European Vacation - September 2001

Introduction

After a week of growing tension, Hazel and I loaded our bags into the Honda and drove to 
Dallas.  Only the day before had Air France's Dallas to Paris run resumed operations.
That was a little too close for comfort.  Instead of spending the week before in last
minute study of travel guides (this never seems to happen anyway), I had managed my 
steadily growing fear of a cancellation by trying not to think of the vacation at all.
As a result it was actually a shock to throw our two carry-ons into the trunk and 
dis-embark.

We arrived at DFW four hours early.  After a bout with some typical Dallas ramp-ege 
(really DFW is the culmination of Dallas's love affair with the highway ramp), we 
found the North long term lot.  A brief delay waiting for the shuttle driver to 
sneak her young son onto the bus, and we were in line at Delta's Air France ticket
counter.  Wow! The flight was actually going to occur!  The line crept forward, our
swollen bags were approved for carry-on status, we got to show our passports!  In our
excitement four hours at the gate (mandatory one hour delay due to security) seemed like
maybe only three and a half.  The sound of French among the passengers and on the PA,
we are going to Europe.

Nine hours on the plane.  Little TV's in the back of every seat and more deploying and
retracting from the ceiling prevent any hope of sleep.  I notice Hazel catches a little
shut eye, maybe an hour or two.  A very sloppy landing and voila we're in Paris.  
Frenchmen are lighting cigarettes with gusto, maybe five steps down the skyway.  The
customs check is perfunctory, more for forms sake or perhaps merely custom (note: a play
on words, not a pun).  We're unleashed.  Charles de Gaul airport is beautiful, an
excellent example of France's modern architecture, utility meets a juvenile futurism.
Unlike air travel in the USA there is no sense of not having gone anywhere.  A hint of
fear gurgles, what do we do now?

Hazel, who planned the whole trip (and really could be a travel guide), produces a small
map of Paris.  Our train to Florence leaves from Bercy in south-east Paris.  We consult
information, study the big metro map, ah yes line D to Chattel les Halles, transfer to
9 and we'll be there.  We're not sure how the ticket system works, so we tell the 
attendant where we're going and he sells us the tickets.  Here my previous travel 
experience in DC proves useful.  Alas, I know how to figure out which direction of the
train to board.  And board we do.  A silly Indian girl snaps at her mother to move their
monstrous suitcases right in front of the doors.  She thinks it will be easier to get off.
Oops the train doesn't stop at their stop!  They look glum as we race on toward the city.
The French suburbs are a study in the art of decay.  The rail line seems to be a target 
for graffiti.  I'm starting to worry, will it stop at our station?  We dip underground.
The train becomes packed.  The monstrous bags are a significant obstacle to all.  We 
transfer to the next train after a long walk, Chatellses les Halles is actually three
subway stations linked by subterranean tunnels.  Our next train is very futuristic, lots
of stainless steel, the entire articulated thing is open from one end to the other.
Bercy station and we emerge into early afternoon Paris.

Of course, the Bercy subway station should not be confused with the Bercy train station.
At least not by us.  I'm starting to feel the weight of my bag.  A 'ten-minute walk' 
for a healthy young city dweller, may in fact take a little longer.  Ah here we are,
up this last flight of steps and ...  This is the train station?  Or maybe a mugger's 
paradise.  The place is abandoned, but the doors are open so we let ourselves in and
wander across the platform.  At the other end, a few people wait in what reminds me of
a bus station in Waco.  Around yet another bend we find the ticket counter.  Yes, this 
is where our train will depart from this evening, no, there are no lockers for bags, those
are available at a different train station a ten-minute walk away.

The other station is more like it.  Lots of iron and glass from the 19th century.  Our
bags x-rayed and safely locked away, we meander.  First towards the Bastille,  Hazel tells
me it's no longer actually there.  My map reading skills must be faltering due to fatigue,
all we find is a public toilet at a cross-roads.  We run across and old aqueduct or 
elevated roadway, which has been turned into a long skinny (40ft wide) park.  Very cosy
up there.  Now we head toward the Seine, across which we find the park/museum of natural
history.  Large chestnut trees are trimmed like hedges.  The French study in decay comes
to the fore in their parks.  Really I think it's best expressed as a lack of anality.  The
occasional untrimmed bit of grass in the gravel is no big deal.  One of the building's
parking lots is so casual, just an irregular patch of gravel.  In a way it reminds me of
Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin, which was quite beautiful in its gross form, but the
details were somewhat shoddy, yet that shoddiness rather that detract, somehow emphasizes
the beauty.  After a good tromp back and forth across the park (interrupted by a 
cigarette bummed from the attendant of the greenhouse -- inspired by memories of shouting
'Paris in 94' at UT's Cactus Cafe over a morning pitcher of Shiner), we enter the 
palaeontology museum.  

Now this is a Museum!  No roving bands of hellions getting a day off from school.  No 
interactive exhibits.  No computer screens.  The place must have looked the same in 1901.
Even the wooden steps in the stairwell look original.  The banister is amazing.  Iron
takes on the form of thick leafy vines grown in perfect regularity.  The building itself
is much like Harwell Hall on the TU campus, which has sadly been converted into a 
nest of cubicles.  The skeletons are all pointed the same way, so that when one stands
at the south end of the building they all appear to be charging toward the viewer.  One
floor is dedicated to dinosaurs, the other sea creatures (big ones).  Closing time looms
and we've got a train to catch.

Our bags collected from the other station, we have time to grab a bite.  It's hard to 
calculate how long it's been since we had real food given the time zones, fatigue and 
hunger.  I admit, I've got a problem with eating and traveling.  At home one can easily
ferret out the better places and still I occasionally suffer from catastrophic indecision
while trying to go out to eat.  On the road eating is something I generally try to avoid.
Hazel, rightly so, periodically demands 'proper food'.  After a minimum of fuss, we stop
at a sidewalk cafe.  Ouch, the menu is in French.   I can't understand any of it.  Hazel
can tease out some basic words like 'beef'.  She manages to order a ham and cheese
sandwich (really quite good with the toasted cheese on top).  I however am not so lucky.
First the waiter accuses me of trying to order a hamburger.  I wind up with a 'faux filet'
or something which is very gamy with an even gamier side of fries.  When I don't eat,
the waiter is offended, not, I think, because I didn't eat, but perhaps because it was
some kind of insult for me not to loudly complain and demand something else.  The credit
card machine is broken, so there goes all our French francs (we didn't learn this cute
name for them until after Switzerland).  No problem, the cash machines all speak English.

The Bercy train station is transformed.  It's full of middle to upper class people.  The
public address is burbling regularly.  Trains begin to pull into the station. (This is
the temporary overnight train station).  Ours is the third or fourth to arrive.  We really
want to get on the right one, in the right car.  The prospect of a little privacy, and a
nap is very appealing.  We flag down a conductor, show him our tickets and look dumb. This
seems to be the usual M.O.  Our compartment is tiny.  There's enough room for two people
to stand, a bench seat which three people could squeeze onto, and sink/table, and two
luxurious berths forming the top of a 'T' on either side.  I ascend to the heavenly bunk 
and immediately begin to doze.  The yapping of a child in an adjacent compartment, while 
irritating, cannot keep me awake.  Before I know it we are moving slowly through the
grunge of suburban Paris and then more quickly through the misty evening of rural France.
The conductor (a classic Frenchmen) checks our tickets, brings us a tiny bottle of bad
wine, and seems offended when I request to be woken at 6am (anti jet-lag measure), three
hours before we arrive in Florence.  The hypnotic sounds and motion of the train take over
and consciousness fades...