Caussols: Walking on the Moon

(Photos by Esme)

The Caussols Plateau

stretches across the top

of the hills -- kilometers

of open, scrubby,

moonscape with troglodyte

caves, fossils and rock

formations that resemble

the mysterious Hoodoos

of the western U.S. You

expect a dinosaur

to show up, like the

tarrascoaurus salluvicus,

who roamed these parts.

The Police wrote about walking in the footsteps of the mighty brontosaurus, but I had another of their songs

in my head.

We could walk

forever
Walking on

the moon
We could live

together
Walking on,

walking

on the moon

Police, 1979, Reggatta de blanc

To complete the surreal experience, the plateau leads to a collection of buildings, telescopes, and moon lasers that look like the place where Luke Skywalker grew up.

The CERGA Observatory, perched on top of the hill, collects data about asteroids (thousands have been discovered there) and tracks the rotation of the earth using massive beams aimed at pieces of equipment left on the moon by U.S. and Russian astronauts.

(I don't know how this squares with my mother's theory that the moon landing was a hoax, but, "they" could definitely have shot the entire alleged moon footage right here on the Caussols Plateau and none would be the wiser.)

There were danger signs as we approached the observatory, mostly to warn about the sharp drop over the edge. Not that that stopped our photographer from going closer to take a look, and a few more shots. But she's got her mother's eye for beauty and her father's doggedness (not to mention an amazing sister and friends), so I guess we don't have to worry too much about her.

The Best of the Rest of 2010

"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast."

Ernest Hemingway

Our holidays included much moving and feasting, but I'll just share the highlights here.

1. Meeting Dr's friend Mike W. and Laurie and son (Photos above and below by Jacqui)

If you're reading this blog, then you know I want all of my friends to be friends -- and I'm not just talking facebook. Jeff was subjected to this early on when he met me for a date, and there were a dozen other people there. Two happened to be associates at the law firm where he'd just caused a major scandal. Oops.

I've learned (really!) that just because I enjoy spending time with B as well as C that it doesn't follow that B and C will necessarily enjoy spending time together. But it's a great thing when it works out that way. With Mike and Laurie, it worked out that way.

2. Running through Paris with Luke.

Am not much of a runner, never have been. But when Luke suggested that we go for a run one morning, I put on my track shoes and followed. I'm a convert. (Photo by Esme)

3. Walking in the rain to the novelty shop by the Centre Pompidou with Dr.

4. Christmas shopping with Jacqui while Jeff

and Dr took the kids for a walk along the elevated

Promenade Plantee.

(Photo by Esme)

5. Dinner at the bistro on the corner of the Place des Vosges.

6. Traveling by train to and from Paris. I love the train -- a good place to think, a rollicking limbo where there's not much to do but look out the window... read your Kindle, check your Blackberry, surf the Ipad. And, yes, they serve wine.

7. Decorating our Christmas Tree

8. Christmas Eve at Michelle's

We went, we drank splendid champagne, we ate delicious fois gras.

9. Christmas Morning

10. The arrival of Laura H, Jake & Olivia

Luke, Esme, Adri and I headed to Nice to meet them. I circled the terminals twice, then three times before conceding I'd have to park the car. (To be fair, I've only been through this routine about 20 times so far this year.) And there they were! "People must have thought we were celebrities," Laura H. remarked about the exuberant shrieks that accompanied the reunion. Either that or an attack of wailing banshees...

11. Cap D'Antibes

12. Matisse Chapel in Vence

Matisse called the chapel his "masterpiece." Peace and beauty reside in those walls.

14. New Year's Eve Day Lunch

We hadn't had much luck with restaurants between a few being closed when we wanted to go, and another actually refusing to permit Charlie to dine with us. (The only restaurant I've encountered in all of France that wouldn't allow dogs, by the way.)

We planned to go to our favorite bistro in Mouans-Sartoux, but when we arrived, they didn't have the tables configured the way we wanted. Despite my initial dismay, we ended up having a lovely girls' lunch, and they enjoyed their boys' lunch.

A good way to end 2010. Not a bad year.

Paris Rocks

A grey day in Paris, a drizzle of snow turned to slush by the constant rain. We waited...

We were afraid they wouldn't come at all. Jacqui had had a rough week. Your health matters most, is what we said.

Please, please come to France, is what we meant.

[Photos above and right by Esme.]

The travel will be the worst part, Dr worried.

And travel, with an assist from weather, lived up to its reputation. Their first flight was delayed so long that they took another the following day. The next morning, assured by the Air France website that they'd landed, Luke and I waited in the damp of a cafe on Place des Vosges and warmed our hands on a cappucino and a cup of hot tea. Charlie warmed our feet. The waitress turned on the outside heater as we scanned the corners for arriving cabs. Instead we got a text message -- Landed in Pau.

Are they in Asia? Luke asked. Their flight was diverted from Paris to Bordeaux, and then finally to Pau in the southwest of France. Too far away to rescue them, plus, they weren't allowed off the plane because the airport didn't have any customs facilities. "We were a jet-age version of the Gar-barge," Dr lamented. While they waited on the runway for hours, he asked a flight attendant if they were going to have to stay in Pau forever. "I hope not," she replied. "I've been here before." To their relief, the captain eventually announced they were heading back to Paris again.

Finally the long-awaited taxi emerged from the gloomy mist, flashing headlights just in case we mistook it for some other ordinary cab. And in a rush, doors flung open, and out spilled suitcases, long curls, blue eyes, mile-a-minute chatter, and the impossibly beautiful faces of our friends.

It was finally starting to feel like Christmas in France.

Avignon

Avignon's history spans more than 2,500 years.

The Popes held title to the city from 1300s through the French Revolution, and for 70 years, Avignon was the seat of Papacy -- instead of Rome. The Popes added walls around the centre, and built a grand palace on the rocky hillside above the Rhone River, the Palais des Papes. Natually, bankers, builders, and merchants quickly followed and Avignon became a thriving city.

My favorite part is the famous Pont d'Avignon, actually the Pont St. Benezet, a bridge originally built between 1171 and 1185, inspired by a simple shepherd boy, Benezet, who claimed that angels had ordered him to build a bridge across the river. Floods destroyed parts of the bridge by the late 1600s, but you can still visit the impressive remains, and, if you want, you can dance. The famous song about the bridge goes like this:

Sur le pont d'Avignon

L'on y danse, l'on y danse

Sur le pont d'Avignon

L'on y danse tous en rond

Les beaux messieurs font comm' ça

Et puis encore comm' ça

On the bridge of Avignon,

Everyone dances, everyone dances

On the bridge of Avignon

Everyone dances in a circle

The handsome men go like this (they bow)

And then they go like that.

The verses of the song go on in the same fashion to include the beautiful ladies, the soldiers, the gardeners, the tailors, etc. each adding a particular act to symbolize their status so we have ladies curtsying, soldiers saluting, etc.

They (meaning the hotel clerk, taxi drivers, and, of course, Wikipedia) say that the fine citizens of Avignon actually danced under the bridge and not upon it, but details of reality have never bothered songwriters. I would like to contribute one more verse to the song based on our experience.

On the bridge of Avignon,

Everyone dances, everyone dances

On the bridge of Avignon

Everyone dances in a circle

The happy tourists go like this (click)

And then they go like that.

Greolieres les Neiges

"Where is this?!" Dr asked, (a probing freelance journalist in his heart of hearts) when I tried to persuade him there was fine skiing to be had in the hills behind our house. As the map above illustrates, the ski resort of Greolieres les Neiges is nestled in the Maritime Alps to the northwest of Grasse. Our house is about about halfway between Grasse and Cannes.

We're surrounded by the Maritime Alps. During my parents' visit in October, we discovered there's snow in them thar hills! Last weekend Michelle and I rounded up ski gear, loaded up the kids, and made the windy, sporadically nerve-wracking drive, past medieval ruins, hilltop towns and incredible views to Greolieres les Neiges.

There are 22 runs -- 4 greens, 4 blues, 12 reds (our double blues in the U.S.) and 2 blacks, and by some fluke, we practically had the mountain to ourselves.

The only thing I wasn't pleased about was the plethora of ski tows, otherwise known as the dreaded pommel tow, and, as Michelle explained, known in French as tire-fesse which means, most aptly, a buttocks-pull. I've had bad luck with the similarly designed T-bar in Breckenridge -- two falls down a steep hill, once with Val, once solo, and both times pulled back up the hill in a most appreciated but undignified manner by Dr and Menno respectively.

Luke and Damon thought it looked like fun so off we went with the round-shaped seat between legs and the strong pull of the wire yanking us upwards. Luke rode behind me. "Hey, Mom! I wanted to see what happened if I didn't sit and I almost fell off." "Luke! Don't do that!" "Ha, ha ha! Hey, Mom! Look!" Silence. "Hey, Mom... I fell off."

I couldn't stay mad.. Damon and Adrienne, who hadn't skied in years, went to take a lesson, leaving Luke and me to explore. Sun shining, snow glistening, my heart sang as I followed the boy down and around the mountain. When we rejoined our friends, Adrienne impressed with graceful steadiness and Damon barreled down the hill -- not one to let a few tumbles interfere with the adrenalin rush of skiing fast. Apres ski crepes and gaufres with Michelle ended the day. We got back in the car for the drive home, dubbed our scouting expedition a success, and made plans to go back --next weekend.

London Calling

Now get this
London calling, yes, I was there, too
An' you know what they said? Well, some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
And after all this, won't you give me a smile?
London Calling
I never felt so much a' like, a' like, a' like...

The Clash, London Calling 1979

We went to London for Thanksgiving to meet Jeanne, who flew in from Florida, and to celebrate with Steph & Andy and Luke's five cousins -- all new citizens of the U.K.

"Lucky," Luke said, bemoaning his own misfortune. He was born in London and descends from a number of Brits, including my grandfather, Fred Burgess, but that's not going to help him on the citizenship front. London's calling, but he'll have to find his own path back one day. [Photo note: Despite Natty's protests, Jeanne and I took pictures of him in his school uniform.]

I went out one night with Paddie and our friend Simon to a Thai restaurant in Chelsea. At the end of dinner, I checked in with Jeff. They were still at Steph's, so I decided to walk back along Fulham Road.

I thought about my first trip to London, summer of 1983, when a college friend, Lisa B., and I were making our way to Poznan, Poland as part of a program at UF. We flew to London via People Express (I loved that airline), spent a few days visiting friends (one we barely knew, the other we'd just met), and then took a long train across Europe to Poland. We were on a very tight budget.

Our London friends introduced us to the Camden Palace, a hard-driving new-new nightclub where the beat ricocheted off the walls right along with the punk rockers. After a few hours I realized I hadn't seen Lisa B. for a while. She was outside crying. "I couldn't find Jesus in there," she said. Neither could I, but I hadn't been looking.

Twenty, twenty, twenty four hours to go

I wanna be sedated

Nothin' to do,

No where to go

I wanna be sedated

Ramones, I Wanna be Sedated, 1978

Later, in the early '90s, during the CME days, we'd go to a club, The Limelight, in an old church in Soho with the TV people from MGM, Warner Bros. etc. Back then, Jeff and I went to the theatre and had dinner at almost midnight, jostling for a place with the other late-nighters filling the city streets.

On this trip the only club we visited was where Josh plays rugby on Sunday mornings. And instead of the Camden Palace, we talked about the Crystal Palace where Ben's been invited to try out for a place on the football team.

We did dance and sing..- with Stephanie and Quentin at his music class one morning.

Let's dance

Put on your red shoes and dance the blues

Let's dance

To the song they're playin' on the radio

David Bowie, Let's Dance, 1983

We tromped around the theatre district in search of fun and found it...at Funland, of course. Who knew there's a multi-level facility right on Picadilly Circus with bowling alleys, pool tables and arcade games to boot? We even heard the Clash... at the 02 arena, speakers blaring, lights flashing, as Andy Murray and Rafa Nadal entered the court to play one of the best matches of the season, maybe of their careers --London calling, reverberating through the dome.

I walked through Chelsea that night and across much of Fulham. I'm not one to wallow in nostalgia, but a panorama of London past, complete with soundtrack, accompanied me along the dark street. Finally, in the distance I saw Jeff and Luke, heading back to the apartment we'd rented for the week. They didn't see me at first, and I watched them, happy, that in a moment, I'd return to my present.

If we took a holiday

Took some time to celebrate

Just one day out of life

It would be, it would be so nice

Madonna, Celebrate, 1983

The rest of the week went by in a rush of seeing friends, old and new, spending time with family, enjoying Thanksgiving together again, and this time with a turkey as well as the Thanksgiving Fish.

As for Luke, he'll find a way back to London. There's a part of him already there.

You can't return to a place you never left.

Deep in the heart

Deep in the heart of this place

Deep in the heart

Deep in the heart of this place

U2, Deep in the Heart, 1987

Not the 6th

When we lived in Paris, we lived on the Left Bank in the 6th arrondisement. Paris divides into 20 different sections, arrondisements, and we fell in love with ours. When we're back in Paris, we make our pilgrimage to the street where we lived. Of course, we had to take Charlie this summer.

We used to know an Englishman with a passion for a jazz club in Chelsea called the 606. In his mind, no food was as good, no club as exciting. He often muttered after tasting a bite of food or looking around a place, "It's not the 6." Jeff and I have, only half-mockingly adapted this phrase in comparing other places to our former abode.

A couple of weeks ago, we were in Paris and we didn't visit the 6th. We didn't even step foot on our preferred Left Bank. We'll correct this anomaly when we're back in December with JL, DR & GRLs....but it made me realize that we no longer own any part of Paris. [We never actually "owned" our apartment, but it surely belonged to us for a time.]

This is sad, but it gives us freedom to explore other parts of the city, something we didn't do as often as we might have done when we lived there. After all, they're not the 6th.

On our recent trip, we spent a fair amount of time in the 11th & 12th arrondisements. The Place de la Bastille, the grand square that's actually a noisy, chaotic traffic circle, is part of both districts. As the name suggests, this was the site of the prison fortress that protestors stormed in their violent search for firepower at the start of the French Revolution. Today a tall monument commemorating a later revolution, the July Revolution of 1830, presides over the occasional rallies and demonstrations and continuous barrage of traffic.

The bubble-wrapped, determinedly modern opera house, developed by President Mitterand to bring classical music to the masses, hulks behind the July Column.

Despite the noble intentions, the Place exudes something seedy along with the exhaust. (Definitely not the 6th.)

That didn't stop Luke and Roy from enjoying a tattered strip of carnival and arcade games all decked out for Christmas. Or the locals and tourists who swarm the Marche de la Bastille that occupies the Blvd. Richard Lenoir every Sunday.

Luke's photos capture the color and vibrancy of the market better than my words could.

Blvd. Richard Lenoir is built over the Canal St. Martin, a waterway forged through the city in the early 1800s, on order of Napoleon Bonaparte, to bring water to the masses. [Maslow would appreciate the shift in priorities for the masses from water to opera.] The canal totals 4.5 km in length, 2 km of which runs underground. You can take a boat ride down the canal that includes a plunge into the tunnel under the Place and the marche. We opted to walk along the wide, tree-lined boulevards built over the canal with Louise & Phil and girls who came to join us for the weekend.

Our route took us through a large swath of the 11th, past parks and playgrounds, until we reached the locks of the canal where we watched a boat emerge and rise up from the pressure and energy of the water rushing into the confined area.

Across the way in the 12th arrondisement, we witnessed a sensational rise of another kind at

the quarterfinals of an ATP tennis tournament. First we watched Roger Federer coolly dispatch his opponent, but the real show began when Paris' own Gael Monfils took the stage to battle Andy Murray. The crowd banged steel drums, chanted and even performed an awkward rendition of The Wave to show support for Monfils who responded with leaps, twirls, dynamic, and incidentally winning, tennis. His posse, a group of young men and women dressed for the club scene, led the charge. [Lucky Luke happened to be in the right place for autographs from both players.]

Roger Federer is already a tennis legend, but the tennis world has discovered an emerging superstar in Monfils. And we've discovered an entirely new Paris. Not the 6th, but that's not all bad.