Two wonderful days in France.  Who wudda thunk?  I've never hidden my qualms about the French but this time I must admit we only met two people who would qualify for the "seriously have a stick up their a**" award.  My old Irish friend Karen, from way back when I taught in language school here, joined me for an overnight in Menton.  Menton is right over the border on the Mediterranean coast, where the Maritime Alps meet the sea.  We took the train down early Friday morning as I had the day off.  Apart from the rain it was great.  The temps are always mild and there is that wonderful clean, sea breeze and amazing light that has attracted so many artists.  A nice change from inland city air.   Menton may be only 5 kilometers from Italy but it is different in a thousand little ways.  The food (more garlic), the wine(lighter), the clothing styles(questionable).   It is an old, old city with an ancient center that winds up the hills via steep staircases and pedestrian roads.  How these people move houses is beyond me.  The newer part of the city has a casino and dozens of seaside hotels and restaurants.  Most were closed for the season but there were enough places open for our needs.  We ate lots of seafood and drank lots of wine and shopped for Marseille soaps and Chevre.  Yesterday we walked up all those staircases to the top of the old village where there is a wonderful terraced cemetery called the Vieux Chateau.  Cemeteries can tell a lot about a place, in this case showing how long the area has been a tourist destination.  It is at the top of a high hill overlooking the sea with gnarled maritime pines and flowering vines growing along the paths.  The tombstones are all bleached very white from the strong sun.  It's gorgeous.  What a resting place.  But what I found most extraordinary were the number of foreigners buried there.  More than half the names were English or American, German, Russian and Spanish with each nationality getting it's own terrace.  Of course there were a lot of Italians as well as that area has for centuries gone back and forth between France and Italy.  Mind you these are not recent graves.  The oldest dated back to the late 1700's and only a few family tombs had recent additions.   There is a huge mausoleum belonging to a Russian prince who died in 1880 something, another smaller mausoleum for an American and his French wife sporting both flags.   I loved it.  We also visited the Jean Cocteau art museum.  I remember loving his work years ago that was nautical based colorful paintings but this time around they had a display of his theater and "erotic" pieces and I wasn't thrilled.  He was gay and liked to draw men with extremely over-sized appendages.  That was enough culture for me!

Sunset

old cemetery and eternal view

the walk to the top

view of old Menton and the port

Coming back last night we had quite the adventure.  On Saturday evenings evidently the trains coming into the cites are populated with kids from the smaller towns going to party.  At alomost every stop more people got on and they were already well on their way to enjoying themselves.  There were African guys selling dope and dread-locked Italian alternative types buying it.  There were Eastern European immigrants drinking liter sized bottles of beer and running out at every stop to have a cigarette or have a pee.  All these people were singing and yelling and generally carrying on while Karen and I and one other couple shook our heads like old people and wondered where the police were when you needed them.  I didn't feel at all threatened as they paid us no attention at all but I wouldn't have wanted to be along with that crowd.   Finally after a couple hours and multiple stops a conductor got on and started threatening them all but I think he was afraid to really do anything as he was seriously out numbered.  They all yelled at him and gave him the finger and waited for him to turn his back before lighting up another.  What excitement.  Karen looked very severe and scowled tight-lipped the whole trip.  It was pretty funny. 

We made it back safe and sound and today is rest.  xxoo me

Happy Thanksgiving one and all!  We went to the dinner at the school.  It was Thanksgiving Italian style.  There were typical local appetizers and sparkling wine before dinner followed by boneless stuffed turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy.  They had something they called American potatoes that were vaguely sweet but greenish in color and a strange but tasty corn bread made from polenta.  The wine was made next door at the agricultural college and the desserts were all Italian.  Not a pumpkin pie nor an apple crisp to be seen.  It was a good time though with about 200 people of all ages packed into the cafeteria.  Now to sleep because I'm off at the break of dawn tomorrow with an old friend for a 24 hour trip to Menton on the French Riviera.  More on that later.  xxoo me

After two years and 3 months I may, may, have found the hairdresser for me.  I got a very short cut today to take off all the dry, frizzy stuff left over from my tiger coloring last spring.  This new guy gave me a good cut, it's conveniently only ten minutes away and they give really nice head massages!  It was on the expensive side but at this point I don't care.  I go to the hairdresser so rarely anyway. 

GP and I took our river walk this morning and saw he who we have come to call "Lobster Man".  This is because of the weird orange-red skin color he sports which is so unnatural it obviously comes from tanning cream.  That skin is  pretty evident as all he wears are an obscenely short pair of running shorts.  He also has long bleached hair and a very fit and muscly body.  He's always running or working out along the river paths, sprinting up and down the stairs and stretching on benches.  GP is convinced he's a porn star.  He seems to think that only porn stars would be so falsely tanned and bleached and in shape.   He's never been to the Jersey shore.

We are still waiting for the cold to set in.  Still damp and 50's.  We just removed our screens today but may regret it.  Weird weather.  xxoo me

Oh!  I am all a dither.  I discovered two things today at school that have left me in this state.  The first is that our "business manager" is resigning and taking a job elsewhere.  That doesn't sound like much but in a smallish private school environment it can mean lots.  He is more than just the business side of the school.  He is pretty much the Prime Minister to our Head Master's Queen.  (If you met our Head Master you'd know why that is sooo apropos. )  There was much whispering in corners and many coffee and bathroom breaks for the teachers today.  Gossip was swirling.   What with his having a hand in all the dealings in the school, changes are sure to come.

Then, a colleague mentioned that two mothers of students in our school believe their children to be Indigo Children.  Am I the only person who had never heard of this?  It's some sort of new age belief that aliens are seeding children born from 1990 onward to elevate us to the next level of consciousness.  They are called Star Children and under that title are divided into Crystal Children and Indigo Children.  Look this up.  It's fascinating.  Some genius thought this up and is now probably making gabillions on books and DVD's and public speaking.  Call me a cynic yet again but really?  What the #$@%$?  Anyhow, these two mothers have been pushing the school to treat their children as special entities and to see them for what they are, (emissaries from planet looney?)   I know one of these kids and in fact she is in Grace's grade.  This explains so much!  She is very serious and kind of a control freak.  It's probably her way of dealing with her insane mother.  Whoa. 

I am off to hide in the dark of my room and watch some television.  I don't want to have to think right now.  My head might explode.  xxoo me

It's not a day for man nor beast!  It's rained so much, the low areas look like rice paddies.  Good day to stay home and recover from a wee bit of exaggeration last night.  We went to dinner at an old friend's house out in the wine region.   R is a real renaissance man.  He knows a little bit about every topic, he studied Classics, he plays the piano, sings, he's a fantastic cook and dresses like an English country gentleman.  Even as a young guy he wore wool buttoned vests and ties on all occasions.  He has had about 10 careers, from door to door air conditioner salesman to hotel owner.  He's successful at everything for a year or two and then gets bored and moves on to something else.  When we lived here the first time around he had a wonderful restaurant that was our favorite weekend haunt.  We could tell it was coming to the end of a good thing when he spent a Saturday night watching a football match instead of in the restaurant dining-room.  Now he works for a customs office and remarkably has been there for some years.  Anyhow, he cooked us an amazing dinner with stuffed pasta in mushroom sauce, wild boar cooked with pears, carrots and zucchini, and lots and lots of wine.  His uncle shot the boar, many of which live in the wooded areas around the vineyards.  The boars, not uncles.  R entertained us with stories all evening which got progressively hilarious with each bottle of wine.  Fun was had by all.  (Not that I'm encouraging drinking mind you.  Not with all the pickled apples on our family tree!)  This is what really struck me however.  R had an accident last week where he hit a guardrail.  As he is covered only by liability, he'd have to pay a bundle to repair his car.  But being Italy, he asked around and found a friend who "knows a guy".  This person is a mechanic with an auto body shop who sets up fake accidents.  He finds a customer who is willing to take the blame for an "accident", does what needs to be done to the cars for the insurance photos, charges the insurance company 3 times more than he normally would and splits the profit the "guilty" driver.  R gets his car repaired at no cost and everyone is happy.  Serious insurance fraud and the way of the world here.  In Italy it's very important to "know a guy".  Everyone does.  Except me.  GP always asks, "don't you know a guy who...?".  Nope.  In the States, as far as I know, that kind of guy exchange doesn't happen.  At least not in my world.  I felt like I'd been transported to the set of The Sopranos listening to them talk last night.  I said, "Since when do you know GUYS!?"  And lovely poetry quoting, ballad singing R answers, "Oh I know guys alright.  Or at least guys who know guys."   Gadzooks!  xxoo me

So, what do you think would happen to the radio station in the US that played a song making fun of "Little People"?  A song that has a line, and I quote, "because your heart is too close to your asshole".  Little bit of lawsuit maybe?  There are no defamation laws or libel laws here.  Or not that anyone enforces.  There is practically no attention paid to minority rights groups, (unless they are immigrants).  Handicapped people are still hidden away and people still use derogatory terms for races and genders.  (Have I mentioned that my lovely, warmhearted mother-in-law still calls blacks "Moors"?)  So back to the song.   I was driving to the tennis club to pick up Grace this afternoon and turned on the radio, which is rare for me because I like to drive in silence.  Good think time as I have so few occasions to be alone, squished as we are into a 4 room apartment and surrounded by 500 screaming children all day.  I digress, excuse me.  Most music here is the same stuff we listen to in the US.  American and British musicians rule the airwaves.  And most Italian pop music doesn't interest me, so I tune it out.  I was planning dinner when the above mentioned line was sung and I literally, sat up and listened.  The song is about a dwarf, midget, little person, vertically challenged individual, whatever, who becomes a prosecutor in order to get back at all the people who had teased him growing up.  Weird but not unusual.  There are a lot of comic singers on the roles of Italian entertainers.  Most are just amazingly stupid as Italian humor is pretty lowbrow, but some are very offensive.  I'd say this one falls in the offensive category.  I remember a song from the '80's that said something like, "a hen is an animal that is not intelligent".  I'd say the guy who wrote that song is an animal that is not intelligent.  GP and friends love it.  It's that Italian humor thing.  Off to make dinner.  xxoo me

We're getting ready for winter though it's still in the 50's and 60's.  We bought our flu shots at a pharmacy on Sunday and stopped by the mother-in-law's place so she could shoot us up!  Most families have a shot-giver amongst them as doctors don't give shots unless requested and paid.  (It's not part of their explicit duties.)  The elderly and infirm can have nurses come to their homes but most people find a friend or kin.  Amalia is popular.  She injects people all over town.  Years ago when she took on the responsibility she would practice on grapefruits. She especially likes bums.  She gives them a good slap before the needle goes in and says you don't feel a thing.  (I get mine in the arm.)  She's pretty good, though she did get my bone this time and I have a painful lump.  Tonight we put on our snow tires which are real overkill as it maybe snows an inch a year here.  We only need them if we go in the mountains.  By law however, we have to have them on by November 15th so there you go.  Other winter plans include planning where to go for the holidays.  Christmas day will of course be spent with Amalia but we still have 10 days off after that.  Last year I chose Morocco so this year the choice is GP's.  That means cold.  Damn.  Good thing we have snow tires... 
xxoo me

My new cuckoo clock!

This is how the argument between mother and son upstairs ended today.  She had been, as per her usual, harassing him endlessly about making a mess when he had finally had enough and yelled, "Stop vexing me with these rhetorical questions!."  (This kid is eight)  She then whacked him for being disrespectful.  He stomped off into his room but before slamming the door he said, "And I would  never have thought to have a mother who would hit me!"  They are a very theatrical family.  It's like living under a highbrow soap opera.  xxoo me

Germany: The final installment:  (Ooooo.. just like Star Wars!)

Our last full day was Friday and our friends took us to a wine region along the Rhine about 40 minutes away.  We visited a couple of cute little towns and a lookout over the river where a huge statue called Niederwalddenkmal - try saying that 3 times fast! (It is "Germania" the female representative of Germany)  was erected after a war between France and Germany in the late 1800's.  She looks like a very butch Statue of Liberty.  It is pretty impressive.  On the way home we stopped for a late lunch and a look at a monastery where parts of the film "Name of the Rose" were filmed.  The monks produce wine and beer which of course we partook of in their restaurant.  That evening was Halloween, a holiday that has only recently been celebrated in Germany, brought to the country by Americans.  They certainly don't take it as seriously as we do but the little kids were excited and B took them to the US base to Trick-or-Treat.  Non-Americans are permitted onto the residential part of the base but not inside the houses (?), so the families there had set up tables and spooky displays on their lawns so the German kids could participate.  They came home with bags full of crap and we all sat outside around a fire and drank mulled wine.  All of B &P's friends speak English, and well.  Even the children could converse with me. The US really has to get on top of this language thing.  We are seriously being left behind.

View over the Rhine.

Germania

Monastery

Water trough for dogs.  Says "Hund" with a "P" for parking and a place to tie them up!

All in all it was a nice trip, especially seeing my Germans again.  But to be honest I'd rather travel somewhere warmer and sunnier and maybe a little more exotic.  Germany really doesn't feel very foreign.  In that modern, busy, wealthy part of the country there are so many similarities with The States.  We went into a pharmacy one day and I could swear I was in Walgreens!  xxoo me

Last night we invited my mother-in-law for dinner.  She brought it.  As in dinner.  Everything from appetizers to dessert.  I only provided the wine and the bread.  I should probably be incredibly insulted as her opinion of my cooking must be pretty low but to be honest it works for me.  I got a great dinner, didn't have to cook and didn't even have to change out of my sweats! 

Anyhow...back to Germany.

Part three:  Directly across the street from one of the entrances to the US base is an organic farm that raises animals and grows produce that they sell on premises.  There is a bakery, a butcher, a dairy shop and a vegetable shop all located in lovely converted barns.  The animals they raise can be visited and petted which is sweet until you walk into the butcher's and realize that the cute little bunny you named Petey will be trussed up under these glass counters some day soon.  It's a bit disconcerting.   The bakery is frickin' amazing and it was all I could do not to buy everything in the place.  I settled for a humongous apple fritter type of thing.  We went with the sole purpose of buying a pumpkin for Halloween and left with bags of food.  Not Petey.

I need a haircut and I was cold, OK?!

In the afternoon we drove the girls into Frankfurt where they had a concert to go to and B and I wandered the city all evening, drinking beer and eating ridiculously heavy, gaseous food.  Frankfort's main square is beautiful, with a huge pink "Romer", the city hall, dominating it.  It really looks like a frosted cookie.

Frankfort by night

xxoo me

Part 2:  Wiesbaden is a beautiful city with 250,000 plus citizens and an American army base that houses another 5,000 or so.  As GP would so politely say, "It stinks of money".  It's in an area where you can't drive more than 30 minutes without running into another prosperous little, or in the case of Frankfurt, not so little, city.  It's highly touristic, houses a US base and it's the center for many German companies.  But the city maintains a wonderful charm.  The architecture is fabulous with older buildings of wood and plaster (Neo-Gothic??) and Classical and Belle Epoch all tossed in together.  It was once a famous spa destination and in fact there are still some spas functioning.  Hot springs run all under the city so there are fountains that spurt scalding water into the air and steaming manholes all over the place.  Kinda freaky.  The town center is in a hollow, like the bottom of a teacup, with five valleys leading up into the hills around it.  Each hill neighborhood has it's own character.  Some areas are very austere and elegant and remind me of Kennsington in London.  Others are mainly brick and granite and are more like Back Bay in Boston.  There are hundreds of incredible mansions that I can't imagine heating and neighborhoods of smaller, old traditional houses that look like they come out of a fairy tale.  In the center we went to a famous Cuckoo clock shop where I played American tourist and a very old, very beautiful Viennese style cafe' where we stopped for cake and coffee.  As I found in Austria, the cakes look better than they taste.  The bread however is another story.  Germany has the best breads anywhere.  Bread with nuts and seeds and grains and apples and spices.  Gad it's good.  That plus the beer tightened the jeans a wee bit.

Here are a few of my favorite houses.

The city literally abounds with these beauties.  Ah well.  They do have to put up with the weather.  xxoo me

The "Golden Church", an orthodox Russian church on the hilltop over Wiesbaden

View from the hills looking down on the city of Wiesbaden

Called "The White House" built by wealthy local for his American wife in early 1900's

Giant cuckoo clock around window of a local shop

Wonderful window display of oldest cafe' in Wiesbaden

Enjoying our pastries is aforementioned cafe'!

I bought a Cuckoo Clock!!  And all the Germans laughed at me until I pointed out that the walls of their home are lined with lovely wooden masks from Africa and their shelves are covered in knickknacks bought in Thailand and Australia.  That shut'em up.  So we are back from our 4 day trip to Germany.  It was a lot of fun but I'm glad to be home where occasionally the sun shines.  Damn is the Rhine Valley a damp, mossy, gray part of the world!  It's the land of Gnomes and Riesling and automobiles.

Part 1:  We left by car on Tuesday, an eight hour drive, and stopped in Vevey, Switzerland to lunch with Bette who worked with me in the library last year.  Let me just say that she made the right decision to move there.  It is GORGEOUS!  It's a small city, not far from Lucerne, on lake Genevra.  It was sunny and warm and it's so clean you could eat off the sidewalks.  Ok, maybe not, but almost!.  The long lakefront walk is lined with trees, including palms because of it's micro-climate that keeps it temperate all year.  Across the lake stand "the Alps in all their majesty" and Evian, France where the overpriced spring water comes from.  Bette's apartment is big and airy with views out every window.  (Of course being Switzerland it also costs over $3,000 bucks a month but salaries are quite high.)  There is public art in every park and along the lakefront and seating built into the stones along the waterfront for picnickers.  I loved it and I'll definitely go back when I can spend some more time and have saved a lot of money....

Giant Fork in the lake

Statue of Charlie Chaplin, a local boy

The lakeside goes on for miles

Grace and Paula on Bette's balcony.

More later.  xxoo me