Last Month’s Vacation

Hello again internet! As promised, here I am, back once again with a report on my vacation last month. To recap, we visited Paris for a few days, then Edinburgh, then London for a week. I’m going to go through some highlights and impressions of each city, and some of the more interesting circumstances surrounding the trip.

First of all, the travel itself got off to something of a bad sport. We were supposed to take a sleeper train from Toulouse up to Paris on Friday night. However, thanks to the national French sport (going on strike), a whole bunch of trains had been cancelled, including ours, and by the time we found out, the trains for next morning had already been booked up. Thus we found ourselves in something of a predicament, because we already had our apartment booked for that night, but we wouldn’t be able to get a train until the next day. Cue dad renting a car and us making a seven hour drive up to Paris, arriving about nine or ten hours later than expected. Our landlady wasn’t pleased.

Paris itself is something of a study in odd contrasts. In all the pictures, the media, everything you hear about it, it’s beautiful and glamorous and elegant, and it is – if you’re in the right places. Walk down the Champs Elysées or through the parks at the centre of town, look at the historical buildings and the big attractions, wander through the shopping districts, and everything is clean and well-kept and lovely. But as soon as you step off those tourist-friendly paths, you discover a very different city. It’s dirty. It looks shady. Many buildings are worn down or covered in grime, and you notice, because in the places that draw in tourists and bring money, everything is kept clean. The area we were renting in was very Indian; there were sari shops everywhere and we must have passed dozens of Indian restaurants – yet another side of Paris no one ever seems to talk about. There are a lot of homeless people around the train station. There are a lot of beggars. Maybe not significantly more than in other cities in France, but it’s jarring and obvious because that’s not what you expect from Paris – that’s not what you’re told Paris is. It was something I found difficult to reconcile.

What is true about Paris is that a lot of the shopkeepers are pretty snobby. You know that stereotype of French people as ultra high-class, snooty, snobby jerks who wear berets and won’t give anyone the time of day? In France, that’s the stereotype of a Parisian, and in many ways it’s not entirely unwarranted – though berets are actually pretty rare. My advice to anyone who wants to look like they fit in in France is to avoid the berets altogether, and buy a long, rectangular scarf in some light fabric like cotton, and wear that tucked around your neck – or, better yet, fold it in half, drape that over your shoulders, and then pull the ends of the scarf through the loop. Typical French style, especially for women.

Paris is a huge city, and there’s no way you can see everything worth seeing in a few days. We visited the Basilique Sacré-Coeur, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower (we didn’t go up it – I don’t really think it’s worth the huge lines or the fees when there are plenty of other monuments you can climb for an amazing view), the Champs Elysées, Notre Dame, the Louvre, and so many other things, and we barely even scratched the surface. Sacré-Coeur has a great view of the city, and is very beautiful inside, though it’s very obviously geared towards tourists; on top of all the signs inside providing information and asking for donations, there are also rows and rows of men (mostly Middle Eastern or Indian, for some reason) camped out around the church selling cheap Eiffel Tower trinkets off blankets – don’t buy them, they’re literally all over the city.

I think for a lot of things in Paris, it’s worth it to just go see, if only because if you don’t go see them and then tell people you went to Paris, everyone is going to ask you, “Did you see – ?” with any number of significant monuments taking up the empty space, and I imagine it would get tiresome after a while. The Eiffel Tower is worth a walk around, but, like I said, I don’t think it’s really worth going up. Likewise, take a look at the Arc de Triomphe, and climb to the top of that one if you’re interested – it’s not very expensive, it’s a good view, and there’s virtually no line. The Louvre is definitely worth looking at, if you have time – you could spend a week there and still not see everything, so either make an intensive trip of it, or just pick and choose what you’re interested in and go after that.

Notre Dame, however, I will endorse wholeheartedly. It is absolutely beautiful.

Other interesting things to check out in Paris include the sewer museum, which takes you though a bit of the history of the Paris sewers (and doesn’t smell too bad, either, despite being in and around a few storm sewers); Les Invalides, which was a hospital and retirement home for war veterans, and is now a museum of items and monuments relating to French military history, as well as the final resting place of Napoleon Bonaparte himself; a small art museum near the Louvre called the Orangerie, which has an amazing exhibit of Monet’s water lilies; and the Catacombs of Paris, which are absolutely amazing and well worth the trip.

The Catacombs are a series of tunnels in what used to be Paris’s stone mines. They became an ossuary in the 1700s, when the graveyards of Paris were filling up and the risk of pestilence was imminent. The grounds of the former mine were consecrated, and the overflowing graveyards of Paris were emptied of the bodies that had already sufficiently decomposed. Those bones were brought below the earth, where they were laid out in mass graves along the winding underground halls of what had now become the Catacombs. The bones are arranged in artistic and geometric patterns; some of them make up the decoration on pillars; there are no markers for individuals, but plaques bearing the names of the cemeteries the bones were brought from are placed in the piles. Also present are monuments, carvings, and sayings related to death (in multiple languages) engraved in the stone. The tunnels go on for what seems like kilometres, and hundreds of thousands of dead were interred there over the course of about eighty years.

The Catacombs were one of the last things I saw in Paris, and a fitting end to the trip, as far as I was concerned; the next day we got on the Eurostar train to travel under the English Channel to travel to London, and once there we changed train stations (London’s rail and underground system is even more insane than the Paris metro) to catch another train up to Edinburgh. Now, Edinburgh is a city I would definitely not mind visiting again. It’s the perfect kind of city to just wander around and look at things in – exactly my type of place.

Now, the first thing about Edinburgh – it is a city of hills. It’s built over a series of hills and valleys that were gouged out by the glaciers during Europe’s ice age, and while this makes for a beautiful surrounding landscape, it is a rather annoying feature if you’re intending to be walking around a lot, and Edinburgh really is a walking city. There are lots of little historical museums and buildings to visit – the Georgian House, the Tenement House, the Writer’s Museum – as well as Holyrood Palace, Edinburgh Castle, the Scott Monument, and so many others. But the tourist attractions are not the greatest draw of a city like Edinburgh.

Because of its smaller size than cities like London or Paris, it’s very easy to wander down side streets and find interesting shops in Edinburgh. It’s easy to see how the locals live, what the real heart of the town is like – even when walking down the famous streets and visiting the tourist shops, there’s a feeling of genuine heart in the people and the shops there. The shopkeepers are eager to share their beloved Scotland’s history and customs; the tourist items, things that would seem tacky or forced in so many other places, are given new life, because they genuinely seem to mean something to the people who sell them. When a shop assistant comes up to help you and asks if you have any Scottish ancestry, it doesn’t seem like an act or a sales pitch – it seems like they really do want to help you find your clan tartan so that you can proudly wear the “right” scarf. The surface of their attitude may be put on for the purpose of sales, but there is something very real underneath it, something that prompts them to start small talk, to make jokes and not take themselves seriously, to give you genuine smiles and wear kilts without a trace of irony. After Paris, it was a huge contrast.

If you ever get a chance to visit Edinburgh, I suggest you jump. It’s amazing, beautiful in a way that I can’t recall ever seeing before. Their historic buildings are dirty and blackened, but so uniformly so that it seems casual rather than neglected; their side streets are full of unique and quirky shops (a psychobilly fashion store right next to a colourful shop that sells lip gloss in cupcake-shaped containers, a macabre shop associated with one of the graveyards, a joke shop with a giant pair of joke glasses on their sign); the people who walk by on the street are colourful and alternative and sporting every style known to mankind. It’s a city best discovered by exploring it yourself, and I suggest you do – I know I will, if I ever get another chance.

London, by contrast, is much more like Paris in that you can stay there for a week (we did) and barely scratch the surface. I don’t even know how to describe the chaos that was our London vacation; everything you’ve ever been told is worth seeing really is worth it, and then some. We had an amazing apartment with a view of the Tower of London (which we spent a whole day at) and Tower Bridge (which we crossed twice). We visited the British museum (twice, actually, though I only went once as I was busy on Friday), and, like the Louvre, it is a museum you could spend forever at without seeing everything. The Rosetta Stone really is that cool, though, and a lot bigger than I expected – it’s almost as tall as me. We saw the changing of the guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace (I suggest you get there early, or you won’t be able to see anything). We wandered through Trafalgar Square, and somehow managed to get ourselves up onto the lions next to the Nelson Monument, which we took pictures of. We saw the London Eye (we did not go up) and Big Ben (likewise) and Piccadilly Circus (which has an interesting statue in the centre of the square, but is otherwise not especially significant). There was lots we missed, even with going out every day.

There were three days of the London vacation which really stood out for me. One was Tuesday, when we took a tour out to Salisbury, to see the tallest cathedral spire in England, and then from there to Stonehenge. I know everyone says Stonehenge is really just a pile of rocks, and in essence that’s true, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting, especially when you have a tour guide to tell you the history and myths and speculation that surrounds it, because people still don’t really know what it is. What’s surprising about it is that, not only is it more or less right in the middle of someone’s field (there’s a fence to keep the sheep out, but they’re right there next to you the whole time), it’s also at the fork of two major highways. Because of the lay of the land it’s very easy to take pictures that make it look like it’s out in the middle of nowhere, but it’s not, really. It’s a major attraction, and there are towns only a short drive away.

The second day I remember really well was Friday. On Friday I set off on my own to London Bridge station, where I met up with Laura, an online friend I’ve been talking to these last two years or so. We took the underground out to Camden town, where we wandered around the various alternative shops, made fun of just about everything we saw, were handed many advertising leaflets, avoided arguing with buses, ate free samples of Chinese food, sat in the sun and relaxed with novels and sketchbooks, conversed with tipsy students celebrating St. George’s Day, got lost in the Horse Tunnels in the Camden Market, and generally laughed ourselves silly. Camden is by far the most interesting shopping district I’ve ever seen – picture an entire street and three markets full of gothic, punk, reggae, glam rock, hippie shops, complete with giant bizarre sculptures on the signs and tattoo and piercing places on every corner, and you’ve more or less just pictured Camden. We ran around there pretty much the whole day, then came back to the apartment, where Lau had dinner with us (and we sent her home with a large bag of leftovers to feed her starving student self for the next few days).

The last day I remember particularly, for completely different reasons, was Saturday. We went up to the Globe Theatre (a reconstruction, only about five minutes from the site of the original). We were given the tour, had the history of the theatre explained to us, and wandered around the exhibits of costumes, Shakespearian instruments, and models of the theatre and of London in Shakespeare’s time. We ate out at a pub (I love pub food! And being over the drinking age doesn’t hurt, either), and then that night we went back out to the Globe for one of the first performances of Macbeth in the entire season. The play was amazing and it was really interesting to see done on Shakespeare’s stage, with minimal props and setting. Macbeth and his Lady had amazing stage chemistry, and some great scenes together, and the witches! My god, they were the best part of the show. I was also amused to note that one of the actors seemed to have exactly the face that Ozul (one of my characters) has in my mind. I will admit I was hard-pressed not to giggle.

All in all, it was an amazing vacation, despite getting off to a rough start. I think I’ve had my fill of Paris, but London would be interesting to see again (particularly Camden, at a time when I have lots of money to spend), and another visit to Edinburgh is high on my list of travel plans, right after Venice.

By this point, though, I think I’m honestly starting to get burned out on vacations.

Day Trips, Cousins, and Various Excuses

Hello internet! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Travel blogging is really not my thing, huh? More on that later. Today I am going to talk about what I’ve been doing for about the last month or so, including things that I have not yet written a blog post about (which I will not be going over in detail in this post because that’s just too much – they’ll get their own post in hopefully not too long).

So, first of all, last month was Shona and Tristan’s final school break, and we took that opportunity, as we are wont to do, to go travelling! This is the part I’m not covering in detail right now – we went to Paris for a few days, then Edinburgh, and then London for a whole week, and that is just a lot of stuff and I still haven’t even sorted through my pictures yet, so it’ll be covered later. Suffice to say it was very exciting and very lovely, I really want to visit Edinburgh again, and I took over 1,200 photos, which is more than I have ever taken in the span of two weeks, ever. Some of those will be up on Facebook when I can finally force myself to sort through them.

So! There was a two week vacation. But there have been two weeks since then! So what have I been doing?

Well, first of all, my lovely cousin Emily is here. She’s been visiting for the past week, and will remain until next Sunday. We haven’t been doing a lot of intense stuff, and she’s been going out with Shona more often than she has with me, but it has been good! I’ve shown her around the city a bit, and we went to visit the big parks (twice, in fact, because she wanted to come back) and we saw lots of strange and hilarious birds and ate delicious pizza and wandered around markets and various other cousinly things.

Speaking of cousins, my mom’s cousin Kara and her husband, Steve, are currently in town as well! They’re only here for a few days, and they’re staying in a hotel, but we’ve been seeing them and they’ve already been over for dinner twice. Yesterday, Kara, Steve, mom, me, Shona, Tristan, and Emily all piled into a rented van (and European vans are smaller than the typical North American minivan – sure, it had seven seats, but damn was it crowded) and went off on an adventure to visit Albi, which is more or less the next decent-sized town to the north. In typical organized fashion we managed to time our arrival for exactly when both places we wanted to visit were closed for their lunch break, so we tracked down a decently-priced restaurant and ate pasta (except for Kara, who decided to be adventurous and order cassoulet off the menu du jour). Dessert was spectacular as well.

Once we’d finished up at the restaurant – and stalled enough that the places we wanted to visit were open again – we went to visit the Cathedral of St. Cecilia, which is the most massive, fortress-like church I have ever seen in my life. It was built up partly as a defensive fortification by various bishops who were unpopular/threatened/paranoid, but also as a reminder after the Cathar crusades that the Catholic church was all powerful, damn it, and that these Catholics weren’t gonna take any of your heretic shit. They were clamping the fuck down, and St. Cecilia’s is there to prove it. It is very beautiful on the inside, though, despite the almost military look of the exterior – and there are a good deal of interesting murals and walls decorated with various 3D designs and other exercises in perspective. A little odd for a church, but definitely interesting.

It’s also positively cavernous inside. I’m not even kidding, I didn’t think it was possible to build a building that tall and that open inside out of brick and not have it collapse around your ears – especially not in the 1200s.

After the church we went around the corner and down some stairs to another part of what used to be the cathedral complex to visit the Toulouse-Lautrec museum. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a famous French painter, born in Albi, who worked in Paris painting scenes of the decadent theatre culture, most famous for his poster work and paintings of the daily life of the prostitutes and showgirls who worked at the Moulin Rouge – and, aside from anything else, is also the namesake of Toulouse, the orange kitten in Disney’s Aristocats. The museum was very interesting, if small, and I loved looking at the poster work he did, but I was also very tired by this point and ended up falling asleep in the auditorium while watching a film about his life. Unfortunately I missed all the scandalous details.

After the museum, we went to look at a riverside garden and get a nice view of the river and the bridge; then we went back to the car, ate some chocolate, piled in, and were on our way. We took an alternate route home, driving through Cordes Sur Ciel (see July’s blog posts) and a gorge in a mountainous area that is known for having a lot of old castles and such built on hills (I swear, go anywhere in France and if you see a hill chances are some lord or bishop or knight or local minstrel has built something on top of it). I spent most of the drive listening to music and staring out the window; I’d forgotten just how pretty the French countryside is.

All in all, yesterday was a very enjoyable day and I am pleased to have finally seen Albi, and I figured I would write it up now before I forgot and put it off again just like everything else I seem to write about in this blog. The problem, as I stated earlier, is that I’m just not very good at travel blogs. I don’t really enjoy writing reports too much (though I am going to continue updating the Wanderer Chronicles – sporadically – until I get home in July, rest assured). I am most likely going to try to find a slightly more enjoyable format to write in, or, failing that, I’ll just grin and bear it.

However, I do like having a blog to write things in – and to that end I have set up another one, a more general sort of blog, called the Pen and the Sword! This one I intend to keep as my longterm blog for more or less the rest of my time occupying the “blogosphere,” so if you are interested in reading my ramblings I suggest you bookmark it and/or add it to your RSS. For the next couple of months or so I will be updating both the Pen and the Sword and the Wanderer Chronicles, but I expect by the time I return to Canada I will be switched over to the Pen and the Sword pretty much completely.

In the meantime, I will try to make myself go through the twelve hundred photos I took on vacation, and maybe get a blog post up sometime before the end of the decade. Thanks for bearing with me, despite my flaky sort of attitude towards this thing, and I hope you’ll enjoy my new blog. Tchy out!

The Heart of Spain and the Country Right Next to It

On the last episode of The Wanderer Chronicles Blog, I was sitting on my bed in Madrid, excited to head out to explore Spain the next day. Now, you get to find out what happened (only two and a half weeks late. I’m sorry! I’m sorry!).

Our first full day in Madrid started with us venturing out into the city, looking at murals, statues, plazas, monuments, monasteries, and buildings. We saw Plaza Mayor, Plaza Puerto del Sol, the chapel of the monastery (we didn’t go into the monastery itself, as we didn’t feel like waiting around until two for a guided tour), a series of very blatant sex shops along one of the major streets, and many, many statues. We took a break before heading into the royal palace to get lunch at a Turkish fast food place (with the biggest sandwiches I’ve ever seen), then headed up the hill to check out the royal gardens and the palace.

The palace, at this point, is no longer inhabited, but is still used for the occasional official function. The rest of the time, it’s open to the public as a museum. You can tour the old royal pharmacy, the armoury, and the living spaces of the palace. It’s very grandiose, very Baroque, very ostentatious. That’s palaces for you.

After the palace, we went to visit San Francisco el Grande, which is an enormous domed church full of paintings, statues, frescoes, and symbolism. We had a guided tour in Spanish (other people on the tour: a German couple and four Italians) which we understood most of, and got to go into the rooms behind the altar to see the painting collections displayed there. By the time we were done, we were very tired. It was also raining heavily. When we finally got back to the apartment we were very squelchy.

Day two involved wandering around looking at monuments and fountains. We made our way down to the Prado Museum, which is mostly full of Renaissance art and also includes a bit of medieval. We saw many paintings by Raphael, Goya, Bosch, Rubens, el Greco, and many many others. We stopped for lunch at an Italian restaurant (yes, we know, we were in Spain, we should have been eating Spanish food, but that was what was open, convenient, and sounded like it would be good). Then we wandered into a very large park, where we saw the Crystal Palace (a palace made of glass, built for an exposition or some such). We saw the only known public monument to the Devil, showing him as Lucifer, falling from Heaven. Then we went down to the Reina Sofia museum of modern art, where we saw Miro, Dalí, Magritte, and many, many Picassos, including the Guernica.

The next day, we got up at a horribly unreasonable hour to catch a couple of taxis to the airport. We arrived in Lisbon by the early afternoon, upon which we seized the opportunity to visit the Lisbon Oceanarium, where I squealed over sharks and took over one hundred pictures of fishes – including something called the ocean sunfish, which is the weirdest fish in the world. By the time we wandered back to our apartment, we were just about ready to crash.

The next day, we got on the electric tram line and went wobbling and creaking through the city, going up and down hills and looking at everything. We visited the old castle on the hill, ate ice cream in the rain in February, watched Tristan disco dance while balancing an umbrella on his chin, knocked an orange out of a tree and ate it (it was sour), poked around in a very opulent church, broke the handle of dad’s umbrella, and finally made our way back home.

The next day, we went out again, first to visit the Thieves’ Market (yes, it’s really called that) and the National Pantheon, which is a big domed church with the graves of some important Portuguese people in it. Then it was back down the hill to visit the Mude Museum of Design and Fashion (which currently has giant cutouts of the Beatles in front of it – something to do with the collection of record covers inside), and then up another hill (this one just behind our apartment) to check out the archeological museum, which is inside a very interesting looking former nunnery, which lacks significant features – such as a roof. Mom and I actually went inside to look around, while Shona and Tristan took the hill elevator back down to the apartment and dad went to meet them and let them in. We explored, I took many photos, then we came back down to the apartment and together we all adventured out to go to dinner. The place we had been planning to go to turned out to be booked for a party, so we found another place – this one did seafood – and stuffed our faces to our hearts’ content.

Sunday was another travel day – time to go home. We got to the airport without any major issues (though we ended up having to hail a couple of cabs when we found out the buses didn’t run on Sundays) and made it back to Madrid, where we were catching our connection. That, however, turned out to be delayed for several hours, so we occupied ourselves creatively. Tristan and I had a dance party with our iPods, and Shona and Tristan ran around in one of the carts (which was wonderfully amusing until the cart was upset, tumbling Shona out of it and knocking Tristan down onto his butt, which was bruised for the next week). Mom also bought some chocolate, and we ate our way through a bag of M&Ms before we finally made it onto our plane. We arrived back in Toulouse, late, tired, but overall pretty satisfied.

For the last couple of weeks or so, I’ve mostly been chillin’ around the house. We have guests here from Canada right now – the Shulist family arrived Thursday and will be here until Tuesday, and Shona’s friend Molly got here on Monday and will be going home Sunday, on time to get back to school next week. It hasn’t really affected me too much, aside from moving me out of my room for Mark and Gretchen to sleep in; Molly’s mostly been hanging out with Shona, and the Shulists have been going on a lot of day trips. For my part, I’ve mostly been battling with writer’s block and lack of motivation, both of which I’m trying to do something about.

Today has been my day for finishing things up that have been hanging over my head – the first part of that having been to get my vacation galleries up to date and post this entry on the blog. I also went out with Shona and Molly to do a photoshoot this afternoon – my first shoot with more than one model under my command, which went smashing, as they’re both so very fab. Tomorrow I’ll be getting some photos edited and put up on my art site, and maybe finally punching my writer’s block in the face. One can only hope, at least.

So, until next time! This has been the latest episode of The Wandered Chronicles Blog – Tchy, signing off.

Of Visits, Too Much Food, Trains, and Dreams

Hello internet! How are things with you? I am doing well, and currently coming at you live from an apartment in Madrid (the Spanish, apparently, are much better at putting internet access in their short-term rental apartments than the Italians – we had it in Barcelona, too). Today, I am going to talk about the last week or so of excitement in my life.

As I mentioned in my last post, Nami came to France to visit me over her reading week. Aside from some issues with her flight (her planes kept getting delayed and she ended up arriving at about 8:40 pm instead of 11:30 am like she was supposed to), the week was just as amazing as I expected. On top of seeing Nami for the first time in seven months, which was lovely and wonderful, it was also nice just to show someone around my city – guiding them through it and letting them see it through my eyes. And Toulouse truly is my city now – the same way Kingston is my town and Ottawa will be my city in the future. Granted, I may not know the streets as well as I know the streets in Kingston, but I know about everything I care about. And I love it so much.

By the time Nami got in on Saturday evening, it was already too late (and she was too tired and hungry) to do anything, so the adventure started the next day when we went out on a little tour of the downtown. I took her to the main points of interest, including the Pont Neuf (the “new” bridge, not the nine bridge), the Daurade (a sort of park/dock on a lower level than the street, on the Garonne), Place du Capitole in front of the city hall, two of the biggest and most famous churches (les Jacobins and St. Sernin), Place Wilson with the merry-go-round, St. Etienne (my favourite church) and les Augustins (the fine arts museum). I also showed her where some of the shops were that I liked, but it was Sunday and everything is closed on Sundays so we couldn’t go shopping. That night we also finalized our plans with my friend Rodrigue and his boyfriend, Stéphane, who was also coming to visit. More on that later.

Monday was shopping day, and it was a very exciting thing. Me being the sort of person who loves to spoil my girlfriend rotten, I had saved a fair bit of money for her visit (most of it for Christmas/birthday gifts, as I wanted to buy her clothes and she needed to try things on). We ran around to all my favourite shops (35eme Rue, Wap Doo Wap, Kara Kool, Kilostock, Groucho Vintage – unfortunately Intrepid was closed) and bought things for her (most of them flouncy and adorable) and ate crepes from the crepe stand and generally had a rather excellent day. Lots of walking, but you get used to that in Europe.

Tuesday was fairly quiet, at least for the morning. But in the late afternoon we got ourselves all fancied up and went out for dinner at a rather fancy restaurant called L’arsenal – they are wonderful, the food is wonderful, the place is wonderful, and if you’re ever in Toulouse with a bit of cash to burn I highly recommend it. Nami discovered tartiflette (potatoes, cheese, lardon), I ate delicious fish appetizers and duck, and we both went crazy over the potato medallions, which was one of my side dishes. And, of course, dinners in France being a long and late sort of affair, we got there around 8:00 and left at about 10:30. It was awesome.

On Wednesday, we went out to the market at Capitole just to wander around for a while, and then came back to the house for a bit to relax. That evening, we went out with Stéphane and Rodrigue – this was the double date we had organized. We ate at the Crêperie St. Georges, and none of us managed to finish our food except Stéphane (to be fair, the salad I ordered was on a plate about ten inches around, spilling to the edges, and piled several inches high, on top of being full of potato chunks and bits of lardon), but we did order two banana splits to share. It was a rather excellent moment, in fact, as Nami and I had been looking at it and debating on whether it was too much when Rodrigue and Stéphane slapped down their menu and declared that they were getting a banana split to share. Grins were exchanged, banana splits were consumed, the bill was paid, and we adventured off towards the Cinéma ABC – Stéphane dancing and mumbling his way through Singing in the Rain – to see Were the World Mine. It is a thoroughly excellent and slightly camp musical comedy, and if you are a fan of Shakespeare or gay films or both, see if you can get your hands on a copy and watch it, because it’s wonderful.

The main event on Thursday was actually not especially French in nature: Nami and I went out to Biotek, which is a piercing and tattoo parlour. She bought a new spiral ring for her upper ear and had her old ring replaced, and I took the jump and shelled out sixty euros for an industrial piercing – for those who are uncertain, this is two holes in the top part of the ear cartilage, with a bar going through both of them and capped on the outside with two balls. This, by the way, is a pretty good price, as the piercing place back home charges $120 – about eighty-five euros. And, if you’re curious, it’s in my left ear.

Friday! The main excitement of Friday was running around the city with Nami’s camera, taking pictures of everything. It was pretty great, and we were out for a couple of hours. Tristan also got a second piercing done (another one in his left lobe) while we were off running around. So now there are two of us with new holes poked in ourselves.

Nami’s last afternoon in Toulouse was spent with a decent-sized crowd at Jules et Julies, the local LGBT group I hang out with every second Saturday. They are pretty awesome and generally rather energetic, and food (mostly cookies, everyone was bringing cookies) and good times were had by all! We drew some of our characters on our fingertips for fun, and then drew another one on someone else when he asked, Nami sketched in my sketchbook, I ate a lot of cookies, and we tried very hard to keep up with all the French (sometimes succeeding). That evening, the whole family (plus Nami) went out to dinner at a little local restaurant called La Gouaille (for my Kingston readers, turn the Jungle into a restaurant and combine it with the Sleepless Goat and Tir Nan Og and you might have a decent idea of what La Gouaille is like). I ate way too much but it was so worth it and also blackberry flavoured Kir is amazing.

Sunday morning involved both Nami and I getting up far earlier than should be allowed in order to get her out to the airport. We rode the shuttle bus (this will become important later) and got her checked in using the automatic machines (after moving to a second one when the first one just sat there not reading her passport). I stuck with her through the start of the security line, then ducked out when I couldn’t go any farther. I don’t really want to talk about that part though because it made me sad. I got on the bus, came home, and holed up in my room for a while.

I hate having to say goodbye.

That afternoon, we were catching a flight from Toulouse to Madrid, so by that afternoon we’d got all packed up and got on the bus again, and headed out to the airport. At this point I was starting to get a little annoyed with the shuttle, but we got off it and all was well – until we walked up to the check-in counter and were informed that our flight was cancelled.

Yep. Just gone. Something to do with crucial crew members being ill and not being able to find replacements. And they had no replacement for us until Wednesday. Brilliant, EasyJet. Seeing as we were supposed to be flying from Madrid to Lisbon on Thursday, this seemed like a particularly stupid idea.

Back on the bus we went. For the fourth time that day.

Our plans derailed somewhat, we scrambled a bit to find a solution. Air Iberia could fly us – at a ridiculously inflated price. Planes were out. At this point we started looking at trains. We couldn’t get an affordable one for an overnight, unfortunately, but we could travel the next day – so, this morning, we got up at 6:00 am, took the metro out to the train station, and got on a train from Toulouse to Narbonne, where we would transfer to a train to Barcelona, and then finally go from there to Madrid. It was time consuming, but oddly relaxing – I am swiftly discovering a pronounced fondness for travelling by train.

So now I am sitting in our rented apartment in Madrid, on the twin bed in the open balcony “room” that looks over the main kitchen and living room, hiding out behind the privacy screens and listening to my parents cook. It’s nice after such a hectic day, and good to smooth away the strain of yesterday. I’m looking forward to exploring the city tomorrow. Spain is gorgeous and exciting.

I had a moment of perfect peace on the train this morning. Thanks to my first trip on a train, where I got to watch the must spectacular sunrise of my life come up over the French countryside, I have already linked trains with a dreamlike surreality and spirituality, but after this trip the two will forever be tangled in my mind.

On the train from Narbonne to Barcelona, I fell asleep for a little while, and dreamed that I was on my next train – from Barcelona to Madrid. I was sitting in a window seat on the left side of the car, looking out over a terrain of flat fields with scrub bushes and grapevines, with reddish-yellow dirt like you see in the Spanish countryside. Nami was sitting in my lap, and it was like we weren’t really there, or no one else could see us. We were in our own little world.

“Hey,” she said, snuggling into me and leaning back. I smiled.

“How are you doing, baby?” I asked, kissing her shoulder.

“Pretty great dream,” she replied.

“Yeah,” I said. And we sat there in silence, watching the Spanish sun spill golden yellow over the landscape as I enjoyed the most physically real dream I’ve ever experienced in my life.

I love trains.

Daily Life in Franceland

I know. I am terrible at updating this blog regularly. I know. I know. But to be honest there hasn’t been much of excitement happening around here since we got back from our Christmas vacation. Here is a brief overview.

Little of interest happened for most of early January. There were a few inches of snow over one weekend, and the city basically shut down; after a day or two, it melted away, and since then we’ve been hovering around a steady seven degrees or so, with a bit of occasional rain. I’ve been out a few times to my clubs and social events, including a wonderful party for the Epiphany, featuring games, quizzes, condoms as prizes, general silliness, and me sitting under the table calling out names of who gets the next piece of cake (apparently a tradition for the youngest person at the party to do); aside from that, I have mostly been hanging around the house, writing, drawing, and occasionally helping out. Sometimes I go out for walks, but overall it is not really all that pleasant for walking about.

In the last week of January, mom and dad took off for a week in Marrakech, Morocco, for an early anniversary/private getaway vacation. I was left in charge of the household, and was therefore responsible for grocery shopping, laundry, and making sure there was food on the table. I discovered for certain what I already suspected – I am ready and capable of moving out on my own, but I really don’t want to be responsible for someone else’s (in this case, my mom and dad’s) household, and I especially do not want to be responsible for someone else’s children (especially someone else’s teenagers). They have now returned, which was wonderful for me, even though dad almost immediately turned around and left for a work-related trip to Georgia (the state, not the country).

There have been two things lately happening in my personal life. The first has been my ongoing attempt to start adapting my wardrobe to my real preferences, which has resulted in me picking up a couple new pairs of pants, a pair of leggings, and new earrings; upon my return home, I am going to go through my clothes, and a lot of them will be going in a giveaway bag. Up next on my list of purchases: a lipstick in a neutral shade, to help tone down the ridiculous natural redness of my lips (likely to be bought for cheap at the market on Wednesday), and a chest binder, which I will be ordering online.

Both of these things, and to a lesser extent the other items of clothing I have bought lately, are related to the second thing that’s been going on: my recent struggles with trying to work out just what my gender identity is, and how I want to express it and have other people treat it. I was having a lot of trouble for a while, but I think I might be moving onto the right path, and things are looking up, even if they’re not perfect yet. (And, in case you’re wondering, no, you don’t have to change the pronouns used to refer to me, but it would be nice if you could tone down references to me as a girl.)

Anyway. It’s been complicated, it’s still complicated, and it’s an ongoing process. If anyone has questions, you guys know how to reach me. Don’t worry – I’m not going to clam up at any mention of the subject. You can ask.

Other than that, not much worth mentioning has been happening. Next week, however, will be a different story entirely: Nami is arriving for a visit in less than five days. On Saturday morning, I will be getting up at an actually reasonable hour and catching the airport shuttle out to pick her up from her flight. She’s getting in at 11:30. Right now I kind of just want to go to sleep and wake up on Saturday morning. I’m sick of waiting.

Overall, I guess, the message is, life is good, if complicated and occasionally speckled with irritation, impatience, and moments of self-doubt. But somehow, I feel like in a week, everything will be okay.

Peace. <3

The Whirlwind Tour

What would a cruise be without the shore excursions? There were a lot of them. I’m going to try to go through them all as best I can, in point form, because it more or less all sticks in my mind as bullet points. You’ll probably see why by the time I’m through with it.

Any day I don’t make mention of was a sea day, and therefore we were on the boat. (It’s worth mentioning that we spent all of Christmas at sea, and on Christmas morning we convened in mom and dad’s room to open presents under the vaguely-tree-shaped-green-Christmas-shirt.)

Also, because we are cheap-asses, we didn’t buy shore excursions anywhere except Egypt (where it’s more or less a necessity) and even when we did, we didn’t get the super expensive packages from the cruise. So most shore days we spent doing our own thing, wherever we ended up.

Shona and Tristan in front of a church in Civitavecchia.

December 22nd: Civitavecchia, Italy

Civitavecchia, aside from being incredibly annoying to spell right, is the port city at the mouth of the Tiber River, and is therefore the gateway to Rome. It was about an hour drive into Rome, so we elected to wander the city we hadn’t been to yet.

It was rainy. That kind of put a damper on things.

Shona seems to be very good at talking Tristan into giving her a piggyback. Occasionally this combines with the rain in undesirable ways (i.e.: he slips on a metal grate and crashes down to one knee, leaving an impressive bruise).

My family really likes markets. “Wandering around in a market for an hour or two” quickly seems to be becoming a theme.

Also, Italians really like their churches.

“Church of the Japanese Martyrs” is perhaps the best name for anything ever. Even if the church itself is just a regular church with some Japanese-style paintings of religious figures.

We didn’t really spend too much time in Civitavecchia. It wasn’t really a great day, and there wasn’t too much we wanted to see (or much to see, to be honest). We wandered around and looked at stuff for a couple hours, then wandered back to the boat.

December 23rd: Naples, Italy

We’ve been here already! It’s almost like coming home. It was even comparable weather to when we were there back in October. Sunny, beautiful, and in the mid teens.

Italians apparently aren’t used to these temperatures, because they keep asking me if I’m cold while I wander around in my sleeveless shirt.

I have discovered the eleventh commandment: “And the LORD said, in Naples, to ensure thy survival, thou shalt form a pack of pedestrians, for together, thou art mighty, and the tide of cars shall part before thee.” We have got this pedestrian-in-Naples business down.

Those guys with the knockoff bags are still everywhere. They’re still ridiculously flirtatious, too. Even with my hair buzzed to an inch long. “Ciao, bella!” starts to lose its impact after the fifth time.

We wandered up through some of the shopping areas to get to this street where they sell nativity scenes and the supplies to make them. These are seriously detailed things, too. Like dollhouse miniatures. They make whole scenes for it.

We visited the castle, too, the one we hadn’t got to last time we were in Naples. Chapel, statues, stateroom, art museum upstairs, fairly standard – except for the Roman crypts that were discovered underneath the castle. Seriously cool stuff. They had glass floors installed and you could look down to see the bones underneath you.

Paintings of pretty girls are made infinitely more awesome when the top layer of paint has peeled off and they seem to have a smooth layer of skin where one of their eyes used to be.

Mom and dad wandered through a bit more of the art museum than I did. I went back to the boat to watch Up. Because Up is awesome.

December 26th and 27th: At port in Alexandria, Egypt. Visiting Cairo.

Egypt is probably the dirtiest, noisiest, smelliest, and most exciting place I’ve ever been to. Also, the most dangerous. Because of Egypt’s history of political terrorism, some of which has been directed against tourists, all tour groups are required by law to have an armed guard with them. Dad said ours had a fully automatic gun. I didn’t see, and wouldn’t have been able to identify it anyway.

So there was us, a couple, and another family with two younger girls, our tour leader, a guide, avery stoic armed guard, and a driver who didn’t speak English, all hangin’ out in this little van-bus for a couple of days. It was hella fun.

Tour got off to a slow start because it was insanely foggy that morning – too dangerous to drive. We were supposed to leave at 8:30, ended up on the road by 11:30. But hey, at least I was awake by then.

There do not seem to be many traffic laws in Egypt. See: family in the flatbed of a pickup on the highway; three men on one motorcycle; camels apparently count as vehicles and can walk around on the roads; ditto for donkeys loaded down with clover; ditto also for horse or donkey pulled buggies. Also, there are guys biking around delivering giant platters of bread, which they get from place to place by tying them to their heads and balancing them there.

Egypt was the first country I’ve ever been to where the majority of women had their hair, and often their whole bodies, covered in the Muslim style. Different, but interesting.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu, as seen from the base.

Most of Cairo has this odd look, like it’s starting to crumble before they’ve even finished the buildings. We discovered that this is because, if a house remains “under construction,” you don’t have to pay tax on it – so Egyptians never seem to both putting roofs on their houses.

If the apocalypse hit now and everything was destroyed, Cairo would be the city and culture that would spring up from the ruins. Amazing, and very lovely, in its own way.

The pyramids are huge. End of discussion. They don’t look that big in photos, and when you compare them to all the taller buildings we’ve made now, they don’t seem so impressive – then you get out of the bus and go stand beside them. Those blocks of stone that look like bricks in the picture? Yeah, they’re the size of a car. These things are massive, solid, enormous piles of stone.

The Sphinx, too, is massive and impressive. There’s a lot of romanticism and mystique attached to it. All those hokey ideas don’t really do it justice. People always try to paint it as the almighty guardian, most trusted of the Pharaohs, the watcher who will remain long after civilization has crumbled – and I guess it is, or was, at least, at one point, but the Pharaohs are gone, there’s nothing left for it to guard anymore, and its civilization has already fallen. It looks more lonely to me.

Camels are ridiculous. Also, I no more trust them than I trust llamas. They’re great to take photos of, though. As long as you avoid stepping in the camel dung.

Guided tours are more or less giant tourist traps, but there isn’t much of another way to get around Egypt (see: laws regarding tourists and armed guards). I did buy a couple of things, but not nearly as much as they tried to foist off on me. And what I did get was entirely worth the money I spent.

This is why I just want to take pictures of camels forever.

The Sound and Light show is not nearly as impressive as it’s billed as. I also didn’t get much out of it, since I pretty much knew every bit of historical and mythological information they supplied. Ditto for what the guide said – but she was more interesting than the show. Her name was Rehab (REH-hab), and she was an absolute sweetheart.

Nile dinner cruise would be more impressive if we could have seen anything outside the windows. The shows were pretty cool, though, even if the bellydancer did have some weird non-authentic moves (according to my mother) and wore a bra top that made her chest look freakishly large. The whirling dervish dancer was amazing, though.

Mom and dad told us it was probably a bad idea to eat anything uncooked while in Egypt, due to the risk of contamination and the fact that the germs there are different. This made buffets difficult. I wanted salad and fruit, but had to content myself with potatoes and cooked carrots.

No pork anything at any of the buffets. Most noticeable at breakfast. Tristan missed the bacon. I, however, was pleased enough with the hibiscus juice that the loss didn’t bother me.

Our hotel was super ritzy, what the heck. Unfortunately we were too tired and out of there too fast to really enjoy it. It was seriously nice, though. Beautiful construction, and a gorgeous courtyard. Also, I think the floors were marble.

A lantern at our fancy hotel in the misty morning.

Morning arrives! It is extremely misty, for the second day in a row. Rehab apologized – she said it was really abnormal weather for Egypt, and she was sorry we had to come on bad days.

By the time we got to the Citadel of Saladin, it was mostly burned off, though. We went inside the Citadel to visit the Alabaster Mosque, which is very pretty – a lot more decorated than is typical for mosques. We took our shoes off. This is the rule in mosques.

There were guys standing outside selling these little plastic bags people could put over their shoes if they didn’t want to take them off. They also had these big draping robes for people (mostly women) not covered up well enough. I saw a woman in high heels, with the shoe-bags on, putting one of the robes over her short, sleeveless sundress. I wanted to laugh at her. Give it up, lady. Stop trying to look glamorous while you’re a tourist, in a Muslim country, no less.

After this we went to the Egyptian Archeological Museum. I wasn’t allowed to bring my camera in, but we ran around looking at things. We saw the mask of King Tutankhamon, and most of the other things that were found in his tomb – beautiful stuff. The room with the mask and the other important artifacts was so crowded. We literally spent five minutes jammed shoulder to shoulder with people trying to inch our way out of the room. Shona didn’t come in, because she was sick. She spent the museum time sleeping on the bus. In the Tutankhamon room, I was grateful. She would have been miserable.

The most amazing moment in the museum, for me, was when I spotted a statue of three gods – Horus, a Pharaoh being crowned, and Set. Set. He’s my favourite of the Egyptian gods, as well as being my star sign and associated god in Egyptian astrology. Because he was painted as the aggressor and the villain in some of the most well-known Egyptian myths, there isn’t much art of him around. But I saw a statue of him. I stood right in front of it. I think this is a moment I will carry in my heart for the rest of my life.

A woman making flatbread. Delicious, delicious flatbread.

After the museum, we went out to Memphis. We saw the giant statue of King Ramses II, the famous one, and we saw the Step Pyramid, which I’ve always loved – more so even than the Great Pyramid and the associated pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure. Picked up a package of postcards, too – I’ll probably save a few to give to people.

I really, really like Egyptian flatbread. It is delicious. We had a bunch of it with our lunch, which we picked up at a restaurant and ate in the bus on the way back to Alexandria. There were musicians playing outside, and mom danced with them for a bit. Also, women at these big stone and clay ovens, cooking the bread for the restaurant. I took a few pictures.

All in all, Egypt was amazing and exciting, and I would love to go back to visit again – but I very much doubt I would ever want to live there.

December 28th: Rhodes, Greece

We were supposed to stop in Rhodes, but it was too windy and the port was closed. We were at sea instead, heading to Izmir. Shona was sick; I don’t remember what I did specifically.

December 29th: Izmir, Turkey

Where do I even start? Izmir is beautiful. Especially after the dirty brokenness of Cairo. The streets are clean, the buildings and architecture are amazing, the port is beautiful, and there’s lots and lots of green. The weather was amazing, too. Not a cloud in the sky.

Remember what I said about markets? Yeah, pretty much the whole time in Izmir was spent in a market. In our defence, the market is enormous and historic. Also, full of shiny things.

We got lost for a while. It was actually ridiculously entertaining. We ended up getting led to the caravanserai, the oldest part of the bazaar, and showed into a shop, which we left almost immediately. We found our own way back to the bit of the market we were interested in.

The Turks (and the Greeks, as well, but especially the Turks), sell all kinds of things with the symbol of the evil eye on it – it’s supposed to protect you from malicious things. It’s normally a round thing, often done in glass. The main body of it is dark blue, with a ring of white, then a smaller ring of light blue, and a dot of black at the centre. Sometimes it has yellow in it, too. They also sell it in loads of other colours, but blue is the most traditional.

I was going crazy for a pomegranate all day. We got one just before getting a taxi back to the port (taxi, in Turkish, is apparently spelled “taksi,” by the way). I ate the whole thing. My hands and my face were absolutely covered in juice. GLORIOUS.

The Turks are apparently very big on rings. Shiny, shiny rings. There were a lot of shiny things there. Pretty much anything you could imagine in a bazaar was there, and many things you couldn’t. I would love to go back to visit again – five hours is not enough.

Pillars on the Acropolis.

December 30th: Athens, Greece

Athens is not as pretty as Izmir, but it is quite nice, and is much cleaner than Cairo. Not to mention safer. So, bonus all around. Even though apparently the taxi drivers are brats. We tried to get a taxi from the port to the train station (five minute drive, half-hour walk), and the taxi driver decided he’d rather keep his place at the port and get a bigger fare – so he told us it was only ten minutes away. We believed him, until we’d been walking twenty minutes and weren’t there yet.

Metro in Athens is crowded! Dad got pickpocketed – bye bye iTouch. Luckily he had his data backed up, along with several spares. Still, not a cool way to start the day. At least it wasn’t his wallet.

We got off downtown and went wandering up towards the Acropolis. It was not very well signed, but we figured it out eventually. They gave us this big long string of tickets to get into a bunch of different things. Ultimately I think we only used two or three.

Fresh-squeezed orange juice is amazing. There is absolutely no contest about this. I don’t much like the stuff from concentrate (i.e.: anything you can buy in a store) but give it to me fresh and I just can’t get enough of it. My. God.

There seems to be a trend of us visiting monuments while things are being restored. The Parthenon is much less impressive when half of it is covered in scaffolding. That’s okay though! It was still really cool. And the view from the Acropolis is astounding.

At the foot of the Acropolis, looking up.

They say of the Acropolis where the Parthenon is… is still the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on Youtube.

After we wandered around a bunch of ruins and saw lots of ancient Greek buildings, we headed up into downtown to do some shopping. Lots of tacky tourist shops but lots of cool things, too. Also, a shirt that says “Oedipus: the ORIGINAL motherfucker.” No way you can lose with this.

Encountered a street vendor selling chocolate and vanilla coconut sticks, coconut juice, and fresh coconut. Fresh coconut is yummy. Om nom nom nom.

Biggest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen: in the square in front of one of the metro stations in Athens, Greece. Who’d have guessed?

Metro still crowded on the way back. Most taxi drivers still jerks. One of them heard where we wanted to go and just drove off with no explanation. We managed to flag down another one and it turned out he was fluent in English – lived in North America for a while. Made it back to the port safely – even though dad decided he was going to walk, while the rest of us drove. Silly man.

The view off the back of the Palace of Knossos.

December 31st: Iraklion, Crete, Greece

It just figures that New Year’s Eve would be the sunniest and most beautiful day on the whole trip. Visiting Iraklion was absolutely lovely that day.

Cheap bus tickets out to historical sites are a win. We went to visit the Palace of Knossos, the ancient palace of Crete, where the legend of the Minotaur supposedly took place. We didn’t get to go into the labyrinth, though. There’s still some debate over whether it even actually exists. Palace was pretty cool, though. A lot of it was reconstructed – apparently the archeologist who worked on it was big on that.

Nice little cafe outside the palace. Delicious baklava and fresh orange juice is a brilliant lunch. Don’t let anyone ever tell you differently.

Saw a cat just wandering around the grounds. There pretty much always seem to be strays at every major historical site we’ve been to. I can’t remember one where I didn’t see at least a stray dog.

Went back into the city via the same bus, but got off before the port to go wandering around downtown and – you guessed it – into a market area. I bought an excellent new messenger bag to replace my somewhat too large one that’s kind of dying anyway. The woman who sold it to me was very careful to stress that it was “original, made in Greece, no imitation.” I guess they have a problem with a lot of people doing knockoffs of big brands.

A reconstructed part of the palace.

Our map was written with Anglicized Greek names on it. The street signs are all in Greek letters. Lucky for us, dad spent some time in Greece before I was born, and knows how to read most Greek letters. Otherwise we would have been hopelessly lost.

The city is nice. Similar atmosphere to Athens, but a bit calmer, less touristy, and smaller. Also, less likely to pick your pockets. It was almost depressing to leave. Our last shore excursion of an amazing trip. Still if things had to end, it was a good way to end them.

On Photo Galleries

Okay, so, you guys may or may not have realized that one of the things I’ve been trying to do with this blog is keep a photo gallery of the highlights. What I’d like to know is, does anyone actually look at the galleries on the blog, or do you all just look at the pictures on Facebook?

If you do look at the site galleries, leave me a comment saying so. Otherwise, feel free to ignore this post. If I don’t get much of a response I’m probably going to stop adding them because they’re a pain to put up.

Post regarding the cruise excursions should be up later today. Thank you, carry on.

The Alternate Reality of Cruise Ships

Here I go, finally updating you all on my winter break – now that I’m well-rested, relaxed, not sick and (the greatest factor in my delay) not distracted. I’m horrible at regular updates, I know. I’m sorry? In any case, here we go!

We got up at a ridiculously unreasonable hour on the morning of Sunday the 20th of December to go to the train station. The metro workers were on strike (of course – this is France, someone is always on strike), so we had to walk, very briskly, dragging heavy suitcases, to the train station – not all that awesome on an empty stomach. There were some other people wandering the streets of Toulouse. All of them were saying “good evening.” Clearly, they had not gone to bed yet. I would rather have been one of them than have to drag my ass out of bed in the morning.

The train ride itself was pretty uneventful. We changed trains in Narbonne, and our connection was delayed, but we had hot chocolate and coffee and all was well. I stared out the window a lot, thought about early morning trains and dreams, napped, and listened to Coldplay. It was very relaxing, while it lasted.

We arrived in Barcelona by early afternoon, got a taxi, made it to the port, and wound our way through the lineup to get onto the boat. I spotted a guy who looked about my age with an amazing hand-painted Cheshire Cat backpack. I was impressed, and told him so. Then there was a bit of hullabaloo at the check-in desk, due to us wanting to pay for both of our rooms on my dad’s credit card, even though one of them was registered under my mom’s name – but we got that cleared up, and got our room key cards, which also double as ID. By the time we finally got checked in, it was well past three in the afternoon, and we were starving, so we went down to the buffet (the Garden Cafe) to eat.

At this point I should probably explain how the food thing works onboard the boat. Our cruise ship, the Norwegian Jade, had about ten or eleven restaurants, some of which were pre-paid and included in the cost of the rooms, the others of which charged cover. We, being cheap, only ate at the pre-paid restaurants, which included the buffet (the Garden Cafe), the two dining rooms (Alizar, the casual one, and the Grand Pacific, the fancy formal one), and the 24-hour cafe (the Blue Lagoon). The Blue Lagoon, in particular, will become significant later.

So, after our meal, we went exploring. Shona and Tristan went off to check out the teen club, and mom and dad and I wandered around looking at things. Then I went back to my room for a while and did a bit of writing. We met up later that evening for dinner, and were then released to do our own thing as the boat left the harbour. Shona and Tristan disappeared to the teen club again, and I ended up wandering up to the Spinnaker Lounge and bar to see if there was any interesting dance music playing and whether or not the 20s and 30s mixer would get me anywhere or if I would have to resign myself to not knowing anyone on this boat. Needless to say, that did not happen.

At the bar, I ran into the guy I’d seen earlier with the Cheshire Cat backpack. I informed him of my plight and begged him to save me from boredom, and he performed quite admirably. He dragged me over to his little circle, and they introduced themselves: Jason, with the backpack, who I had initially thought was only a couple of years older than me, was in fact 26; his roommate, who he had come on vacation with, Louie, had just turned 21 that day and was celebrating by getting drunk; Tara, who had the room directly above theirs, was 22; and her younger brother John, sharing with her, was 16, but easily tall enough to be mistaken for my age or older. We ended up standing around talking for more than an hour, dancing until a ridiculous hour of the morning, and then wound up at the Blue Lagoon at 2:30 (minus John, who had left). We stayed there for the next hour. It was while there that I discovered Jason more or less makes friends with every person he talks to, since everyone we met that night became a regular face in our little group. By the time everyone else had drifted off, we had all talked ourselves into going back to Jason and Louie’s room to watch Inglourious Basterds, which we did. Tara went back to bed halfway through, but I stuck it out until the end. I ended up in bed around six am.

It’s after that point that the days start to blur together. I spent a lot of time in Jason and Louie’s room, which was dubbed both “Jason’s Cave,” reflecting the number of afternoons he spent holed up in there sleeping, and “Party Central,” since it became the meeting and gathering point from that day on. Shona decided the teen club was lame after the first night, and ended up hanging out with us instead. In addition to me, her, Jason, Louie, Tara, and John, we also added a second Jon, a girl named Alessandra, her brother Allan, and a guy named Daniel to our semi-regular collection; then there were loads more people who we would meet almost nightly in Spinnaker’s.

Some nights we’d go to dinner on our own, or with our friends; others, especially special occasions, we’d go to Alizar’s with the family, or get dressed up and go to the Grand Pacific. There were nights both late (five am) and “early” (generally around midnight), days spent in the pool and hot tub and days when I tucked myself away in the book room to write or play games; evenings spent talking or evenings spent dancing. Several movies were watched, many drinks were consumed (most of them not by me), Jason and I tried to salsa (we did get progressively better after the first night, which included me tripping over my own feet and falling on my ass), everyone bought souvenirs, Jason, Louie and Tara smuggled bottles of alcohol onto the ship (they didn’t want us bringing in other alcohol because then they couldn’t sell us their overpriced drinks), Daniel and I spent a couple of hours talking about ancient history and mythology, five different people spilled drinks on me on New Year’s, Jason lost $100 playing craps in the casino, I ran out of shirts and washed them in the bathroom sink, everyone ate far too much spinach and artichoke dip at the Blue Lagoon, nobody got enough sleep, several people hooked up, I gave two brief lessons on Canadian politics, there was a ship-wide Jason hunt when he disappeared one morning (he turned up later after having taken a nap in one of the private rooms off one of the dance clubs) and everyone wrote their contact information on my hands in sharpie on the last night of the cruise. It was mind-blowing.

Being on a cruise ship is kind of like living in an enclosed hotel compound – a hotel that includes two pools, four jacuzzis, a spa, eleven restaurants, a small gym, a casino, a full-sized theatre, two dance clubs, seven bars, free room service, and a 24-hour cafe. It feels like it goes on forever, and yet it feels like it passes in no time at all. Everyone is so cut off from the outside world – internet exists, but it’s ungodly expensive, and most people just don’t even bother. We barely even had any news. There was probably a news channel on the TVs, but hell if I ever paid any attention. You’re travelling with no sense of movement; you’ll wake up in a port one day, spend a few hours exploring, and then come back, and it’s like you just magically appear somewhere else. Shona and I took to calling our normal lives “real life” and the boat “fake life” – because that’s honestly what it feels like. It’s very surreal.

The psychedelic decorations probably didn’t help, either.

There will be more to follow about our shore excursions – I still need to go through all my photos and get everything sorted in my mind. Life on the ship itself was almost more important, in a way. That place was home for two weeks – a two weeks that lasted eternity.

Christmas in Toulouse

December in Toulouse has been an interesting experience. I thought that I would love to live through a warmer winter than I’m used to, but when it arrived, I found I just missed the snow. We’ve had a little bit of snowfall, but it’s never stayed on the ground for more than a day; every now and then it gets cold enough that something freezes and they shut off the fountains, but that won’t stay long either. It barely seems like December, let alone six days till Christmas, despite the lights they’ve strung up all over downtown and the Christmas market that’s been in Place du Capitole for the last three weeks.

I got most of my Christmas and birthday shopping done pretty early; now all my gifts are wrapped, and up until a few hours ago when I moved them to my suitcase, they were sitting under the palm tree in our living room that I declared to be “the Christmas tree” (despite lack of decoration or anything remotely resembling coniferous needles). Tomorrow morning at 6:20, we’ll be packing out of here, en route to the train station to catch a train to Barcelona at 6:55. We’ll arrive just after noon to board our boat. Christmas and New Year’s will be spent on board a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s different, but interesting. Exciting.

There are a lot of exotic stops planned for this trip. First we dock outside of Rome, then Naples, both places we’ve visited before. After that is Alexandria, where we’re going on a tour into Cairo, and into the desert to see the pyramids. Then we’ll be stopping at Rhodes, Ephesus in Turkey, Athens, and finally Heraklion, on the island of Crete. It’s all a little overwhelming, but I can’t wait.

On top of the places we’re visiting, we’ve also got our own Christmas to celebrate; the supremely clever organizers of the cruise have us at sea on the solstice, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, the evening of New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day. There will, I’m sure, be parties and events on most, if not all, of those days; I have a couple of nice dresses and another fancy outfit packed. Very glamorous, of course.

In case you can’t tell, I’m still having a bit of trouble believing I’m going on a cruise. It seems far too ritzy a vacation for my family, and to be honest it’s a little hard to take seriously. Guaranteed, I’m going to end up singing I’m On A Boat several times.

Happy holidays!

Kakis and the Collection Thereof

Today, I decided, was a day ripe for early afternoon adventures. It was mostly sunny, and pleasantly cool, with a decided scent of fall in the air, and I hadn’t gone on an extended wandering for quite a while. And so, armed with a light sweater, my camera, and a bit of change in my pocket, I headed out to explore.

My first look at the kaki tree.

On the way, I bought one of my favourite chocolates at the chocolatier’s near my house (I’ll be making a post about them sometime soon), and so, happily nibbling, I made my way down towards St. Etienne, my favourite church (another future post). After wandering through the courtyard, I decided I was going to head down to the Grand Rond and the Jardin des Plantes, two large public parks just south of where I live. All was uneventful, save for the occasional photo opportunity, until I arrived in the Jardin des Plantes and was brought up short by the presence of a strange fruit-bearing tree.

These fruits, I thought at first, were peaches, but the longer I stared at them the more convinced I became that this was not quite right. There didn’t seem to be any on the ground, however, and the lowest branch was too high to hoist myself up onto, so at first I thought my curiosity would go unsatisfied. But while I contemplated the tree in perplexed confusion, a little old man, barely five feet tall, arrived with a rather dauntingly long stick, which he immediately began using to attempt to knock these fruits out of the tree. However, his stick was too crooked and too heavy, and he soon gave up, breaking it to pieces and throwing it in the bushes.

After a brief conversation with him, and a woman passing by, I learned that these fruits are called kakis in both French and Italian, but this led me no closer to discovering what they were in English. Determined to get one down, I set off around the park in the direction of what they said was another kaki tree in hopes that I would be able to climb this one and get one of the mysterious fruits down. In his, however, I was unsuccessful – this tree, like the other, had no branches low enough to climb onto. I spent a while balanced on the back of a park bench, shaking one of the lower branches in hopes of freeing one of the kakis, but to no avail. Still not willing to give up, I headed back to the first tree, where I discovered both the woman and the little old man had disappeared.

The construction of the kaki collecting stick.

Undaunted, I went looking in the bushes to find the pieces of the stick the old man had dropped there. I broke them into shorter pieces and amused myself lobbing them at the tree in hopes of knocking down a fruit or two to take home, but in this pursuit I was once again, quite literally, fruitless. However, amidst the amused passers-by, there was a ray of hope. The little old man had returned, this time carrying two shorter, lighter, and mostly straight sticks, which he then proceeded to bind together with three lengths of twine he apparently just happened to have in his pocket. Then, with what can only be described as the ease of long practice, he immediately set to work, using the little fork on the end of the stick to twist several kakis off the stem and down to the ground. I was awarded with two of them.

The kaki collecting stick in action.

I was told not to worry about the bruising on them, and to take them home and put them in my kitchen, sitting them on their stems, where I was to check on them every day. When they were soft, he said, they would be ready to be eaten, and they were not eaten in stews or as a cooked vegetable as I initially guessed – their texture is something like peppers, and the interiors of the few broken pieces I managed to find seemed somewhat pepper-like to me as well. No, I was told, they are fruits, which one eats raw, but only once they become soft, as before then they are not desirable. And so, now armed with two kakis and this newfound knowledge as well as everything else, I thanked him and went on my way, returning home in short order, where I washed the kakis, related the entire story to my mother, and put them on the counter, stems down, as I had been told.

One of the newly harvested kakis.

So did I ever discover what kakis actually are? Yes, in fact. While I finished washing them off, mom went to check the computer, whereupon we discovered that the kaki is a Japanese fruit that has spread across Europe and Asia, related to a fruit that grows right at home, in the northern United States.

What is it?

A persimmon.