Wednesday, February 16 ---
---Our fieldtrip today is to Warwickshire and Stratford-upon-Avon to see Warwick Castle and Shakespeare’s birthplace, respectively. Warwick Castle is a giant medieval castle, said to be the best remaining example of this type in all of England. It is a motte and bailey type of castle, which simply means it is built with on a large mound (motte) with a surrounding enforcing wall (bailey). It houses some rather interesting artifacts of torture in the dungeon, including an authentic rack (used to turn the stretch the victim into Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, elongating his body to abnormal lengths.) and other implements of pain and misery (a rather unpleasant and simple one is the oubliette, simply a tiny, tiny hole in the ground that the person was crammed into and forced to endure for days at a time. There was no room to move about, no room to stand, nothing. Hmm. Sounds like they modeled the apartments in London after this place...)
There’s the ghost tower that is said to be haunted by its murdered inhabitant, Sir Fulke Greville, a bloke who was stabbed by his servant for not bequeathing enough to him in his will. There’s the slew of gorgeously decorated State rooms (a red one, a green one, a blue one, a cedar one, a white one, etc. If you need any explanation as to what these rooms looked like, first pick up the dictionary and look up the word “thick.” You should find your mug looking back at you. (Come to think of it, you probably won’t understand this either, so just skip it.)) There’s the peacock garden, an armory full of medieval weapons and armors (strangely enough), the death mask of Oliver Cromwell, the shield of Bonnie Prince Charles (you’ll learn more about him later on) -- in short, tons of really cool stuff.
One of the surprising highlights is the recreation of a day in the life of medieval people preparing for battle, done magnificently by Madame Tussaud’s, those wizards of wax. It takes you from the stable to the blacksmith’s to the soldier’s tent. It’s really realistic - the thing that sends it over the top is the really dark lighting, which creates an eerie feel to things, and the smells of the place actually match to what you’re seeing (when you walk through the stable, you smell straw and horse shit). This all adds to the level of immersion and reality, so much so that you almost feel like you’re there (well, you actually are there, but I mean in the appropriate era, jackass). (They also do a really cool recreation of a upper class weekend party in 1898 that takes you through all of the elegant rooms in the upper levels.)
After this, it’s off to Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of good old Billy Shakespeare. (Before we leave Warwickshire I see a sign that bolsters my hope for the English people - there’s a 1000 pound fine for not picking up your puppy poop. Now this is my kind of town! For the first time I can walk around town with my head up and not carefully scanning the sidewalks for shit. (Warwickshire had a 500 pound fine, too. Seems like the farther you are from London, the smarter the people are...)
We tour through Anne Hathaway’s cottage, a rather dilapidated building that was where Willy’s wife lived before they were wed, and then the Bard’s house itself (and if I thought Hathaway’s house was rundown, I should have waited until I saw this place. I’m amazed a stiff breeze hasn’t sucked this place away like a piece of paper in the wind - the exhalation of an ant could topple this house of cards.)
We then go off to see the church Billy is buried in (which asks for a ‘donation’ of two pounds. So if I didn’t want to donate anything, could I still have seen his grave? (And boy, is this a disappointment. It’s just a stone floor that has a blue plaque on it saying, “Shakespeare is buried here.” They could be lying through their teeth for all we know. It’s quite a racket the church has here - they make all their money off ‘donations’ and the sale of shot glasses with the church name and picture on it (not kidding. Now you can drink holy water in the comfort of your home. Ah, progress...)) I didn’t complain, though, for fear of being turned into a frog or immediately sent to Hades. I should have, though. Rip off...
On the whole, I was rather disappointed with Stratford-upon-Avon. So we get to see what shitty digs the Bard lived in and shagged in, and now he’s buried in an equally crappy grave. Great. It just seemed like a whole lot of pomp and circumstance for a lot of nothing. Oh well, I guess this goes in the file of “Glad to have seen it, wouldn’t do it again.” (Hey, Amsterdam! What are you doing in here?)
Friday, Feb. 18 ---
--- We are pulled out of bed and placed on a bus at the inhuman hour of seven in the morning (inhuman because A> It’s my day off, the one day I’m supposed to be able to sleep in, yet never can, and B> it’s so damned early the sun even hasn’t bothered to get up yet. Still, it’s a forgivable sin because we’re on our way to Paris, that fair metropolis in the allegedly American-loving place called France. The ride is inconsequential -- no funny anecdotes this time -- and I spend most of the trip sleeping and reading.
We take the Chunnel over again and shortly after, we stop at a rest stop so the troops can fill their bellies. Here we learn the problems of “soggy ice” (lesson taught by a French ice machine, boldly advising us to discuss with management any instances where she, the machine, dumps “soggy ice” into our glasses -- quick question: what exactly is soggy ice? If it’s soggy, it can’t be frozen, and therefore can’t be ice. We walk back to the coach in an off limits tunnel that is diamond shaped and very understand why it’s a bad idea to trespass there -- you can see the highway below your feet through some of the holes (“Ooh. That one was a Renault!” “Did you catch how many wheels were on that truck, Bobby? Jeepers...”) We safely navigate our way through and eventually wind up in Paris.
We drive into town through some of the rougher looking neighborhoods, not quite the first impression I wanted of this storied city, but it’ll soon be changed. (A high point is the passing of the nifty and huge soccer stadium, Saint Denis) We drive around some more and finally get to our hotel, the illustrious Timhotel (can’t fault them for their fine choice of name...) Funny thing about our hotel -- it’s right in the heart of the red light district. Don’t believe me? Check out our neighbors: a sex shop to the left, its windows full of naked mannequins and costumes of the erotic persuasion. And to the right? The famous Sex-o-Drome -- a video sex gallery that also has live nudes! And sprinkled (and by sprinkle I mean an utter downpour) across the street are dozens of other sex shows and shops. I swear, the lengths International Enrichment goes to make sure we live in the lap of luxury...
Going into the lobby, we get our room assignments and guess who I draw? None other than Curtis, the trip’s blacker than black sheep. Quick update: Curtis is a 37 year old obsessive compulsive -- he takes two hour showers, irons his shirts for an hour each, and has also been known to floss his teeth for 45 minutes straight (we tried to call Guiness, but his line was busy.) In short, he’s loopier than a rollercoaster; goofier than a class clown on crack; got more screws loose than a plane from Air Egypt. And I get to room with him, again. (I also lucked out and had to room with him in Amsterdam, but at least then I had two other people in there with me to act as an Insanity Buffer. Now it’s just me and the monstrous maw of madness.) He lugs his suitcases up to the room (and yes, that is plural. He brings his entire entourage of luggage -- three pieces in all, including his mammoth camper of a suitcase -- on all the trips. He still hasn’t unpacked them yet in London. He says he’s afraid of the thieves. Like I said, this guy’s nuttier than a bag of pistachios. )
After he finally gets in the room, he promptly runs into the bathroom and begins combing his hair. He stands there for twenty minutes, just touching up one or two strands on the right, then changing over to do the same for the left, which is obviously uneven. Then, back to the right. Needing to use the bathroom, but not wanting to disturb this important ritual, I leave to find facilities elsewhere.
The plant in the corner of the lobby helps me out, and then we head off to see the Eiffel Tower at night. We brave the Parisian Metro system, and it’s roughly like the London Tube system with about as many different lines. Some quickly discovered differences -- as bad as the stations and platforms smell in London, the Paris Metro magnifies this foulness factor by ten. Several stations smell like a fragrant hodge podge of urine and rotten eggs; the stench of sulfur is strong enough to make my eyes water.
Another quick difference -- getting off the trains is a life-threatening exercise because the doors open while the train is still moving. You can thus jump off (or be pushed off) while your point of destination is quickly moving away from you -- your footing is as sure as when you try to jump on a log that’s spinning in water.
Having survived this adventure, we traipse to the Tower. I must confess, at first glance I was rather unimpressed. It’s a lot smaller than I imagined and thus not as impressive as I had dreamed. Luckily, this changes with each step you take towards the landmark -- it’s just like an oasis in the desert: it gets more beautiful and awe-inspiring the closer you get to it. This behemoth of steel looks like the world’s biggest candle all lit up at night and you can see it from miles away.
When we actually reach the underbelly of the beast, your breath is gone, as is your understanding of the world around you -- you’re just numbed by the sheer immensity of it. It’s absolutely huge -- the sculpture itself, along with the realization that you’re actually standing underneath one of the most recognized structures in the world. Reveling in my reverie for a few minutes longer, we decide to go to the top to see the view. Unfortunately, the stairs are closed and we have to take an elevator (actually, two -- one that rides diagonally up the leg, and the other that goes straight to the tip of the tower.)
It takes a couple of minutes to get up, but when you do, it’s worth the wait. The view is absolutely amazing -- one of the signs says on a clear day you can see 45 miles away -- and you can see an endless see of lights stretching in every direction. It’s not very difficult to see why they call this the city of lights -- it looks like the birthday cake of Methuselah; tiny little pricks of light for as far as the eye can see.
When you actually step out of the glass-surrounded room and out into the cold, a thought hits you with the same force as the frigid wind that greets you -- you’re in Paris. The wind, other than ushering in this understanding, also lets you feel just how high you are as the ground you’re standing on subtly swells and sways with each subsequent gust. It’s a little unnerving, but absolutely breathtaking -- you wouldn’t change it for the world.
We leisurely make our way back down (OK, they do. I run down the stairs for as far as I can go) and decide to head off for some grub, the trek to the top having tapped us of our energy. We stop at Le Royal Tour, a quaint little place right in the shadow of the tower, and oh boy, what a feast we have. I go three full courses here -- a huge bowl of onion soup for starters (this is covered with a baked layer of mozzarella cheese, underneath which lies mammoth chunks of bread and the divine broth). Then, a main course of breaded chicken breast and tagliatelle noodles covered with marinara sauce. This is unbelievable, especially while the four of us go through two bottles of wine and three baskets of amazing baguette chunks. Finally, we split into pairs and share giant ice cream concoctions topped with whipped cream, cookies, and assorted fruit slices this, as was the rest of the meal, is unbelievable, and for the first time since I’ve been here, I’m actually full.
We pay the bill (even with it costing 200 franks per person, roughly 20 pounds each, it still doesn’t dampen the evening. Shocking!) and wander back out only to have the evening become even more perfect. The timing couldn’t have been written any better -- we leave the doors of the restaurant, turn our heads, and are confronted with a vision of the tower sparkling from head to toe. It looks like the area around a celebrity at a party -- full of tiny little flashbulbs going off. We stand there, mouths open, head craned to the sky (gee, we don’t look like tourists, do we?) gawking at the tower, completely oblivious to the world around us.
Eventually we pry our jaws from the pavement and our heads from the clouds, hop on the Metro, and head back to Sexville, USA. On the way up the escalators a group of people fall backwards onto us, almost causing quite a trauma of human dominos. Luckily, no one was hurt, but we begin chatting with the people to find out why they nearly started a catastrophic chain reaction (I’ll give you one guess...) Turns out this is a band of drunken French kids, who upon detecting our American heritage, tell us, “Fuck you, motherfuckers.” A little surprised, but not willing to be a Frenchman’s whipping boy, I and my band of Yankee mates spit back, “Fuck you, too! Fucking Frenchmen!”
A moment of silence spins out, the tensions building uncontrollably, fists clenching and unclenching in uneasy anticipation. Finally, the leader of the natives breaks it. “Fuck me! Hah! You Americans are all right! Motherfuckers!” Upon which we all slap each others’ arms and head off to drink with each other.(Incidentally, my annoying and shady roommate is spotted coming out of one of the sex shows -- alone. What a dirty old man he is. That stuff’s cool in a group, but alone? Ay...)
Edward and Sons is the stop and Thomas is the man behind the mic, a grungy, long haired Frenchman with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. He’s also absolutely fabulous, playing all sorts of American songs -- from Tom Petty to REM, from the Rolling Stones to Nirvana, from the Beatles to Pearl Jam. We pass the rest of the might here, drinking unbelievably overpriced beer (it’s four pounds a pint! A PINT! Mamma mia! (This, as it turns out, is the only really expensive thing in Paris. Everything else is as expensive or cheaper than in London (which doesn’t make it cheap, mind you, but I just wanted to give a little perspective.) But not this. Oh, how I wish is was...)