Everyone gets here on a ferry. Everyone leaves here on a ferry. For all its notorious isolation and locked-down security posture, there’s something oddly endearing about making your arrivals and departures to and from Guantanamo Bay on a friendly little putt-putt of a ferry boat chugging its way through the Caribbean blue.

The ferry boat is a part of GTMO life because the naval station here, like the bay itself, has two sides – windward and leeward. The airfield is over on the leeward side but the vast majority of base life takes place on the windward side. Geographically speaking, in some imaginary simpler time, one could theoretically drive around the bay, through the Cuban portion of Cuba, and arrive at the other side, I suppose. These days, however, what with the non-existent road, the two guarded fencelines, the one active minefield (theirs), and the one mostly-cleared minefield (ours), there’s no, shall we say, advisable way to drive from leeward to windward. You could try, but you would die, possibly even twice.

CubaVacationTravel.com Does Not Actually Come Here

Better to take the ferry boat. Whether you’re coming or going, you get the gift of respite. Twenty-five minutes on the ferry, bobbing gently o’er the waves (or pitching violently depending on the bay’s mood). You can spend some time wondering whether the bi-weekly barge bringing fresh supplies to the base might be in port (possible), whether the flight bringing produce to the NEX has been delayed (probable), or even whether it’s really as hot as it seems today (oh, dear lord, yes). Perhaps it’s just the Pacific Northwesterner in me, but I love everything about ferries, especially the way they force you to slow down. There’s no requirement for reflection once you do slow down, but having already made it that far, one does tend to let one’s thoughts roam, a welcome interlude to stretch out and relax, mindset-wise.

You Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore

The ferry dock is also the site of one of my favorite Guantanamo Bay traditions – the Gitmo Gainer. A big part of military life is change. People are always pulling up stakes and heading off to their next duty stations, only to be replaced by new arrivals. “It’s never ‘goodbye’,” you’ll hear them say, “it’s always, ‘see you later’.” Even so, they do call a move a “permanent change of station,” so nothing is promised. Perhaps that’s why the military is so good at marking transitions with ceremonies big and small.

The 2017 Gilmer-Lehrman History Teacher of the Year for DoDEA Will Not Put Up with Any Packing-Related Nonsense

In the case of the Gitmo Gainer, it’s all about saying goodbye to friends and colleagues as they take their last ferry ride from the windward side to the leeward side and on to the airplane that will fly them to the next stage of their lives and careers. As departees board the ferry for the last time, squeezing out a few last hugs, holding back (or not) a few last tears, those left behind peel off their shirts, shed their shoes, and as the ferry boat sounds the final farewell blasts of its horn and rounds the last set of pilings, one by one, they leap waving into the water from the adjacent pier. Front flips, back flips, belly flops, and swan dives, one after another they leap, crash, and tumble into the sea, most in swimsuits, but some in full clothing, as their friends look on waving from the ferry’s top deck.

So long, Javi!

All hands on deck…

…and into the drink!

It’s sweet, it’s poignant, and it’s powerful. There’s an affirmational quality to it, something that speaks to what we share with our fellow human. Probably we don’t commemorate moments such as these quite enough, although perhaps they’d lose some of their power if we did (“And here comes Sid Heaton and – YES! – he is taking out the garbage AGAIN with correctly sorted recyclables. How does he DO it? Give that man a trophy.”).

With the end of school, we are now more or less at the peak of “PCS Season,” as they call it, which means we’ve been down at the ferry dock quite a lot these past few weeks, saying goodbye to friends as they ride that last ferryboat across the bay. Quinn’s really perfected his front flip at this point and Kinsey’s working a credible cannonball. Kristanne, the newly-minted, 2017 Gilmer-Lehrman History Teacher of the Year for DoDEA (seriously, isn’t that incredible!), has a sort of half-topple, half-step in thing she does that works for her.

Standing on the dock of the bay…

Tomorrow, it’s our turn. We’ll be taking our last ferry boat across the bay and I only wish that somehow I could take a quick jump off the pier for all the wonderful folks leaving with us and still make it back onto the ferry for our flight back to the US, back to California, back to our home in Nevada City.

Punching our tickets…

We had no idea what we’d find here when we decided to take a leap of faith some 18 months ago, how we’d feel about it once we arrived, or whether we were making a colossal blunder, the likes of which would make us the laughingstock of family gatherings for years to come. To be fair, Gitmo has not been without its ups and downs, but as we prepare to depart, I’m struck by how many wonderful people we’ve all been able to meet.

Certainly, we’ve loved other aspects of being here – the diving, boating, swimming, and snorkeling, as well as just the focus brought to one’s life when the outside distractions are few (seriously, we didn’t have cell phones here until about six months ago) – but it’s the people that rise above all of that. There’s something about the shared purpose of being here that really cements relationships. Sure, there’s also some shared misery at work here (hurricane evacuations, anyone?), but the sense of all being in it together has brought back feelings I dimly remember from my high school and college graduations – that sensation that some shared experience, some bond that only those that were there really felt, was about to change, suddenly, and irrevocably. That’s some powerful juju, right there, all the more so since I’m sharing it with my wife and kids.

Thanks so much, GTMO – it’s been an unexpected, crazy, and delightful experience. “See you later!”

Go Team GTMO!

Burgundian Lounging: Better Get a Permit

Living in France requires an occasionally stunning amount of paperwork, with untold registrations, validations, and certifications, all signed, countersigned, and filed in triplicate with the proper authorities, of which there are many. No matter what it is that you want to do — skydive, tiger fight, eat breakfast — the likelihood is that you’re going to need to fill out a form or two before you can do it. You might have to do it in someone’s presence. You might have to receive a registered letter at your purported address. You might even need to get screened for tuberculosis or sing a credible version of la Marseillaise (true on the former; not so much on the latter…yet).

We were hipped to this early and often during our stay here, starting with our first abortive attempts to open a checking account. In the US, opening a bank account requires little more than ten bucks and a pulse. You’re in and out with a checkbook, 30-year mortgage, and home equity line in under 20 minutes, possibly with a free toaster for your troubles. Not so much in France. Instead, you start with polite letters of introduction indicating your interest, after which you are granted an audience some several weeks in the future. This is despite the fact that the relevant bank official’s calendar is completely open that afternoon and every afternoon between then and the proposed appointment two weeks hence. That’s just how it’s done – it wouldn’t be proper to rush into these things. No, no…it’s far better to have a certain seductive quality to your bank account opening, unfolding tantalizingly over time. Watching your debts accumulate and struggling with your inability to acquire electricity, power, and cell phone service without a checking account only adds to the sweet suffering.

Dancing In Public: Not Without a License

When the day of the appointment finally arrives, there are many pleasantries and bon mots exchanged, with small gifts for your children and discussions of vacation plans future and past. Then, you limber up your wrists with some light calisthenics and start signing stuff. Lots of stuff. Stuff you didn’t even know existed, with promises and waivers and sheafs and reams of paper. You get insurance you didn’t you know you needed…at least two kinds. You actually do need it, you’ll find out, when it comes time to enroll the kids in school. Our initial appointment took two hours and a box of Bic’s best.

Once you finally wrap up the initial appointment, you’re given to understand that a registered letter will be sent to your address. There’s no telling when it might come exactly…sometime in the next 10 days or so. Your account will not be valid until such time as that registered letter reaches you, is signed by you, and makes its way back to the bank. If you miss the registered letter, the whole cycle starts anew, except with much disappointed tongue-clucking from your bank representative and an admonition that one should always be at the house to receive the registered letter and more discussion of vacation plans and in-person bank visits. I’ve spent more time in bank offices during this year in France than I have in the previous 10 in the USA. I feel like I should have a little parting gift for my bank representative, Madame Revelen, who, in all seriousness, is a charming soul, always quick to comment on our improving French language skills during our many visits over the months. Did I mention that she went to Senegal for vacation this year? It’s true. Had a great time, too. And, yes, her husband’s health is improving…it’s kind of you to ask.

We went through this fun little registered-letter rigamaboogie two times before the hotel manager at the residence hotel where we were staying just up and signed the thing for us (it has to be done in the postman’s presence) with an illegible symbol of some sort. That was enough to get us back on Madame Revelen’s calendar for the long-awaited closing, the day when the registered letter would attest to our physical presence-hood and enable us to get an ATM card, a checkbook, and a standing monthly lunch appointment with Madame Revelen herself.

Sharing Desserts: Requires Form

Having a checking account is not a trivial thing in France. As I alluded to earlier, you cannot really live here without one – the fondness for all things paper creates a steady stream of check writing. For example, Quinn was in a fencing program this year. Rather than pay for the whole thing up front, the standard practice was to write five checks and give them all to them at the start of the program. Then, they’d cash them as the months went on, most likely after calling Madame Revelen to confirm that we were who we said we were and not a family of dastardly fencing-program thieves, bent on cheating the sabermaster. We did the same for Kinsey’s basketball program, Quinn’s baseball program, our French lessons…on and on in a ceaseless orgy of furious check-writing, until I finally learned how to spell all the numbers in French when written in longhand. “Ceaseless orgy” may be pushing it, but you get the picture.

On the day of what we foolishly thought might be our last appointment with Madame Revelen, we practiced up our best French greetings, debated and agreed that we wouldn’t faire les bisous with her (the French cheek kiss exchange), and showed up five minutes early to ensure there were no mishaps. All-too-predictably, an easy 40 minutes of fresh paperwork ensued, followed by the moment of truth – the validation of our signature on the registered letter.

With a dramatic flourish, Madame Revelen unsheathed the signed registered letter from her daunting hillock of materials. Donning her reading glasses, she held it up to the light, probing its authenticity for any crannies of doubt, turning it this way and now that. She may have bitten it once. Then, with an approving nod of her head, she gave us the coveted, “Eez good,” snapped her fingers twice, and we were in. Strobe lights flashed, a disco ball descended from the ceiling, and fresh flutes of champagne found their way to our hands. The lights dimmed, and Madame Revelen presented our checkbook and ATM cards, beguilingly perched on a crimson, velveteen pillow. Clearly, this was the France we’d been missing!

So much paperwork, they tick themselves off

Properly Permitted Photo

It’s not as if the French aren’t self-aware about this excessive administration syndrome – heck, the only thing they love more than filling out forms is complaining about having to do it. It’s practically a national sport, with entire television channels given over to titanic tantrums and tirades chastising the powers that be for being so, well, French. And, yes, it’s fairly certain that you need to fill out several forms to participate in those forums, but, as always, you’re encouraged to kvetch about it the entire time.

We were reminded of this Phrench Phenomenon a few weeks ago when our fifteenth anniversary rolled around. Neither the lunch reservations nor the exchange of gifts required any sort of paperwork, though perhaps they should have, given that the hostess at the restaurant checking our reservation straightfacedly misheard my pronunciation of “Monsieur Heaton” as “Monsieur Chicken,” occasioning no small amount of barely stifled guffaws from Kristanne. Turns out people who grew up with the last name of “Bohner” have a rather schadenfreudesque outlook on embarrassing mispronunciations of other people’s last names. Fair enough. Mr. Chicken gets it.

Don’t Worry: She’s Licensed for That

What did require a license, however, was golfing. Frankly, we should have seen this one coming, given that every other sport in France labors under an unrelenting set of exacting tests and achievements designed to chart your progress towards presumed perfection. We saw this with skiing, with the six or seven different levels kids pass through on their way to the coveted Etoile d’Or (“Gold Star”). Quinn had a similar system with fencing, as did Kristanne and I with our mastery of the French language (we topped out at the “Tin Asterisk of Slightly Less Embarrassing Accents”…not bad!). So, yeah, of course golf requires a license and naturally there are tests you can pass to document your knowledge and skills, progressing through different colors of “Flagstick” badges that you can wear on your lapel as you play or just perhaps point to and make “neener, neener, neener” noises when confronted with someone whose flagstick badge is not quite up to your own level. Maybe that’s just me.

Lucky for us, the license wasn’t hard to get – in our case, it cost the usual embarrassment of some bad French, which we are quite used to by now, thank you very much, plus five euros each, and, naturally enough, a couple forms wherein we declared our vitals and our non-intention to do the game of golf any harm, now or in the foreseeable future. Easy-peasy and good enough for a lovely nine holes in the sun.

And that seemed to be the end of it, until just last week when our official French Federation of Golf licenses arrived in the mail, complete with that snazzy “Mr. Chicken” logo in the middle. Still not sure how they found out about that. Kristanne may be taking the schadenfreude a little too schadenfar.

You can’t imagine how exciting this is. Not only are we now fully licensed to play anywhere in France (and any countries with exchange policies and similarly fussy attitudes towards requiring licenses to play golf), but we also get discounts on rental cars, Ryder Cup gear, and bank accounts with Société Générale bank…as if Madame Revelen would ever allow that or forgive us for trying to leave the family there at BNP Paribas. Yep, it’s all looking pretty good for us now. Just have to get one more form filled out by my doctor and submitted to my club for it to be all official-like, as you can see in that picture below. And, of course, there’ll also be the forms needed to secure and undertake a doctor’s appointment. After that, it may be time for Mr. Chicken to take his bad French skills on one of those TV shows and unleash a few pent-up demons. With Madame Revelen’s approval, of course.

It’s Blurred Because I Cannot Have My French Golfing Identity Compromised

what’s going on?

Kind of you to ask, and as you might expect, it involves filling out forms and checking off boxes. We’re solidly in the end-game here in Grenoble, packing up the apartment, filling out the customs forms at the post office, filling out the end of service forms with the gas, electric, water, internet, and TV companies. I think even my one-time nemesis, the baker, is hoping to get some sort of quick certificate of departure out of me, no doubt as proof to the government that his pain au chocolate sales are about to decline precipitously, entitling him to a short-term support payment from the Aid to Bakers with Dependent Families fund.

We’re also saying our goodbyes, and trying to get our heads around starting an old life anew. It’s a surreal feeling, but there’s so much to do, there’s not a lot of time to process any of it. We’ll be here in Grenoble through 7/19, after which, we’ll spend 6-7 days wending our way over to London for a quick visit with the Travelator before heading back to San Francisco on 7/30. Full circle. Hopefully, there will be time to add a few entries along the way!

See you next time…on the Odyssey!

Travel’s a humbler. Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, that you know which train leaves from which platform, which color gas pump dispenses diesel, and which cheek to lead with when doling out the compulsory French air kisses, well, that’s when some random grandma in the post office slaps you in the grill for playing Post Office. Sorry, ma’am – thought I knew you.

Of course, I’m speaking metaphorically here, though lord knows I’ve regularly made an ass of myself with the whole air kissing thing. You really are supposed to lead with different cheeks depending on where you are in the country, though it’s important to remember that they are always face cheeks (and no, I haven’t made that particular mistake yet, though I sense the reader’s lack of confidence here).

I’m never sure how well I need to know someone before I throw down with les bisous (French for the aforementioned air-kissies; apparently passing acquaintances work if you haven’t seen them for a couple weeks), how much lip contact you make on ye olde cheek (zip, zilch, nada), and how loud a smack you’re supposed to make when getting smoochy with the atmosphere (apparently not the Miss Piggy-esque lip fart I’ve been known to blast into unsuspecting ears). Throw in my lack of confidence on the question of cheek contact and you’ll understand why most social situations find me quavering under the buffet table, rocking back and forth while hugging my knees.

Where’s Hugo?

The metaphorical Grandma-in-the-Grill this time around, however, had nothing to do with air-kissing and everything to do with just workaday, boneheaded travel planning. We’d been looking forward to the arrival of Kristanne’s parents for months now, laying in plans for how to pick them up in Paris, where to break their spirit on the trip back to Grenoble, and how we could ride ‘em hard and put ‘em away wet for the duration of their stay. We’ve also started wondering whether this approach to visitors is possibly why we haven’t had more of them during our previous nine months here. Food for thought, food for thought.

Extreme Family Daryl, Susan, Isaac, & Golda

As luck would have it, my college buddy, Daryl, would be in Paris with his family  at roughly the same time we needed to pick up Calvin and Rosalie, which gave us what I’ll cautiously refer to as the Perfect Storm of Parisian Portent, as well as an opportunity to make a long weekend of it in the French capital. That’s Daryl & his lovely wife Susan, catching a break in the D’Orsay museum while our children share terror tales with their children about how long their parents typically make them stay in art museums.

We decided to take the train north rather than drive, opting for the speed and ease of train travel over the charm of frequent tolls and hole-in-the-floor toilets (we saved those for the return trip via a rented car large enough to host Four Heatons and Two Bohners…possibly also our new band name, though we could also go with Three Jacks and Three Jills).

Arc de Triumphant Dancing

European train travel is indeed extremely convenient…all the more so when you actually catch your train. Subtle foreshadowing, I know – I have a hammer over here I’ll use to hit you over the head with a bit later on.

We started out with the best of intentions, buying our tickets from Grenoble to Paris months in advance. Heck, we even sprang for first class, what with the generous early-bird discount and all. Hotels were lined up in Paris (our home-away-from-not-quite-home in Paris, the Hotel Marignan) and in Vezelay for the return trip. Plans were planned and schemes were schemed, but before any of them could be realized, we had to make it to the train station.

Arc de Pro Rasslin’

And we would have, too, were it not for those meddling passports. We were about three bus stops removed from our apartment when the mental checklists we ceaselessly check and recheck during any departure from our apartment expected to last longer than five minutes turned up an exposure – I’d neglected to pack our passports. I say “I” in this case mainly because my initial attempts to blame our loaner cat, Vegas, appeared to fall on deaf ears. What the hell are loaner cats good for if not to take the fall for their temporary owners’ blunders? In all fairness, passport packing is always on my punchlist and I had not punched  it, though I did kinda feel like punching something now. Where’d you go, Vegas?

Arc de Brother & Sister

Strictly speaking, our lack of passports was not a deal breaker. Most French hotels don’t ask for them anymore and I’d rented cars without being asked for them, as well. So, we could have gambled we wouldn’t need them and just carried forward with plenty of time to make our train. Of course, the attendant mental anguish generated by taking a trip with the full foreknowledge that the entire thing could be completely scuttled by a fatal mistake made during the first fateful moments of our voyage would likely reduce us to psychological rubble more quickly than an Incorrectly Kissed Grandma…there was also that to consider.

Unsettled but unshaken, we formulated a plan – I would take the bus back, snatch the passports, and meet the family at the train station. There, they’d have already picked up our previously-purchased tickets from an Extremely Convenient e-ticket kiosk and we’d all hop the first thing smoking to Paris with no time to spare.

It was a good plan, and it would have worked, too, except, well, I didn’t quite make it to the train station in time and Kristanne didn’t quite pick up the train tickets. Aside from those two minor nits, the plan was otherwise a smashing, foolproof success.

I sprinted into the station, breathless, only to see my train just beginning its inexorable roll to Paris. I didn’t know whether Kristanne and the kids were on it. The last I’d heard of her on my cell phone as my tram arrived at the station was her pleading with the conductor, “Mon marie est arrive’ maintenant….attend, attend.” I was suitably convinced by these words that the train should wait, but unfortunately, the conductor did not share my conviction. He was, however, kind enough to inform me that the family had opted not to get on the train and had just left the platform.

You’ve Got Some Chagall, Pal

As it turned out, the only way to pick up tickets purchased over the Internet is with the exact card used to purchase them. Since it turned out that that particular card was in my particular possession, Kristanne was, as they almost never say in France, completely hosed. She could show them photo ID, a printed itinerary with all of our ticket numbers, and an email from the train company with little images of our tickets on them, but she could not actually pick those tickets up. She could see our tickets on the ticket agent’s computer screen, advise that ticket agent of her eminent trustworthiness, but she could not convince that ticket agent to release them. She could repeatedly point out how insane it was to deprive a mother and her two children of their rightfully-purchased train tickets when said train was just about to leave the station, but all to no avail. Heck, she could even yell at that ticket agent, demand to see a supervisor, and then yell at him for a bit, too, but none of it did a lick of good. Time to reboot.

The good news is that there’s more than one train to Paris and if you’re willing to apply money and time (or, really, just money) to any problem, well, they all typically improve. New tickets were procured and we were soon on our way to Paris, just a few hours behind schedule.

When we arrived in Paris, it was still observably Paris and that’s enough to make any Extreme Telecommuter drop whatever axes they were previously grinding, grudges they were previously holding, or crosses they were previously bearing and focus on what’s in front of them. I trust I’ll neither strain credulity nor dazzle with insight when I point out that Paris is Paris, an enervating city of unending wonder that never fails to bring the boom, culturally speaking.

We’ve been fortunate enough to stay in Paris several times over the last few years, each time hanging our hat in the redoubtable Hotel Marignan in the Latin Quarter. Both experientially and budgetarily, it’s just a few ticks north of a hostel, with clean rooms, private bathrooms, and a no-frills breakfast. For families and cost-conscious travelers, it’s perfect, with everything you do need and nothing you don’t. The location is central and it caters to an extremely international clientele, with plenty of different accents to decipher and new people to meet over your breakfast baguette, nutella, and coffee. Really, if I could add just one thing, it would be a #$@%@ lift, especially if we’re going to be on the fifth floor again next time.

Holy mother of quadriceps was that ever a shlep, even with the relative economy of our weekend luggage. Fortunately, it was a spiral staircase, too, so in addition to failing leg muscles, we were all vaguely nauseous to boot. But very little in Paris checks in south of $200 euros a month for a family of four, so you pays your money and you takes your chances. And you rubs in your BenGay balm. Plus, the mildly hallucinogenic effect of severe oxygen deprivation can be really entertaining as kids randomly disappear from one part of a room and appear in another, as in the photo below.

How does Kinsey do it?

Paris was a whirlwind, but an immensely enoyable one. Crepes with Daryl & his family in the Marais. A taxicab driver who, though born in Paris, was dumbfounded by our requests to go to the Cluny Museum, Latin Quarter, or Notre Dame, insisting instead that the best route was probably to go to the airport and start from there with his bearings fresh, maybe throw in several laps around the Eiffel Tower along the way for good measure. Apparently, we looked like a College Fund instead of a Budget-Conscious Family to this guy. For her part, Kristanne was having none of it, forcing him to pull over so she could show him both our map and the whites of our increasingly enraged eyes. “Ahhhhh,” he exclaimed….”That Latin Quarter, across from that Notre Dame…I see!”

We knocked out the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and Versailles on previous visits, so this time, we hit the Opera, Arc de Triomphe, and Musee d’Orsay, picking ‘em up and putting ‘em down, touristically speaking. The pace was fast, but we were a well-oiled machine, running on equal parts espresso and gelato. Good fuel, that.

Up with the sun and gone with the wind, we hit Charles de Gaulle with an air of purpose – get Ama & Poppie. Get Ama & Poppie. Get Ama & Poppie. We’ve all missed family and friends during the nine months we’ve been here, so a visit from Kristanne’s parents was just the treat we were looking for. Despite having been super sick the evening before, Kinsey rallied big time and rolled her suitcase onto the RER train and off to the airport, where the kids stood a vigil at the exit from Customs, waiting for their grandparents to appear. Perhaps the cans of refried beans we enticed them to smuggle carry to France caused them issues, or perhaps the Customs agents were just in the mood for some really excellent conversation and held them extra long, but the kids had a long wait before Ama & Poppie came through the doors, ready for hugs and to hit the road. We were only too happy to oblige. The rental car was raring to go and so were we, so we pointed the wheels southeast, bound for our long-reserved hotel rooms in the pilgrimage town of Vezelay and its UNESCO-endorsed basilica.

Good any month of the year…

I bet those long-reserved hotel rooms were just awesome back in March, which is the date for which we’d apparently reserved them. Spacious, I imagine, with plenty of Gallic conviviality and possibly even free hors d’oeuvres and ponies and maybe even complementary hairpieces for bald Dads….probably those were the specials they were running in March. Seeing as how it was now April, however, and we had no reservation whatsoever, well, the sweetness ran out of the proverbial pot a bit. No ponies, no hors d’oeuvres, and definitely no hair, as the innkeeper possibly patiently explained to me in French.

I’m still not entirely sure how we managed to do it – possibly it was because of the way Europeans invert dates, writing them DD/MM/YYYY instead of what I’ll defensively refer to as the “correct” way, or possibly it was a browser cookie issue, or it could even have been subtle neurological aftershocks resulting from North Korean saber-rattling. Those all make sense. Or, just possibly, it could even have been what appears to be your leader in the clubhouse opinion – Dad screwed it up. On the bright side, however, I must hasten to point out that I emphatically did not kiss any random Grandmas during the trip home, so it’s a bit of a net win, all told.

You say “Noix de St. Jacques,” I say “scallop”

Besides, our hotel hadn’t charged us back in March and still had plenty of room here in April. Throw in some fresh-baked croissants for breakfast and I’ll miss a few more trains, kiss a few more grandmas, and maybe even walk up five spiral flights of stairs, sans complaint – throw in the fresh croissants and I’m your guy.

My shrift grows short – suffice it to say that both Vezelay and its fellow Burgundian UNESCO site, Fontenay, were gorgeous, particularly in a welcome spate of Spring weather. We even got a little unscheduled ploo-blowage in Semur before finally making it back to G-Town in time for dinner. Ama & Poppie are now ready to face the bakers of France and whatever other challenges we can muster.

See you next time on the Odyssey as we head to Genoa, Venice, and Nice for Spring Break. Can’t wait to snag some jello shots on the beach in the Cote d’Azur!

One of the biggest benefits of being an iffy French speaker in a French-speaking country is that when reading or hearing French, you can usually persuade yourself to place your full faith in whatever translation best suits your particular needs at any given moment. You’ve got the English speaker’s appreciation of cognates, a few dimly recalled Latin roots in your back pocket, and possibly the benefit of being highly self-suggestible (viz. that whole La Grande Dangereuse episode from a few weeks back).

Hey, I Like Rivers!

This willingness to believe what needs to be believed can be both an advantage and a liability.  Take, for example, that sign at right with the scary red circle and the daunting “SAUF RIVERAINS!” slogan and imagine it at the entrance to a charming little alley with a delightful little pastry shop at the other end. Perhaps they’re passing out free samples of all manner of buttery baked goodness, or perhaps it’s Free Red Wine For Americans day, it doesn’t really matter. The point is they have it, you want it, and you can’t get to it because of that pesky little sign.

Now, a French speaker knows that “Sauf Riverains” means “Except Residents” and that only people who live there can drive down there and eat the implied free croissants and drink the theoretical free red wine. I, however, know that “sauf” means “except” and after that things get really hazy really fast. However, with the Magic of Misplaced Confidence, I can easily convince myself that “Sauf Riverains” almost certainly means “Except People Who Like Rivers” or “Except People Who Have Been To  A River When It’s Been Raining,” or even “Except You, Sid…Come on Down!” These are all in play.

I try to learn French, I really do, but frankly, it’s more difficult than I anticipated. Not only do they have words for everything, but most of those words appear to be pronounced in exactly the same way with meanings that can only be divined by context.

Cute Kids Eating Ski Food Don’t Have to Be Mentioned in the Text to Get on the Page

Perhaps French people have furtive little hand signals designed to throw off non-native, would-be French speakers that they use to tell one another what they’re on about. For example, an elderly chap walking into the local boulangerie might throw a little old-school hand-jive as he enters to indicate that when he says “Je voudrais deux chaussons,” he means he’d like the chaussons one might eat for breakfast and not the ones he might wear to keep his feet warm around the house (or even the hunting trip he’s going on next week, the word for which also sounds quite similar to my calcified ears). Or perhaps a normal person would clue into the fact that someone in a bakery is likely not asking for a pair of slippers or the best way to field dress a wild boar and probably just wants a nice jammy pastry. Perhaps.

I think I had it in my head that with the proper tilt of my theoretical beret and perhaps a bit of Gallic flair in my carriage, well, it’d be a simple matter of just adding a suitably cinematic French accent to some implausible high-school Spanish and I’d more or less be kicking it Flaubert-style. Those rosy expectations have proven to be, shall we say, overly optimistic, often comically so. Also, did you know that most French people don’t use the term “kicking it Flaubert style,” either in English or in French? It’s true.

Left-Handed Batter, Not Actually a Worker’s Party Member

So far, I have told a matronly innkeeper that I loved her (to be fair she had just brought us a really tasty rhubarb crisp), complimented a young woman realtor on her high availability, and, memorably, spent an entire baseball game yelling “Communist! Communist!” (“Gauchiste!”) at small children whose only transgression was to bat left-handed (“Gaucher,” alas). Figuring that last one out really went a long way towards explaining some of the looks from fellow parents in the stands. Apparently, when the French say “potato,” I say “Bolshevik.”

couldn’t you, like, take a class or something, ace?

Quinn’s first fencing tournament!

Despite the not-infrequent embarrassments, faux pas, and near international incidents, we are all improving, the kids amazingly so. Whereas Kristanne and I congratulate ourselves on remembering to conjugate verbs instead of speaking solely in infinitives (“I! To buy a bread to eat! You — to pass a nice weekend, it’s true. To rain tomorrow?”), the kids are able to understand things that are said to them in French and can often respond. The French school system, with its 8 hour days, four days a week, helps with this – they’re immersed in it and it shows. It also helps that they have young ears – they’re able to distinguish and mimic crucial distinctions in pronunciation that utterly escape me.

It’s not just the ears, though, because Kristanne is much better at understanding spoken French than I am. Certainly, my comprehension is not improved by my staunch refusal to apply context to situations and my indefatigable willingness to place complete credulity in whatever I’m certain I just heard. That’s why I was surprised when the baker handed that guy a pastry instead of a pair of slippers earlier on. It’s also why our endlessly patient French teacher has her work cut out for her 90 minutes, every Monday. This week, I convinced myself that the Easter-related noun she was describing as hopping around a children’s party was not actually the bunny (“lapin”) that everyone else understood, but was, in fact, a rogue loaf of bread (“le pain”) that must be stopped at all costs. ‘Cause, you know, everyone’s heard the story about the Easter Baguette, right?

I’m gonna drive that French teacher straight into a quivering early retirement, tell you what.

anything else going on?

Kristanne calls those things behind me my “Terminator Arms.” I just call them awesome.

Plenty busy hereabouts as we take on the six week period between the last two week vacation and the next one (love that French school calendar!). I’m going to try what I believe media people possibly refer to as a “teaser” or, perhaps, “a taste of the bass for you,” or even “a small item advertising a future article in hopes of generating interest in the viewing audience.” It really all depends on how literal the media are in your neighborhood, I suppose. Ready? My jazz group had our first concert – that’s me in that there Instagrammified picture, playing jazz in public, in France, which I do believe officially qualifies as Something I Never Expected To Do. Come on back next time and get the full story!

Winter took breaks in the fall, too, back when this picture was taken. That’s the Chartreuse in the background.

Winter took a short break for a few days last week, giving us a chance to dust off our bicycles and hit the dusty rue. Kinsey has been crazy for biking recently, putting it right up there in her Personal Pantheon of Pleasant Pastimes with swimming and playing Hack-A-Mom defense on the basketball court, much like she just did in that picture over there – dig Mom’s pained wince.

Grenoble, despite being surrounded by vertiginous Alpen wonder much like that shown in the background of the photo above, actually claims to be the flattest major city in Europe, a title I didn’t realize anyone was actually vying for until just recently. Couple this with the staggering abundance of dedicated bike paths and it’s by far the easiest place to get around on bicycle I’ve ever visited. That’s right, Amsterdam and Copenhagen – step off.

Even with so much valley floor to explore, there are the few odd hills places where you could put a ball down and it would actually roll. Kinsey and I were entering hour two of our Sunday pedal when Quinn and Kristanne joined us after wrapping up an epic homework session. Together, the four of us climbed one such incline where we’d never been before. There, hanging out at the top of the “hill” were those two cool cats you see below, styling and profiling in their Ferrari and their Jeep, rocking a look so ice cold that you just knew there was a whole chateau full of similar rides back home, each one kicking it on the same 1:8 scale, boasting full foot power, and miles of plastic chassis that just won’t quit.

this one’s mine…you gotta get your own down at king jouet, bro

The best part about these guys was their stone confidence. They were just parked in the middle of the bike path, not moving for no one. Sure, they’re both at least 5 years past the target demographic for these cars, but that’s not stopping them, not one bit. With the right pair of sunglasses and the right pose, they positively owned what they were doing.

got any over-stretched analogies you can pull from all of this?

i’m pretty sure this is the look that made the US want to go into vietnam, too…

It worked, too. They actually didn’t seem ridiculous. They even kinda made me want to get a car like this and hang out on bike paths with my buddies, too. This is sort of the apotheosis of French cool, where you can take something inherently ridiculous, something that works on no logical level, and then, by virtue of your own irresistible and undeniable savoir faire, sell that vision to the world. Hence, for example, the life arc of Napoleon and, the, uh, enduring popularity of Gérard Depardieu.

see ya next time!

We’re hanging in le G this weekend, hammering out a full slate of kids sports and skiing. See ya next time on the Odyssey, when I’ll potentially address Kristanne’s purchase of a Celine Dion album. It’s still too early for me to talk about it. Bon week-end à toutes et tous!

the past, blasting

Wait, aren’t we in France? Shouldn’t we be wearing berets, pounding croissants, and randomly going on strike? What’s up with the sudden appearance of earth tones and sunshine in that picture above? Why does it look like we’re living inside a giant brain? And, most importantly, what’s up with the whole family suddenly wearing pajamas in public?

More people should try wearing pajamas in public, frankly. Not only are they extremely comfortable, it’s also hard to get mad at someone cutting you off in traffic when you’re wearing jammies with feet. Road rage would plummet, comfort would soar, and best of all, we’d all be somewhat flame-retardant. Hmm. I’m pretty sure this paragraph has officially passed  into tangenthood. Let’s move on.

So really, man…what the heck?

Okay, it’s India. Maybe you guessed it, maybe you didn’t. Maybe you smelled the slightly fetid funk that infused itself into the very fiber of our digital camera’s memory card and is now transfusing itself via the magic of the Internet out your own computer screen, giving you the Smell-o-net experience that could only be one place – India.

Ah,the ole “snake in a basket” trick. Guy must think I’m from out of town.

I don’t really want to get into India a whole lot, mainly because we already got out of it and feel fortunate to have done so with life, limb, and family intact. Also, it would take me an Internet’s worth of disk space to capture all the incredible experiences we had there and I don’t want to get blamed for killing the Internet.

Suffice it to say that this time last year, we were up to our elbows in India, spending a high-intensity three weeks with Kristanne’s brother’s family (the “BollyBohners”), touring the temples, riding the elephants, and learning how stop the perma-wince that accompanies your first 10 days of near-misses and almost-crashes on Indian roads.

India is high-intensity, always-on, a complete and utter assault on each and every one of your senses. There’s good and bad in that – it’s completely enervating, but it can also be overwhelming, especially if you’re not accustomed to cows in the road, elephants in the swimming hole, and monkeys on your back. These are not so much cute expressions gleaned from our stay as they are things that happened.

kinda seems like you’re “getting into it,” dude…

India was a place I never expected to visit, but with Kristanne’s travelatin’ brother residing there for the last couple years, we couldn’t say no to the amazing opportunity. I mean, I’m joking a lot here ’cause that’s kinda what I do, but seriously, India? Who wouldn’t want to go if they could?

Upon arrival, Chuck and Lisa broke us in slowly, giving us a full three hours of sleep before helping us gain our bearings by shoving us in cars and driving us 10 hours to the state of Tamil Nadu to a highly coveted pilgrimage site. There, we sweated our way through packed shrines while the locals touched our children to verify that they were real. Photos ensued. And, yes, this qualifies as “breaking you in slowly” for the Travelator/atrix.

After a couple weeks of this sort of nurturing acclimation, we were deemed ready to venture out on our own. So, with a gentle shove from the nest, we ventured north to Rajasthan, landing in the lovely pink city of Jaipur.

During our first day on the street, we visited Jantar Mantar and its fantastic collection of  large-scale 18th century astronomical instruments. As we left, talking about how more places should have names that rhyme and giant sundials, and opining on whether we should rename our house something cool like Heatons Sweetuns and maybe put in an observatory, suddenly what I can only characterize as a gang of suspiciously earnest youth accosted us. Well-dressed ones, too….the worst kind.

When faced with situations like this, I have a fairly sophisticated response, borne from years of international travel – I run screaming in the opposite direction. Nuanced, I know. For whatever reason, Kristanne finds this response “ludicrous” or “embarrassing” or “immature redneck garbage”, so she’s been subtly encouraging me to change my ways by, say, grabbing the back of my belt when I try to flee so that I do a sort of out-of-shape 45-year-old’s version of the RoadRunner burnout, wheels spinning slowly in a pathetic little cloud of dust. It is, as they say, a teachable moment.

So, with my flight once again curtailed, I was left to hear what the aforementioned Earnest Five had to say. It was clear there was a shtick involved. They all carried small notebooks, looked a little like Indian Jehovah’s Witnesses, and were so unabashed in their openhearted warmth that you couldn’t tell whether this was the slickest hustle on the subcontinent or you were about to join their cult and make it the Earnest Six. Maybe both.

As it turned out, what they really wanted to do was sing us a song as a symbol of cross-cultural friendship. Somehow, it turned out, our clever move of wearing pajamas hadn’t been quite enough to disguise the fact that we are not, actually, Indian. And here we thought we were blending.

Though I still maintain that the ole “Scream and Flee” response would have been more efficient, at this point there was no great way to get out of the situation other than just to listen to whatever song they might have for us. Go for it, Earnest Five. Rock the house.

The leader counted them in and they all fired up as one voice on the first line:

“YOU ARE A FOREIGNER!”

Hmm. Apparently, we’d been outed. Passersby began to stare. A small crowd began to coalesce out of what previously had been just scattered humanity…just what every American tourist looking to maintain a low profile wants on the streets of a new city. Too late for Scream and Flee?

“YOU ARE A FOREIGNER!”

What the heck? Were there other lines in this song or were we just going to be hectored and harangued as foreigners for fifteen minutes? I wasn’t really feeling the Welcome Tuk-Tuk.

“You are a message carrier! You break the manmade barrier!”

Okay, this was better. Now, despite the xenophobic overtones of the intro, it sounded like we were some sort of exotic superheroes, maybe even a mixture of the Roman god Mercury and the Incredible Hulk.

“A country is not geography. Nor it is tea or coffee!”

Apparently, we’d now entered the Earnest Five’s psychedelic period, when they were too strung out on tandoori chicken, hash, and palak paneer to construct sensible lyrics. It was during this period when the band America wrote their famous “Been Through The Desert On A Horse With No Name” song, featuring the memorable, “There were plants and birds and rocks and things” line. A lot of bands just stop their careers right there.

These kids weren’t stopping, though. I swear, that song lasted 20 minutes, may have had a drum solo, and definitely featured at least one “break down” period where they got really quiet and did a little spoken rap in hushed voices like David Lee Roth used to do with Van Halen. Outside of the music of Billy Joel, I’m not sure I’ve ever more wanted a song to just, at long last, mercifully, gott im himmel, end. We were trapped as the love locus of a group of well-meaning international brothertarians. With an audience.

Bringing it all back home

So, unlike, say, “Piano Man,” this song actually did eventually end, after which the crowd peacefully dispersed, leaving us to exchange email addresses, because, I guess that’s what the Non-Scream-and-Fleers of the world do when they meet dangerous bands of well-meaning youth. Still, we were careful to give them the Yahoo accounts we never check and only use when signing up for things we’re pretty sure are going to result in spamalanches in our inbox.

So, that’s why we missed these when they first came, but during a search for something else last week, Kristanne turned up a full set of audio files sent from the Earnest Five last year  featuring what we’re sincerely hoping is their entire catalog. I’m linking “To a Foreigner” below so you can hear the magic for yourself.  Enjoy, my brother. Close the office of passports. These are empty gods.

To a Foreigner!

anything else, funny boy?

It’s winter vacation here, so the kids are off for the next two weeks. There will be skiing, relaxing, and hopefully more days like today where we just find a few cool things right near the house we hadn’t yet seen. That picture below is part of the grounds of an old chateau overlooking the Isere valley. It’s now the town hall of Montbonnot. We were trying a new bakery for a tart we were bringing to dinner at some new friends’ house and found this, too. Also, a fromagerie with a generous approach to free samples for kids. Kinsey went chevre, Quinn went bleu, and together, we all took a little trip to cheese heaven.  I just wish the fromager hadn’t felt the need to scream, “You are a foreigner!” at us when he handed over our cheese and our change. Word just seems to get out, I guess.

See you next time…on the Odyssey!

Meanwhile, back in France…