1. You get to ride to the Palace of Versailles with a bus driver who claims to have relatives in Sleepy Hollow.
2. You must clutch your purse to your breast because of the professional pickpockets.
3. There is enough gold to jump start the economy of a third world nation - think Haiti.
4. The housekeepers at the Hall of Mirrors never will run out of work, only Windex.
5. The decor is too garish even for Donald Trump.
6. To this day there are 121 rooms and only one is a bathroom.
7. Louis XIV said, "Apres moi, le deluge," and he wasn't kidding. When it rains at Versailles, you'll hydroplane to certain death on the cobblestone entrance.
8. Marie Antoinette never said, "Let them eat cake." She really said, "Marrying Louis was a big mistake."
9. After competing with injured and disabled tourists for the two or three available wheelchairs,
10. and suffering the indignities of rude tourists from every continent, Deborah prepares for the guillotine. Regrettably, we experienced our own Reign of Terror.
The swans before they "scatter wheeling in great broken rings"
Cottage along the Seine in Les Andelys
Walking down the hill into town
View of the white cliffs (No, Dorothy. We're not in Dover.)
Part of the ruins of the Chateau Gaillard, a fortress built in 1196 by Richard the Lion Heart to keep watch on the river Seine and to protect the city of Rouen from the French.
Over-Realmed
I must have forgotten I wasn't in Paris anymore when I hiked to the Chateau. In 90 degree heat I wore black from head to toe - tres chic mais tres stupide. Deborah got a pair of drop earrings made by a local jeweler that resembled the mini-versions of the famous women in Modigliani paintings. A great day in a lovely village, and I got some much-needed exercise, too.
Preparing for Bastille Day in Rouen (Kerplunk on Steroids)
Much less formal than Paris, the city of Rouen is a lively, beautiful place. Its narrow streets and alleys are filled with antique stores, art galleries and cafes that reminded us of New Orleans, sans the wrought iron. The parks and squares teemed with people, especially teenagers on parole from school and young couples very much at ease with public displays of affection.
We spent some time in the Cathedral Notre Dame, a gothic structure whose facade was immortalized by Claude Monet in his paintings (Please see our postcards when we return since my battery died there and had to be recharged.). We took the "little train that could" up and down the historic streets and observed the many bullet-nicked and gouged landmarks, but the most interesting drive-by was the Church of Saint Joan of Arc, a modern minimalist building. It is said that the church's architecture symbolizes the search for absolute geometric purity. Perhaps it symbolizes the acuity, exactness and certitude of Joan of Arc herself.
"My father always told me that we would go to France/We'd go boating on the Seine and I would learn to dance." Joni Mitchell
Japanese maples, roses, poppies - you name them - the gardens at Giverny seemingly were a random riot of color. That includes the inside of Monet's house where the clashing blues of the kitchen were intentional; apparently, bugs don't like the color blue. Note to self: Paint kitchen blue.
We also went for a brief jaunt into the medieval town of Vernon. Skipping lunch on the ship, we opted for a Croque Monsieur and San Pellegrino at a local cafe. Thought tempting, we didn't have to join time to join the Socialist Party, whose headquarters are located across the street.
At 6:58 p.m. many of the octogenarians on board, who must have taken a side trip to Lourdes, were able to cast off their canes and walkers and sprint toward the hermetically sealed doors of the restaurant, which only can be opened at the behest of the V lady and her electronic chime. Remember this is a Swiss ship.
Dinners are four courses (European portions) of miniature fine art, almost too beautiful to eat. Somehow we managed to survive. The following is a sample haute cuisine menu:
HORS D'OEUVRES
Tandoori chicken in green rice flakes, parmesan foam and tomato tartar
SOUP
Cappuccino of forest mushrooms
WARM APPETIZER
Pan-fried scallops a la Rouen with Tagliarini and grapefruit sauce
MAIN COURSE
Fillet of beef with herb-truffle crust and French foie gras sauce, vegetable strudel and potato cake
or
Poached filet of halibut on morel sauce, leek-fennel vegetable and rice
Clark and his father Ferg, part of a large, wonderful family from Toronto, Canada
Parisians are like New Yorkers in their love for their city. They think, "What else would you need? We've got it all." They mean their beautiful opera house, the largest museum in the world, the restaurants. They show this through their devotion to preservation. We discovered this and more on a three hour bus tour of the city. We didn't see an ugly building, which didn't surprise us. The French revere architecture as long as it's not too modern. Skyscrapers exist only in the suburbs.
Parisian monuments are a bit heavy on Napoleon and the military. Our reaction after being reminded of France's three revolutions (Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the Reign of Terror, Napoleon the imperialist dictator, and then King Charles) - didn't the French people learn from their own history, and did they forget all the negatives that accompany having a king?
The cruise director who communicates with us over the ship's intercom sounds like the woman's voice from the television series V. "Bon Appetit. We are at peace always." And speaking of V, we've fallen in love with a 9th grade boy from Canada named Clark; we've never met any other earthling child like him. He has bright, wide eyes and a broad smile (See picture above.) He's fully engaged with the world and the people around him. We ate dinner with him and his father our first night on the ship, and he is one of our preferred dining companions.
We realize we're on a cruise filled with patriotic Americans on their way to Normandy, but you'd be shocked (or maybe not) by some of them and their conservative parochialism. Here we are soaking up the French culture on a Swiss ship stunned into silence by one woman asking Deborah, "Are there any Americans left in Miami?" She changed the subject after Deborah responded, "What do you mean by Americans?" At breakfast another man denounced Mexican immigrants, illegal and otherwise, and cheered the "high-profile(ing)Arizona law. We recommend he watch the film A Day Without a Mexican.
You’re a college senior, an Anglophile majoring in English literature, and have no interest in teaching. You have no job in the offing, a yearning for adventure, and most importantly, you have no boyfriend. Securing a position as an au pair might be the perfect enterprise for you. An au pair is a young foreign visitor, employed to take care of children, do housework, etc., in exchange for room and board. Whatever you do for goodness sake, don’t mistake an au pair for a nanny, who has received special training to care for children.Lose the Mary Poppins image, but do entertain the idea of moving to an English-speaking country. Remember you want time to have fun; that means no changing nappies or investing in Rosetta Stone language acquisition software.
Why not head for merry old England? Interested? Then set your sights on London. Search the Internet for Help Wanted ads in the greater London area. Once you make the right contact and you’re offered the position, it’s time to get your passport, then away you go. When you arrive at Heathrow, your employer will be waiting for you. Expect to be nervous, which will exacerbate your jet lag and leave you dragging for nearly two weeks. You’ll be over the moon when you find out the rest of the family is on summer vacation in Ireland. Your new residence will be a late Victorian home with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme in the back garden. Your bedroom will be undergoing a Laura Ashley renovation. Two former ballet dancers who succumbed to Cadbury bars and sausages will be living in the separate flat on the third floor. You said you wanted adventure.
August gives way to September. It’s time for the children to return to school, and time for you to adapt to your new routine. Get up at 6:00 a.m., throw in some laundry, and put out breakfast for the children, the four children whose schedules you must commit to memory. While the children are at school, you’ll have to pick up, maybe dust a little. The domestic life might leave you with something to be desired, so you should focus on one area to master. Perhaps it will be cooking, even though the only dish you know how to prepare is something your family calls “super chicken,” chicken breasts baked with cream of mushroom soup and wine served over rice.
Becoming the family cook entails visits to the supermarket, in addition to the individual local shops. The problem is you have to drive there, and in England you have to drive on the left side of the road.
You could introduce the children to spaghetti and chili, which they will enjoy as long as the fire extinguisher (pitcher of water) is nearby. Make sure you’re home before the children to let them into the house, give them afternoon tea and then take them to dance and scouts. P.S. Learn to make proper English tea
Don’t forget that being American makes you vulnerable to ridicule. If you say OJ for orange juice, one of the children might say, “Okay, let’s have a little OJ.” He will say this with a Texas accent even if you’re from New England or a benign Mid-Atlantic state.
After dinner the father might challenge his nine-year-old son. “I’ll give you a halfpenny if you can name the capital of Iceland.”
You’ll never forget the son’s response. “Pity it’s not Rangoon, but that’s the capital of Burma.”
If you’re riding with the family on a day trip to Hampshire, be prepared to play the license plate game. Whenever a car passes by, you have to use the letters on the license plate to come up with a word where the letters appear in their original order. If you come up with the word vichyssoise from say VHY, one daughterwill stare at you in disbelief. British children, like their parents, believe they are superior to the colonists who broke away. Pretty soon you’ll believe it, too.
During the course of the year, you’ll go to plays and concerts and art exhibits. Your employers might arrange for you to take graduate classes while the children are in school. You’ll absorb the culture by osmosis and begin to enjoy eating Marmite. You’ll discover that films with the words au pair in them are often X-rated. You’ll start speaking with a British accent. You’ll learn to make bubble and squeak and to bake gooseberry tarts.
You’ll fall in love with British children. You’ll even celebrate Boxing Day.
