Cool People in Hot Places

One cool thing about this trip is that we’ve met so many people:

In Granada, our persnickety front desk clerk corrected the way I held my passport out to him because he didn’t like my hand positioning. He also spent about ten minutes drawing perfect swirly arrows all over a paper map for us, telling us what to do while there. (Who carries a paper map?!) He seemed pretty excited about sending us to a bath house, which I tried to goad Steve into doing on the days while I was at my work conference, to no avail.

In Barcelona we didn’t so much meet as we bonded with every other hotel guest in an exchange of angry faces at 11pm at night when the fire alarm went off and we had to leave the building and stand on the street. I’d been in the shower when it started so Steve assumed... I’d done something wrong in there to cause the alarm noise? I was about to make a joke that this is what marriage is all about— assuming your spouse is at fault no matter what— but then I realized that if the situations were reversed I would’ve 100% assumed HE had somehow showered wrong so... yeah.

In Paris we had a dinner at a sidewalk cafe and met two women who worked for Disneyland Paris who’ve lived there for 20 years. One of them had a stupidly cute one year old son who just learned to walk and who therefore walked in and out of the restaurant past us ... I want to say 70 times? He even held hands with Steve for a bit but I did not get jealous.

Steve’s feet are injured so he stayed in that cafe drinking while I walked around Paris for about 90 minutes but when I got back he was still there, now chatting with an uber friendly couple from Boston who now want us to visit them at their summer place in Cape Cod. I think Steve lured them into being his friends by lying, telling them they don’t have strong Boston accents. (I sometimes do this thing where I accidentally mimic people’s accents while talking to them but I felt like a free vacation to Cape Cod was at stake so I really restrained myself and tried to sound Canadian by saying ‘eh’ a lot.

We met a lovely museum employee when we took a train 280 miles outside of Paris to Nancy France for the day, just so we could see the one Caravaggio painting there. People in Nancy don’t speak much English at all, but they sure speak French quickly!  I accidentally told her I spoke German because the French words for ‘German’ and ‘England’ sound kinda the same to me. The weirdest part of the whole thing is I have semi secretly been learning German on the  duolingo app for a year, and I’m ashamed to admit this but the only German words I can really remember are ‘roommate’ (because it sounds like ‘boner’) and ‘desire’ (because the word is ‘lust’).

Today before we left Paris Steve took the metro out to see a special park while I stayed in the city and walked around the Seine, near Norte Dame. Paris has been so hot— 30 degrees every day, so I was cooling off under a beautiful tree in a park beside the Shakespeare and company bookstore when I look over at another park bench a distance away and a man there looks at me and gestures between us, asking if I wanted him to come over. I shook my head no, and laughed. He came over and sat down anyway.  The confidence! And the audacity! of flirtatious young men in Paris! (And also I guess the desperation! Because I don’t look rich and I’m clearly old.)  Right when he started to tell me I must have some German in my ancestry because of my perfect blue eyes, and was I visiting Paris alone? I got a text that Steve was ready to meet me at the bookstore. Park guy seemed a little startled but ultimately relieved that my husband  wasn’t coming to meet me in the park when I explained this. I should also mention that park guy is Steve’s least favourite person we have met on this trip.

Now we’re in Rouen for a few days. Who is next??

Hells Bells

Granada has a huge, beautiful cathedral that sits on a square that has rivers of narrow alley-like streets streaming away from it. Every alley is the same— apartments above, small cafes and bars and souvenir shops below. It’s a fun vibe at night because street musicians roam around performing, and they’re GOOD. (It’s mostly guitarists and singers but one guy absolutely rocked a homemade cello thing made out of an overturned garbage can,  broom handle, and string.) We wanted to have a sangria and tapas there in an alley our last night, but it was not meant to be. Why? Because it was international yoga day.

Hundreds of people on yoga mats packed the square while a woman on the top of the cathedral steps droned on into a microphone. I guess she was leading the class? Because everyone below moved in unison. There was someone quite insistently drumming beside the leader throughout, so she needed to get a bit shouty about her instructions. I saw frustrated musicians with guitars walk up the alley towards the cathedral square to see what was going on, only to turn around dejectedly and head somewhere else. I also saw a few male photographers, greedily raising cameras overhead to get shots of ladies colourful asses raised (and probably silently farting) in unison. They are the (downward) dogs. 

How long does this last, do you think? I asked. Steve shrugged.

When I looked over again, they were all in tree pose. I could see their arms raised high over spectators heads. Was it wrong that I wanted to run over and gently tip one of them over so she fell into the next woman, creating a domino effect? Maybe it would be less wrong if I felt very zen while I imagined it.

We drank and ate.

Finally, yoga class had reached Shavasana. Nap time. This is my favourite part of yoga— having a little snooze at the end. Why don’t all athletic endeavours include this? I imagine my friends and I after soccer, napping on the turf. We could even throw in a cuddle. This would solve so many of the world’s problems, I decided. No more hooliganism. If the pros played each other and then cozied up at the end? I think of Ronaldo and Messi. Messi has more ballon d’or awards but he’d still be little spoon. 

Shavasana meant it finally got a little quieter in the square. But then... the bells at the cathedral went off and everyone went apeshit.

These bells were LOUD, so everyone in the alley jumped a little. There was no sign of them letting up. Dogs started barking in the apartments and in the street, riling each other up. Kids covered their ears, and a baby started to cry. The woman with the mic tried to shout over the din— but with the constant bells and barking, I couldn’t hear what she was saying, no one could. I couldn’t understand the language she was speaking anyway but the frantic; stressed out change in her voice— that came out loud and clear, like the bells.  I liked to imagine she was shrieking ‘LET YOUR SHOULDERS RELAX! CLEAR YOUR MIND!’ 

Finally, I felt at peace.

In Praise of In Flight Enemies

Since moving to Edmonton for school, Sophie flies a lot and does this thing where she picks an ‘enemy’ on every flight she takes. It could be a person in the aisle seat who falls asleep, blocking bathroom access. Once it was a little kid who was funnier than her and she was jealous. Her new temporary enemy is usually the first thing we talk about on the drive home from the airport. I’ve flown a lot these last two days and for the first time, I’ve made flight enemies myself.

On the 9 hour flight to London not only did I not get any armrest space, I had to gently remove a stranger’s elbow from my knee. Twice. She was so fast and loose with her elbows that during dinner she tipped my red wine askew while gesturing animatedly. I felt quite proud of having caught my wine cup in time and I moved it to the left side of my tray instead, only to then promptly spill it on myself and Steve. I guess that useless looking little divot on your tray table is a more solid cup holder than it would appear. (And as I type this I realize that it probably makes me Steve’s prime flight enemy. None of us are immune.)

Today was a new day with a new flight to Spain. And a new enemy! The man beside me not only conquered the entire armrest between us with his arm but also encroached well past it into my precious narrow airspace. He spread out. With his hairy arms. How hairy, you ask? Would it be too much to say the hair in his arms was 5 inches long? It would, but I’m going to say it anyway. In my zest to demonize my new foe I also couldn’t help noticing that as he fell asleep, his far leg manspread well into the aisle as well. Everything about him oozed into whatever space it could find. He was melted cheese. Melted, hairy cheese. I looked down and saw in horror that he had taken off both his socks and shoes and had curled the gnarled, hobbity toes of one foot around the bar dividing our legroom. He gripped to it like an animal clinging to a branch for safety.

With fifteen minutes left in the flight he began making attempts at small talk which I was very ready to rebuff. But then he noticed the poetry book Steve was reading and they got to talking across me and it turns out they’re both literature professors and poets who have published in some of the same places and they know some people in common. To hear each other they rudely leaned across me but then the hairy man had the audacity to very kindly keep trying to include me in the conversation in a polite and respectful way, which had the effect of me transferring enemy status to Steve. (I was able to do this because I can only assume that by this point the gentleman had also uncurled his toes from that bar because from the way he leaned in, the angle would’ve been impossible.)

And Steve has already exchanged emails with his new bestie. But who knows if the love will last because Steve just found out this guy has a bigger Wikipedia page than him. Trouble in paradise! 

Anyway guys Granada is really nice! I put a picture of it here for you.

Beers in the Tiergarten/Tears in the Beer Garden

Last day in the last city on this trip: Berlin. So different than the storybook quaintness of Prague or the classical elegance of Vienna, Berlin is a mixture of post WWII buildings, a few older structures pockmarked with shrapnel as a reminder of the war, and remnants and reminders of the Berlin Wall. The whole two week trip had been planned as a quirky holiday to see more Caravaggio paintings (and that’s been wonderful), but it’s also been a great— dare I say post pandemic? adventurous holiday. And a chance to drink a lot of great German beer.

A bit of backstory: there used to be five Caravaggio paintings in Berlin but three were destroyed here when the flak tower they were stored in had a fire during WWII. Ever since I learned this I doubted that it was true— at least one of them is very small portrait, similar in size to the Mona Lisa— so my theory is that someone picked it up and tucked it under their arm back then and their naive grandson has it hanging in their condo somewhere here. In fact, a tiny bit of me thought if I just walked around snooping through condo windows here over these three days I’d probably find it, and become a celebrated darling of the art history world— but alas, no. 

But I feel like we’ve walked around the city enough to say we tried. I mean we have walked. So last night we decided to treat ourselves by strolling to a great big beer garden in the park and we got really, really, soused. By accident. I’m not even sure how it happened— it had been a super hot day and we hadn’t eaten much and at the end of the day we’d walked on heavy legs quite far to find this place— so the beer was cold and went down fast. It was touch and go for a bit there.

“I’ve got the spins, can I just lie down here for a bit?”

“Steve, no. We’ll get kicked out.”

“So?”

“We’ll get kicked out in German which seems worse. Plus are you just gonna lie down outside a beer garden then? Look it’s all stinging nettles.”

“How am I gonna walk to the bathroom?”

And so on. We had an elaborate plan to save a bit of beer in one glass so we could pretend to spill it on his shorts in case he had to just pee in place... you know, so it looked like spilled beer on his shorts instead of pee. Then we had the brilliant idea to maybe we should get some food to soak up some of the alcohol— but who was going to do this?  Walk over to the food court area and order and pay for food when menus are all in German?  And carry it back on a tray? Navigating the bathroom was too difficult, so this felt NASA level complicated. Finding a missing Caravaggio seemed easier in that moment.

In the end the task fell to me and even then I screwed it up. The German word for pizza is ‘pizza’ but somehow I managed to order us a handful of arugula instead. “Just this?” The pizza guy indicated, in German, as he held up leaves. “Nein!” I said, possibly a little too hysterically. Luckily pointing helps. So in the end we got pizza and paid (and peed!) AND somehow stumbled drunkenly home through the beautiful Tiergarten, probably a little bit too loudly, back to our hotel.

Taking it easy today :) 

Disney, But Make it Sexy

At the risk of making a snap judgement on a city I’ve only been in for a few hours, I can’t helping but compare Prague to Disneyland. The cobbled, curved streets! The colourful buildings painted yellow and peach with wooden shutters on small windows! A little cobblestoned bridge covered in statues that cars can’t drive on! I keep expecting Belle from Beauty and the Beast to throw open her shutters and start bitching about the baker’s bread in her poor provincial town as I round every corner. It’s beautiful.

Of course there are no rides here like in Disneyland, but Prague really makes up for it by having tons of quaint little cannabis shops. Picture a Disney theme park dotted with stores where you can buy Mickey Mouse ears, but replace the mouse ears with weed and then multiply that number of shops by ten. Add to that the fact that the Czech Republic is also world famous for it’s lager so lots of beer is sold everywhere, all of which creates a fun mix of young, wasted people, whooping loudly while wandering the streets with nothing but churches, a famous old clock, and a cobbled bridge for fun. 

But wait— I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the Prague Sex Machines Museum— it seems fun. It claims to house 350 items but the ones I noticed were a chastity belt made out of metal containing what look like vampire teeth, a vibrator that appears to attach to a Kitchen Aid mixer (it comes with a guarantee!) and a dildo that looks like it was stitched out of an old baseball mitt. 

You know what, never mind, it’s really not that much like Disneyland.

Uncouth in Vienna

Travel sucks! Why? Here’s a list

See if you can get the gist.

My bag is zipped but without doubt

Forgot to leave my liquids out

Security lineup’s long as heck

And I get picked for random check

Now at the gate and there’s a guy 

Who cuts the line- no reason why,

My flight’s delayed; they’re out of food

The customs folks are kinda rude

But when I get to a new city

Damn, it’s looking uber pretty!

The view’s divine, the locals cool

The buildings— architectural jewels

The metaphorical grass is green 

The sights— the best you’ve ever seen 

Vienna is a visual froth 

These folks are cut from different cloth 

Saw paintings, sculpture, coins and more

Music, churches, marble floors.

It’s gorgeous and I feel my luck 

And yet— alas, I am a schmuck

Cause—  it all feels like a lot 

Some designers lost the plot 

While violins can sound so placid 

Decor reads more like Trump on acid 

You like gold! We get it dude 

But when you use this much it’s crude 

Or maybe I’m just not cut out 

For what Vienna’s all about 

Like —I am sadly, such a keener

To giggle when there’s talk of weiners;

Get tipsy walking cobbled stones,

Waver into cycling zones

Not saying I am unintelligent 

But maybe somewhat... less than elegant

Vienna you are style and grace 

But I’m ready for a different pace 

And so tomorrow— off to Prague 

Where I will write a different blog :)

 

Dublin Days

Today, on the app I use to learn German, I had to practice the phrase “Are you jogging right now?” which if you think about it, is a pretty cruel thing to say to someone. (If I were ever to jog again I’d hope it’d be sorta obvious.) Steve overheard me and said “Why practice German at this point? Are you that worried about the language barrier?” because we leave for Vienna tomorrow. But it’s our last night in Dublin and if I’m honest I’ve not understood a whole lot of what’s been said since we got to Ireland and it’s meant to be the language I speak. Today, for example, it was raining so fiercely that we ducked into a donut shop to wait it out and after we started chatting with a local I realized I might’ve told her I'm coming to her house. 

She said her house is beside the Guinness factory, which i understood to be both fifteen minutes away and also thirty minutes away. Foolishly I made an attempt to chat more and asked why there were only buses and taxis in Dublin and no regular cars driving around and she answered by telling me that in the unknowably distanced town where she lives, they use horses and buggies. After we heard that Steve and I just started nodding a lot. She said you couldn’t swim on the beach there as a kid because the water was all Guinness flavoured, and Steve tried to engage with “Oh, so it smells like Guinness near the factory?” but she just said no. 

I could tell she was pretty disappointed with these idiot Canadians. She held up her phone to show us an instagram video of the Guinness factory and I honestly thought it might’ve been a Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory type situation but with a beer river instead of chocolate but it was just a video of a beach. Any beach. There was no factory at all in the video. 

At this point we were clearly just having two parallel and completely unrelated conversations in the same language. Maybe she asked me if I was jogging right now. Maybe she even asked it in German, and in hindsight, I might’ve been willing to take up jogging in that moment if it would’ve clarified what the hell we were talking about. It was still raining and there was nowhere else dry to stand so this was our life now. 

When it finally cleared up a little and we said goodbye, I checked to make sure I still had my wallet but it was only partly because I thought she might’ve been distracting us with her high falutin horse-and-buggy-talk while her accomplice stole our stuff. But no one tried to steal anything of course, she was just a friendly person and as usual, I am an idiot. 

As we strolled back through thick puddles to our hotel, Steve saw on google maps that Dublin has a leprechaun museum. “What would that museum have in it?” he said, and it hit me.

Maybe that woman was a leprechaun. Like, the worlds tallest leprechaun? And she was trying to get us to go visit the museum and there are horses and buggies and Guinness swimming pools and frosted lucky charms and even a beach in there?

And I wouldn’t be surprised because Dublin is magical. I can’t count how many times I’ve heard people spontaneously break into song or laughed and clinked drinks in the last two days. It’s very easy to smile here. Next time I’ll stay longer for sure. And maybe practice learning Irish in my app before I come.