Playing tourist here at home

We had a fun time last weekend. My sister, Maggie and her next door neighbors, Mac and Candy drove down from Greenville, S.C. for a “history weekend.” Maggie’s husband has taken a new job in New England, so he was out of the picture for this trip.

My sister is very lucky that she has just great friends living right next door to her. Over the years, we have gotten to know Mac and Cindy fairly well. At one point a few years ago, Mac and I were comparing notes and we discovered we had very similar interests in Civil War and World War II history.

Cindy joined my friends and me on our tour of the Louvre during our first trip to Paris in March 2012.

 And the whole gang of us piled into the car for a history trip to Gettysburg in 2010.

We have been talking about doing a “history weekend” here in Savannah for several years. I’m glad we were able to finally pull it off.

We started with a tour of the National Museum of the Eighth Air Force. This is a cool museum with a focus on the WWII air war over Europe.

Mac and me at the 8th Air Force Museum.

On Saturday, we did a walking tour of downtown Savannah. I played tour guide, and although I’m not as professional as the experts, everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Maggie, Mrs. P and Cindy waiting for the guys to get back to them.

Myself, Mrs. Poolman and sister Maggie at Colonial Cemetary.

After a seafood lunch at Tubby’s on River Street, we dropped Mrs. P and Maggie off at our house. Mac, Cindy and I headed out towards the beach and Fort Pulaski. The fort is run by the National Park Service. They do a great job. We stayed only a fairly short time, since it was late and the weather was starting to look ugly, but it seemed like our guests really enjoyed it.

Mac and Cindy at Ft. Pulasi

We finished the weekend off with a low country boil at our house. I think everyone had a good time. If they did not, they sure faked it well. We need to start planning our next “history weekend.” Charleston, anyone?

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Books, books and more books

Both Mrs. Poolman and I do a lot of reading for pleasure. In the past, a book or a bookstore gift certificate was considered a pretty good birthday or Christmas present around our house. Lately, however, that has changed, or at least it feels like it has changed. The problem? Between downloading e-books on her Nook and the availability of getting new releases from the Village Library, a present of a new book doesn’t seem any more special than picking up a gallon of milk at the grocery store.

The library in question is a small community library that serves the community near my workplace. It is chock-full of popular writers. It generally has a good collection of new releases, which they rent for 30 cents per day. Considering that Mrs. P goes through two to three books a week, that is a bargain compared to a $25 new-purchase price new.

Mrs. P typically gives me a list of books and authors she wants to read. I stop by the library a few times a week and check to see what they have. It’s a good system that usually keeps Mrs. P in fresh reading material, but it takes the shine off of giving her a book or gift card as a present. All the same, I still gave her a Barnes & Noble gift card for Christmas.

Speaking of books, I read two interesting ones recently.

“The Panther” is one of a continuing series of thrillers by Nelson DeMille that feature one of his main protagonists, sarcastic, wise-cracking John Corey (The Lion, The Lion’s Game, Night Fall, Plum Island, Wildfire). In this book, Corey is still a member of the Anti-Terrorism Task Force. He and his wife, FBI agent Kate Mayfield, are sent to Yemen to track down the latest Islamic terrorist, nicknamed “the Panther.” Actually, Corey and Mayfield are selected because the higher-ups believe they will serve as bait to draw the terrorist out of hiding. DeMille teams Corey up with another of his previous protagonists, Paul Brenner (The General’s Daughter, Up Country). On top of being served up as bait for the Panther, Corey suspects that some members of the American team would not be unhappy if he and Kate were to return to the US in body bags.

You can pretty much figure the story from there. While the destination is predictable, the ride is a good one.

I do have just one criticism. Much of the book is narrated in the first person by Corey. While the wise-cracking is an integral part of his character, the sarcastic comments come about every other line. It gets a little old after awhile. It was just over-the-top. DeMille could tone that down just a little in his next gook and the book would be a little more readable.

“Paris in Love” by Eloisa James is an entirely different sort of read. College professor and romance writer James moved to Paris to live for a year with her husband and two children. I am still fascinated with anything to do with Paris. Her book is a memoir of sorts or their year there. James is a clever writer. The book is interesting, especially to someone who just visited Paris a couple of months ago. There is no plot or theme to speak of. The book is broken up into a long series of short anecdotes and thoughts – snapshots of her experiences. It feels like a year-long series of Facebook posts. I enjoyed sharing James’ enjoyment of her year in Paris. The stories about her children will give you a grin. I’m not sure her precocious 11-year old daughter is really that precocious, but James’ stories about her are worth a chuckle. “Paris in Love” is a light and short read, and one worth the effort.

 

Looking back at a great trip

It’s Sunday afternoon and we’ve been back in the USA for six days. I guess it is a cliché, but as much as we enjoyed our trip to Paris and Normandy, it is nice to be back in our one house. I think about a week and a half is my limit before I start thinking it would be good to be back to familiar surroundings and routine.

Our trip back to Savannah on Monday was grueling. As we were riding the RER train to the airport, Mrs. Poolman commented that she hoped we had the same luck as we did on the flight over; that is, no one sharing our three-across seat combo. Or, at least not a 300 pounder. As it turns out, the guy in the aisle seat was closer to 400 pounds. Seriously! And Air France has to have the smallest seats in existence, in both width and front-back space. We were on that Boeing 777 for 11 and a half hours, and Mrs. P was not a happy flier. Jabba the Hut oozed across the armrest and over into Princes Leia’s seat space, and the person in the row in front kept reclining her seat so far that she couldn’t even focus on the back-of-the seat TV monitor. At one point Mrs P just couldn’t stand it any more and got up and stood in the back of the plane for around an hour. We didn’t realize how small the seat space was until we connected with a Delta MD88 in Atlanta. When we sat down, Mrs. P and I looked at each other and commented on how much more room there was. Long haul – tiny space. Short haul – roomy seats. That doesn’t seem right.

One thing interesting about travel is trying to figure out the different plumbing and electricity. When we checked into the Holiday Inn St Germain des Pres in Paris, we couldn’t figure out how to turn the lights on. They would come on and then go out again. Then we noticed a little device on the wall near the door. The room key is a flat piece of plastic, and you are supposed to insert the room key into the slot in the wall device. That allows you to turn on all the room lights. Nice idea to save on electricity, but a bit confusing if you have never encountered it before.

What is it with the French thing of a shower guard that only covers half the tub? We had this in three of the four rooms in which we stayed. You have to really work at it to keep the shower spray from soaking the entire room. Would a full-length shower curtain be that difficult?

This is the bath-shower in our apartment. Note the glass shower barrier that extends only halfway down the tub.

Visitors to Mont St Michel are constantly climbing stairs.

You stairs are everywhere!

There is no flat surface on the island. Everything is up or down. It’s a great way to get some exercise. I did notice they have automatic defibrillators about every 50 feet on all the streets.

Instructions in several languages

I wonder how often they are used. At one point, I was out on the causeway taking some pictures when a very rotund man walked by on his way to the gate. All I could think of was, “Oh man, you are going to die here.”

And once again, I have to point out that the people we encountered were all fantastic. The French, and Parisians in general, have a bad reputation for meeting unfriendly, especially to Americans. We did not encounter that at all. Everyone was great, whether we were interacting with a waiter in a sidewalk café, or a fellow passenger as we were packed cheek-to-jowl on a crowded Metro train. The only even slightly unpleasant people we encountered were tourists. See my posting on our trip to Versailles.

The bank account won’t take another trip like this for a couple of years. But if I can get Mrs. P back on an airplane, we’ll attempt another trip before too long. Looking forward to it.

Paris Day Twelve — The Last Day of the Trip

It’s Sunday afternoon, our last day here before flying home in the morning.

Mrs Poolman and I had breakfast with Brother- and Sister-in-Law before seeing them off on the next stage of their journey. They are headed off to Taize,  a monastic retreat center in southern France. They plan to spend four days living in huts, eating lentils and rice, and meditating and chanting. SIL is really into that kind of thing and doesn’t understand why everyone else isn’t also. More power to her, but it doesn’t appeal to us in the least.

Mrs P and I headed out for an easy sight-seeing expedition. We planned to take advantage of the free museum admissions on the first Sunday of every month. Apparently so did everyone else in Paris. We went to the Louvre and, gave up before we could even find the end of the line. Seriously! The line wrapped itself out of the gigantic courtyard, into the next courtyard and on and on. We never did find the end. It was at least a half mile long!

This was just the middle part of the line. The end was in the next courtyard, maybe.

So we wandered around. We visited the gardens of the Palais Royale.

The Palais Royale Garden.

Myself

Mrs P has always belonged on a pedestal.

We bought macaroons at Angelinas and ate them sitting on a bench in Tuileries Garden.

A busy Sunday afternoon in the Tuileries Garden.

We walked along the Seine to the Pont du Arts. This is a pedestrian bridge near the western end of the Louvre. Couples place “locks of love” on railings. Mrs P and I id not add to the padilock congestion.

Mrs P and the locks.

Locks of love

Myself again.

A pretty view from the bridge towards the western end of Ile de la Cite

We walked down towards St Germain and stopped at an outdoor cafe for a “Coca Cola Light” and a potty break. Mrs P was startled when a pigeon landed on the small cafe table and helped himself to a peanut from the bowl right in front of her.

The little cafe and a pedestrian-only street

We strolled down Blvd St Germain, past several famous cafes and back to our hotel.

One of Hemmingway's favorites

All told, it was a very pleasant last day in Paris. We’ll hit one of the local cafes for dinner tonight, then to bed early in prep for our long travel day tomorrow.

Paris –Day Eleven

It’s Saturday evenng and we’re back in Paris. There’s not much to report since today was a travel day.

We eere up early and schlepped our luggage off the island to the shuttle stop. I packed fairly light, but Mrs Poolman doubled my load. And one of the wheels on her bag broke, so I have heen carrying it while she pulls my lighter, roller equipped bag. I think the brother- and sister-in-law packed everything they own. BIL was looking “rode hard and put up wet” after dragging both their bags off the island, on and off the train and then through three train and Metro stations.

Our drive to Caen was through a drizzly rain, but pretty easy. Actually, the only problem we had was finding a gas (petrol) station in Caen to fill up the car before returning it. In the US it seems like you can fill up on every corner. In Caen, we actually had to go to the rental office and ask for directions to a station. Strange.

Two of our merry band waiting for the train in the rain.

BIL & SIL on the train.

Mrs P and myself enjoying the trip back to Paris.

The train ride back was pleasant. The trip to our hotel was a little trying, again because of all the luggage. Our plan to send  one couple ahead with the luggage in a cab fell through when we walked out of the station in the rain and couldn’t find a cab. So we took the Metro. See above.

We had a pleasant surprise when we got to the Holiday Inn St Germaine du Pres. They upgraded both rooms to mini-suites. Very nice! (I am a member of their loyalty program, Priority Club, and used points to reserve and pay for both rooms.) Thank you very much Holiday Inn!

The upgraded room. Nice.

Tonight is “Nuit Blanche” or “White Night” in Paris. This is an annual all night party with many museum, restaurants, clubs, etc open all night and free. We were thinking of revisiting the Louvre tonight, but the weather is crappy and Mrs P is tired. We may just hit a nearby cafe and then return to the hotel. Tomorrow is the first Sunday of the month so many of the museums will be open for free all day.

Mrs P wants to hit the Louvre and then Angelinas for lunch.

Paris & Normandy — Day Ten

Today, Friday, we spent on Mont St Michel. This is an abbey and tiny tourist community on a small island where Normandy and Brittany come together.

We had a nice time exploring and relaxing. A European breakfast wascincluded in our room rate — pastries, ham, cheese, hard boiled eggs, cereal and fruit. We had very nice meals for lunch and dinner. I’m a little concerned that Mrs Poolman is going to expect a three-course “menu” (entree, plat & dessert) everytime it is my turn to cook dinner at home. Sorry, hon. Here’s some potato chips to get you started. The burgers will be along shortly.

Tomorrow we drive back to Caen to catch the train to Paris. Then one last day in Paris before flying home on Monday. Hopefully our drive tomorrow will be uneventful.

Mont St Michel is a postcard photo waiting for someone to press the shutter button. Here are some samples.

From the causeway

The one main street on MSM

Lunchtime

The merry band

Myself

The causeway to the island

Mrs P in the small graveyard

You can't go anywhere without walking up or down steps.

One attempt at framing a shot

And another

No one home here

Paris & Normandy — Day Nine

The saga continues.

What the first eight days may have lacked in adventure, we made up for today. We were up and moved out of our apartment by nine AM. Off to Gare St Lazare to catch our train to Caen.

This leg of our trip has had ill omens from the beginning.  On our first evening here we went to Gare Montparnasse to purchase these and other tickets. The very patient ticket seller spent nearly a half hour, working discounts and combos. Sister-in-Law was handling the transaction as this was her job in our division of labor. I noticed the fares and timetables did not seem to be what I had seen on line, but I kept my mouth shut, until the vendor wrote the destination on one of the ticket envelopes, not CAEN, but CANNES? Oops! I pointed out the error and the vendor patiently reissued the correct tickets and demonstrated to SIL the proper way to pronounce the two very different cities.

After all that, the train ride to Caen was pleasant and uneventful. We located the National car rental agency. We picked up our Citeron car and directions to our first stop — Bayeux. Then the fun began.

I drove while SIL and BIL navigated. Just getting out of Caen was a nightmare. At one point I’m pretty sure I drove down a section of street reserved for trolleys. We took the wrong entrance ramp to a limited access highway and drove 20 km out of town in the wrong direction before we were able to get turned around. Five or six wrong turns later and we were finally on the highway to Bayeux, leaving five or six years of my life in the rearview mirror.

We had lunch in Bayeux and then made our way to the American Cemetary at Omaha Beach.

Bayeux Cathedral

As it was at my last visit here in April 2011, it was very moving. 

Some of our merry band in the cemetary

Our original plan was to move on to Vierville-sur-Mer to locate the stretch of beach where Mrs Poolman’s and SIL’S father landed with the 116th Infantry Regiment in the second wave in D-Day. We were also going to stop at Point du Hoc. However, others in our party lost interest and wanted to get on to Mont St Michel.

What was left of my driving patience disappeared when we were driving down a narrow Normandy lane with close hedgerows on both sides and a cement mixer roared around a blind curve with his left wheels well on our side of the road. We escaped, but the right side of our car was in the bushes. I’m glad I got the damage collision waiver when we rented the car.

The rest of the trip to MSM was uneventful. We checked into our hotel on the island and had a nice dinner. We took a walk out to catch some night photos from the causeway.

On to bed. Tomorrow is intended for sightseeing at Mont St Michel.

Paris Day Eight — Montmartre

This is our last day in Paris before heading to Normandy tomorrow. Our good weather ended. Most of the day was cool and drizzly. Fortunately, it never really rained heavy.

We kept the activities low key. We took the Metro (What else?) to Montmartre and just wandered around. Eventually, we had a very nice lunch in a cafe. The waitress made fun of me feable efforts to order in French, but I think she appreciated the effort.

After visiting all the high-brow museums, like the Louvre, we finished out visit to Montmartre with a stop in the Museum of Erotic Art. It was a little different.

We got back rlto the apartment in the late afternoon and spent the time preparing for moving out in the morning.

Dinner was some fresh baguette sandwiches we picked up in Montmartre.

Here are some pics.

Musicans trying to earn a Euro on the Metro

Street scene in Montmartre

Myself and Mrs Poolman at the Basilica of Sacre Couer

Place Tertre

Just a street scene with Sacre Coure in the background

Heading back to the apt on a wet afternoon.

One of the less offensive exhibits from the erotic art museum

Paris Day Seven – Versailles and a ‘flaneur’

This was the last day of our four-day museum pass. A trip to Versailles was the plan.

We got up early and took the RER train. We arrived just a few minutes past the opening at nine.

The chateau, built by ‘Sun King’ Louis XIV in the late 17th century, is magnificant. Unfortunately, around ten thousand other people arrived to soak in the magnificance with us. The crowds were overwhelming. In many of the rooms, we couldn’t even find the sign with the appropriate audioguide number because the camera toting tourists (like us?) were packed cheek to jowl.

When I complained about it to Mrs Poolman, she said it was just like a Florida football game. So when is the kickoff? Let’s start a wave! I don’t think all those Chinese tourists would understand.

Mrs P in the fron courtyard

This room is NOT crowded by comparison.

Mrs P listening intently to the audioguide.

The Hall of Mirrors

We made it through the chateau without causing an international incident. It was touch and go when one older guy roughly elbowed me aside so he could assist his wife who apparently had not a clue how to work her camera. I figured Hillary has enough on her hands,
without me adding to her troubles.

For all you hear about rude Parisians, for the second trip in a row the only jerks we have met were from abroad.

When we finished with the chateau, we found out that visiting the gardens and other buildings would run us another 15 euros apiece. We were pretty fed up with the experience, so we headed back to the train and Paris. 

After lunch, most of our merry band wanted to spend the rest of
the afternoon reading and napping. I didn’t want to waste an afternoon in Paris with a museum pass by hanging around the apartment. So I took off on my own again. I took the Metro back down to the historic city center. The line to Sainte Chapelle wasn’t as long and it was moving. The stained glass there lives up to it reputation.

Just a sample of the stained glass.

Then I walked a block back to Notre Dame and went through the archaeological crypt. Not mind blowing, but pretty cool all the same.

Then I walked through the Latin Quarter tourist district. I turned right on Blvd Ste Gremaine and walked a few more blocks to a Metro station and back to the apartment.

Blvd Ste Germaine

Earlier in the day I had made reservations for Mrs P and me at a restaurant recommended by Adrian Leeds in her Kindle book, “Top100 Cheap Insider Paris Restaurants”.

The Bistro  du Septieme on rue Tour Marbourg  was great. We had fantastic three-course “menu” meals. (That is French for “blue plate special.) I started with escargot, then steak and fries and finished with a creme brulee. Mrs P had a scallop pate for her entree, veal for the main dish and some frozen chocolate dish for dessert. Each meal was 25 euros or about $32. Not bad when you consider it covered three courses, tax and tip. We also shared a small bottle of wine.

As we were walking the few doors from the Metro station to the bistro, I saw  a Gator ball cap on a window table of another restaurant. I knocked on the window and gave the two couples  Gator chomp. A half minute later, one of the men chased us down on the sidewalk to talk. He is a pediatrician from Gainesville vacationing with his wife and another couple. He pulled us back to their restaurant to meet the rest of his group. We had a nice conversation. They will also be at Mont St Michel later this week, so we may see them again. Small world.

Altogether, it was a very nice evening. Tomorrow is Montmartre.

Paris — Day Six, Arc, Champs Elysees. Orangerie

This was a busy day. Monday is day three on our four-day museum passes. Tomorrow, we are headed to Versailles, so today was the last chance to hit some of the paid-admission attractions by using our passes.

We started the day by riding the Metro half way up the Champs Elysees and then strolling the rest of the way to the Arc de Triomphe.  We took the elevator to the top, where the view was very nice. We have been blessed with sunny weather ever since the third day here.

Back down the Champs Elysees and the Metro and a breeze-through visit to the l’Orangerie museum. This is a relatively small art museum, but is packed with Monet’s Water Lilies and a bunch of paintings from other impressionists, like Renoir, Modigliani, Cezanne and Picasso. Mrs P wasn’t so sure about this stop. But afterwards she said “That was really cool!” Chalk up one win for the Poolman!

Back on the Metro. Next stop, Ile de la Cite. We wanted to visit the archaeological crypt at Notre Dame but it was closed on Monday. Our next planned visit was to be the chuch of Sainte Chapelle. However the line was around the block and wasn’t moving.

So, lunch time!

We got some sandwiches and pastries from a walk-up lunch stand and took the food to some benches along the Seine. Lovely scene. Lovely weather. Even the begger-pigeons contributed to the ambience. Not too shabby. Pics below.

After lunch, we hiked through the Latin Quarter to the Pantheon. I was not overwhelmed, but BIL really wanted to see Foucault’s pendulum. It was pretty cool.

The best part for me was the church next door, St Etienne du Mont. The steps on the side of this church was where a key scene in one of my favorite movies, Midnight in Paris, was shot. Owen Wilson’s icharacter, Gil Pender, is reclining on those steps at midnight when a 1920s era cab picks him up and carries him back to the 1920s where he meets F Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Picasso, Hemmington, Dali and a bunch of other characters. I waited on the steps but no one came to pick me up. Of course, that was four in the afternoon, not midnight. Maybe I should go back later.

After that a stop at Monop for supplies and back to the apartment for the night.

We have logged a lot of trips on the Metro.

Mrs P and me on the Champs Elysees

The view from the top

Our merry band back on the ground

The sisters near Musee de l'Orangerie

Picnicing by the Seine

The none-too-shabby view from our picnic bench.

Back up at street level.

Pantheon

We be pooped.

BIL and SIL watching the pendulum.

St. Etienne du Mont