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June 26th 2005

Published: June 26th 2005

What follows below is a mega entry, encompassing three cities in three countries over 7 days.

We spent the last two days in Barcelona at the beach, which is the major reason to go to Barcelona. The weather was perfect and the beach was amazing, and it was a much-needed respite from the rigors of traveling as often as we have. The beach of Barcelona is packed with beautiful topless women working on their tans. Barcelona is a much nicer tourist destination than Madrid, in all respects -- the food was better, the central area (Las Ramblas) was more fun, and, of course, the beach.

We took a night train from Barcelona to Paris. It was an interesting experience. We purchased a sleeping cabin, which was more like a sleeping compartment -- we were filed away in a small cabinet with two beds that folded down from the wall. The beds were surprisingly comfortable. I finished the Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, the two Dan Brown books that are prominently displayed in the book store of every country we've visited. The Da Vinci Code had interesting nuggets of information about the Early Church, and a fairly enjoyable mystery. Angels & Demons was almost the exact same story, except with different nuggets of information, and discovering that the Da Vinci Code is the second in a line of formularic novels really degraded my appreciation of Da Vinci Code.

On the night train, we met a guy who is the Dean of Students at a University in South Carolina. He was out scoping out Study Abroad locations for his students. I think he is going to be disappointed when his wonderfully organized trip to Barcelona to study Art ends up spending all of their time at the beach and the bar.

We made it to Paris around 9 in the morning, and promptly entered the taxi line to cab to the Hotel. This is where we discovered that taxi cabs in Paris don't like to come to the train station. We waited an hour in line before someone finally came and picked us up. We saw a wonderful display of French hospitality at the front of the line. The people in line were all Americans for the most part, except for one family at the front that was clearly of Middle Eastern origin. The Mom wore a headscarf. They had the best spot in line --- the very front. Every time a cab came, they would show the cabbie the address of where they wanted to go and the cabbie would wave them off and tell them to take the bus. Now, it is certainly possibly that their destination was just that much further than EVERYONE else's in line, but I doubt it.

We finally made it to our hotel, which was right by the other train station in a less than desirable area. We promptly went to the Eiffel Tower. We stopped for lunch on the way, and I was shocked to find out that the Coke I ordered with my pasta was 7.50 Euro -- almost 9 dollars. It was almost as much as my entree. Dining in Paris is a very expensive proposition. We saw the Eiffel Tower which was nice, but the line was too long to get in to ride to the top. We went to the Cathedral of Notre Dame, which was a beautiful church. Sadly, St. Peter's Basilica was too firmly lodged in my recent memory for me to properly appreciate this church.

We went to the Arc de Triumphe, which marks Napeleon's victorious conquests. I really don't have much more to say about it -- it is one of those things that you take a picture of and leave. Richard's cousin took us out to dinner that night, and we had fondue which turned out to be really good but incredibly expensive -- 90 euro for the 3 of us. Luckily he took care of the bill, otherwise we might've slept in the streets the next night.

For our last day in Paris, we tackled the Lourve, the world's greatest art museum. The church was the greatest patron of medieval French, Italian and Spanish Art (the museum's specialties) and we saw all the critical pieces -- the Mona Lisa, Madonna on the Rocks, etc. It was a beautiful museum. The sculpture wing was really cool. At one point the subjects of the paintings shifted from Passion scenes to memories of the French Revolution. Pain and suffering may cause people misery, but it also creates stunning works of art.

After the Louvre we were caught in a massive rainstorm. All of a sudden the heavens opened up and soaked us completely. Within minutes we were far too wet for a cab, and ran around the city for twenty minutes before finding a subway station. It rained so hard that my watch flooded with water. We went back to the hotel and warmed up before going out to one last dinner with the trademark lousy French service. I ordered a steak which was delivered in the customary French tradition -- bright red. I don't think American steak houses would serve something so rare, in fear of the potential liability from food poisoning. There appear to be no such qualms in France.

I still can't believe that coupled with the legendary French dining experience is the incredible disinterest waiters had in serving us. They are guaranteed a 15% tip, and they could care less about providing good service. Tellingly, one of our bills didn't even have space to add an additional tip -- no one in their right mind would pay more for such a lousy performance. There either aren't enough cabbies or they don't work hard either, because every time we needed a cab (the subway closed at midnight) we had to roam the streets for at least half an hour, searching in vain.

We changed hotels so we could watch the Pistons game, which was a depressing loss. It began at 3 in the morning French time. I watched the first quarter then went to bed and Richard woke me up with two minutes left. I felt like my father, who sleeps through everything. Based on the 17 minutes of game footage I saw, as well as the two other playoff games I was able to watch at different times, I can offer the following advice. We need a better bench for next year, and hopefully the next coach will play Darko and Delfino more than Larry Brown did.

We took the Eurostar train across the channel to London. I was sad to leave Paris, and I definently understand why people consider it to be one of the greatest cities in the world. We should've stayed there longer, but it is really expensive. London is even worse. The exchange rate is 1.8 dollars to the pound, and the conversion is miserable. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe when we got in, and ordered burgers and cokes. Two burgers and two cokes? 25 Pounds. That's about 45 dollars. An all day Subway pass? 4 pounds, or 8 dollars. Everything is that expensive here, and it makes for an expensive trip for an American tourist. The Hard Rock here is the first one in the franchise, and it all started with the Eric Clapton guitar that hangs on the wall. That was comforting as I paid the price of a steak for a burger.

After checking it at our hotel, we went to the Hard Rock, walked around the Picadilly area for a while and went back to the hotel to change. A friend of mine from Tamarack lives in the London area, and this was my first chance to visit him on his home turf. We took the "tube" -- as the subway is called -- to his house near Golders Green, and accompanied him to shul and then had shabbos dinner with his family. I've come down with a nasty cough but otherwise the night was great, and if it hadn't been for the accents you would have never known we were out of the United States. When we arrived in England I was overjoyed to again see signs in English, cabbies who spoke English, and waiters who definently understood what we wanted. It had been 7 weeks since I had been in an English speaking country, and I missed being able to communicate with people. For most of the trip I've felt like an illiterate moron. In London I finally returned to English-Speaking civilization, and it is oh so sweet.

We spent Saturday walking around the city, visiting Big Ben and the other obligatory tourist snapshot locations. We went to the cabinet war rooms, the underground bunkers used by the British War Cabinet during World War II. They are a network of underground rooms hidden in plain sight -- in central London for crying out loud -- that Hitler could never find. They have been restored brilliantly, and the audio guide was the best we've used at any museum in Europe.

Attached to the bunkers is the Churchill museum, which is brand new and state of the art. It had interactive exhibit after interactive exhibit, and all of them were densely packed with information and really interesting. At one table you could put a finger on any day in any month in any year of Churchill's life and find out what he was doing on that day. Very, very cool. There were pictures of various events from Churchill's career on the wall, and when you stood in front of them to look, you triggered a hidden audio switch which started a recording that you could only hear if you were the one standing in front of that picture, because of the way the speakers were placed. I stood in front of the picture of Hitler in front of the Eiffel Tower, for example, and Churchill's address to the English people on the fall of France began playing ... "The news from France is very bad."

Churchill was a dynamic, engaging, charismatic and bright speaker, the sort of talented politician modern America hasn't really produced. Bill Clinton is the closest thing, but his charisma is often labelled false, while Churchill was stunningly earnest and clever. In his address on the fall of France, he warns the English people that they will be tested over the months to come, but to fail at this juncture would immerse them into a dark age worse than any previous one. You can't help but be inspired by him, and draw confidence from his determination to stand tall in the face of what looked like Britain's imminent defeat.

His wit is legendary. On a political rival, he said "He is a modest man, with good reason to be modest." When Italy declared war on England, he responded by saying "In the future, tourists wanting to visit ruins in Italy won't have to go further than Naples or Pompey." When he lost the election of 1945 his daughter suggested that it could be a gift in disguise, and Churchill responded "In that case, it is very well hidden."

After the museum, we went to see the musical Chicago at one of London's West End Theatres. Brooke Shields was the lead, Roxy. It wasn't such a great play, but the performance was good and our seats in the 5th row (the only pair of tickets left) were pretty damn good. We had dinner at Planet Hollywood, thus pulling off the unprecedented Hard Rock/Planet Hollywood theme resturant back-to-back meal days.

We woke up this morning, Sunday, and went to the Tower of London, a prison in the heart of the city where enemies of the Crown were tortured. It's a very well run, efficient site with a lot of interesting history. I finally saw the real torture rack, not the one Lex Luger used, and it is a gruesome device. This is probably my last real entry; tomorrow I will go to the wax museum, and possibly the "World War II" experience. I fly home on Tuesday. Thanks to everyone for reading this far, and for reading this blog all along. I hope some of it was enjoyable, and I'll add to it later when I come up with things that I neglected to mention or pay proper respect to when I wrote it the first time.

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