"Justh look at thisth fabulousth sthtorm out here to our left, guysth," our flight attendant said as we started descending into the turbulent Roman air yesterday. I had finished my second tour at breakfast, and left my hotel at 1100 for a 1500 flight. I had to take the metro to the bus stop on the outskirts of the city, and the bus ride took about an hour fifteen. After I checked in, we waited in a tent out on the tarmac for the plane to arrive. The plane landed, and we boarded in a smooth fashion. The plane ride took about an hour and a half, landing us at Campino outside of Rome. We then got on a bus to take us to Roma Termini station, a short walk from my hotel. It was a Ryan Air flight, and I was pleasantly suprised at how pleasant, and relatively painless it was. I was using the plural first person since Paris, because I was with the same people essentially from the start of my trip at the bus station, all the way to the train station in Rome. And I'd do it again

Last night, I was done with my tour group about 7:30, and needed to run an errand near the Eiffel Tower. That errand turned into a walk that led me to the Arch d'Triomphe, and down the Champs Ellysees. I was at the Triumph Arch about 8:20, which was about 40 minutes before game time, last night. France was playing Portugal. Already the excitement for the match was tangible and electric. There were 2 gendarmes, military police, on every corner, and camera crews and their trucks took up entire city blocks. Cars were flying past me, horns screaming with young Francaise fully extended out the windows acting as poles for the French flags they held. It was game time by the time I reached the end of the Champs, and the streets were vacated. People were drawn to TV bars like bits of metal to magnets. Sadly, I had to return to my hotel because I had to get up early the next day. Weak, I know, but I'll be in Rome for the final game. I had plenty of room to stretch out on the metro home. 

As I have been explaining all along, travel lets you draw your own conclusions from foreigners and foreign things. One may believe the French are snooty from the way our media portrays them. Another person may believe that the Swiss aren't far from mountain goats. The other night, I walked into a hotel in Murren, Switzerland at 9:30, and asked if I could borrow their bike to ride down to Gimmelwald. Anybody who's been to Murren would understand what a strange question this would be. And anybody who lives in Murren knows that the only place a young guy like me would be going would be the youth hostel down in Gimmewald, with a full bar. Still, the lady let me borrow this single gear, back-pedal-to-brake bike (probably from the 60s) to ride half way down the mountain in the dark. All this without any kind of deposit or payment.

 

Today I was doing my wash in a laundromat, and asked for help translating some of the complicated important-looking signs around the washers. Ladies, cut me some slack... it's not always the same three steps: load, shut door, push start. Sometimes you even have to select a temperature over here. Anyway, after helping me on my way, this nice guy let me have the rest of his detergent. It was enough that I didn't need more for either of my loads. Just two little random acts of kindness.

Alright so here I am, in an unconditioned attic, on an old IBM. There's been a miscommunication with my next hotel. We need 4 triples and a quad, but they can only accommodate three of the 5 rooms, and Im trying to convert a couple doubles into two tight triples for my tour. So I call the hotel, and five minutes later, we both are struggling with the language barrier. And temperatures are rising beyond comfortable. Randomly, in mid-sentence, the guy on the other end says "Hello....... hello? ENCHSHHCNENCHSENNSHCH" And then hangs up. I was befuddled, confused, suprised, and a bit impressed. This guy on the other line held this static noise with his mouth for a good 8 or 10 seconds aithout taking a breath, and almost pulled it off. So that left me sitting there, staring at my phone wondering what to do. My tour of 28 people will arrive at the hotel the next day at noon, and I have a clown that can't handle a phone conversation. So I wait a few minutes, and my call is picked up, then hung up immediately. I wait fifteen minutes and call back. "Oh yess, yess, I am so sorry. What weer wee talking about?" And I am finally able to work it out.

So I had to take a train from Paris to Toulouse last Sunday. On longer train rides, like on plane trips, you're always nervous about getting stuck next to the guy that smells funny, or the lady that really should have bought two seats for her size. This time I was stuck next to the grumpy grandma, who immediately started ranting at me in French and pointing at her knee and rolling her eyes. Eugh, I thought, I'll just plug in my earbuds and kick back with some music. So I did for a while, until I started getting the grumblies. Luckily I had a bag of peanut M&Ms in my backpack and brought them out. At this time I decided to offer some to my fellow bench sharer. "c'est gentile!" she exclaimed, so nice! I struck up a little conversation in my broken French and turns out she had broken her knee six months before, and was still recovering. She was on her way to visit family also. After that it was a relatively pleasant trip. Its amazing what a few little M&Ms can do.

"Do you know why the French don't like Americans?" Claire translated over the candlelit dinner we were enjoying at her grandmother's countryhouse, while her grandmother, who posed the question, omnisciently grinned as only grandmothers can do. "They're jealous," stated as plainly as one might state that grass is green. "jealous of your power, your wealth, your consumption." How we got on the topic, and why, I don't remember. All I knew was that we were 20 miles outside Toulouse, here I was sitting down to dinner at 10pm in a 400-year old house with three young French ladies and a grandmother old enough to recount tales of WWII. "My mother and father helped Jews escape Nazi Germany." The countryhouse was, I guess on something like the underground railroad route for jews during the 1930s and 40s escaping towards Spain. Her grandmother, barely able to look over the table she was so small, told another story of bandits coming to the house taking advantage of the lawlessness of the war. They came to steal whatever valuables they could. She remembers her mom being walked through the house at gunpoint being forced to uncover whatever might be worth something. Luckily, they had hid their things, like the ornate candlestick that was lighting our very dinner this night, in the shed out behind the house. It is baffling to be in the presence of such history that Europeans live in every day. A day before, as I was visiting Claire's other grandparents, who live in a castle, they showed me the original deed: one-thousand years old. My French friends just shrugged at it, but I can't get over the sheer number of years that everything has in Europe. You see dates on a plaque next to a museum exhibit, but its a totally different thing to be in it, and among history. Its something worth searching for.

At the moment, I'm visiting a friend who I met two years ago back home. She was staying at a family friends, and I was called to entertain her. Since then, we've kept in touch, and now I was finally able to see her after two years. She's had to work nine to five, but I've spent the days with her second cousin who's as hospitable as she is nice. Yesterday she walked me around Toulouse (a city that didn't make it into my dad's book, I'm still deciding if I like it). After our "petit tour" she took me back to her place and made me an amazing potato, tomato and ham salad. Sounds disgusting, but it was great.

 

France is a huge contrast from Italy. A couple years ago, Italian law forbid smoking in public places, but the law never made it over to France. It's astounding how early the French start smoking. I'll see school groups of kids in fifth or sixth grade walking around with cigarettes! And they chain smoke like no other. One after another after another. I watch Gimmet, my friend's cousin, nonchalantly pop the filter out of cigarettes, and light up inhaling without any form of protection from the thousands of poisons. And they do this all day. Parents with kids, friends with friends. Also, because the tax is so high, younger kids buy straight tobbaco and roll their own. These are without filters as well. The great friends I've made are hardly ever seen without a smoking cigarette in their hand. I have yet to understand the French view on life. I was told by an American spending a year here that the French see life as you only got one, and they intend to enjoy as they can. To me, I enjoy clean lungs, not to mention the thousands of dollars I would have spent on smokes by now if I had started up when I was twelve. Interesting and sad.

My dad has pointed this out to me in the past, but it never really hit home until I got to know my tour's bus driver. Over these past two weeks, I spent a lot of time getting to know him. What I learned was amazing. His family has been in the tour bus industry for three generations. He takes so much pride in his bus, he washes it almost every day, sometimes twice. Another time, he started talking to me about shoes and how they must match with the outfit, randomly in the middle of a conversation about his bus. I realized later, the "shoes" he was talking about were his rims, and how they must be shiny clean at all times. He also carried himself as a billion-dollar business man might back in the states. Even though Richard, our driver, must have been on relatively modest means, he'd wear Hugo Boss, Gucci, and Yves St. Laurent just to name a few. I admire that, because here's a man who's found his niche in life, a small one, but a niche nonetheless and he takes as much pride in his work as would Donald Trump. I think you can find this all over in Europe; whether it be a baker, a fisherman, a waiter it doesn't matter. In the US, if you asked someone what they do for a living, and he happened to be a janitor, he'd probably be looking at the floor as he told you. But anywhere in Europe, the same janitor would look you in the eye, and tell you through a smile.