15th Wedding Anniversary Trip - Day 12, The Last Day

I'm typing out this blog post over the Atlantic Ocean, or more specifically: traveling: 535mph, altitude: 33,000ft, distance traveled: 2321mi, distance to go: 1761m, temperature: -59F. We're on our way back to reality. So far I've watched two movies: Die Hard 5 and Loopers. The former was fun though not nearly as impressive as the earlier movies, and the latter was a total brain scrambler.

I forgot to mention in my last post, here is the specific location of our Love Lock: Pont (bridge) Des Arts, 4 light posts in from the Louvre side, 3 fence posts back towards the Louvre, back another 4 1/2", up 7". When you visit Paris, you should stop by and say hello.

Things that impressed me about Paris:

• The bread & pastries! We started each day with a trip to a bakery, and bought treats to last us the day. It was wonderfully delicious and also one of the most reasonably priced things to buy in Paris.
• The metro system. Paris is huge. The metro system gets you everywhere you need to go. We never waited more than 4 minutes for a train (even on weekends!), and they don't threaten you with arrest if you bring snacks on board (thank you DC Metro!). The ticketing system is also refreshingly simple: buy ticket, feed into machine, done. None of this crazy variable fare nonsense.
• The Louvre. It is as impressive as its reputation suggests.
• The architecture in general. Just wandering through Paris I found myself impressed with the large number of interesting buildings and streets.
• T-mobile's WiFi calling. OK, technically this isn't a Paris thing, but a T-mobile thing. Once you get WiFi, using my Galaxy S3 I was able to place calls and send text messages to the US for no charge and no hassle. It felt so surreal to be able to just dial a US number with no extra headache or charges.
• The days last forever; This time of year it gets dark at around 10pm. This meant that I'd look outside at 8pm and think it was 4 in the afternoon.
• It was easy to get around using English. We've been to some places (like Panama), where English isn't spoken as often as you might think. Not in Paris, most of the restaurant menus, and most of the people we met spoke English. That alone helps make it a super easy city to explore.
• The various little supermarkets spread throughout the city. We found that we could easily stock up for a picnic lunch, dinner or snack at a reasonable price. One store we found even had a realtively large Kosher section, so we were able to pick up Kosher turkey and parve snacks to go with it.
• Paris is relatively well connected WiFi wise. We saw signs in some of the parks promising WiFi, which I'm glad to say I didn't have a need to use. Another good sign: both of our hotels offered it for free.

Things that didn't impress me about Paris:

• Breakfast. Apparently there's a standard French breakfast. For $8.00 to $10.00, you get a glass of OJ, a cup of a hot drink of your choice and some bit of bread (maybe a croissant, maybe part of a baguette). That's a fine breakfast (especially if you are anti Atkins), but for $10 that's pretty dang steep. My morning tea regularly cost me $4.00. That's $4.00 for a tea bag and a cup of hot water.
• Dog poop. Apparently they are pretty lax about cleaning up after their doggies. This is one of Shira's pet peeves.
• Prices (food, hotel, etc.) are high, space is at a premium. Welcome to a big city in Europe. If you like eating dinner in a restaurant where you're 4 inches away from your neighbors, you'll love a typical restaurant in Paris. The food will most likely be exquisite, but you need to rearrange the furniture to get in and out of your table.

Perhaps the strongest thing I can say about Paris is that we liked it so much we'd absolutely go back if given the chance. There's so much to see, I feel like we hardly scratched the surface.

The first disappointment of our trip

Turns out, the "Petit Casino" in the airport is a convenience store, not a little casino. D'oh.

Waiting in the gate for our plane now. I enjoyed the small luxury of not needing to remove my shoes during security.

They just mentioned something about a delay due to a strike with aircraft control. This might get interesting.

Luckily Shira and I stopped at a bakery before we left for the airport, so we are all stocked up on for French goodies!

15th Anniversary Trip - Day 11

Day 11, our last full day in Paris. You would think the list of things to do would be quite long. However, that wasn't the case. That's because today is Monday, and on Monday, most museums and sites are closed. As I flipped through our Frommers Paris, I kept finding interesting site after interesting site that was closed today.

I finally found one that looked especially interesting: Musee de l'armee. As the name suggests, this is a military musuem. Frommers promised "if it can kill, it's enshrined here." And they're pretty much right, the museum was massive covering everything from stone weapons to D-day. Of course, there's a huge amount of history to go with it, so much so, that I quickly lost track of France's timeline.

The Musee de l'armee is housed in a building adjacent to Napoleon's Tomb, and had a special exhibition of the emperor himself. Also included in the museum was an impressive set of relief maps, which are effectively 3D models of a particular location. These maps were used for military planning purposes, and one can only imagine the effort that went into creating them.

After the museum and a visit to Napoleon's tomb, we made our way back to the section of town with a number of Kosher restaurants. I stuffed myself full of schwarma, falafel and parve deserts from the Kosher bakery next door. I more than needed the long walk back to our hotel to try to walk off some of lunch. Even 6 hours later I can't imagine taking another bite of anything (but I will, of course. Probably a piece of french bread or pastry.).

On our way back to our hotel we stopped at one of the lock bridges we had seen. I purchased a 2 euro lock, and using one of the tools on my key chain, etched in a message. We bolted it to the fence through the keys in the Seine. If our wedding 15 years or so ago didn't make it official, this lock surely has. We're in love.

And now I've got to turn my attention to the less fun part of the journey. Things like packing up, starting to plan our trip to the airport. What an awesome trip it's been, I couldn't ask for it to have gone any differently.

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15th Anniversary Trip - Day 10

You didn't have to be a tennis guru to know that when the French Open bracket was released and the two top players were meeting in the semi-finals, that the final could go one of two ways. Either there would be a miraculous upset of a top favorite, or an easy victory. Today turned out to be the latter. Rafa Nadal easily won the tournament, making history, breaking records and showing his continued dominance on the French clay.

Actually, the final score doesn't really do his oppenent David Ferrer justice. He put in a good fight, and in many games made inroads against Rafa. But in the end, he couldn't gain traction and lost in three straight sets.

The most excitement of the match actually came from off the court. We witnessed a series of protests that caused quite some attention. A dozen seats down from us in our row some folks stood up and started chanting and got removed from the stadium, in the distance we could see some folks unravel a banner and wave lit flares over another court, and finally an individual managed to light a flare and jump onto the court before he was taken down by security. It was all a site to see, but didn't significantly impact the game.

Having watched a heck of a lot of tennis over the last 10 days, I have to say that while I'm impressed at the players, I'm also quite impressed by the ball kids and line judges. These people are effectively invisible and yet manage to perform with nearly the precision of a machine.

Consider this: there are only six balls in play at any time during a match. This means that regardless of where a ball ends up on the court, it needs to be seamlessly delivered back to the player with no apparent delay. The ball kids appear to have strict protocols that they follow to make sure they stay out of the way, yet effectively chase down balls.

While line judges don't have to run around, they do need to be extremely alert and quick reacting when a ball travels near their boundary. They have to make calls quickly and with absolute confidence.

Like I said, they work together to form a machine. There was a thank you made to the ball kids and judges at the very end of the medal ceremony. If it were up to me, I'd create a new tradition where they get thanks at the end of every match.

The French Open is now behind us. I count myself very fortunate for having been to so many of its games. I also count myself very fortunate that I'm not going to another tennis match for quite some time. At least I hope not.

15th Anniversary Trip - Day 9

Day 9 was a see Paris day. We traipsed along the Seine, gaping at buildings and trying to take in the amazing sites. But one of the most touching sites we saw wasn't in our guidebook. As we came upon a bridge we realized it was absolutely covered in relatively small locks. Written on the locks were various names and inscriptions.

Apparently we had found a Lock Bridge. The ritual goes like this: you inscribe (or write) you and your true love's name on the lock, attach it to the bridge and throw the key into the Seine.

Maybe it was the mood I was in, but I found the whole thing so wholesome and romantic.

On our way to the hotel a couple days earlier we had passed next to the Louvre, the world renowned art museum. I was determined not to step in there to take in just the well known pieces of art. No, if I was going to the Louvre it would be with hours to spend and no sense of urgency.

Shira was kind enough to let me play my little game, and so in the afternoon on Day 9, we hit the Louvre. I couldn't resist purchasing the add on audio/video tour guide. I figured that if I was going to take the time to see this well known museum I should try to get as much from it as possible.

So I put the headphones on, and selected the "Masterpieces" tour of the museum. As the device talked me through various rooms Shira tagged behind me, snapping some photos and generally trying to be very patient.

Whatever expectations I had of the Louvre, they were blown away with what I actually saw. It's not just the art, but the massive scale that it's available on. It's statue after statue, painting after painting, all presented in huge galleries. Clearly you could come here every day of your vacation and only begin to scratch the surface of the collection.

When my hour long tour was done, I was ready to take another, but figured Shira needed a break. As I returned the audio/video setup--which I highly recommend if you visit--I realized that my tour had essentially shown me the handful of high profile pieces in the museum (with much commentary along the way). My goal of not acting like a typical tourist had failed miserably. But that's OK, what I saw left me too impressed to care.

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15th Anniversary Trip - Day 8

Day 8 was the French Open Semi-Finals. Due to a ranking glitch, Nadal and Djokovic, arguably the two best players in the sport right now, were facing off. This is the match Shira and I were very much hoping we'd get to see, and it looked like it was actually going to happen.

Our train left Venice an hour or so late, which we feared may impact our day at the Open, but luckily it didn't. In fact, everything went super smooth and before we knew it, we were in the stands watching these two Tennis greats take the court.

The first set was fairly even with Rafa taking it. The second set Djokovic managed to take, though he was clearly losing steam. The third set was a blood bath, with Djokovic winning only a single game. It looked like this epic battle was going to be anything but, with Nadal sweeping the match. But in classic Djokovic style, he managed to fight off Nadal and take the match into 5 sets. Djokovic started the 5th set strongly pulling ahead, but by the end, he made a number of easy errors, and lost the match 9 games to 7.

I very much wanted my boy Djokovic to upset Nadal, which would have put him a huge step closer to winning the French for the first time. But, that wasn't in the cards. Still, the match was an awesome one. There's nothing like being in a stadium of 14,000, all collectively gasping as a player attempts to make a point, and erupting in applause when they do. The tension was so intense that I had to put down my camera and just focus on watching these two guys battle it out.

So not the outcome I wanted, but certainly the match I was hoping to see.

Other highlights of the day: watching ladies wheelchair tennis and watching a 45 and older doubles match. I didn't know the players, but Shira was clear that Mats Vilander was a tennis great. The former is a remarkable demonstration of skill and endurance, the latter was just plain fun.

With this big match behind us, we can now take a breath and enjoy our last couple days in Paris. And yes, we've got the Finals to watch, so we aren't quit done with le Tennis quite yet.

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15th Anniversary Trip - Day 7

Day 7 started with a humble request to Shira: please navigate us to the Jewish Ghetto. By consulting three maps she was able to get us to the correct location without even a hint of getting us lost. She's good.

The Jewish Ghetto is small - about 2 large city blocks. At one point it contained around 4,000 Jews. They lived there not by choice, but by strict law that controlled their comings and goings. According to our tour guide, there's now about 400 Jews in the whole of Venice and it's surrounding environs, and there are many more funerals per year than brises.

With that many Jews in close proximity it's no surprise that they had to have a number of shuls, I believe the total number came out to 5. We had a chance to tour 3 of them. The shuls we were in date back to the 1500 or 1600's, and as the tour guide kept reminding us, everything we see there is original. In some respects the shuls look exactly like you would expect an Orthodox shul to look like: an ark for the torah, a reading desk, various inscriptions in Hebrew, a ladies section, etc. But in other respects, they are totally foreign. Jews at the time were forbidden to be craftsmen, yet had money to hire the best. So the architects and designers of the shuls weren't Jewish. That explains why one of them has gorgeous greek colums and the ark looks it could pass for the front of a church.

While the shuls have been in continous use (even to this day, they get a few uses every year), many of the reasons behind the symbols on display have been lost. Consider the case of large sea shell above the doorway in one of the shuls. What is this non-kosher item doing there? Does it represent the wash basin used by the Levi'm, or was it simply an in-vogue symbol of the time, so the architect put it in place? Nobody knows. But being Jews, we have no problem coming up with a handful of explanations, and using the one we prefer the best.

After the museum, we went in search of Kosher food for lunch. We found an especially nice place, and we ate lunch only a few feet from the edge of one of the canals. It was like out a movie.

While we ordered a number of standard dishes (hummos, kabobs, etc.), I couldn't resist ordering the classic Venetian dish of sardines and onions. It arrived, and looked exactly like its contents suggested it would: a heaping pile of onions over sardines mixed with some oil based sauce. It was absolutely delicious, with a sweet flavor. By far the best sardine related dish I've ever had. If you make it to Venice, I highly recommend you search out a restaurant that offers this treat.

From there, we explored more random parts of the city until it was time to head to the train station. After a 45 minute delay we boarded our overnight train to Paris, which is where I'm typing this from now.

I'm so thankful that I was able to make it to see and experience Venice. It suffers from the usual woes any popular city has: too many tourists, too many souvenir shops and too many people out to make a quick buck off of an unsusupecting tourist. But, the beauty and sheer wonderment of a city with canals instead of streets makes it all worth it. Throw in a dose of Jewish history, and the glass making on Murano, and you have a city that more than compensates for any detractors.

But enough about Venice, it's back to Paris and the French Open!!

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15th Anniversary Trip - Day 6

Today we explored Murano and Burano, two islands a short boat ride away from Venice. Murano is famous for its glass, and Burano, its lace. Both islands, for the most part, lived up to their hype.

We saw two different glass blowing operations on Murano, and they were both equally impressive. It boggles the mind the amazing creations that they fashion using little more than a long hollow metal tube, a pair of tongs and a heck of a lot of heat. Apparently the glass blowing ovens are kept at 2100 degrees F 24 hours a day, as it takes days to bring them up to that temperature.

One of the most amazing sites we saw today, if not during our entire trip, was when a master glass blower pulled a blob of hot glass from the furance. With seemingly little effort he drew out various lengths of it and shaped it. Before my eyes, in about 20 seconds, he managed to create a horse sculpture. The legs, mane, tail, and head were all pulled from that one blob in fluid motions. Truly stunning.

Another cool part of the trip: our guidebook reported that behind the alter of the Santa Maria e San Donato church were dragon bones! I can now report that dragon bones are large, but not as large as you might expect. Maybe this was a relatively petite dragon that Saint Donato dispatched?

I continue to be fascinated with Venice as a city. Of course all goods must be moved in and out of the city by boat, or if on land, by cart. I stood there like a 5 year and old and snapped photos of the trash boat as it did its duty hauling away Venice's garbage. I suppose this sort of scene is to be expected, but to a land lubber like myself it was really cool.

Tomorrow is our last day on the island, and then it's back to solid ground in Paris and more tennis. Now that I'm invested, I'm actually quite excited to see how this whole French Open thing works itself out. Look for us in the very top row of the men's semi finals and the men's finals! And I mean very top!

15th Anniversary Trip - Day 5

Our 13 hour overnight train ride from Paris to Venice was uneventful. Sure, I felt like a sardine packed in a canister for 13 hours. But it was a clean canister, and had enough room that I never really felt claustrophobic. Our Italian car-mates departed from the train around 5:30am which gave us about 4 hours of alone time in the cabin, most of which we dozed away.

The Venice train station looks like any other in the world. But as soon as you walk through the gates you're transformed into another world. It was like stepping into Oz. Gone are streets and cars; replaced by canals and boats. It was an even more delightful scene than I've ever imagined.

If we thought navigating Paris took skill, Venice requries a PhD. in orienteering. The "roads", none of which contain cars, and some of which are only a few feet wide are marked. But the map we have doesn't name them all (or most), and there is absolutely no rhyme or reason behind their layout. Consider our hotel. It has an entrance on the Grand Canal. However, to access it, you've got to take one apparent back alley to an even smaller apparent back alley, only to find yourself in a gorgeous hotel.

When I asked people who had been to Venice what I should expect to do, they said just get lost and wander around. This turns out to be trivial to do. One minute you're walking along the next you turn a corner and you're at a canal. Nobody appears to bother with directions, it wouldn't do any good as they would just be too confusing.

We made our way to the main square, Piazza San Marco, the narrow paths gave way to large passages which added open air markets and lots and lots of tourists. It was both depressing and awesome to see such crowds.

We visited the musuem in the Basicalla of St. Mark, the main attraction at Piazza San Marco. I'm hardly an authority on churches, but this one was awfully impressive. The gigantic church is covered in mosaics, which when you consider that each one is made up of tiny fragments of colored rock, makes it a nearly unfathomable project.

Still, for all the glitz of the main square, I'll take the quiet narrow paths and canals around our hotel. It's that side of Venice that keeps me taking out my camera everytime we approach another small bridge.

15th Wedding Anniversary Trip - Day 4

Finally, a day in Paris where we would actually get to see some of Paris. But what to do? For simplicity, we decided we'd pick one of the walking tours in our Frommer's book and see where it took us.

The first walking tour went so well, we decided we'd do the other two included in the book. That was about 6 miles of sight seeing.

The tours made for a diverse day, we saw various "Hotels", churches and the Pantheon as well as more esoteric items like the narrowest street in paris, the oldest houses and the location where the term "bistro" was first used. It was just delightful.

For all the amazing sights though, the best experience in Paris may be a simple trip to the Patesserie. Every day of the trip has started by stocking up on various breads, crossaints and other miscellanous items. They have all been heavenly. Today we tried a black bread mixed with Chocolate which I lack the words to describe how good it was. We also tried a raspberry treat was equally as good, but I'm not even sure what it was. It clearly wasn't bread or a cake. It was just delicious. I could go on and on about the bread products, but I'll spare you. I'll just say that Paris is not onboard with the whole Atkins craze, and lives in a parallel universe where carbs and chocolate are considered essential.

My gosh Paris is large. Their metro system makes the DC one look like a toy. But to Shira's credit, she got us to every point we needed to without a single incorrect train selection. Regardless of its size, it seems that everywhere you look is an amazing building, street or Church. Everytime I think we've seen the most impressive site, we turn the corner and see something new. This is truly a city you could explore again and again and still not see it all.

I'm actually composing this blog post not from a hotel room but from a night train. We're on our way to Venice. If all goes exceedingly well, when we wake up tomorrow, we'll be in a new country with a new city to explore.

We are sharing a sleeper car with a delightful couple from Milan, Italy whoe speak about as much English as we do Italian. The sleeping arrangements are pretty tight, though not as tight as they could be. There's 4 of us in this one car, but there could be 6 sleeping in the same space, so I'm thankful.

It's past our bedtime, and I'm curious to see if I can catch any Zzzz's in our little cube, so I'm going to say goodnight. See you in Venice!

15th Wedding Anniversary - Day 3

Today we went back for a 3rd day of Tennis. We started the day with a mixed doubles match. Mixed doubles is one of my favorite type of matches to watch. I always imagine I'm viewing a double date, and not some blood thirsty death match. Because it's doubles, it tends to move quickly and doesn't go for as many sets as a mens match.

After the doubles match we headed to the main stadium to settle in for about 7 hours of watching singles tennis play. We watched Serena crush her oppenent, and then to my surprise, she gave her match interview in French; very impressive. Then we watched a crowd favorite, the Frenchman Tsonga beat his oppenent. At one point, he actually raised his hand and asked for the crowd to quiet down so he could refocus. He swept his match as expected.

During the Serena match I snuck away from the stadium to explore the Roland-Garros musuem. The museum was the first I'd been to in France. It chronicles not only the history of tennis but also that of Roland Garros, the man. I had no idea that he was the first to do a solo air flight across the Mediterranean or that he invented the forward facing air plane machine gun, making him the first ever fighter pilot. It was well worth the 45 minutes to take it in.

Back on the court, we watched the legend, Roger Federer, take on Gilles Simon, a Frenchman ranked in the top 30. The match got off to the expected start, Federer crushed Simon in first set, 6-1 (or was it 6-2?). And then Simon started to come alive, taking the next two sets. The crowd was elated that their countryman looked like he might be victorious.

In the end, though, Federer took the match showing he had just that much more stamina. What a thrill it was to be watching a Frenchman getting cheered on by his countrymen. By the end, nearly every point earned him a standing ovation.

On our way back to the hotel, we detoured to explore what appeared to be a mini-version of the statue of liberty. Indeed it was, though whether it was a model or what purpose it served is beyond us, as the plaque describing it was in French.

My first few days of the French Open are behind me, and tomorrow we turn our attention to sight seeing. I've got to say, I enjoyed the tennis immensely. Though, I think I've probably had enough tennis for the next few years, at least.

15th Wedding Anniversary Trip - Day 2

Allow me to summarize day 2 of our Anniversary trip: tennis, tennis, tennis and more tennis. About 10 hours worth! I can't exactly complain though, as we got to see two of the biggest names in the sport: Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic. Novak is a personal favorite of mine, as I love his amazing endurance that allows him to come back from way behind, and his awesome court coverage ability.

A couple of other highlights from the day: catching a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower and stopping at a bakery to pick up 5 different kinds of amazingly delicious breads.

Did I mention we got to watch Nadal and Djokovic do shirt changes?

Tomorrow is scheduled to be more of the same. I'm either going to absolutely love watching tennis by the end of this experience, or I'll never want to watch it again.

15th Wedding Anniversary Trip - Day 1

Our 15th Wedding Annivesary Trip started off with quite a treat. We boarded what may be just about the best plane I've ever been on. Shira and I were tucked privately into our own little twosome row, there was plenty of space in the overhead bin for my luggage, and the entertainment center was one of those fancy ones where you can select from over 200 on demand movies. As if that weren't enough, each movie had a trailer - so I could have just sat back and watched trailer after trailer. And the feature that tops all other features: the seat had a standard outlet I could plug my computer into. No more stressing over battery life of my laptop and cellphone.

It was, however, "just about" the best plane I've been on and not the best. That's because it wasn't able to fly. After about an hour, which I didn't notice because I was too busy watching trailers, they announced that our plane had mechanical issues.

We deboarded and a short 5 hours leater boarded a new plane. This one lacked nearly every amenity the first plane had, but did have the one feature the other lacked: we were able to fly in it.

We landed in Paris, dropped our bags at the hotel and immediately set out on a mission: to find and attend the French Open.

All of Shira's planning paid off as our hotel was a 5 minute metro ride to Roland Garros, the stadium that hosts The Open.

After going through an impressive ticket verification process we found ourselves on the grounds. Nadal was playing a match at the time, though we didn't have tickets to the court he was on. Still, watching him on the big screen and listening to the cheers live, was quite a thrill.

We attended a number of matches today, and everywhere we went we found names we recognized. People of note that we saw today were Roger Federer, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Stan Wawrinka. It was definitely a special kind of thrill.

We had tickets to the main court, and I was surprised at how relatively small it was. Our seats were high up, but compared to some venues (like say a football field or bascketball court), we were right on the action. And watching folks play tennis on the side courts felt like going to a little league game. The scale is almost comically small.

We've got a few more days of the Open ahead of us, so expect me to share more details over that time. Here are few snapshots. Sorry ladies, it was cold out, and so it was only Tsonga who gave us the thrill of a shirt change. Seriously, all of a sudden I hear cat calls from behind us, and look up and see him changing. Holy muscles. Anyway, search the photos below to find it.

One last thing. The biggest difference between Paris and home that I've noticed so far? There are so many smokers. I can't recall the last time I was walking down the street and was surrounded by so many people lighting up.

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