Freed from the cell
The decisions we make do not always play out in such obvious ways. I had packed the phone number of some friends and planned to call them to make arrangements to meet. I'm still cell phone free, an aberration now, living a lifestyle that doesn't quite mesh with many I know. The world has changed since my embargo began, people no longer make advanced plans, they do it on the fly. I try to play along, but don't always succeed. I had the phone number and I was with a friend. When I asked him to borrow his phone, he thought for a moment before telling me that he had forgotten it. He seemed truly sorry, but as he was trying to take responsibility for this, a sentence escaped from my lips. I could not allow him to worry because he did not have his phone for my use. That would not be right and without hesitation I said:

This is the life I've chosen.

We found a pay phone. They still exist. And I'm still happy with my choices.

Constructive criticism from the universe
The pope came to town and I let him pass. I didn't understand all of the hullabaloo. He's just a man, I thought to myself. Why are people snapping a zillion pictures and lining the streets. Ridiculous. What kind of person does that?

I do.

My popes are less famous and less influential, but they compelled me to pull my camera out, line the streets, and hang on their every word. I like it when the universe acts quickly to teach me a lesson. The pope had hardly left town when I found myself in Boston, seven hours from home, hanging out on the streets to cheer on Deena Kastor and a host of other women trying to qualify for the Olympics. My camera was clicking as I scurried around trying to catch another glimpse as the marathoners paraded by.

Later in the day, I was in a room with three elite runners and I hung on their every word as they talked of their craft and their sacrifices and triumphs in that realm. It was moving and inspiring, made all the more so by a very appreciative audience. To be in the company of runners in a kind of conversation with these dedicated and accomplished females struck me as particularly special. It's one thing to listen to someone near the top of her field reflect on experiences, but it's a something entirely different when some part deep inside aspired or aspires to some level of greatness in that field too. It feels a bit like staring at a treasure map and seemed to be a rare treat.

Somehow, by mid-week, I found myself staring at another treasure map, listening to another someone near the top of her field surrounded by an appreciative audience. This audience was not filled with runners, instead they were the bookish Washington DC fans of the popular author Jhumpa Lahiri. As she delivered lyrical answers to banal questions, I again felt the thrill of being near greatness with that added boost of being in a crowd of admirers.

Bits and pieces

*What's the point of getting married if you're not going to dance about it afterwards?

*My return to tournament level Ultimate was hesitant. Then, I dislocated a finger. A man in a beer garden pulled on it (twice) really hard. After a few minutes of wanting to faint and/or vomit, I returned with a lot more vigor, a lot less hesitancy, and a swollen finger.

*During one series of about three points, I played dominant Ultimate. I got a help D, I was wide open on a couple of in cuts. I came in on an underthrown disc and ripped it away from a defender and then threw a score. I slid in to catch a low disc, my skirt rose up around my hips exposing less than I could but more than I should which elicited a curious sideline noise, that wasn't really a cheer; I adjusted myself instead of throwing to an open cutter, dumped it off and went on to score. I left the game with our team leading by two points believing the tide had turned.

*We lost the game. I was shaken. I didn't really recover that well, although thankfully the team did. I played with very little confidence in the next game including one horrible offensive series in which I didn't make a dump cut at all. I just stood there dancing. I hadn't gotten married, just skyed repeatedly. Ouch.

*My psoas has bothered me all week.

*I saw a movie called I'm a cyborg, but that's ok. It was a love story, Korean, and odd. My favorite bit was a metaphor for life. It was an elastic band tied around the waist. At the end of life, the band became so taut and then finally snapped back, pulling the person away and out of the picture.

*I had a hunch John would be back. I just didn't think it would be so soon.

*I'm going to dance right now in honor of some happy couple.

How low can you go?
The façade was more gutted department store than anything else. Through the dirtied glass doors of another forgotten strip mall, we could see a few burning bulbs hung outside a wooden ticket booth. Our angle of approach had been too severe to notice the out-of-place, ridiculously huge chandelier and the accompanying unimpressive sign for the "D'light Skate N Palace." As we waited for the rink to get rolling, I wondered if our experience would share the tired, almost creepy feel of the entrance.

I should not have been concerned, the entrance may have been rickety, but the palace inside was cared for, not new by any stretch of the imagination, but skate-ready. We got our skates from a shrinking old man with a twinkle in his eye. The skates had seen better days. My size 10s were the beat-up brown and gray of rink skates the world over. The laces had begun to unravel and tightening them around my ankles was an exercise in futility.

We were on the floor early, as less than 20 people had arrived. A thumping R and B beat made rhythmic skating sense to me, as I made left turns and searched for some comfort on wheels. The beat of the music was natural, though the songs were unfamiliar. This was advantageous, as it meant that very little skating nostalgia could creep into my mind. My wheels were turning to a current balance, not trying to withdraw some forgotten memory of how to skate.

The floor was filling up as the music thumped on. There were a few skaters who by now were really moving. Shaking and gliding to the beat sometimes in twos and threes, they zipped by on the outside with a dancer's grace. I had moments where I felt that glide, but these skaters seemed to live at ease. One couple was linked tightly. He twisted wheeling along backwards, forwards, and backwards again, almost without a thought. She shimmied to the beat, the natural wrinkles of her rust orange shirt chasing her stone-washed denim-clad hips as they rolled on together. Those two were attractive people, but that same grace was found in two aging men who had a groove of their own. Intimidated, but slightly enamored, I decided to try skating backwards.

Awkwardly, I had the movement down. Slowly, mostly gracelessly, I pushed with my left foot and rolled out of sight. I turned a corner at a slug's pace, but I must have looked fast because a full-bodied woman ran into my chest. I started to stumble backwards, and then crashed to the floor landing hard on my left buttocks. I was more surprised than hurt and with a helping hand, I was back up and facing forward. That would be my last attempt at skating backwards as the crowd grew larger and swifter.

We'd skated for over an hour and now the skaters began to swirl around us. We, the caucasian few, mostly an untalented skating bunch, had become obstacles to dodge and weave through. Even at my fastest, I felt like I was just able to keep up with the edges of the crowd. It was reckless to be swept up in their movement. At moments I tried, but the moments weren't comfortable. I felt the wheels shake and my ankles burn. I felt the earlier fall and considered that same bruise on my wrist or my face. And I slowed. I took a turn linked to another, but while the boy who remembered sitting out during the "couple's skate" was pleased, the skater that I had become was concerned about being in a crash for two. The masses now rolled by at a surprising rate. This was a whole other world of gliding and grace that I could barely visit. As the speedier skaters whipped around the outside, I began to recognize that the whole world I could barely visit was also a world I could barely leave. I searched for gaps in the crowd, like Frogger on wheels wondering how I would slip through the crowd and off the rink. Finally, after two extra laps around, I was able to shoot a gap and make my way back to comfortable shoes.

The universe is a funny place
Saturday, I was rummaging through my red bag. It's a bag I don't use that often, but it fits cleats, a disc, and a change of clothes quite nicely. It has a front pocket which doesn't close and isn't very large and mostly I find useless. This weekend I started putting my wallet there. Probably not that wise, but a wallet fit nicely. At some point Saturday I went looking for my wallet. It was elsewhere, but I felt something at the bottom of the pocket. Something metallic and plastic and key-like. I lost my keys two months ago. I had accepted their "gone-ness." I dreamed of keys. Keys appeared. Sweet.

Searching for the symbolism
I woke up from a dream a few moments ago. In it, I had arrived by bus at the Ballston Metro Station. The stop was across the street from the station and looked nothing like the real area, as this locale had a grassy, just off a two-lane highway feel. There was a group in the grassy area mulling. There was a sign that said the "Northup walk was closed." Still, these people seemed to be preparing for that walk. I have no idea what that walk might be. As I was looking across the street toward the station and my apparent destination, I dropped my keys in the grass. I couldn't immediately find them and so I was running my hands through the grass and next to this rock where I found keys. Keys that weren't mine. I started pulling out sets of keys. I must have pulled out three sets of keys before spotting mine in the grass a little ways away. I put the other keys back next to the rock thinking that might be the spot the people around me used for storage. I picked up my keys and woke up.

"How do you say son of...?" Paris Journal Day 8
We're winding our trip to a close and it appears that we fear that American desserts are inferior. Therefore we spent today stocking up on French treats. We got rolling a bit before noon with Lauren and Allen on a few city walks. I'm not really sure what we saw other than Rue de Madeleine and Bois de Bologne. The latter was an expansive park and part of our walk of about 6 or 7 miles today. We started and ended with delicious sorbet from Berthillion. In the middle we stopped at Laduree, home of high priced and delectable 31 flavors of macaroons. They were heavenly. When we finished them in a park, we passed the box around, each of us considering it for something but coming up with nothing. So Megan stomped on it. "I didn't know what else to do with it," she explained. We laughed, but that made sense. It was a nice day, a bit cold, but it felt good to be on a fast-paced stroll in a crowd. I think we all got to talk a bit and enjoy the cold spring day. We had dinner at an Italian place quite near where I was staying actually, and joined the ranks of Allen and Lauren visitors officially. We ate tiramisu for dessert, our prize for an 88% success rate on the week-long scavenger hunt. We missed a few arrondisments, and never found the woman in a skirt riding a bicycle. After the tiramisu came the pana cotta and then later the already-mentioned sorbet. We slowly closed out watching Flight of the Conchords episodes and our somewhat painful video logs. Tomorrow is the trip back to the U.S. where I'll have 170 pictures to sort through and lots of good memories.

And now, we'll always have Paris.

"You didn't eat a crepe the size of your head" Paris Journal Day 7
What a day. It's 2:45 and I'm tired, so the details will have to wait.

"Enough is enough" Paris Journal Day 7 continued
We started slowly. I was loitering in the park by the space age carousel, our meeting place for most of the days. Alan and Megan were running behind even their schedules and I was dodging pigeon droppings and the cold. They arrived and we had one of our indecisive moments. Before a plan revealed itself, a man in a blue v-neck sweater and matching blue hat joined our group and excitedly waved his newspaper. He was speaking French quickly and gesturing at the paper. We looked confused, but he must have mistaken that look for interest. After several minutes of blustery French and the single English phrase, "Enough is enough," he posed a question. Finally, Alan said "non Francias." Stunned that we'd let him go on for so long, he then laughed good-naturedly, wished us well and crossed the street to launch into his diatribe to more understanding ears.

We returned to Chez Schmanz for breakfast. I tried some of Alan's smoked salmon and cheure cheese- it wasn't bad. We then rolled on via Lauren's direction to get our shop on. We shopped in a manner that might be expected. It involved Megan and Lauren looking intently and sometimes buying while Alan and I zipped through the stores and then posted up outside to look for bicyclists in skirts. We didn't have any luck, but I did witness one truly graceful scooter parking job. Long hair bounced on shoulders as the helmet popped off, the sun shone a little brighter, while she stowed her gear, hallelalujah played softly in the background, as she expertly ran her lock through the rear wheel. Then she and a friend headed across the street and I stopped staring. We ate lunch near a bus stop, and buses seemed to just miss slicing the crust off our sandwiches. Ah Paris! Lauren had a crepe the size of her head which would later prove difficult to eat. Her attempts to finish it were comical as nutella and bananas were squeezing out in every direction threatening to cause a bigger mess. Alan and I found a shopping groove at Celio*; after a brief fitting room fashion show, only Alan emerged a new man.

After shopping we vaguely intended to eat dinner before the Moulin Rouge, but instead watched YouTube videos until we had to run out the door in the pouring rain and race to the bus that would be our ride to the big red windmill. Megan moved quickly in her heels and we managed to make our cold wet way onto the bus. Sensible people would have stayed off the top of the open double-decker bus, but we are not those people. In the covered front of the open top of the bus we got to re-see many of the sites we'd toured during the week. Our feet slowly froze, but we finally arrived at the Moulin Rouge. The square was filled with people. A giant line poured out of the Vegas-like Moulin Rouge entrance. This was big business, and not quite what I had expected. We waited in line, still cold and wondering if we would have been better off in the nearby bar listening to a cover band. Finally we made it inside. The place was larger than I expected and teeming with people. Due to some confusion, we ended up weaving our way through the seated crowd; I was following the usher in the red coat, everyone else was chasing my royal blue raincoat. It stood out all week. We ended up at the first table on the left side of the stage. What we lost in sight lines to the scenery, we gained in the arm's length reach to the edge of the stage. We could see the hairs and the make-up covered imperfections of the dancers who were in front of us. The show was a delightful mixture of circus, camp, pageantry, and nudity. It felt a lot like a long drawn-out amusement park revue, with boobs and champagne. It was an expensive ordeal, but worth it.
Je sais Paris.

Paris journal Day 6
It's much tougher out there on my own. I hadn't realized how much I'd enjoyed the vacation from the ongoing dialouge in my head until today. I started in Montmarte, an area that looked a little more rundown than some of the others we've been to. I wandered past the "birthplace of cubism" and a caricature/art market before arriving at Sacre Couer. We've been seeing Sacre Coeur up on the hill in the distance from everywhere and it was good to get up close. Inside, nuns were singing and it was moving. I think God must approve. The building was awe-inspiring inside and out, but I was a bit surprised to learn that it was built in the 1870s. That's fairly recent. They had modern sewers by then.

From Sacre Couer I took the Metro to Montparnasse. On the way, I accidentally exited the Metro when I meant to transfer and that cost me. It was my first realization that three heads can be better than one. Montparnasse was tricky because I couldn't decide exactly what I wanted to see. I eventually landed near Sartre's grave. Immediately after getting my picture taken at Sartre's grave, a strange tourist-y thing to do, it proceeded to rain while the sun was shining. As I searched for the rainbow, the clouds surrounded me and it began to hail, pretty hard for a moment, before raining again. I could only laugh and assume that this was the weather having an existential crisis. From the graveyard, I headed to the catacombs, but they were closed. So I backtracked to the Montparnasse tower and took the ride up. I spent an hour or so 200 meters above the city. It was an amazing view, although everything was pretty far away down below. The neatest thing to watch was the weather. About three-fourths of the city was in a foggy/rainy mess while the other fourth enjoyed bright sunshine.

I came down from high and headed where the sun had been- Le Jardin du Luxembourg where I saw some old men playing Bocce. Then I went to Saint Sulpice (made famous by the Da Vinci Code, but not nearly as impressive as Sacre Couer in my mind. Maybe it was the lack of nuns, or the presence of an ominous sounding sermon.) I cruised by the Sorbonne thinking that once again left to my own devices I eventually stumble on college. In case there was any question, even the sophisticated French university girls looked young to me. I then headed to the Pantheon- burial site for the likes of Voltaire, Dumas, Hugo, and others. Also home of Foucault's pendulum. And for this day a place to support the fight against cancer. I was accosted by a man on stilts in a flower costume and a woman in a bee costume. I played mute...

Tonight is yet to be determined, although I'll probably need dinner. I nearly forgot the chocolat chaud, that turned out to be more like chocolate soup than a chocolate drink. It was thick enough to drown in, but I wasn't impressed.

Later: Success comes in funny ways. I had a leisurely three-course French meal. I spoke no English during the meal. From there I wandered the Latin Quarter. I was considering a jazz club where a U.S.A man was playing swing, but I wasn't that excited about it. Instead, I found some street dancers to watch for a while. One managed an impressive one handed hand stand. Then for good measure he took to switching hands to the beat. Then I got rained on for good measure.

I've established a nightly ritual here in Paris. It seems to involve walking over a bridge, which sets me insides going. As I near my temporary home, my mind focuses intensely on two thoughts- 1. possibly returning to the streets for another Pelforth and 2. the toilet. I climb the winding five flights of stairs, auto-lights always flick on a few seconds too late. Desperately now, I try to open my door. I fail and try again. The lights have now brightened the hallway as I fumble with the lock. Success arrives and I fling open the door and rush in to the toilet. After I finish my business, I shut the front door and call it a night. Tomorrow I again express appreciation to and for my fellow travelers.

"You're our translator," said Alan to Megan. "I couldn't even order a drink that I didn't know what it was," she replied. Paris Journal Day 5
We were going to be a well-oiled Paris-touring machine today. I didn't run into any problems until breakfast. I had my order picked out based on the large "value-menu" like words on the wall. My problem: the words referred not to a hot chocolate and a specific pastry, but rather to a very general hot drink and a general pastry. After hearing some machine gun French, I chose the first hot drink I'd heard- caffe (coffee) and managed to point to a pastry (after being denied the extra large chocolate pastry). No english was spoken, so I suppose it was a very general success. After breakfast we headed to Saint-Chapelle for stained glass glory, but instead found ourselves in line to a closed church- worker's strike, upcoming Easter- I'm not clear, but we were re-released to the streets. We wandered to a bakery for Megan and Alan breakfast and then all waited in line at Notre Dame. Lauren graciously braved the cold to stand in line with us before departing when we entered. Every day seems to get just a little bit colder. I wonder how many more layers I can add without stretching out my clothes.

We climbed Notre Dame for more nice Paris views, gargoyles, and a really big bell. Then we headed to the crypt for Roman and original Hotel Dieu ruins. It was no sewer museum, as undergrounds go.

After a Metro ride to Les Invalides we toured the Charles De Gaulle museum. They had this amazing technology that would translate the exhibits into your pre-determined language when you walked near the exhibit. Amazing technology can be fickle and after a general success with an inspiring CDG biography propaganda movie, every exhibit was translated into French. Unfortunately, as Alan pointed out, we hadn't learned French during the biography movie and were therefore left somewhat un-amazed. Next up was the army museum, which turned out to be a bit of a slog through World War I and World War II. It suddenly felt like no joking matter when we passed by some touring soldiers. Finally, we arrived at Napoleon's tomb, which is only surpassed in size by the size of Napoleon's ego. From Invalides we went to Rue de Cler and did some window shopping and late-lunch, early-dinner non-decision making. We finally picked a cafe. While culinary highlights were achieved for Megan and Alan, I only managed to order an acceptable lasagna and another round of my new favorite beer, Pelforth Brun.

From Rue de Cler, we walked the Seine and then had need for an emergency bathroom stop. We couldn't find any of the free street toilets, those that look like phone booths and smell like bus stations, so we decided that a great place to stop would be by using our museum pass one last time at the evening hours of the Musee D'Orsay. The pass had us in the door in minutes while a large crowded waited outside. After the sprint to the bathroom, we did some Art nouveau (I think), but I'm not sure our hearts were in it. The crowd skewed much younger in the evening hours and it seemed like a great Paris-evening thing to do. It's too bad, but I'm not sure our timelines quite match much of the world's. It's tricky business this traveling stuff.

From there we took to the streets until we could find a suitable drinking establishment. Finding a tavern, we were greeted by a bartender who allegedly spoke English, French, and German. At first we took her up on English, me with a 12-year old Strathisla which was enjoyable but not amazing and no, not French. Then Megan tested her French and tried to order a special French mixed drink. Her order started in what sounded like solid French, but she eventually had to devolve into English as the concept of a special French drink may have been more confusing than even the words to order it. She ended up with a Pina Colada with some Italian liquor unavailable in the United States. She seemed pleased. The tavern remained pretty quiet. We enjoyed it, overtipped dramatically, and headed back for a midnight snack at 10:30 (22:30). Nutella abounds and I've had chocolate for breakfast every morning so far, but late night snacks are good. Tomorrow, I'm on my own.

"It tastes like cold meat and grass," me regarding dinner, or Paris journal Day 4
We took a little much needed slow(er) start today and headed to Versailles. I found myself quite frustrated with my lack of French-speaking ability. Today it made getting stamps, counting, and dinner all an adventure. I guess the longer we stay the less I can hide. Versailles was about a 30-minute train ride away. Our museum pass again took us to shorter lines. The front of Versailles was similar to my memory of it, although it was crowded with bus traffic and reconstruction/restoration work. The inside of Versailles was similar to my overall memory of Europe from my childhood excursions. The sights and paintings and royalty all start to run together in this mess of history and gold-plated niceties. As a 29-year old I am better able to focus my energy on appreciating something I'm seeing, but I'm still prone to mental slippage. The audio tour was interesting, but more striking was the comfort I felt from the solitary nature and English speaking voice in the headphones in my ears. The challenges of traveling were weighing more heavily upon me than I had realized.

We had a potentially illegal lunch in the gardens where Megan and I resolved to have chateaus and gardens of our own. We're willing to share if that becomes necessary. I was quite taken with the grounds of Versailles. They must be even more amazing when the flowers are in bloom. We rented bikes and tooled past the farm on Marie Antoinette's estate and then made our way around the outskirts of the grounds. It rained and got cold, but it was still a great way to appreciate the grounds. After the ride, we found ourselves throwing a disc in what appeared to be an abandoned garden. The sun shone brightly on us during this time, but later as we walked to a fountain celebrating Neptune it hailed. (This would become a familiar weather pattern during our stay.)

We wrangled with trains and some Prince biscuits before making it to Centre Pompidou. The museum pass scored again as we got to ride the escalators and look at some modern art. Our artistic souls fought on for a while, but by 8:30 (20:30) dinner called. We ended up in a diner-esque cafe, where our French bumbling was saved by a polite waiter, pointing with fingers, and the words that Megan could help with. Dinner was a curious mix of flavors. I ended up with a dish of cold meat, a delicious chocolate mousse, and a stellar bottle of Pelforth beer; it was French, brun, and quite tasty.

It's the last day of our museum pass tomorrow and we're looking for one more big push. A bientot.

Overheard near the Gates of Hell, "They don't swing open." or Paris Day 3
We managed to both find our way and stumble today. We made an early stop at the nearby grocery store, the Franprix ( or granny racecar drivers, as Alan put it) and grabbed breakfast and lunch for just 5 euros. We ate on a park bench nearby and then began to stumble. The RER train had us confused and we spent a good deal of time sorting out which train to take. Had we not tried to be so clever or walked all or part of the route as Alan suggested, we may have avoided even more of the crowd at Musee D'Orsay. Our museum pass did allow a nice reduction in line size, but that brought us face to face with art that we seemed unprepared for. I don't know if the crowds had grown, our enthusiasm had waned, the museum was laid out poorly, or some combination of those things contributed to our struggles in D'Orsay. We fought through it and this train station turned museum was a nice setting in which to admire art. Or it could have been. The crowds engulfed Monet, Van Gogh, and Degas. I caught a few somewhat satisfying glimpses, but never had time to stop and really enjoy the paintings before me. I was bumped and jostled far too often for that.

From D'Orsay we went to the underground and toured the sewers. It smelled a bit and the jokes were ripe, but it was a great history of Paris on the sewage timeline. The tools used to clean the pipes, like a rolling ball just smaller than the pipe were fairly fascinating too. This one is a diamond in the rough. From there we hit up Rodin. The gardens were pleasant, Hell's Gate and The Thinker were visually interesting, but I again got lost in the crowds, the time, and the layout as we viewed Rodin's gardens and mansion. I find my attention for sculpture doesn't last long. Steam was lost. I wasn't displeased with Rodin, just not particularly inspired.

Dinner brought more group challenges. We found that consensus was not necessarily so. I think we got it worked out. Even fairly laid back travelers can find ways to step on one another's toes. It may not be the last misstep, but I think we learned from it. We eventually settled on a home cooked meal- it was a little like the old days of "Chicken Voila" only more French and more breakfast-like.

We capped off the night with delicious gelatto and a brief walk in the Latin Quarter. It's supposed to get colder all week. I'm not prepared. Also, it appears that the stale "what have I accomplished" feeling isn't limited to U.S. nights.