I'm onto There--Step 2--Vienna

Vienna. I am now in Vienna. There is nearly nothing to report, as I have been in bed most of the time. Sick. Hack hack kerpluf hack.

I could report that, actually, instead of being in bed, I am laying on a trisected arrangement of couch cushions on the floor, trying to remain stationary enough that the cushions don't separate from each other, leaving me to droop uncomfortably between them. As we settled in for sleep last night, my friend Alys was kind enough to inform me that the cushions were stuffed with horse hair. Ewwwww. Somehow, that just feels very ewwwwww. Which reminded me of the fact that it seems the French eat horsemeat, which reminded me of a conversation with a friend about the time I ate raw horse in Japan, which then reminded me of the picture I saw in the photographic exhibit of Robert Frank's "The Americans" while I was in Paris. This amazing collection of 1950's Americana as seen through Frank's eyes was paralleled by a second part of the exhibit called "Paris." There was an awful photo of an entire horse, presumably dead, hanging upside down in a butcher shop, being bled or dried or whatever butchers are doing with animal carcasses when they hang them upside down on hooks. Again, ewwww. And, sweet dreams.

Let not that image of grotesquerie sully you on the French, though. As I walked through the Paris exhibit, also shot in the 1950's, I noticed so many photos with flowers in them, that I walked through the entire collection two more times so that I could calculate the ratio of photos with flowers in them. 21 of 70 photos of Paris in the 1950's showed flowers, as compared to 1 photo in the American exhibit, which consisted of about 100 photos (these I did not count). There were bouquets of flowers being bought on the street, vases of flowers on coffeeshop tables as seen through the window, men holding flowers behind their backs before presenting them to a lover, flowers tacked onto a bridge across the Seine, and vendors selling flowers. In the case of the Americans, the one photo featuring flowers was taken in a cemetery in Chinatown.

But back to Vienna. Really, I have not done much, but there have been a few particularly sweet moments over and above the reconnecting with friends. The first night I arrived, I walked for awhile outside around midnight, in the extreme crisp cold. My companion and I climbed some stairs and entered into a kind of town circle, featuring St. Stephen's Cathedral, which is a huge gothic cathedral from the 1300s. The moon looked nearly full, and again, I was forced to stop, let the dumb smile spread across my face, and enjoy the fact that I was seeing a gothic cathedral with its long spindly spires rising up against a full moon while standing in a cobblestoned square in the middle of one of Europe's capitols.

The second sweet moment occurred today, when I made the decision to make my way outside on my own in search for food, The foraging instinct is surely the most strong of all our animal instincts....or perhaps, that is the case with me. In me, is is stronger than the urge to nest, to stay warm, to be comfortable, to stay safe, and to not appear a complete buffoon due to language barriers. Basically, I was sitting home reading and trying to get rid of my cold while Alys was out studying. The hunger was rising, and I knew Alys wouldn't be home to put food in my beak for a few hours. I remembered where the local grocery was, and figured I wouldn't need to speak to buy something a simple at the store. So I ventured out, and lo and behold! I looked in a storefront before reaching the supermarket and what did I see but....Fried Chicken! Yes, fried chicken, being kept toasty warm under a heat lamp in a lovely steel basin near the window. Those of you who really know me understand how this would have made my heart flutter. But still, I hesitated. I could forage safely at the grocery store, not worrying about my complete lack of German language skills, or I could forage rapturously for some truly satisfying fare, but I would have to verbally interact with the large frightening Austrian man behind the counter (who actually turned out to be Romanian).

I went for the chicken. I walked in, gave a hearty "Gross Gutt" for a greeting, and was greeted back quite naturally in, yes, German. At this point, I looked bashfully at the man and said "Ich no sprechke Deutsch." You see, I know the word for "I", the word for "speak", and the word for "German". But how to negate the verb? Or, as Alys instructed me later, how to negate the noun, for in fact, in this sentence, you negate "German", not "speak". Anyway, everyone knows the word "no" in English, right? Hmmm. The man looked at me dumbly for a second, as I shook my head slowly back and forth to further indicate that I didn't speak German, and then asked me what I would like in English. I pointed gleefully to the fried chicken leg/thigh combo, asked the man for a few language tips, completed the transaction with giggles, and scuttled back home as quickly as possible with my chicken in tow. This was the highlight of my day, and what a high point it was!

I am hoping I will be better tomorrow, as Alys and I will begin our cultural excursions then. We bought awful, can't-see-anything seats for the Barber of Seville tomorrow evening for about $12 US. For that price, I'll be happy to just listen, as opera tickets at home are so prohibitively expensive that I have only seen two operas in my whole life. Sunday we will go to the symphony, where standing room tickets cost about $6. This means we will listen to Beethoven and Mendelssohn while sitting on the ground in the back of the concert hall, which again, is just fine by me.

Next week, we may take a quick drive to Bratislava, which is only about an hour away. As Alys put it, why not go see another European capitol, though Slovakia has only existed as an independent nation-state for 16 years!

And then, next Wednesday, I continue on to the next stage of my 8-month plan and fly to London for a week. But more about that soon.

Where to Start When You Wait Until the End?

I have not written since the Louvre, largely because I have ventured out more the last few weeks, as the initial awkward timidity I suffered from when I first arrived in Paris has gradually lessened. This is not to brag that my heartbeat doesn't still accelerate noticeably whenever I walk into a restaurant to order anything more complicated than an espresso, but overall, I have reached a less-than-neurotic comfort level here. This happy progress, though, has been mirrored by the increasing closeness of my departure date and the knowledge that I am soon moving on to two new language zones, whose languages I am a complete stranger to. There is German in Vienna, though my friend there is fluent, and Malayalam in Kerala, though I insulate myself with the naive expectation that the aftereffects of British colonialism still linger there in the form of basic English. Nonetheless, despite the foreknowledge of more awkward timidity to come in more new places, I have been enjoying Paris here and now.

There is another less tangible reason for my not writing, which is the wordless awe I have felt at many of the things I have seen and heard. And wordless awe, surprise!, is a difficult thing to do justice to through words. Sages and mystics throughout time have phrased and rephrased this simple fact, with my favorite formulation coming from the Tao De Ching. There are as many translations of the opening lines, which consist of only 6 characters, as there are translators, but it amounts to this: The Tao that can be spoken, is not the real Tao. Feel free to substitute almost anything you like for the concept of "Tao", and there you have it.

None of this is to say that my life here has been so sublime that I cannot express it in words, but rather, that to actually write every amazing thing seems unlikely and overly time consuming, to the extent that I eventually decided to just enjoy more, and write less.

But now I'm leaving in two days, it is snowing outside, and I would like to remember briefly the checklist of things I have most enjoyed here as I look out my window at the tall narrow buildings with red tiled roofs.

The Musee D'Orsay, a museum of modern art, whose contents pick up approximately where the Louvre leaves off, housed in a train station from 1900, which fell into disuse due to the fact that trains grew bigger and the station consequently found itself too short by 1939. I believe this was my favorite western art museum, if for nothing else besides its uniquely picturesque setting and design.

The Musee National des Arts Asiatiques-Guimet, whose holdings are at least half composed of Buddhist statuary and artwork, spanning across the entire array of countries in which Buddhism developed during the first 2000 plus years of its life. From India in the first century, through Cambodia's lush, spiraling, full-bodied Boddhisattvas, into Tibet's dark rich painted scrolls depicting myriad manifestations of Boddhisattvas, dancing dakinis, consorts and lamas, to the calming, down-home poses of Chinese Guan Yins seated with one leg up and her elbow propped there, chin resting in hand, to the thick, hearty, very masculine warrior-like visages of Boddhisattva statues found in what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the impossibly narrow, lean gold Buddhas of Thailand, to austere images of Japanese Zen monks in their padded cotton robes, and on and on. I love Buddhist imagery with its calm and serenity. Seeing so many beautiful representations of the exemplar of this path of practice reinstilled in me my deep respect for this belief system.

Yesterday, I visited the Institut du Monde Arabe, which was also stunning, but whose contents I was much less familiar with, and thus a bit less prepared to fully appreciate. Most beautiful were the many pages of the Koran, in different calligraphic styles depending on the era and country of origin: Iran, Iraq, India, Syria, Egypt. The pages called to mind the illuminated texts produced by monks in medieval European monasteries. The pages of the Koran displayed incredibly small, precise calligraphy, elegant gold leafing, and circular designs throughout whose meaning I could not guess at. There was also a section showcasing Arab developments in math and science, where I saw the most beautiful multilayered golden discs hanging one after another in their display cases. They were astronomical tools used both for astronomy and the more esoteric practice of astrology.

And the music here! There are free classical concerts in Paris every afternoon and evening at multiple venues, many of which are churches. I have not availed myself of nearly as many of these as I should have. I sat in one church during lunch listening to two young female vocalists sing duets from Purcell and Bach, accompanied by the church organ. The soprano's voice simply soared and filled the entire nave of the church. Prosaic as it may be, if you closed your eyes, you could imagine yourself in heaven. Another concert I saw featured a male Lebanese cantor, singing over four male voices harmonizing in the style of Gregorian chant. I sat with my eyes closed, and found myself crying. These were the most beautiful sounds I could imagine. My only regret was that I couldn't jump up and sing with them.

These are a few of the highlights, not including the personal highlights of unexpected friendships I have found here, which have made this too short stay truly rich. So tonight I will drink absinthe and say a temporary goodbye to one of these friends, and tomorrow, another goodbye with my landlords and neighbors. Then on to Vienna for a week to see one of my oldest and dearest friends, Alys, and a few of her friends who I have come to know.

One Reaction Fits All, or Wow!

On Monday, I went to the Louvre for the first time. I wrote an entry the evening before, only half jokingly describing the mental and physical preparations I was undertaking in order to make the trip. I didn't mention, in that entry, that I had also recruited an ally to accompany me. I met Isabelle, a French statistician in her early 30's, on Craigslist Paris for a language exchange. Our first meeting was at a bar to watch Obama's inauguration, and it was Isabelle who took the photo of me standing outside Harry's Bar afterwards. We hit it off, and her strong command of English was enough to compensate for my fumbling attempts at full sentences in French, so we agreed to meet again.

Isabelle herself is not from Paris, so her outsider status here in the capital might be part of the reason we get along so easily. The small handful of people I'm befriending here are also outsiders; first, a friend's sister from Montreal, and next, the couple from whom I am renting my apartment. Vincent is French, but from the south, and Saskia, who emigrated here from Germany about 20 years ago. It seems Paris may be a bit like San Francisco in this regard. Many of the locals here, after a one minute exploration of their origins, are in fact not "true" locals. But back to Isabelle, who is from a small village in the extreme southwest of France in the region of Pau, which spoken aloud, sounds a bit like the word we associate with stinky, as in Pepe Le. Having lived in Paris for a full eight years, and never having been to the Louvre, I considered Isabelle a perfect second, and invited her to break the invisible boundaries surrounding us both by going with me to the Louvre. Bless her heart, she assented, and we made a plan to meet Monday at the absurdly late hour of 1 PM by the Pyramid. I had seen photos of the glass pyramid outside the west entrance of the Louvre before, so felt fairly confident that this meeting place would work.

What I had not anticipated was the Metro system being built so cleverly, so that when you exit the Metro for the Louvre, you in fact exit into a large underground shopping complex that leads directly into the Museum itself. At one point in this complex, you can stand directly underneath the glass pyramid and look up. I had a slight panic, because Isabelle and I hadn't actually specified whether we were meeting by the part of the pyramid that was outdoors, or by the part that was indoors! I went with my gut and figured we were meeting outside. Now that that was decided, I next had to wander around to find an exit that would actually get me outside. Are new places/tourist areas/foreign countries always this confusing, or am I just out of practice?

Well, I made it above ground, and had another one of those moments where a dumb gleeful smile burst across my face and I just stood there for a second muttering, "Wow!" to myself. My first view of the Palais du Louvre. Immense, gorgeous, sprawling, magnificent, and clearly of a historical time and place that the 21st-century layperson, and an American at that, would find difficult to conceive.

I won't trace through the few hours of exploring that we did inside the Louvre, but let me just say that the portion that I saw was amazing. I felt sorry for Isabelle having to listen to me say, "Wow" or "Oh my God" so many times. We primarily saw French and Italian paintings, and then stumbled through a number of other sections, primarily Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Near Eastern Antiquities, trying to reach the two Egyptian sections, which we never did reach.

The Venus di Milo and the Nike of Samothrace, whose name may not be as familiar but whose image most certainly is, were two of my favorites. Stunning. And I will add my vote to the chorus of others who say that the Mona Lisa is not nearly as impressive as all the hype would suggest. This may partially be due to the fact that it is the only piece in the entire museum which you can not get near enough to appreciate up close, unlike DaVinici's other gorgeous paintings. The few Picassos I saw felt sorely out of place in a welcome way, which gave me a greater appreciation for how far this man went and went again beyond the bounds of tradition. There were also two rooms filled with sketches by Picasso, Kandinsky, Cezanne and Klee, as well as handwritten scores by Wagner and Stravinski, all pulled together and arranged under the title Oeuvre: Fragments, by French composer and conducter Pierre Boulez. Aside from the precariously shifting floorboards in the rooms, which I don't think were part of the piece, this exhibit was a fascinating insert into the whole of the Louvre, recalling to mind the many-staged processes of creation that lie unseen behind finished works. This room to me felt like someone snapping their fingers to startle you awake, and so, though I do doubt the unstable floorboards were intentional, they actually made perfect sense.

All in all, an excellent introduction to the Louvre!

Nightmare before the Museum

I'm finally doing it. I've been in Paris two weeks, working on my strength, endurance, foot callouses, and ability to stand for long periods, and I think it's time. I don't feel ready, but I think it's time. Because really, I don't think I would ever feel ready. In the way that people who want kids but haven't always known that they wanted kids because without kids their lives would be meaningless empty voids forever...in the same way that those people might never be truly "ready" to have kids, but at some point they just need to dive in, and so they do....in that same way, I think it is time. So with trepidation, and the knowledge that I am embarking upon an endeavor more tasking and arduous than I could possibly comprehend at its outset, it is in that way that I am going tomorrow.....to the Louvre.

And before I end this post, I should mention, that in the town where I grew up, a very very tiny town, in a remote metaphorical corner (for really, it's kind of in the center) of America, there is a tiny tiny art museum. This was the first art museum I ever went to, probably when I was about 13. I loved that place, and still have fond memories of meandering inside its two rooms. Its TWO ROOMS. Its TWO SMALL ROOMS. My first art museum is in fact smaller than most houses, even houses in crowded cities like San Francisco. And somewhere inside of me, I carry a tiny little two-room museum. I feel as if I were a small origami creature set at the foot of Mount Everest.

And so tonight I go without wine, I have swallowed my vitamin packet, I go to bed early and set the alarm, I repeat a mantra of lovingkindness towards myself. Tomorrow, I will start the morning with a protein-laden breakfast of eggs, yogurt, an apple and coffee. I will bundle myself before leaving the apartment in coat and scarf, hat and mittens, with the love and attention which I would bundle my imaginary child on its first day of imaginary kindergarten, and I will make my way, timorously, to the Louvre.

A peculiarly French phenomenon?

I'm sure we all have intellectual, if not experiential, knowledge of the following: french kissing, French films, french fries. For the sake of the intended humour of this blog, I am entering the mental territory of George Bush in the first and third instances, placing the origin (and therefore the post- 9-11, pre-invade-Iraq blame) on the French people for the creation of these abominations. We know better, though, don't we, that french fries aren't really exotic, dastardly French imports to be shunned in times of political discord? And I'm sure whoever the "French" were at whatever historical point in time that french kissing was first performed, that that particular tribe of hirsute peoples in the bog of pre-Europe weren't the first erotic geniuses to stick tongues in each others' mouths while mashing their lips together. So, for the moment we're left with French films, in this brief list of 2-word nouns that describe something uniquely French. (Actually, I just looked online and saw a list of 57 things, either items, phenomenon, or acts, that are termed as French, ranging from French braids in a girls hair, to the French roast of a coffee, down to The French Disease! Didn't Nietzsche have that?)

But in my short time in Paris (which admittedly is not France, no matter the local attitude), I have noticed what I submit as another 2-word phrase to add to the list, which may or may not in fact be particularly French. But it's fun, so here goes! I submit The French knot! Perhaps I will work up the nerve to get really really close to someone and take a picture so you see exactly what I am referring to. The French knot...it's everywhere here. On the metro, in the streets, in the cafes, the supermarkets, the patisseries, even the museums! The French knot is the most uniform fashion style I have ever seen, and consists of a simple, thick cotton scarf, tied snuggly around one's neck in a very exact, precise, and down-to-the-last-person uniform way. The French knot lies flat against ones chest, and though it protrudes out the top of ones neatly buttoned medium-length black coat, at its end, tucks inside the neck of the coat.

The first few days after my arrival, when sitting on the metro, I would scan people and mainly notice that, here, when I wear entirely black outfits, it is not in the slightest bit odd. Paris is swamped with dark clothes in a way that makes me feel like I have unwittingly stumbled upon my birth family.

The next thing I started noticing, right below peoples' curtained subway faces, were the scarves. It's cold out, and damp, and hellaciously windy. So yes, most people, women and men (do men wear scarves in the States?) wear scarves when they go out. Some of the women's scarves are stylish, but it is clear that most scarves are worn for utility's sake rather than fashion's. Then I started noticing that the majority of the scarves looked like the same scarf, with variations in color and design, but basically there is a standard type of scarf that most people wear. Cotton, and of a knit where the individual chords of fiber are visible running down the body of the scarf. And finally, with an aftertaste of insidiousness, I noticed that the scarves were all worn in exactly the same manner!!! My American sensibilities made me feel a bit like, rather than stumbling into my birth family, the family had turned out to be alien implants made to lull me into docility while they sucked out my life energy to recharge their machino-alienic batteries. Everyone, everywhere, wearing their scarves exactly alike?! The horror. Like ties, always tied in the same way. Sir, the scarves all seem to be doubled, then wrapped around themselves and pulled up snuggly against the neck, and then laid flat against the chest. Et voila, the French knot. Which is basically a scarf worn like a tie. No sir, the warp drive is broken. We can't get away. :)

This is one of the quirky little things I enjoy discovering, and perhaps cocreating a bit, when I travel. But seriously, is this a Parisian thing, a French thing, or perhaps a broader European, or at least, Western European phenomenon? A Quebecker friend of mine who has been living in Geneva for about 4 years now came to visit this past weekend, and he tied his scarf in the same manner. We met his sister, living in Paris for two years now, for "le brunch" last Sunday, and as we all stood up and rebundled ourselves as we were leaving the restaurant, they both simultaneously wrapped their scarves on in exactly the same way. (By the way, when the waiter served us our plates, he jokingly apologized to me that this was French brunch. Why the joke, I wondered, and then turned to my plate where I saw my one miniature pancake sticking up outside the edges of the BOWL. Pardon me, is that my pancake in A BOWL? God, I love traveling, just for the little things.)

But back to the knot. Every day when I go out, I search the streets and the metros, not for the perfect croissant or expresso, not for the absent smile as a stranger darts their eyes away from mine as I catch theirs, too quick for me to send them a smile, but for the anomalous scarf. I am looking for that thick cotton utilitarian scarf adorning someone's neck in a way that is just so, but not the same just so as all the other scarves. Or maybe the scarf won't even be just so, but will be rather casually strewn about the shoulders, an afterthought, or a windblown rebellion.

Maybe I'll spot one tonight, in the erstwhile boho neighborhood of Montmartre, the home of Moulin Rouge. I'll keep you posted.

It's a New Day Video for Obama's Time

I wanted to upload the video, but either can't, or don't know how.

Go to the link and enjoy if you like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHWByjoQrR8

The Belated Beginning

For those of you back home or otherwise who have been waiting for me to start letting you know how my journey is becoming, here is a little something.  As with all things, I am a bit slow in the offing.   

And so it was with the actual beginning of my journey.  A few of you were privy to the unfortunate nature of my final days in the States, spurred by the last-minute discovery that I had completely neglected to secure a visa necessary to enact a full one half of my extant travel plans. During the long months of preparing to leave San Francisco, my precise sister had been kind enough to inquire whether or not I needed a visa for my trip to India, and whether or not I had secured such visa.  I'm not sure, was my response to this query, I'll look into it.  After "looking into it", I discovered that I did indeed need a visa to get into India (which, though I have not travelled much, as an American, I was completely unaccustomed to...usually I show up at whatever airport, proffer my blessed/cursed American passport, and am immediately given entry to the country, with or without a smile being a sidenote of complete irrelevance.) Well, I hate paperwork, bureaucracy, lines, offices, dealing with people sitting behind desks, and so this made me a bit nervous.  However, I fell into line, followed the necessary steps, and obtained a TEN YEAR VISA to India.  Crazy, eh?  10 YEARS!  Course, I can only stay 6 months every year, but still.  Crazy.

Anyway, I diverge.  The point is, I got the visa I needed to get into India.  No one, including my own avoidant, head-in-the-mud mind, however, had bothered to ask the same question about France. That is, do you need a visa for France, and do you have said visa?  Most of you probably know that according to "the plan", I was going to start my travels in Paris, and after some stops in Europe and a short trip to India, I was going to return to France, this time ending up in the south for the full summer, where I would be a cook at an idyllic Buddhist meditation center.  Sounds like a dream, right?  Well, for those among us who don't mind a fair amount of (obligatory) silence, tirelessly vegetarian meals, an uncouth lack of wine considering the location, and sitting cross-legged with other people who don't mind all the aforementioned attributes of the place, then it's the stuff of  dreams, perhaps.  Did I mention there's a small babbling brook on the property?  And a bamboo grove?

Anyway, to me, it has been a dream I have been conjuring for at least half a year.  Furthermore, it was "the plan."  I was to jump on a plane to Paris January 4th, arrive January 5th, and then the timeline would unfurl itself.  Before the unfurling could begin, first there was New Year's Eve.  While watching a hideous period romance with my folks, I began to casually peruse my guidebook for France.  Et alors, I found myself at the visa section, et alors, I found out I needed to obtain a long-stay visa for stays of more than 90 consecutive days in France, et alors, this visa could not be obtained in a third country, but needed, in fact, to be obtained in the U.S., and in one's district of residence, no less, before arriving in country.  Since I was planning on leaving the U.S. 3 days later, not to return for at least a year, and certainly not before my trip to the south of France, this discovery unsurprisingly led to a massive panic. And out of the panic came sleeplessness, tears, familial bonding, exacerbated bouts of self-flagellation, questioning of values, plans, desires, and attachments,  and more concretely, hours on the phone to outsourced Travelocity customer service representatives in India, a rushed and discombobulating trip back to San Francisco for a nerve-fraying run-in with French bureaucracy (a word I did not know how to spell reliably before this incident), almost 1000 dollars of depleted savings, and in the end, thankfully and graciously, the long-stay visa necessary for me to stay 4 months in the south of France at the meditation center.

Et voila, one week later than planned, I arrived in Paris.  That was one week and one day ago.  And now here I am.  In Paris.  It is a marvelously beautiful city.  I meant to blog tonight about being in a bar more crowed than the one I was in on election night in San Francisco to watch Obama's inauguration with a gaggle of French enthusiasts and fellow travelers.  The world is excited.  The French are in love.  And I know we are all waiting, and hoping.  But I will write more about that, belatedly.

Let me just tell you all that I am in Paris, marveling at the architecture above all.  And perhaps, secondly, at the extraordinarily long periods of time you can sit in a cafe or restaurant without being "bothered" by the waitstaff.  I will never test it, but my suspicion is that you could sit at a table literally all day and all night long (during open hours) without having the waiter or waitress give you your check, unless of course, you asked for it.  Politesse, perhaps, and a bit of Parisian indifference, also?  But, where do I need to be in a rush?

I am happy to find myself here, and marvel at the good graces which have allowed me to live a month of my life in this place filled with free classical music, stones older than my country, and the best baguettes I've ever tasted, for only $1!