Europe recap 2003, Day 4: Back to London

Wednesday, November 5th - already halfway through my weeklong trip. The agenda on this particular day was to return to London, then do some late sightseeing, targeting sights that had special extended Wednesday hours.

I have returned to Gare du Nord. Here are a pair of Thalys trainsets - a flashback to 1998. Thalys is a privatized railway that uses TGV bullet trainsets to run a monopoly high-speed service between Paris and Brussels, with continuation service to Amsterdam and Cologne. I had used Thalys in 1998 to wrap up my Brussels visit and come into Paris. Due to Europe's open borders, Thalys trains board in normal platforms right alongside domestic trains.

And here are a pair of Eurostar trainsets - and I will take the right train to London. The UK is not a signatory to the Schengen Agreement that provides Europe's open borders, so Eurostar trains must use a dedicated sealed-off section of the station. This is also the reason for requiring check-in 20 minutes prior to departure - so that I can clear the French departure check and British preliminary immigration check. The British preliminary immigration desk also gave me a British Landing Card, so that I can have it filled out on the train and submit to the full immigration desk upon arrival in London.

The run back to Waterloo Station was uneventful and timely. Between a partially completed high-speed track on the British side (that had not existed in 1998 - and in 2007, the full track was completed, and Eurostar trains switched from Waterloo to St. Pancras) and a gain of one hour due to time zone change, it was just past noon by the time I cleared British immigrations and re-emerged onto the streets of London.

I soon proceeded to the hotel where I would spend the rest of my trip - the White House, near Regent's Park. It was a property belonging to Spain's Sol Melia group under the Melia brand, and is a very nice 1930s luxury apartment building turned into a hotel. Thanks to a Priceline reservation, I could stay at the prepaid price I had named - USD $85 per night plus tax, rather than more typical available rates around USD $200 per night. My long, narrow single room was not equipped with Internet access (rare in 2003 anyway) but had all other types of luxury amenities I could imagine. Certainly the most posh property I had ever stayed in to date.

I am back on my foot, after a quick shower and change. At least I am getting fewer stares in the London Tube than back in Paris Metro with its machismo - and that's a good thing.

I am now at Leicester Square, the focal center of London's nightlife and theatre district. This area is quite familiar from my initial London visit in 1996, and I am glad to be back on familiar grounds. In addition to theatres, I can also find various types of restaurants - American style fast food, touristy overpriced steak joints, and more. I would end up learning during this trip that when at an American style fast food joint, instead of saying "for here" or "to go," I have to say "eat in" or "takeout" in order to be understood. Though I am not eating at a McDonald's this time.

The tkts booth is the place to go for same-day half-priced musical tickets. While there are other half-priced ticket booths in the vicinity, tkts is the only "official" distributor.

For my lunch, I am going Japanese. Wagamama has been a hot trend in London for years, so a noodle at one of its communal wooden tables will do - and the original Wagamama location is just off Leicester Square. Eating at Wagamama is NOT cheap - a lowly noodle dish can easily shoot up near £10 - but I did enjoy the experience, thanks to a waiter who liked my hair, and eventually decided to treat me with a complimentary dessert (saving me £4 or so). Sometimes being female has its benefits (even though this hardcore lesbian doesn't have much of a use for men hitting on me).

My previous London visits had not done justice to some of the city's outstanding museums, so I am filling in the gaps during this visit. As Victoria & Albert Museum in South Kensington is offering late hours on Wednesdays, I am starting in South Kensington, and my first museum on the agenda is V&A's neighbor Science Museum.

This exhibit is the command module from Apollo 10, named Charlie Brown. It, and its lunar lander Snoopy, traveled to the Moon in early 1969 to do final practice for manned lunar landing, which would actually happen with the next Apollo. To my knowledge, this is the only Apollo spaceship to end up outside the US.

This contraption from the 19th Century is a Charles Babbage adding machine, one of the first calculators ever made.

The Science Museum is one of the most outstanding museums of its kind I've ever seen - easily on par with New York's American Museum of Natural History, or Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. One of my favorite features was its newer section, the Wellcome Wing, which deals primarily with human biology. It explores, in excruciating detail but also in a very child-friendly way, each and every aspect of what makes each human being unique, from genetics to physiology to the environment. I especially liked the fact that the question "what makes me a boy or a girl?" was answered very nicely, complete with information on transgender issues including transpeople's diaries, while still keeping everything easy enough for a child to understand. Try that in the US, where theocratic protests would make such exhibits impossible.

This section dealing with material science has this interesting exhibit: a dress made of steel.

Nearby, there is an exhibit that showcases recycling, by using a video that, in accelerated time, completely dismantles a junk automobile to reuse its components. It was augmented with a yellow Ford Mondeo, hanging from the ceiling upside down, highlighting various components that can be reused for various purposes.

Now I have moved on to V&A.

Its claim to fame is the dress collection - with an exhaustive collection of 19th Century and 20th Century dresses. I can only see about half of it this particular evening - as the other half was sectioned off and inaccessible due to a temporary exhibition.

These dresses are from the mid-20th Century. The second from the left is a minidress that can also be worn as a tunic blouse. It is a favorite look of mine - revived around 1990, and again now. I love the way certain fashion trends continue to recycle themselves after several years of disappearance - though a retro trend usually returns in style with a few minor changes. The 1980s leggings trend is another I had loved - and while it was completely gone at this time in 2003, it was back, with help from lesbian fashionista Lindsay Lohan, just three years later, and continues unabated today.

V&A has all sorts of artwork. This room is full of plaster casts of famous structures' facades from around the UK and elsewhere. This way, art students can study the details right in London rather than having to visit the structure in person.

V&A's collection of East Asian art is also pretty good, and it is even known for a Fakes and Forgeries department!

This upper floor hallway is filled with decorative ironwork, used in the UK and Europe.

And this room is full of musical instruments.

I am wrapping up for the evening. There is yet another museum in the immediate vicinity - the Natural History Museum - which I will cover later during this stay. And as I continue to visit London's other outstanding museums (including repeat visits to some), I noted that all of them had free admissions at all times. Of course, the museums loved voluntary donations - suggested amounts were £3, €5, or USD $5 (or the equivalent amount in other currencies - I could see donations made in Japanese yen and South Korean won). It's not just merely the existence of a huge amount of art and history, but its easy accessibility, that makes London truly stand out in my mind.

I still have three full days in England ahead of me, and they would end up taking me to some very interesting sights and letting me really bond with the Greater London area.

Europe recap 2003, Day 3: Amiens and Paris

Tuesday, November 4th, 2003. This is my only full day in France for this trip.

I started off by heading for Gare du Nord, and taking a conventional train to Amiens, about an hour to the north. This was my first ride on a mainline French train that was not a bullet train. My increasingly rusty French meant that I had trouble following some basic instructions posted around the station platforms and in trains. Even something like "compostez votre billet" could confound me - even though in this case, "composting" simply meant invalidating my ticket myself via one of the punching machines around the station platforms.

Jet lag was still bothering me - I spent most of the ride (around 10 AM) napping.

The only reason for going to Amiens was to visit its cathedral. It is about as spectacular as any other cathedral in France (spectacular, but not unique), but the reason for insisting on Amiens was that when I took my first class in college, a mandatory one-semester Art Humanities course, it dwelled heavily on the architecture of European cathedrals - and it used Amiens Cathedral to showcase the features of a typical cathedral. That class had given me severe headaches, and I could only muster a B; to "avenge" that, I had to see Amiens Cathedral in person.

(Wikipedia does say that Amiens is the largest and tallest complete cathedral in France. It also says that because its construction did not take long, architecture is more coherent than in other cathedrals.)

I have arrived. Here is a detail of the main entrance, with archways lined by angels, the saints flanking the doors, and everything centered around Jesus.

Mercifully, Amiens Cathedral is only a few minutes of walk away from the train station. I couldn't possibly get lost.

More details of the facade and the bell towers. Very typical European Gothic cathedral design.

A look at the choir stain glasses.

Exterior of the choir area with flying buttresses visible. This cathedral's gutter gargoyles are not as pronounced as those of other cathedrals, I must say.

Sure, Amiens is a pleasant town in its own right, but I didn't really feel like hanging around, even for a traditional French cafe meal. I headed straight back to the train station, to return to Paris and its sights.

This ad for Les Sims: Abracadabra was seen in the train station.

The Sims was certainly the greatest computer game phenomenon of the early 2000s. I was known to be a very avid player myself. Late 2003 was the tail end of the shelf life of the original installment, and this expansion pack, known as The Sims: Making Magic in English-speaking markets, was the last of a series of seven. Glad to see a reminder of my favorite game in faraway France.

The Sims 2 took over in 2004, with its own batch of expansion packs. The Sims 3 followed in 2009. In all three games, I've been busy living out an alternative life for myself, a wife, and a roommate. The Sims 2 even had University expansion pack that allowed me to return to college and enjoy it far more than I had done in real life.

I wanted to hit an art museum - and among the major ones in Paris, Musée d'Orsay was the last one I had not visited, so I headed there. It concentrates mostly on 19th Century art, whereas the gigantic Louvre, not part of my plans this time, tends to cover art only up to 1800.

Here are some decorative art pieces depicting the Eiffel Tower, which has been gracing (or rather, disgracing at first) the Paris skyline since 1889.

Some small bronze sculptures from Edgar Degas.

And a peek outside, to the north. I am seeing Sacré-Coeur Basilica and Montmartre.

Just being in Paris is often good enough for me, honestly, as Paris had been my childhood dream city, and on my previous, first visit in 1998, it had treated me very well. This time around, I didn't enjoy Paris as much due to my Amsterdam demons and due to the short stay duration, but I would get to really enjoy Paris one more time in 2009.

The Rodin Museum has the full Gates of Hell, Auguste Rodin's lifelong project that was never finished. And as it turns out, Orsay has its own Gates of Hell - in plaster.

I am winding up my day in the Tuileries area, with Champs d'Elysées to the west and the Louvre to the east.

The Egyptian obelisk marks Place de la Concorde, where during the French Revolution, many members of the royalty and the aristocracy were beheaded with a guillotine. It is a lot more harmonious now. A faraway glimpse of the Eiffel Tower further reminds me that I am in Paris.

Within the Tuileries, I see a fountain, with citizens sitting and relaxing around it, maybe feeding the ducks as well. This pond is surrounded by statues, one of which is visible.

In the distance, a tricouleur flies above a building. The French display of nationalism, with the national flag around every corner, is pretty unusual for Europe.

It is a bit chilly, too chilly for this Angeleno, but nevertheless, this is a nice way to wrap up my second visit of Paris.

The next day would see me return to London on Eurostar, for the final four nights of this trip, with some heavy-hitting sightseeing as soon as I arrive.

Europe recap 2003, Day 2: Paris

Monday, November 3rd, 2003, had me leave London for the midday train hop to Paris.

The Eurostar ticket had been booked directly at the railroad website before I had left the US, though I did need to manually check in before departure. As for Paris, I had two nights booked, via Priceline.com, at a Mercure hotel in the Montmartre district, not too far from the sleazy sex shops of Boulevard de Clichy making up the infamous Pigalle district. I was not impressed with the price, with the condition of the room, nor with the amenities.

My hotel is only a minute or two away on foot from the world-famous Moulin Rouge ("red mill") cabaret and its topless can-can dancers. This intersection also contains a Métro station - Blanche on Line 2.

The Comfort Inn I had stayed in back in 1998 was located very close to Abbesses Station on Line 12, which is only a few more minutes away on foot.

I would return in the evening to take in the touristy can-can show, but for now, I am sightseeing around Paris. And also getting to use the new Euro currency for the first time, as France had used the franc back in 1998 (and I still hold on to a 50-franc note honoring Antoine de St. Exupery, and his book Le Petit Prince).

While there is a Quick hamburger restaurant, France's homegrown answer to McDonald's, to the right, I don't think I dined at this particular location during this visit.

I don't remember if this arch is from Blanche Station, or from Pigalle Station one stop to the east, but it is one of a number of original Métropolitain arches that mark the entrance to a subway station.

At one time, Paris was busy removing arches like this to "modernize" the Métro, but outcry from the public and tourists saved some of these unique arches. And I love finding quirks like this whenever I travel to France.

I decided to visit a sight that I had missed in 1998: the Picasso Museum in the Marais. A good look at not only Pablo Picasso's artwork, from conceptual pieces like this nude to cubism and other styles, but also at his non-art activities, including politics.

Did not enjoy the experience too much though. Pre-planning via the museum website had been a bit difficult due to it being only in French, and communicating with the locals is a bit of a challenge, between my much rustier French (compared to 1998 anyway) and the reluctance of the locals to speak English. And sticking around for just two nights is NOT conducive to being immersed in the French experience either.

In any case, it was a good decision to visit the Picasso Museum. For my next Paris visit (exactly six years later), Picasso Museum was closed for renovations.

Continuing to walk around the Marais, whose reputation as Jewish and gay enclave I had somehow picked up. Place des Vosges is a plaza that serves as a key focal point of this older neighborhood.

Still having a bit of trouble connecting with Paris, however. In addition to the language barrier, I am also getting a few unwanted stares in the Métro. It is a reminder that while France may not be Spain or Italy, it is still a Latin country with a bit of machismo. The demons from my 1999 Amsterdam trip are still bugging me somewhat, even though Paris had been good to me in the past, and even on this trip, it was not outright rude either (especially a good thing, considering that Americans were really bashing France in 2003 for its refusal to support the invasion of Iraq).

Before returning to the hotel area and the Moulin Rouge cabaret, I will be taking in some modern artwork at Centre Georges Pompidou. Don't remember much about the modern art that was mixing up quite badly in my brain. But do remember the coat check, where the male attendants were clocking me as a visitor from South Korea. I did correct them by identifying Los Angeles as my home, however. In any case, not having a good day, but glad to know that the French were NOT reciprocating all the American French-bashing.

From the upper floors of this building, I also enjoyed the lovely sight of both the Sacre-Coeur Basilica and the Eiffel Tower, as the sun set and the city lights started to take over.

And again, the Moulin Rouge cabaret, with its touristy French-English bilingual shows with a primarily Chinese audience, wrapped up the evening. It was notable to know that children as young as six were allowed to attend; while the mere glimpse of an exposed nipple scars an American child forever, a French child thinks nothing of it, certainly.

The next day, Day 3, November 4th, 2003, would find me taking a half-day trip out to Amiens, then returning to Paris to tour the one major art museum I had not checked out previously - Musée d'Orsay.

Old European Photos

As part of moving my travel photos here from Facebook, I am going way back in time - to my 1990s European trips.

I had three European stints in the 1990s, as follows:

• March 1996, London and Southern England
• March 1998, Belgium, France, and England
• December 1999, Netherlands and Germany

The latter two are featured in this post. Photos are scans of Advanced Photo System photos from a cheap camera - back then, I thought that was the greatest thing ever in photography. How times change.

My first four trips to Europe (the fourth was in 2003) had me arrive at London's Heathrow Airport on United Airlines. And this second arrival, on Flight 2 from New York on the morning of March 14, 1998, was certainly the most memorable - it was the only one that actually gave me a lovely view of central London, as seen here.

Due to a technical delay back in New York, this flight is running 80 minutes late. And that's a bit of cause for concern, as I had to get to Waterloo Station (visible in this photo) and take a Eurostar train to my first destination of Brussels. As it turned out, I made it to the train right on time.

The lack of London Eye certainly dates this photo to the 20th Century, rather than the 21st. And the fact that United was running New York - London services, especially as part of an Around-the-World service, further adds to the dating; both services became victims of cost-cutting when the airline went bankrupt in 2002.

The next day is a cloudy one. In fact, my entire Belgian stay turned out to be cloudy.

I am touring Brussels, and I am finding myself in the north end of the city at Bruparck, in the neighborhood of Heysel/Heizel. That is the Atomium, built for the 1958 Expo and intended to be Brussels' answer to Paris' Eiffel Tower. The elevator takes me up to the top atom via the vertical shaft, and I walk down to the ground via the diagonal shafts.

With Belgium being a center for comic strips, some of the interior displays of the Atomium had exhibits dedicated to comic strips, some featuring the Atomium itself. But that was one thing about Belgium that I had not known until after the fact. Fact-gathering in the 1990s, when the World Wide Web was still in its infancy, was not easy - often I had to rely on a few cut-rate guidebooks that were obsolete the moment they were printed.

The following day was spent over in Brugge in Flemish Belgium (Bruges in French and English) as a day trip.

This is the main town square, and the Dutch architecture of the Flemish Region is very evident. Bruges also treated me to lovely canalside scenes, living up to its reputation as the Venice of the North. Bruges was once a major trading and industrial powerhouse, with sea access only a stone's throw away, before silting and more modern ports (such as Antwerp) took away the trade, reducing the city to a medieval time capsule and a modern-day tourist magnet.

Belgium is bilingual. The Flemish speak Dutch, while the southern Walloons speak French. Brussels is officially bilingual, though in reality, most residents speak French. The animosity between the two groups is considerable - so much so that the safest way to go is to speak a neutral language, like English. That works out fine for me, especially in the Flemish areas, since I speak some French but zero Dutch. Besides, European travel infrastructure accommodates foreigners with zero language proficiency quite well anyway.

After wrapping up what to this date remains my only visit to Belgium, I moved on to Paris for four nights. Paris had been a city on top of my wishlist since childhood, so it was priceless to actually get there for once.

It's March 20th, the last full day in Paris. Trying to get to the Bateaux-Mouches cruise along the Seine, I'm walking close to Place d'Alma - and I am noting some graffiti around this tunnel. It was the previous August 31st when Princess Diana had a fatal car crash in this very tunnel. And sure enough, some graffiti has renamed this area from Place d'Alma to "Place Diana." I even looked into the tunnel, and sure enough, the crash marks were still there.

Place d'Alma isn't too far from the Eiffel Tower; in fact, one of the legs is visible in this photo.

This wide-angle Advanced Photo Systems photo was something I used to pride myself on for a while.

After wrapping up Paris, I returned to London, where I did a two-day pre-arranged car rental. The Citroën Xantia LX 1.8 I ended up driving was quite memorable, just by virtue of being my first stickshift, my first right-hand-drive car, and my first European drive. The infamous Citroën self-leveling adjustable air suspension only added to the confusion. I did okay, even after finding that my South London hotel had never been confirmed. After spending my first London night partying overnight at a goth club near the Angel Tube station (thanks to a local goth friend I had met in Canterbury), I picked a pricey airport hotel for the second and final night, and immediately set out for Stonehenge.

The sight of Stonehenge was worth all the trouble. This will remain one of my favorite travel experiences for a long time to come. The crows flying around, the desolateness of the Salisbury Plains, my own all-black outfit, on Spring Equinox, it was just perfect. Too bad my car was green and French.

The only regret was that I had to return to New York and my studies the next day. Already I was returning a day late, but I really didn't want to go back. I did prolong my London experience by four more hours, by voluntarily getting myself bumped from the return flight. United Airlines gave me $600 in credits as compensation, and that went on to fund my next European trip.

December 2nd, 1999. By this time I was in the San Francisco Bay Area, trying to get my bite out of that dot-com pie, but the bubble was already hurting me badly. I knew that I was NOT going to be working for December 1999, so I decided to instead take a joyride to Amsterdam using the airline credit, and spend a week there.

United 930 is now taking me out of San Francisco, on a nonstop flight again to London Heathrow, where another United flight would complete my journey to Amsterdam.

As it turned out, however, Flight 930 was the ONLY part of the whole journey that went according to plan. My trip into the airport had been marred by a fire on my BART train - I had to change trains as a result. And once in London, Amsterdam's severe winds resulted in airport closure - and United canceled my connection, and handed me over to Air France, so that I could ride the delay out in Paris. Instead of arriving at 11 in the morning in Amsterdam, I got there at 5 in the afternoon, after dark - and I hated being greeted by Amsterdam's racist, sexist thugs (who themselves were Third World immigrants, interestingly). Door-to-door time from my apartment in the Bay Area to my hotel in Amsterdam was 27 very long hours.

December 4th, 1999, my first full day sightseeing in Amsterdam.

I beat the crowds and entered Anne Frank House, at 263 Prinsengracht, as soon as it opened at 9 in the morning - barely after sunrise thanks to the northerly latitudes. It would get dark again by 4.

This was a lovely, yet sad, sight. I could tour the storefront run by Anne's father Otto even during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, with video testimony provided by his secretary Miep Gies, who continued to live in Amsterdam until her 2009 death. I then opened the bookcase and climbed up to the Secret Annexe, which was surprisingly roomy, making for very comfortable accommodations for the eight people who hid there for two years. I could even see posters of movie stars and royalties that Anne admired - including a young Princess Elizabeth, who would become the Queen of England in 1952. The tour ended with the aftermath of the eight (only Otto survived), as well as translations of Anne's diary in various languages.

I ended up buying a copy of the diary at the house's bookstore - of course, the book came with an extra sticker to denote that it was indeed purchased at the house. I also signed the guestbook, noting the ongoing prejudice and hatred outside the house's walls, though this time coming from the Third World immigrant thugs I just mentioned. I had initially identified them as Surinamese, based on longtime Dutch colonial rule in Suriname, but a native Dutch friend of mine who lives in nearby IJmuiden tells me that those thugs, while a severe menace, are more likely to be from elsewhere, possibly Morocco.

Sunday, December 5th, 1999, was set aside as a day trip to Cologne, Germany, a 3-hour train ride away from Amsterdam. Bad idea to schedule a visit to Germany on a Sunday, thanks to Quiet Day Sunday laws in Germany.

My Cologne itinerary included a tour of Imhoff-Stollwerck chocolate factory, as well as a visit to Romano-German Museum and its Roman mosaic floor. But this streetside musician's performance, using cups filled with different levels of water for different notes, is what clings to my mind the most from this day. People like him kept the main shopping streets lively, even with all the stores closed.

But again, the rather primitive nature of the Internet during this timeframe meant that I had not learned much about Cologne beforehand, so there wasn't much I could do around here, except for a teaser into Germany. The one thing I noticed was the similarity between German and Dutch languages - entrance and exit were "ingang" and "uitgang" in Dutch, and "Eingang" and "Ausgang" in German.

I left after seven hours in Cologne, vowing to return to Germany sooner than later. Due to my worsening financial situation in the next few years, my next Germany visit would have to wait until October 2009.

Tuesday, December 7th, 1999. Another day trip away from the Amsterdam thugs. This time, I am in Den Haag (The Hague in English), served from Amsterdam by very frequent trains via the airport and Leiden.

The Hague is best known for Madurodam, a miniature village depicting a generic Dutch city but using real-life landmarks from throughout the country. Many of the miniatures, from cars to even the airplanes at the village's international airport, actually move.

It was a very miserable rainy, windy day - typical of Holland - but I nevertheless spent a lot of time walking around here, and walking through a large park toward a different part of the town. I visited some anthropology exhibits at the Museon, before returning to the train station and taking some tram joyrides out to Vreispalace (Peace Palace, UN International Court) and the Scheveningen Beach. Tiring and miserable, but staying in Amsterdam to take abuse from the thugs would've been even worse.

Wednesday, December 8th, 1999, last full day in the Netherlands. I am north of Amsterdam this time, having taken a city bus into Zaandam area.

My destination is Zaanse Schans, a folk village. December is not a good time to visit, as most of its live folk demonstrations are summer only, but I can still look at some old windmills that actually work. Zaanse Schans is a good approximation of a traditional Dutch industrial town powered by windmills, though the windmills are collected from elsewhere in the country rather than originally erected here.

It's always rainy and windy this time of the year in this part of the world. But that makes those windmills very valuable. But the misery, both from the climate and from the Amsterdam thugs, was really getting to me.

The next day - Thursday, December 9th - was a relief for that reason. I was so relieved to arrive at Schiphol Airport, clear the departure passport check, and see this United plane sit at the gate, waiting to take me out of the misery. Flight 947 will take me to Dulles Airport outside Washington, DC, where I will connect to a San Francisco-bound flight.

In any case, I am so sick and tired of all the racist, sexist, homophobic thugs in Amsterdam, that I am glad to be flying United, rather than one of the KLM planes in the background. Especially when I could count on a Melissa Etheridge-only audio channel as part of the United inflight programming for this millennial holiday season - LESBIAN POWER, BABY! Even to this day, the mere sight of a KLM plane is guaranteed to raise my blood pressure, and similarly sighting a United plane is guaranteed to leave me feeling some lesbian power.

Some people have been incensed that I am choosing to side with a large, evil American corporation rather than "tolerant, anything-goes" Netherlands. But when tolerance includes tolerance of ethnic thugs in the name of political correctness, I am having none of it - especially when similar thugs have ganged up to take my rights away in California as well.

For those reasons, this moment remains quite iconic even today. I think of this moment, whenever I board any United flight, whenever I send a letter of commendation (or complaint - "you were so awesome that day, why were you so awful today?") to United Airlines, whenever I listen to George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (the official United Airlines theme music), or whenever I listen to Melissa Etheridge.

As for my travel patterns, I had trouble connecting with Europeans as a result of the abuse I took in Amsterdam. Even my return to London and Paris in 2003, to bring some of the good feelings back, didn't quite work out - partly due to London's own Jamaican thugs on the Southbank (though London as a whole remains a city I love). Only with the 2009 European trip would I completely lose the demons.

Europe recap: Days 13-14, Paris and the end

This will be the final Europe recap post, covering photos from Friday, November 6th, 2009, as well as the logistics of my US return the following day. So my recap of the two weeks, which started three months after the fact, now ends, six months after the fact. This was a lovely trip that will go down the memory lanes, and more importantly, I felt a new sense of connection to the Europeans in ways I had never done since the disaster called Amsterdam in 1999.

The final sightseeing day started out with a morning visit to Versailles, and its world-famous royal Château. I bought the full fare to Versailles at the local subway station, making sure not to repeat the mistake I had made back in 1998, when I had used a basic subway fare to get to the RER transfer point, then had to buy a full RER Versailles fare at that point. As I waited for the RER trains, I noted that each train had a catchy four-letter name, the first letter corresponding to the first letter of the destination station. The French have a sense of humor like that. I have to say, however, that the graffiti-laden RER trains were less than pleasant, made worse by a musician who asked for my change even though I was clearly NOT interested in his music. (I gave him only 20 cents.)

Versailles, again, is a repeat visit.

One of the first rooms visited is this royal chapel, with all these marvelous wall and ceiling paintings.

The price of admission includes audio tour guides in a choice of ten languages, where I need to press a three-digit number for each room to listen to whatever's relevant. I made sure to specify Korean for my mother, since that way, there would be a lot less translation for me to do for her, and that would also make things less obnoxious for fellow visitors. Nevertheless, there was a large group of Chinese-speaking visitors, and they did make things obnoxious between their loud chats and tendency to photograph anything/everything in sight.

The Hall of Mirrors. Glad to be here again.

One recurring theme in royal palaces is propaganda. Just like the Wittelsbachs back in Germany, the French monarchy wanted to legitimize itself by linking itself to ancient Roman emperors. This Roman teabagger statue should do it.

And here is a companion for him - an ancient carpetmuncher statue. Given the US political developments which are NOT exactly to my liking, I am nevertheless turning them into an excuse for humor. Again, every male nude is a teabagger in my books, and every female nude is a carpetmuncher.

Teabaggers and carpetmunchers will remain my recurring theme for the whole day.

And I am starting to feel tired of the same royal propaganda over and over. My mother and I both agree at this point - two weeks on the road is a bit more than we can take at one time.

Here is a more contemporary propaganda - a painting showing the coronation of Emperor Napoleon.

Now we're outside, in the huge royal garden to the rear of the palace. Again, glad to see that mile-long reservoir again.

Back in 1998, I had dined at a café somewhere out there, named La Flotille - implying that the body of water was so large, it had its own naval flotilla.

Looking back toward the palace, with details of a fountain.

I'm not liking it too much - it's partly sunny and bright out, but the winds are quite fierce. I'm blaming it on the geography of this part of Europe, where there are no major mountain ranges, and winds from the north can easily blow in without much in the way of obstructions. In fact, this is the Europe I've known from all my previous visits, until earlier this trip, when I was actually hitting some rugged mountains.

The gardeners keep a few cats around, and this one at least seems very friendly.

Back to Paris, having napped a bit on a quieter RER train. Now we're shooting for a walking tour of the Marais District. While the hotel is located in the far north fringes of the Marais in the 10th District, the real Marais is mostly the 3rd District.

On the way, we're passing Hôtel de Ville. While foreigners often mistake a "Hôtel de Ville" for a hotel, especially in smaller towns that don't have hotels, "Hôtel de Ville" is simply French for a city hall.

The previous night, I had gotten an email letting me know that Bank of America had placed my mother's debit card on hold, due to the large, unusual transaction done earlier in the day (Louis Vuitton purses, paid for in Euro). I ducked into a pay phone and tried to call Bank of America, using the instructions in the phone booth for a US-bound phone call service. Had no luck getting through - the US-based operator couldn't help me. At least I was using an American Express to pay for travel expenses, so I wasn't too worried, besides I'd be back in the US the next day anyway.

Walking past Centre Pompidou. And here is a location of Flunch - another French take on fast food. This place will certainly be worth a try, but I would not get a chance to go in this time.

In fact, my mother had insisted on going back to the very same Japanese place from the previous day, while my intention was to grab a light salad from a neighborhood café - often the cheapest dining option in Paris. Honestly, when I came all the way to Europe, the last thing I wanted to do was to eat the same Asian stuff, stuff that I eat both in the US and in Asia, over and over, At least I should've been grateful that Asian eateries in Europe don't come with Christian extremist propaganda, the way every Korean diner in the US does.

Paris is a major cultural center of the world, and also the only national capital included in this trip (I am not counting the drive through Bern). That means foreign countries' cultural centers are a very common sight throughout the city.

The Swiss Cultural Center is located on a quiet side street in the Marais, as seen above.

The Marais, just like Montmartre, did not get modernized wide boulevards in the 19th Century, one reason why it is a very desirable neighborhood today.

Place des Vosges, the main neighborhood plaza of the Marais.

I'd like to hang around, but my mother is showing zero interest. Tired from two weeks on the road, she is now only looking for big "bragging rights" sights before going home, rather than having any thoughts on French cultural nuances. Even my attempts to explain French pronunciation rules (which final consonants get pronounced and which ones don't) are more information than she wants to ever bother with.

Now we've walked through the Marais, and are nearing the site of the Bastille Prison.

These bicycles belong to Vélib, a city program that allows citizens to rent a bicycle for free, for up to 30 minutes at a time. With hundreds of bicycle racks throughout the city like this, it's possible to rent a bike here, ride a short distance, return the bike, do a few things, then rent another bike for another short hop elsewhere. Nice idea.

Now at Bastille. The prison was destroyed in the 1789 Revolution, and has been France's greatest non-sight ever since. Today, Bastille is better known for a modern opera house, on the left.

The peasants' rise to overthrow the monarchy, behead the elites, and destroy the elites' tools of oppression, made for a strong message to powered elites everywhere. Ironically, the French monarchy had bankrupted the economy while fighting a war in North America against the hated British, ensuring the independence of the United States, and the promotion of its own radical ideas, in the process. But now, the US is a mature society with its own haves and have-nots as well, and the US powered elites, having seen what happened during the French Revolution, have really rigged the system from the era of President Reagan on, to ensure that the peasants will NOT rise to overthrow them. That explains why the US is one of the few countries that refuses to use the metric system, which was a product of the French Revolution, and also why the US media/propaganda machine has been so well-oiled, to a point where the peasants are now ready for a revolution, but to further weaken themselves and give more power to the aristocracy - the whole point of the teabagging movement.

Next up: one of Paris' storied department stores. We're visiting Galeries Lafayette, where the Christmas decorations are already up in full force. Love the glass dome on the top.

This building is dedicated to women's fashion, so I am taking good mental notes on the French fashion trends. The French women have a "je ne sais quoi" quality when it comes to their fashion statements - always subdued, never obsessed with the "it" trends, but nevertheless far more chic than Americans and Asians. I didn't do any shopping here though.

Men's fashion and other items are in an adjacent building.


The department store was next to the Garnier opera house, where I also located a stop for Roissybus, Paris' city bus service that goes nonstop to Charles de Gaulle Airport. I needed to locate it, as I wanted to use the service, rather than the overpriced Air France coaches or the pickpocket-infested RER, to get to the airport the next day to fly home.

A wide boulevard runs from Opera Garnier straight toward the Louvre, and I have crossed the Louvre onto the Seine shore. Across the river, I see l'Academie Française, the national academy best known for "defending the purity of the French language," by, for example, coming up with French equivalent words to such commonly used English expressions as the Web or e-mail, and encouraging French speakers to use them. Its work sees mixed success.


The evening was spent frantically running through the Louvre, the absolute final sight of this two-week trip through Europe. We waited for the reduced-price admissions hour at 5PM, during which we had a salad dinner at the Louvre's own café (I paid a bit more, just for the privilege of sitting down a table). We also picked up the museum map to plot an efficient route through the "big hits" at the museum; again, my mother was looking for the big hits, not interested in taking an impromptu art history lesson at all. Besides, the Louvre's huge size makes it impossible to see it all in just a few hours (I know, I tried in 1998).

The Louvre is mostly concerned with European art, but it does have a good collection of Egyptian art too, as seen in this female statue. She is posed very similar to the idealized Greek male nude statues (kouros) that followed centuries later.

And when it comes to Egyptian art, I cannot skip my favorite Egyptian deity - Goddess Bastet, who often takes the form of a cat, like this. Not as large as the example that sits in London as the symbol of the British Museum, but just as spectacular.

The Louvre was itself a royal palace back in the day, and served as a royal museum, before becoming public in the wake of the 1789 Revolution. And these ceiling friezes give away that royal grandeur of the past. This room is dedicated to royal jewelry and heirlooms.

Possibly the biggest star at the Louvre - Mona Lisa, known as La Joconde in French.

I was lucky enough to get a clear shot of the painting without any adoring tourist masses in the way.

La Grande Odalisque, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in 1804. A well-known painting, and over at the now-dormant Christy's Art Blog, uploaded a few times back in the day as Christy's concession to me. She originally had a series of "Art for Boys" featuring female nudes, and "Art for Girls" featuring male nudes, but upon my protest, added a "Vintage for Ally McLesbian" series featuring vintage female nudes just for me.

I had seen this one over at Versailles just hours before. Coronation of Napoleon, as painted by Louis David in 1806-1807 for a 1808 exhibition.

This teabagger is simply labeled as a fighting warrior. It is on loan from Villa Borghese in Rome, alongside many others. Estimated date for the statue is about 100 BC.

This is a Roman Venus statue, dated to 2nd Century, but labeled as "completed in 6th Century."

While the Louvre overflows with teabaggers, there are enough carpetmunchers like this to keep the place sane.

The presence of grapes and wine gives away the identity of this particular teabagger as Bacchus. It is from the 2nd Century.

Love this Cupid sculpture.

Another major star at the Louvre - Venus de Milo, found on the Greek island of Milos (therefore being Venus' original Greek version, Aphrodite, instead of Roman Venus), and made of two pieces of marble.

This is one Greek Goddess who can keep me smitten.

This teabagger turns out to be messenger Hermes, based on the way he puts the sandals on. He dates to approximately the 2nd Century, and was found at the Marcellus Theatre in Rome.

Three lovely nymphs found at a Roman villa, date unknown but assumed to be about 2nd Century. They are entitled "Three Graces." What a lovely sight - again, there are enough carpetmunchers around here to relieve me from the sight of all those numerous, hideous teabaggers.

Though I was not happy with this sculpture at all. I first approached from the back, where the sculpture looked the part of a lovely nymph, with soft, round, feminine curves. The sculpture was labeled "Hermaphrodite" - and is a 16th Century reproduction of a 1st Century Roman original. And coming around to this side, I continue to notice feminine features, including boobs, but I also do see a sizable manhood. In fact, this "nymph" has a bigger manhood than the macho muscular teabagger warriors standing throughout the museum.

I was expecting Hermaphrodite to be more ambiguous, rather than being the loveliest nymph who also happened to be the most phallic. Apparently, the ancient Romans weren't merely into teabagging, they were into shemale porn as well. Not a good thought for me.

And this pretty much marked the end of my Paris and European sightseeing, as the next day, Saturday the 7th, was dedicated to the return journey.

The journey started with a midmorning bus hop to Opera Garnier (even paying the bus fare involved buying subway-style magnetic tickets from the driver, then having them punch validated, though the tickets were useless for transfers). Roissybus promptly took us to De Gaulle Airport, and its aged Terminal 1, where we killed time at the Lufthansa lounge (courtesy of Mercedes-Benz) for a few hours. The initial leg, leaving around 1PM, took us back to Munich, on an Embraer 195 regional jet flown by Augsburg Airways, a regional affiliate of Lufthansa; I was pleased with the clockwork-like service of flight attendants, as well as a snack (yes, even on this very short flight).

We arrived in Munich right on time to clear the EU departure check, get the tax-free refund form stamped by German customs, and to board Lufthansa 452 to Los Angeles - again, an Airbus 340-600. I also noted that my flight was leaving from a dedicated area at the south end of Terminal 2, to comply with any additional US security checks needed - all US-bound Lufthansa flights, and all United flights, were operating from the three southernmost gates. The long flight back to Los Angeles took a very northerly route, straying well north of the Arctic Circle and in the dark for the first half of the flight, before the sun came back up from the west for the flight over Canada. Entry into Canada was well to the north of Hudson Bay, and after passing Edmonton and Banff, entry to the US was toward Spokane, where the sun started to set again. The rest of the flight path into Los Angeles was due south over Reno, and was uneventful, and I was again appreciating the highly professional Lufthansa service, down to tips on filling out US immigration forms (no umlauts if I have a German name - add an E after the offending vowel, otherwise US Department of Homeland Security can't process the forms) and navigating through the Bradley International Terminal. An on-time arrival at 7PM local time in Los Angeles marked the end of this lovely two-week adventure through Europe, one that introduced me to three new countries, gave me a true introduction to a fourth, and allowed me to fall in love with an old favorite too. And again, shaking the Amsterdam demons off was probably the biggest plus of the trip.

And I continue to travel on. My United Premier status renewed into 2010 thanks to this journey, and New Orleans shall await me later in May.