Quick update from Monaco...

The posting has been light because we've been quite active and haven't had a great connection. We actually spent the afternoon at the ballet studios using the free wi-fi from the comfy comfy couches, because we are so sun-baked and tired that we felt no need to do more walking and sunning.

The view from April's apartment is amazing. Check our flickr photos tagged to Roquebrune. The photos we took yesterday walking around Menton also turned out well, I think.

More verbiage to come at a later date...

From the TGV

On the TGV on the way to Nice.

So, it's been a couple of days since the Interpol show and I don't have the energy to make detailed posts for the past two days.

We're in a non-smoking car, and I think that's why it's crawling with kids. A boy a couple of rows in front of us, whose dad seems to be really into motorcycles, is making girlfriends with the little girl in the row behind him. She was watching a Felix the Cat DVD on a Sony Vaio a few hours ago.

We ate on the train. Terri was hungry a bit before I was, so I went to the club car for her. The guy working in the food car was talking to the two teenage Japanese girls in front of me in English, and they only seemed to be half understanding him. He gave them free chocolates and they started giggling hysterically and thanking him. I managed the whole transaction in French. She wanted one of the full dinners: penne (with olives), fruit salad (with mutant enormous grapes and mango), and a San Pellegrino. She claims it was not bad for train food. I went back when I was hungry, about 45 minutes later, and he asked me (in French) if this was also for me. I was prepared for this, so before I left, I asked Terri to tell me how to say "for my wife" in French. (Hey-- we're currently in Cannes. Hello, beautiful people. Good bye, beautiful people). Anyway, he asked how the penne was, and because I didn't know how to get into the details (but was happy to be manuvering in French), I said it was good.

April is picking us up at the station in Nice; we're supposed to arrive in about fifteen minutes. I should pack up and get ready to go.

Interpol (continued)

... but I didn't recognize anyone. We could hear the opening band, Spoon, doing their soundcheck. Around 7:00 or so, the security staff started letting people in. There were lots of signs indicating that camera equipment was interdit (prohibited), so we were a little worried Ezra's camera would be confiscated, but security let him through no problem. The first people in the lines ahead of us ran across the patio area and into the venue. I thought "Why not?" and we ran after them to stake out our spot.

Le Zenith has a large pit or floor area and then probably 50 rows of seats that rise up around the pit and the stage, sort of like an amphitheater. We positioned ourselves roughly in the center/center-right, in the second row of the pit. Food and drink vendors were roaming the small crowd of hardcore fans assembled in the pit and calling out things like, "Vous jeunes filles passionate sont tres soif!" or something... I nibbled on a chocolate PowerBar in preparation for the night's activity, and Ezra got a sandwich off a vendor.

Some of the kids in the front were pretty crazy. There was a girl wearing a "Paul-style" hat (fedora) who kept going back and forth through the crowd (before the bands went on). She shows up later on in our story as well.

Two girls standing behind us (one French and one living in London, it turns out) were chatting about various Interpol songs and U.S. cities. After a bit, the French girl said, "Terri?" She turned out to be Alexiel, a girl I've corresponded with on the Interpol message board. She was there with Kate, a moderator on the board. They said hello and we chatted a little.

About 6 photographers set up in the area just in between the pit and the stage for Spoon. (Later on, for Interpol, there were about 10.) Spoon took the stage around 8:30. Ezra and I have agreed that they were OK; they played well, but their music just isn't that exciting to us. The best songs were the really poppy one, which I think might be called "The Way We Get By," and a cover of a Wire song (can't recall the name, but that was the best part of their set in my opinion). Daniel stood on the right side of the stage, in black suit and white tie, watching the beginning of their set, and he clapped politely at the end of songs. Then he disappeared. Sam showed up over there next, by the sound guy, snapping photos (as usual). Then he disappeared, too. Then, during "The Way We Get By" (or whatever it's called), I looked over and saw Paul by the sound guy, smoking, wearing the fedora, and sporting newly dyed pinkish-orange hair. I looked back at Ezra, made a face, and yanked on my hair.

Then we waited another half hour or so, during which time a great push toward the front gave a sign of things to come. When Interpol took the stage around 9:30, the place went bonkers. The whole show is a bit of a blur... here's what I recall, in no special order. They played: Next Exit, Slow Hands, Narc, Stella, NYC, Public Pervert, Leif Erikson, Not Even Jail, C'Mere, Evil, PDA, Take You on a Cruise, Obstacle 1, The Specialist, and Roland. Ezra and I agree that it was one of the best sounding Interpol shows we've seen. Every song was a really good performance. Paul wore a funny little hat that looked like it might have been one of the Interpol "trucker hats." It reminded me of the little hat Rik wears in one episode of The Young Ones. Carlos was in full romati-goth suit attire. Paul spoke a little bit of French, but mostly English. When he introduced The Specialist he said that he wasn't sure how to say it in French. He blew a smoke ring in (I swear it) the shape of a heart. At the end of Take You on a Cruise he sang "We leave tonight" or something instead of the final "You treat me right." He looked over toward Daniel's side of the stage and seemed to be asking if he had a cigarette (maybe he was really asking if he had the ebow for Take You on a Cruise). At the beginning of the encore, Sam took Paul's face in his hands and gave him a kiss! I think he said something like, "Paul, eh?" Very cute. At one point, Daniel got really into whatever he was playing and shot down onto his knees--at least, I assume he was playing on his knees, because I couldn't see him down there over Paul's monitor. The between-song fiddling continues to develop. This time at the end of the main set (or was it at the end of Roland?--maybe so) Paul, Daniel, and Sam played this little bit without Carlos that descended into a wash of feedback.

The French fans are moshers, it seems. What this mainly meant for me, at the front, was that I was squashed much of the time, especially during the fastest songs/the singles, and especially during the encore. I told Ez afterward that I should have taken some names, since I thought after that I was probably pregnant. [Ezra] At other Interpol shows, I've been worried that fans were going to tear the band's clothes off; at this one, I was worried they were going to tear MY clothes off.[end Ezra] I saw the hat-girl waving her hat in the air. The security guys poured water into the mouths of some of the kids near me. Sam threw out two sets of drumsticks. The first two, after the main set, went toward the front. One drumstick was coming in my direction, but landed in front of the barrier, and the security guys didn't pick it up for us. The second set he threw way back into the pit after the encore.

Afterward Ez and I gathered ourselves, got some drinks, and set out on the adventure of finding Truskel, the bar/club were I'd been told the afterparty would be happening. Unfortunately for the tons of concert-goers who were crammed onto the train, the line we were on closed early for maintenance, so we had to seek an alternate route. We did eventually get there.

At first there was a guy blocking the entrance to the room where the band members were hanging out with their friends, but after a while he moved and people could come and go. While we were hanging around wondering if we'd get in, if some friends I was hoping to meet/had met were in there, etc., Sam and his girlfriend walked up right next to me. They left almost right away, though. Once we got inside, we saw that Kate and Alexiel were in there, along with Daniel (and girlfriend), Paul (in the usual hat and hoodie), and Carlos. I also met the very wonderful Emilie from Toulouse. I know her through the Interpol message board, and I think she also helps run a French Interpol board. She was super nice to both me and Ezra. Glad I met her! She introduced us to her friend Marie Laure, too. [Ezra] You forgot to point out that they were afraid to leave the room for fear of not being able to get back in. Since I could live without getting back, I volunteered, and brought them back two bottles of Eristoff Ice, a sweet lemonadey vodka drink.[end Ezra]

We didn't talk to the band this time, but that was OK. It was fun just to be there with nice people who were sort of into the same vibe... and everyone was really nice. It still felt like kind of partying with the band, and we had a good time. There were funky lights (see our pictures) and people were dancing. I particularly remember dancing to the Pixies' "Gigantic" and Kim Wilde's "Kids in America." Hat-girl was there. She put the hat on Paul's head (on top of the hat and hood he was already wearing) and he kind of danced with her, bopping his head up and down.

Daniel left after a bit, and then Paul left, telling a girl standing next to me that he had to go because he had other friends to see. Carlos was still there partying away when we left around 4AM. He must have closed the place down!

When we left the Metro was indeed closed, so we took a cab back to our hotel and crashed our happy partied-out butts.

Late Thursday Wrapup

I plan on ceding the blog floor to Terri to give the blow by blow account of last night's Interpol show, and yes, the afterparty at a club in Montmartre. But I had an epiphany as I was ordering a beer at the afterparty.

In the past few weeks as we've been finalizing our plans, one of the numerous voices in my head kept telling me it was dumb to spend time and money on our all-too-brief vacation to go to yet another Interpol show. Especially considering that they are not a band that strays very far from the album versions in their live shows. So, at the afterparty, as I was waiting for my second Murphy's Irish Red, I was thinking about how when I was in Ireland, Murphy's didn't used to do a red, but this was interesting; it kind of had that smoothness of a stout and it "settled" like a stout. I was reading the little fliers for clubs and shows around town; I was checking out the scene (it was a indie-rock-inspired club, with some pub-like qualities; it's sort of hard to explain, but maybe it would help to say that they were playing clubbed-up versions of Cure songs); I was checking out what the Parisian kids drank.

And then, the epiphany: the little voice that was telling me it was dumb to do something we'd do at home was totally wrong. By doing something we would have done at home, we got a window into what it would be like to live in Paris, we saw things and people that we never would have seen otherwise, we saw what was different about rock shows and clubs and what wasn't, we ended up at a club we never would have found, we saw a show in a part of town we didn't really know anything about. When I had the epiphany, that little voice was silenced, and I definitely started having more fun. Or maybe, it was just the second beer kicking in.

So now, I wish that Prince Ranier could have held on a few more weeks, or else we might also be going to see Andrew Bird in Paris on April 30. (The connection being that we planned the trip around when we could see the show that April is in in Monaco, which as last I heard, was cancelled because Monaco is in mourning for their departed sovereign.)

[Terri] So you see, there is a method to my madness. And I just have to say that this little experience proved that I am not, in fact, obsessed. I can say that because we got to see people who are obsessed. The French fans were MAD! I was smashed up in the second row of the pit, and many people around me were SCREAMING and waving and singing along through the entire show. A friend told me afterward that she saw a girl flash her breasts at Paul. Glad I missed that one. I couldn't see what was going on around me too well after a while because I was pretty jammed in there and couldn't move too freely!

But I'm getting ahead of myself. So we went up to the music complex where Le Zenith is located around 5:30. It's quite a nice place--very parklike. When we got to the venue, there were about 6-8 lines set up. Each was 8-10 people deep when we got there. We picked what looked like one of the shortest lines and settled in. It was a really nice evening... sunny and a little breezy and not too hot or cold. Everyone looked about as I'd expect--15-35 or so... a fair amount of black clothing with shots of color thrown in... and a few Cure t-shirts. I looked around for a few of my message board friends (to be continued)...

Early Thursday wrapup

Today, I let Terri sleep in until 9am, because she did not sleep well last night. We made it down to the breakfast cellar before they closed up shop at 10. Breakfast was coffee, tea, juice, and a big basket of breads. It was very good bread, as was just about all the bread we've had, but it's time to get a little variation in our diets!

We left the hotel by about 10:30, and had a leisurely walk and window shop in the Marais, the district sort of near where we're staying. We crossed the Seine near Notre Dame into the Latin Quarter, and went to Shakespeare & Co. It's a storied English language bookshop. Actually, the current regime, dating from 1951, took the name of an older, storied English language bookshop, but it's still a very unique establishment; the staff actually are writers who also live in the shop. There are books crammed into every conceiveable nook of the place, and walking through it, you're also sort of walking through someone's bedroom(s).

[Terri] I'll chime in here... I thought Shakespeare and Co. was really charming. It's a bit cramped, so everyone is stumbling over each other, but in a really pleasant way. The shop cat, a gregarious black puss with a short attention span, jumped from spot to spot and followed the shopkeeper in and out. The stairs to the second floor were narrow and painted red. The whole upstairs is actually a lending library, and we saw residents up there sweeping up and leafing through books.[Terri end]

We were then very hungry, so we stopped at a nearby café. It's a heavily touristed district, and while it wasn't the greatest lunch place in the world, it was a much better option than most of the other places around. The sort of murky grey skies turned sunny while we were sitting there, so we ended up spending a fair chunk of time there having coffee and writing postcards.

[Terri] It was there that Ezra tried his first Croque Madame (a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with an egg on top] and I rediscovered limonade. [Terri end.]

After that, we walked back to the Marais and went to the Museé Européenne de Photographie. Some decent stuff, including an exhibition of Warhol's Red Books (cheap polaroids of famous people; according to Terri, who actually looked at their website beforehand, he said that his idea of a good photo is one that is in focus, of a famous person doing something un-famous. The photos were as advertised.) There was also some interesting stuff by an Italian guy whose name we can't remember. There was also a Soviet photographer whose work was mostly of the "look at the worker with his great big wrench" variety, but there were some interesting photos of casualties and tank battles in WWII, as well as lots of Communist bigwigs.

[Terri] Mainly, I was impressed by the Italian's work, and the Soviet photographer's shots of WWII. I've seen pictures from WWII before, but something about these shots felt more real and very sad. As I was saying to Ezra, the images were sad in a real way in that I didn't feel like the photographer has composed the photos to pull at my heartstrings with violins playing and a guy cueing up a grey day in the background. The photos were sad because they were what they were. In particular, I remember a shot of a soldier throwing a grenade and shots of the dead in the streets. There was a series of shots of a woman finding a dead loved one. Truly sad stuff. [Terri end]

Once we had had all the photography we could take in, we headed back to the hotel and freshened up to head over here, to Le Zenith.

Greetings from Paris

So, we have successfully made it to Paris.

We left boston on the 7:50 flight to Paris. Air France was great; the seats had individually controlled entertainment/video units with decent movie options. Of course, we were trying to get acclimated to our impending time zone shift, so we just ate dinner and went to sleep. But it is nice to have decent entertainment options to look forward to for the long, 7 hour ride back.

We both managed to get a about four hours of sleep on the plane. But it still didn't prevent me from having a splitting "red-eye hangover" today. I don't know if that's an actual phrase, but it should be. It's the physical effect of not getting enough sleep on an all-night flight, and having a splitting headache and overall disorientation as a result.

When we got in to Paris, we took the train in to the center of the city. Terri did a fabulous job with her high school (and a little college) French, and managed to navigate us to all the right places and succesfully negotiate all the necessary human transactions. We made it to our hotel by about 11:30. I took a long hot shower, and felt much more human. While Terri did the same, I took a nap, and we both ended up taking a small nap until about 1pm.

I should note for those of you who don't know, I have never been to France before. Terri has been twice: once on a summer field trip when she was in Junior High, and once when she was doing her junior year abroad.

By then, I was pretty desperately hungry, so we got some sandwiches from a nearby shop (it was just an average shop, but it was really the most delicious ham and gruyere sandwich on a baguette I've ever had; I don't know if it was more because I was starving or that the quality of food is just great here. Probably a little of both.) We ate them in front of a little green space in a nearby street with a monument dedicated to some woman who died in 1846.

Refreshed, we walked through the Marais district and did some window shopping. We headed to a shopping district in the middle of town, where we had to go to FNAC to pick up the tickets to the Interpol show tomorrow. (You thought we were going to go a month without seeing Interpol? Ha!) After actually locating FNAC in a mall, which was a mall like any other mall, down to the Claire's Boutique, I needed a little stop at a cafe. Compared to the states, and with the possible exception of Ireland in the mid-90's, every European city I've been in has a much more established institution of the outdoor cafe. But compared to all those cities, Paris's outdoor cafe scene makes them all pale in comparison. Anyway, it was the first coffee I'd had all day. Considering it was about 3 or 4pm, and I had only slept a few hours on a plane the night before, and considering my usual coffee intake, this coffee was like the nectar of the gods.

From there, we walked through the (exterior of the) Louvre, through the Tuillierie(sp?) gardens, up the Champs-Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe (I know, touristy, but I had to do it). We had a glass of wine in another cafe near there, and then headed back to our general neighborhood for dinner.

We were pretty drained at this point, and we were trying to find a Thai restaurant that Terri had seen when we were still questing for lunch sandwiches. We did not find this place, but ended up at a Mediterranean/Italian place across the street from our hotel. It probably wasn't exactly haute cuisine, but it did the trick.

Vive le Blog

Greetings, fellow travellers. We're heading to France later this week, and will be recycling this blog to post our adventures to family and friends.

You have been warned! Our Flickr photos will most likely all be tagged, creatively, "france".

Digital photo wrap-up

I've uploaded the rest of the photos we took with the digital camera. There will be more when Terri gets her film developed and scans the pictures.

I tagged them using Flickr's tagging feature. So, all the vacation photos are tagged as "eurotrip2004". They're also broken down by place (Prague, Vienna, Barcelona, or from a plane). There are also some for special events (correfoc) or places (Prague castle or Vienna's central cemetery). We can tag the film photos with the same tags when they're scanned, so those links will eventually include the film photos, too.

Home again...

We're back!

Just uploaded some photos we had ready to go from Vienna. Many many Barcelona photos to upload.

I also added the three entries we never managed to post from Vienna. They are here, here, and here.

There is much still to put up about our last day in Barcelona, but my body thinks it's 2:30am. Perhaps Terri will give the update tomorrow.

Well, we were unable to get an actual connection from the free wireless in the hotel lobby we tried; there was some kind of extra authentication, which it looks like you´d be able to get through if you were a guest. So, we are back at easyEverything, and unless we are walking around and happen to come upon a place that says "free wifi!" on the door, we probably just won´t be able to upload the photos we´ve been taking until we get back.

Last night after we made our post, we headed up and down La Rambla, which is the big, mostly-pedestrian street that goes down the center of the central part of the city. Imagine Harvard Square, but a bit more seedy, stretched out into a single tree-lined thoroughfare, for over a mile. After agreeing that it seems even more sketchy since the last time we were here, we picked up a festival schedule (which is only printed in Catalan-- fun fun translation games), headed down by the water, took up residence at an outdoor terrace, ordered a couple of cervesas, and planned out how to shuffle around the festival events with the things we want to do while we´re here.

We left there for dinner at about a quarter to nine. We went to the excellent, excellent little place called Oolong, which has very friendly staff, lots of fun vegetarian foods (and beefy treats for me), and fun decor, in this tiny little hole in the wall.

Terri is making frantic grasping motions for the keyboard. I will cede it.

Just figured I might as well confess to how I was flummoxed by the sliding door to the toilets at Oolong. There was no indication that the door was supposed to slide, and I was tired, and well... I just sort of bent it up enough that I could get in. It´s a funky place, so I figured, maybe this is a new arty kind of door that we don´t have in the states. Anyway... the food was delumpcious. We oo-ed and ah-ed our way through the spring rolls, and had somewhat Spanish main courses... mine was beans and rice with corn and avocado... but so nicely done. Ezra had roast beef with plantain chips, since we´re keeping score.

Then we wandered briefly around the Gothic quarter and noted that we like that area (further from the Rambla, on the same side as our hotel). It´s very cute, with loads of little shops and cozy candlelit restaurants and bars. It´s all windy and some of the bars are like dark little caverns. Good stuff.

(back to Ezra)
We ended up over by the Cathedral, which is one of the stages for the B.A.M. festival (the music festival that coincides with La Merce), but there was nothing going on. Still quite a few people hanging around the stage, though. And we wandered back through the winding little streets to our hotel. Most of the streets in the Gothic quarter, where we´re staying, are way too narrow to fit cars through; some people ride bikes, some scooters, but most are on foot. As we passed the Placa de St. Jaume (another of the B.A.M. stages, this one well within ear shot of our hotel), a band took the stage. We don´t know who they were, but with a crowd of many hundreds of people cheering for them as they took the stage, they must be famous in Catalunya.

As suspected, sleeping was hard, because it was pretty noisy. We both woke up a few times in the night; I think the band stopped sometime after midnight, but there was still a lot of noise from people in the street. Terri woke up at 5:30 or 6:00, and it was quiet then, so at some point people did go to bed.

Today, we grabbed a quick breakfast, and walked to the Palau de Musica Catalunya (Palace of Catalan Music) and picked up tickets for a tour at 2pm. It´s one of the things we didn´t do last time, it´s a funky modernista building, and you can only see it through a guided tour. So, we picked up our tickets, and then walked north to La Pedrera (a.k.a. Casa Mila), one of the famous Gaudi buildings. Every Friday and Saturday in the summer, they have special evening events on the roof (which is extremely funky architecture) with live music and a bar. We wanted to try to go there tonight, because it would be fun, and also because there are fireworks down on the beach that we were hoping to see from there. However, apparently, summer is over, and there is no more La Pedrera at Night for 2004. Alas. We were thwarted last time, too; then, apparently, they had it in late September, because the reason they gave for cancelling it last time was the rain.

We were also thwarted with the shoe shopping that I wanted to do (yes, I, not Terri, also need shoes and like the fun Spanish variety), because all of the shoe stores seemed to be closed for the main festival day (which is today). So, we walked back down through a bunch of kid-oriented festival stuff (Terri got a folded paper hat), and grabbed lunch at a big cafe-type place near the Cathedral. Their logo is some kind of clergyman dancing around. We also saw that there´s a Dali exhibit at a museum not too far away from there, which is open late-ish, so we might end up back there this evening.

easyEverything has also put a Subway in the front, and let me tell you, they are pumping out the Subway smell.

Anyway, we left lunch, and saw the Castellers making their big human towers. We saw a couple of them take falls, mostly on the way down, some of them from two or three stories up. The Placa was extremely crowded, so we couldn´t see exactly what happened, but I presumed that people standing on the ground either cushioned the fall, or caught them, because I didn´t see any of the ambulances that are parked nearby spring into motion. Still, it seems like taking a fall from that high up (probably 25 feet) must have smarted.

We have to be off now, but we will write more later...

¡Barcelona 2004!

Greetings from easyInternetcafe, the internet cafe we posted from in Barcelona during our Honeymoon. It was easyEverything at the time, but now I think their parent company really is getting into everything; we saw several easyJet jets at the airport today.

We are also staying at the same hotel we stayed in during our honeymoon. Either we´re creatures of habit, or romantics, or just stick with something when we like it, but we´re doing it again in 2004. This time, our room faces the very busy (and loud) street St. Jaume I, which is bad, because it´s loud, but good, because we´ll be able to watch many of the festival´s parades right from our balcony. (At least, we think they go down our street.)

Anyway, that´s all for now. We came here to find out if they have wireless now (they don´t--boo), but we found some places that do. We have a couple of entries we wrote but never posted in Vienna which we have to get up. As well as lots and lots of pictures!

OK. We´ll be back, either from here or some wireless place, not that it makes any difference to you, dear readers.

´til then...