proudly boasted that this is the only place you can get it - because they make it out back. (The big Mousel brewery itself has long moved to another city.)

After putting down litres of the stuff (4 euro a Stein, not bad), we thought it might be a good idea to find our way back toward our hotel and get some dinner before Alex and Thomas arrived in the evening.

Easier said than done.

Much of Luxembourg is – thanks to the Pétrusse river cutting a winding swath through it – hilly and zig-zaggy. There are very few straight lines from one place to another. So although we had followed our waiter's instructions to get back, we wound up somewhere in an ancient neighborhood in the Grund, without much of an idea where we really were. Not a big deal, considering the area is really quite charming and cute.

"Hey, there's a bar!" Alannah said, noticing the skulls in the window of the Aula Cafe. "Let's go inside," I replied.

And that's how we ended up having a liquid dinner.

We'd intended to have a quick beer and a pee-break and make our way to a restaurant for our first proper meal, but the Bofferdings went down too smoothly and the bartender and locals were too friendly. We ended up camping out for several hours, downing the aforementioned beers, as well as house specialties of honey and banana liqueurs. They even put on a ton of Depeche Mode on the sound system when they found out we were in town for the show. Class all the way.

Finally peeling ourselves off the barstools, we again took directions and made our way toward what we thought was the center of town. Somehow we ended up walking alongside what seemed like a highway. Night had fallen, and I went into a service station to ask for directions. They seemed a bit taken aback that we were on foot, telling me we had to go two kilometers in the direction from which we'd just come. Shit!

That one wrong turn cost us our intended dinner. We'd made it to the restaurant just as they'd decided to stop serving, the smell of steak and what had to be the best garlic sauce ever wafting through the air. I grumbled all the way back to the Gare part of town. At least the timing was right and we were able to meet up with our friends who'd just gotten in from Germany.

Luxembourg, despite speaking French and having a lot in common with France, does not keep French dining hours. So our only choice for dinner was... McDonald's. This isn't so awful, as I have this weird quirk about wanting to try the Golden Arches in every country I visit. (Verdict: Nothing to write home about.) But also because this was the same McDonald's that Alannah had come to on her very first trip to Europe. In fact, at this McDonald's, oh so many years ago, she had eaten her very first meal in Europe.

I'm still laughing at her about that.

But I shouldn't. I fully understand. After all, she could've arrived after 9-freakin-P.M.

At bedtime, we both realized that - despite it having been only a year since leaving the US - we've already become French. Dinner before 10:00pm just seems sort of... abnormal.

The Agony of Da-Feet
I awoke early the next morning. Not because I was excited to see my favorite band at an exclusive show in a small-ish venue. But because of serious pain in my right foot. All the hiking, climbing, and generally being lost had taken its toll – I'd either strained or hyperextended my foot. And the steady diet of fat, nitrites, and beer probably didn't help.

So we made it the morning's goal to hit the farmer's market, to see if this country does actually consume anything that grows on plants that wasn't once a hop or barley.

After a nice sit-down petit déjeuner of coffee, croissants, and orange juice (4€ as opposed to 9€ in Paris), I painfully soldiered on to the market, which had been displaced farther away from the center of town because of the Octave fair.

It was sorely disappointing, with few stands and most of them selling the same stuff as you'd find at the more run-of-the-mill Parisian markets. Alannah did find, however, some treviso, a particular kind of radicchio she'd picked up and fell in love with in Italy last year.

The four of us marched back toward the old town to hit up the Octave fair once again for some munchies, loading up once again on sausage-type-goods. If you can't beat 'em...

As midday approached, we headed back toward the train station to make our way to Oberkorn, just a few stops past where the evening's concert would be. There's no reason for any person to go to Oberkorn unless A) you live there, or B) you're a Depeche Mode fan.

The band played their only other Luxembourg show there back in 1982 or so, and wound up naming a B-side after it - "Oberkorn (It's a Small Town)"

It is, indeed, a small town. The train station is maybe about 50 metres long, has no gates or fences or anything to keep you from just walking across the tracks to get to the other "platform" (read: sidewalk), and their claim to fame appears to be a community swimming pool that has a waterslide.

On the other hand, their gleaming, modern local buses put most public transit in the US to shame. (Not that it takes much.) And they have the most perfect pavements on the face of the Earth. No joke. I wonder how much beers cost here...

Our incredibly trivial, deadhead-like pilgrimage over and done with, we got back on the train to go to Rockhal. (Their tickets are good for all public transit in the country of Luxembourg on the day of shows. Sweet.) We were among the handful that had arrived insanely early to be the first ones in, wanting to be right up front, after all.

Unfortunately, I had to return to Luxembourg to put my photography gear away at the hotel (the No-Cameras rule applies only to SLRs, apparently) which meant coming back later with a bigger crowd to find the others and regain my position in line. This meant a lot of "Excuse me," "Pardonnez-moi," and other niceties while stepping on the toes of people who surely thought we were just trying to cut in line.

And that was the case - not because I wasn't polite, nor that I couldn't say in several languages that I'd been there earlier and was rejoining my friends... But because there was the (I hate to say typical, but that's how it is at these shows) Eastern European contingent who had indeed cut in line to go be at the front. In fact, one fine example of such post-Iron Curtain louts was right in front of Alex and Thomas, a gargantuan couple who had absolutely no consideration for anyone else.

As luck would have it, when we made our way to the front of the stage once the gates opened, so did these two jackholes, who despite being in a great spot right by us, had to make a show of trying to push even farther. (As though they could get through the one person and steel bars separating them and the stage.) Further into the evening, there were a few more denizens of countries-that-should-never-have-been-let-into-the-EU trying to shove and muscle their way to the front, earning a few elbows in the ribs from yours-truly.

I finally understood why so many European fans - despite the wide availability of general admission floor tickets - prefer to buy seats a bit off the floor. While the crowds here are generally incredibly polite and respectful of personal space, there are always a brutish few who try to take advantage of the politesse and forcefully jockey for better position. I noticed at a show in Paris - in a much similar situation - that Alannah and I were among the few who resisted and fought back.

Make your own WWII analogies.

The show itself was pretty good. It had its high highs (some decades-old songs being dusted off, Martin Gore giving the performance of a lifetime), its low lows ("Peace" is the worst live Depeche Mode song ever, Dave Gahan still tries too hard on stage, Peter Gordeno should simply be hanged until dead), and as-expected parts (can we drop certain "standards" from the setlist yet, guys?). But again, it was the privilege of being there, and taking Alannah to her first DM show, that made it worthwhile.

Despite the irritating dickhead quotient.

Best of all, despite continuing to be on my feet non-stop since early in the morning (and with exception for time spent on the train), my right foot did not fall off. In fact, by the night's end, I couldn't even feel my feet anymore.

Home
This was our third train trip outside of the country since moving to France. But for me, at least, the trip home actually, really, truly felt like we were going home. Back to our city. To our neighborhood. To our apartment. Our little nest. Where we actually, honest to god think of when we say "our home."

The night before leaving on this trip, I booked us our tickets to go back to the US for vacation this summer.

And for the first time in ages, I'm not looking forward to it.

Don't get me wrong.

I want to see my friends. My family. My old colleagues.

I want to have a hoppy Seattle microbrew, California wine, and Crunchy Cheetos.

I want to see the Pacific Ocean, the Sierra Mountains, and the Puget Sound.

You know - all those things people vacationing on the West Coast get to do. Before going home.

Entire photo set at Flickr

Foreigners Who Don't Drive Me Batty

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:33:00 +0000

Anyone familiar with me (or this blog) knows that I don't have a great love for most of my fellow American expats in Paris.

If meeting at an Irish pub and speaking exclusively in English about how much you hate overpaying for Oreos while sipping overpriced, past-its-date Guinness is your thing, fine. Go do it. Just don't do it in my company. And preferably nowhere near my charming little neighborhood. I didn't move here to hang out with the Marina choads who work in the Fi-Di, thankyouverymuch. (That'd be a San Francisco reference to the vile popped-collar scum who undeservedly get the most overseas working opportunities.)

So it was with a little apprehension that I finally gave in and went to my first Polyglot event. The wife and I have both been meaning to hit up one of these language exchange meet-ups held at a local bar, but having been turned off by the douchebaggery at most other conglomerations of étrangers à Paris, we balked. Self-hatred? A desire to break free of our former lives? No. As Alannah pointed out over lunch today, we consider ourselves - rather unlike the type we keep away from - immigrants. Not expats. Not foreign workers. Not a couple on extended vacation. But a couple of people who have moved to another country - most probably for good - who would like to integrate a bit and make local friends.

That's a tough gig in a socially insular place like Paris, but I think we've found a gathering that's just our style. For the people who sign up for a group like Polyglot seem to have a genuine interest in learning other languages and cultures. Sure, there are plenty of other 'Murrikans who show up – but they've come to improve their French. Or Spanish. Or Japanese. And it's not just Americans and French. There are Chinese, Iranian, Australian... to name a few.

Over the course of a few hours I had conversations in many of the languages I know (or would like to know), taught and learned various turns of phrase, and - OMGWTF - met actual Parisians who were as interested in what others had to say as they were with grabbing their next verre. In fact, more so.

If anything, I felt like the town drunk having two big steins of beer. But as I said, I was a bit timid about this whole affair at first.

While there's definitely some emphasis on socializing and having a little glass of something as social lubricant, it was refreshing to be around people interested in sharing. Not business networking. Not getting laid. Not whining about how no one at the market speaks English. (Although I'm certain a little bit of all that takes place as well...)

Although neither of us were social butterflies making the rounds, we met a fistful of cool, interesting people... And even made new friends. In fact, when a couple of guys found out we're really into food and cooking, they insisted on having a dinner party to introduce us to their "real home cooking."

The revelation isn't from previously thinking that such people didn't exist... Through the friends that we've already made we know damn well that there are friendly, welcoming Parisians who are as happy to lend you a hand as they are to go party with you. It's just that - even as locals will tell you - the social life here can be a very tough nut to crack. And thanks to a community of the linguistically curious, we've just started to tap a few more fissures into the shell. Tap tap tap...

Des Américains à Paris

noreply@blogger.com (Omid) — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:51:00 +0000

Looking through the New York Times web site before the weekend, I found an article about an American festival in Paris. Figuring Sunday was set to be a gorgeous day, I proposed the idea of hitting up the festival to Alannah, who then told another American friend about it, who then brought a couple of her visiting American friends. What better place for a bunch of Americans in Paris to gravitate that, well, a festival called "Americans in Paris?"

Upon arriving at the Jardin d'Acclimatation - the part of the massive Bois de Boulogne where the festival was held - we were greeted by a gigantic poster of Uncle Sam, complete with a stars-n-stripes mushroom cloud behind him. And on his lapel, a button with the same mushroom cloud figure. "WE [NUKE] YOU" ???

All joking aside, it's actually the Jardin d'Acclimatation's oak tree logo, and their slogan is "WE [OAK TREE] YOU." Alannah had noticed this in the event program before we even went. But one has to admit, the whole mushroom cloud seems much more appropriate for the finger-wagging Uncle Sam.

We entered the park grounds, passing a small jazz quartet along the way (jazz is heavily acquainted with America here, and why not?), went through the ticket booths (a whopping 2€70 admission), and came upon what I could only call Main Street U.S.A. Only without the Main Street Electrical Parade. And instead, a shit-ton of non-sensical highway signs. In French eyes, this is what the great American open road looks like: A clusterfuck of signage, yellow cabs, and yellow school buses. And surprisingly, no other Americans.

Despite the fact that the Jardin borders Neuilly-sur-Seine, the America-lovin', expat-filled suburb nicknamed Sarkoville after President Nicolas "Sarko the Américain" Sarkozy - I didn't hear any other brassy-accented, flat-voweled English other than our little group's.

Alannah and I looked around in awe at what Parisians consider typical American. For the most part, they're dead on. Stands selling stuff you can't typically get here, like bagels, pancakes, brownies, and dirty-water hot dogs. (Most hot dogs here are baked into a bun, kind of like a baguettey bagel dog.)

There were tee-pees, because even though we've swept the indigenous population under the rug with a bottle of firewater and a trinket industry for company, American Indian imagery still weighs heavily on this side of the ocean as part of what America "is." Although they often misapply it in that National Geographic speculative anthropology kind of way that is respectfully interested but horribly off-base. The popular Indiana Café chain, for example, boasts a Cherokee headdress logo, serves Tex-Mex food, and - well - is freakin' called Indiana. Three things that have nothing to do with each other. Then there's the Buffalo Grill chain, which romanticizes the Wild West and Buffalo Bill, who happily sits side-by-side with figures of the very people he was out to terminate. But I digress...

Our first stop was to get a souvenir photo of Alannah inside a cutout of the signature American cultural export: Coca-Cola. This act epitomized exactly why we came: Seriously cheese-dick fun. Despite the fact that we're both food freaks who abhor high fructose corn syrup, we've become enamored with Coke since moving here. Not for nostalgia's sake, but because like Mexican Coke, it's made with real sugar here. It's sad when the American stuff abroad is more authentic than the American stuff in America, n'est-ce pas? (We've also come to appreciate *shiver* McDonald's, but perhaps because it's the only place you can get a burger for less than 10€.)

Looking around further, there wasn't much American stuff that I've been longing for. The pecan pie on display at one booth looked terrible. There were no chili dogs, fried chicken, or funnel cakes to be found. In fact, if you're an American in Paris missing food from back home, this festival had to be about the lamest place.

Despite the disappointed tummy, however, there was plenty to amuse.

We spent a good amount of time watching a local acrobatic basketball team called Crazy Dunkers. Because nothing says America like getting above the rim and dunking over some little kid. I mean, literally...

There were all the rides and zoo animals that make the Jardin d'Acclimatation a fun place for the family even when it hasn't been invaded by an American festival. ESPN America (which is the European version of ESPN... whaaa?) had set up batting cages. Little French kids donned American football helmets and did their best to knock down a tackling dummy.

And, of course, there was something to remind me that even I bleed a little bit of Red, White, and Blue: Cheerleaders. Or as they're called here in France, "Pom-Pom Girls." (Which, sadly, doesn't acknowledge the growing number of male cheerleaders, whom I don't personally find as aesthetically pleasing, but equally important in the college sports scene.) At any rate, instead of hearing me muse about gender equality in sports and spirit activities, I'm sure there's more interest in a picture, huh?

Overall, it was great fun, seriously aided by the gorgeous spring weather. I would've liked there to have been more stuff representing the America I know. I mean, besides a Marines recruiter preying on GED candidates or Toby fuckin' Keith. I mean things like California wines. Texas BBQ. Pacific Northwest beer. Humboldt county blue-haired bud. Ok, maybe that's pushing it. But instead of the stereotypes and booths from mediocre local expat businesses who are nothing but the colloquial "epic fail," I'd love to see bits of "real" American goods and culture. I'm sure most Parisians know that the USA is more than hot dogs, bagels, and Barack Obama posters by street artists. (Although all of those are A-OK by me.) Just as France isn't all baguettes, wine, cheese and nudie flicks (although there's plenty of that to go around), America is more than junk food and compensatory projection of military power.

Then again, witnessing the massive (in both ways) American family in front of us on the Métro Ligne 1 between the Bois du Boulogne and our neighborhood, dressed like they just ransacked a Super Wal-Mart, barely able to talk without spitting bits of unchewed food, and unable to stand on the train without knocking people over with their kielbasa-fingered fists... Perhaps many French rightly have a lousy impression of us.

50 more photos available in this Flickr set... yes, including more cheerleader photos.

Back in the Saddle

noreply@blogger.com (Omid Abroad) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:49:00 +0000

I haven't written in months.

At first I thought it was from the old theory that there's no better way to rob the joy out of what you love doing than... doing it for a living. After all, I'm primarily a writer now, and I spend all day looking at words. Either my own half-formed ones, or those of others - trying to find inspiration. If I'm focused on spinning words into digestible (or, rather, marketable) fluff for the tech masses, I probably don't want to come home and stare at my notebook or blinking cursor.

But then I realized, no, that's not the case. I still spend plenty of time writing invective against right-wing blowhards and musing about music and food on various social media sites. And more and more often in French!

In fact, come to think of it, I've been writing plenty. Just not here. Because back in 2005, I set this up to write about my travels. And since moving to Paris a year ago, I haven't really been traveling. One year in a continent where different languages, cultures, and food and drink are within a couple of hours by train or plane... and I've only been to Italy and England. Oh, and Montpellier, which might as well be another country.

To be honest, it's been a bit frustrating. One of the draws of moving here was this ability to go in any direction and wind up practicing my Spanish or German or Dutch or... you get the picture. But the reality is, despite having a lot of expenses covered and some cash saved up, moving overseas has hit the pocketbook hard. We moved a good amount of stuff, but once we finally found an apartment, had to buy even more. Also, things are just generally more expensive here. Books. Clothes. Dinners out. Drinks. A show at a small club. Then there's the pesky fact that we're now a couple on a single income.

The quality of life is high in Paris. Unfortunately, so is the cost.

I have, however, found a way around it all. And it's not in any Europe-On-a-Shoestring or Paris-pas-Cher guidebook. Nope. It's about something you can't find on a bookshelf or any web site. It's called... mojo.

That's right, baby, I've got my mojo back. Those who've known me for a long time know that I'm a fucking winner. As in, I have this uncanny knack for winning contests. It's not skill. It's not timing. I just win stuff. And there is a lot of shit to win in Paris.

A few weeks ago, I got a call on my mobile while I was at work. "Is this Omid?" asked the woman's voice on the other end. "If you're free on the 17th of March, you've won two tickets for the Tina Turner concert at Bercy."

Now, I wouldn't be picked out of the crowd as a big Tina Turner fan. I know her catalogue, I respect her as an artist, and no self-respecting Child of the 80's would deny having bopped his/her feathered head to her music as a youngin'. And hell, I actually was interested when I saw the poster advertising the show... Until I saw the €136 pricetag on the tickets. That's PER ticket. Convert that to dollars, and we're talking Madonna or Barbra Streisand-like extortion.

But for free? Hell yes!

So there we were, a poor-ass, single-income couple of unsophisticated 'Merkins, sitting amongst Parisian celebrities in what must've been the VIP area, with the hoi polloi occasionally coming up to snap pictures of the stars I couldn't even begin to recognize. Ok, I think one guy hosts a TV show, and another one was a French rock star, but honestly, I simply haven't assimilated enough to know. Then Tina came out, shimmying around the stage and belting out hit after hit. Call me an old bastard, but I fully enjoyed it. The old songs; the costume changes; the Mad Max set; the ridiculous Goldeneye set; explosions; the intermission where, out by the bar and toilets, I saw the largest gathering of middle-aged gay men since my old co-worker's Tony Awards party. All just three metro stops away... and after the quick ride home, Alannah and I said to each other, "We've got to win more contests."

And so we did. Last week, Alannah got an email from the folks at the recently opened Forum des Images saying that she'd won an invitation to the "Toi & Moi" party. Come as a pair, dressed as your favorite movie couple, be photographed red carpet-style, blah, blah, win prizes, blah, blah, chocolates to snack on, blah, blah, open bar. Open bar? Why didn't they say that earlier?

And thus we went, dressed up as Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction. Not super creative, but I have long hair and John Travolta's paunch, and getting the necessary hair dye, fake pistol, and bola tie fit our miniscule budget.

Yes, I know they weren't a couple, but there was plenty of sexual tension, OK? Besides, a lot of other couples came as completely incongruent stuff - like Darth Vader and Catwoman. Or Wayne and Garth. (Last I checked, neither of those pairs were havin' relations...)

Through the course of the night, we consumed well over a bottle's worth of whiskey each. Which broke down Alannah's language barrier a bit, since she pretty much wound up talking to everyone, despite her minimal French. And making out with the hot bartender. (Girl bartender, that is.)

And she's not one to do that type of thing. [Mental note: Buy more whiskey.]

Alannah claims that the bartender was the aggressor, but the pics tell me otherwise. (Sorry, she hasn't posted them to Flickr yet.) While I wasn't up to quite the same shenanigans, my Vincent did find his Jules. And no, we did not play tonsil hockey.

We were well beyond crusty the day after. But I survived my day at work. And Alannah survived her evening of training for the organization she's volunteering with. I work. She volunteers, works on her French, and makes friends with all the local merchants so we're always in fresh produce and fish and meat. And together, we win.

This evening, after work, I swung by the Lazy Dog Gallery to pick up a new special-edition Swatch designed by rapper/artist Grems. Along with it, a nice print of his work for this project, as well as a couple of wristbands for the launch party/concert at La Scène Bastille. It'd be a bit gauche to discuss the retail value of this package, but let's just say I can not afford it. But that's ok, because I won it in a contest yesterday.

To celebrate our great luck (as if that's necessary), we stopped by our favorite wine bar for un verre ou deux... then brought home 10 litres of the stuff so we can have some with the fantastically fresh food Alannah had picked up at the local open-air markets earlier in the day.

We have no need to buy bottles of wine regularly anymore. We do it old school, filling up two 5L jugs of small-producer wine straight from the cask at the beginning of the month.

We've made friends with our next-door neighbor, everyone at the bar downstairs, and the guy who owns the boutique next door.

I've traded in taking the metro for riding the bus to/from work. It's a bit slower, but it's less crowded, more reliable, and I can get more reading done without the interruption of changing stations.

And I've just booked a pair of train tickets for a short break in Luxembourg.

I think it's safe to say I've found my groove.