Rooted in Mississippi

We flew into and out of the European Union via Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, which I thought was kind of cool, since some of my ancestors were Dutch. In the past, I have been stopped and searched in airports several times, so I am careful about what I wear and I usually take off as much as possible before passing through any security checkpoint.  Specifically, I have had trouble getting through metal detectors because of the underwires in my bra, so air travel is the only time I go out in public without serious support. In this particular circumstance, jiggly bits are the lesser of two humiliations.

Anyway, I had already been through several security checks in the US without incident, but things changed in the Netherlands.  After the passport window, we had to pass through the first EU security checkpoint. Let me preface this by saying we had been awake for a really long time, so I was not at my best. They did not ask anyone to take off their shoes and I guess that caused me to alter my routine.  I was cold and wearing a hooded Nike sweatshirt, which I forgot to take off and put through the xray machine, along with my backpack and ziploc of liquids and gels.  The metal detector did not go off, so I was surprised when they had me proceed to the special footprints for a physical search. 

Lucky me, I apparently got the security employee of the month, because her pat down was more through than my last breast exam.  She left no inch of my body underneath the sweatshirt unexamined, no part of my torso or pelvis untouched by her probing hands.  It was disconcerting for me, but my husband remained blissfully unaware.  He was still busy putting his belt back on and checking his briefcase, when I rejoined him.  I admit I was really surprised by the molestation thoroughness of the physical search, but I suppose they must have been worried that I might be packing something other than fat under my sweatshirt.

Needless to say, on our way out of the EU, I remembered to remove the sweatshirt before I passed through security!  The Dutch must take security very seriously, because when we got to Schiphol, they asked me to step aside again and a friendly dutch woman asked if she could examine my pockets.  When I pointed out that I had no pockets in my yoga clothes, she smiled and enthusiastically said “then this will not take long!” She patted down my backside and waistband, but it was nothing compared to the thorough groping I got coming into the EU. 

I did not notice men getting the same treatment, so maybe this has less to do with explosives and more to do with drugs.  Are women are more like to be drug mules?  Have they have seen too many spy movies where a woman hides something in a fake belly?  Who knows, but the whole experience made me realize that I need to schedule an appointment with my doctor for my annual exam.

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I think I have mentioned that the room in Paris was small.  Well, I know I mentioned the tiny elevator, but the room was by far the smallest of the three we rented while in Europe.  I need to digress here, just for a minute, to talk about something that came to mind every time we got into that tiny elevator.  First of all, it was more like a large dumbwaiter, but clearly the French are smaller than their big-boned cousins in Louisiana, because the posted maximum occupancy was three people.  I am pretty sure that three adults from the southern United States would exceed the weight limit, which was less than 300 kilos. 

To this day, I still do not know how my husband and I got in there with all our luggage on that first night when we arrived in Paris, but it was beyond claustrophobic.  Anyway, back on topic, unlike American hotels/motels, rooms with king sized beds are not common in Europe.  Our room actually did have two twin beds pushed together, which made it really cramped, even without a full compliment of furnishings.  

I was trying to keep up with my yoga practice, at least a few poses, despite the lack of space.  The second night in the room, I really needed to do Viparita Karani (Legs-up-the-Wall Pose), because the hours and hours of walking left me with sore legs and swollen ankles.  Anyway, there was no room to do this pose on the floor in the Parisian hotel, so I decided to do it on the bed.  It worked as long as I was in the pose, but things went awry when I tried to dismount.

I came down too close to the headboard and managed to jack-knife in the bed, with my body and head wedged at odd angles. To make it worse, my body weight was pinioning me in place.  I managed to say “well that didn’t work” before I sank down further and was reduced to “argggh” and “ack.”  Thankfully, my husband figured out I was not kidding around and helped me get my rig righted.  It was a harrowing experience, I tell you, harrowing! Thus concluded the yoga in bed portion of my European vacation.

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I guess all of the yoga and working on opening my deficient chakras is working! This time when I took the Chakra Test, I was only deficient in one area, instead of three.  I was also back to being overactive in the throat.  I have been doing a lot of visualization exercises for my throat chakra, picturing a bright blue light focused on my thyroid. Okay, it probably sounds a little kooky and new-age to some of you, but I am open to it.

I have been working very hard to open my heart chakra, working on “inner body bright” and opening my chest during yoga and bellydance.  I am getting the feel of keeping my shoulder blades on my back, which also helps with bellydance, especially snake arms. The crazy part is that I go from moments of revelation to moment of concealment.  One day, I will just “get it” and then it is gone.  I guess that means that I am at a turning point in my yoga practice.

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These should have been posted along with the photos of the Moulin Rouge. First we have Montmartre, then the Place de la Concord, a cool ceiling in the Musee Cluny, the tree lined Champs-Élysées, an Art Nouveau Paris Métro station entrance, Le Bateau Lavoir, a public water fountain, and the Moulin de la Galette.

Thus concludes the photo essay portion of my European Vacation. It might not compare to the National Lampoon epic, but it certainly had its funny moments. I will use a few of those experiences for future posts.

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Okay, these are some things that just made me laugh, including an incomprehensible toilet. My husband referred to it as a Chinese toilet, because China was the only other place he had seen this type of convenience. I double checked the door to make sure I had entered the right stall and then decided it was definitely worthy of a photo. Had I not been taking yoga for several months, I do not know that I could have used this without wetting myself or at least my shoes. I have never clutched my jeans so tightly in all my life! By the way, the paper was not from me, I have been on enough ships and boats to know that the paper goes into the trash and not down the drain.

The only place there seemed to be a real problem with dog poop was on a particular path in Arles, which, ironically, was also the only place we saw signs about picking up after your dogs. Human waste certainly outweighed the animal kind on this trip. You can try to convince me that the cuffs of my pants in Paris smelled like dog pee, but I saw men urinating in the street. It would take ten to twenty dogs to create that kind of volume. Plus, dogs prefer to spread the wealth, marking as many places as possible on a single outing.

I also took pictures of some signs that struck me as funny and thought I would share.

After a good rain, snails were everywhere around Arles. It was kind of funny to see them after my husband had actually eaten escargot. I decided to dub them Free Range Escargot.

I had to add this picture, because it was one of those parking situations that seemed to pop up now and again in Europe, but we really only had to face them when we had the rental car in Provence.

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I just thought I would share a few sheepy images from France. I never did get to go into the shop with the cool sheep and felted things swag, because they were never open when I was around that area of town. There were quite a few farms with sheep in Provence, but I did not see any fiber arts stuff, except for the shop below.

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Marseilles is a very big city, one of the largest in France. It also is a very diverse port city, full of immigrants and cultures from all over the world. We went down to the Old Port marina, but the rough water prevented us from taking a boat ride to the Isle d’If. We made a point of checking out the Arab market, which was interesting and depressing at once. There were quite a few people in need; a mother nursing her newborn and a young man missing his arm among them. These were not just beggars, like in Paris, but desperate people with no other options. It was also interesting that they not only did not ask for money (they just raised their cups in tremulous supplication), they did not even make eye contact. It was the only place where I actually gave money to people in the street. Their pain and need were palpable.

On a much lighter note, I could not resist taking the picture of my husband in the train station, can you tell he was a little perturbed? We had a little trouble getting back to Arles, because the officious wanker at the ticket counter left us waiting for a train that did not actually run on the day we were there. When the train never posted on the departure board, we made a second trip through the ticket office queue and got information for a train that was actually on the schedule for the day. We had to sit and wait for the track information to be posted then run to the right place, because it was first come, first serve and not reserved seating. There were dozens of other people doing just the same thing, but we did find seats and made it back to Arles.

There were a lot of armed soldiers in the train station. I missed the best shot, with six or seven of them armed with machine guns, walking side by side, taking up the whole aisle. I did manage to get pictures of several of them making rounds through the station. It may have been because of the election or the recent riots, but I saw more machine guns in France than I have seen anywhere outside of television coverage of a war zone or police action. It was a little unsettling.

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It’s Wednesday, so I thought I would play along with Create a Connection’s Getting to Know You question. If you do not know much about golf, check out the Wikipedia entry for Mulligan.

If you could have a redo moment in your life, would you do it and what would it be? Not changing history drastically-it’s all just a what if.

For example-would you have waited to get married later. Would you have had your children at an earlier age. Not have dated that strange girl/guy back in 11th grade.

I would not want to change anything really, since it might mean that I would not end up where I am now, and I am very happy with my life at this point in time. Very existential, I know, but I would not be here without the bumps, bruises, scars, mistakes and heartbreaks.

That said, it would have been cool to discover bellydance and yoga much earlier. I could have been nicer to people. I would not have lost touch with friends. There are a million things that could have been, but weren’t. So it is really about where I go from here.

On that note, I am learning to open up…yoga and learning about chakras have helped me with that. I have been working on visualizations for my throat and heart chakras at night just before I go to sleep. Last week I got deeper into certain yoga moves that I ever had before. Today, the instructor from the class where I really opened up, commented on how much my yoga practice and strength have improved. It was a pretty awesome compliment. Since getting back from Europe, I am walking less, it tends to tighten up my hamstrings and quads. I also finally got back into the pool, which might have something to do with it.

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This old Benedictine Abbey is a giant old rambling building. Except for the gift shop, it is empty, but it is still a fascinating and photogenic place. The area around the Abbey is just beautiful; a pastoral dream. It is so large, it can be seen in the distance from the Arles Arena Tower (see picture taken with zoom).

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The arena in Nimes, like the one in Arles, is in such good shape that it is still in use. There are other sites to see in town, like the Maison Carree, Jardins de la Fontaine, and the Temple of Diana. We both thought the Temple of Diana was very cool. Just as a side note, archaeologists now think it was actually a Roman library and not a temple at all. The gardens were also lovely.

Fontvielle seems to be the place to stay if you have children, it even has Euro-minigolf which was sort of surprising. The photograph is of the old windmill that Alphonse Daudet used as his inspiration for his collection of short stories, Lettres de Mon Moulin.

St. Remy is a lovely little town. That said, one of my husband’s main reasons for hiking up the hill was to see Glanum, but the monuments were under renovation and completely obscured with scaffolding. It really irked him that they put both monuments out of commission at once. Judging by the disappointed bus load of tourists we encountered there, he was not the only one. We did wander around the town and take in the Van Gogh scenery. St. Remy is where he was hospitalized after cutting off his ear and where he painted many of his most famous tableaus. It is also the birthplace of Nostradamus.

Next up is Aix, where all of the beautiful people are supposed to be. I am not sure exactly what we expected, but it was just another city like Nimes. The Cours Mirabeau was definitely not Rodeo Drive and it was hard to figure out what all the excitement was about. We did encounter more conspicuous displays of wealth than in other places and more men in expensive couture loafers. There was one particular gentleman that stood out; all he needed was a small chihuahua to peek out of his Louis Vuitton purse to complete the Paris Hilton parody. We were both a little let down after the big build up from the travel guides.

I liked the feel of Arles and St. Remy better than any of the other towns we visited. They were smaller, easier to navigate, had great sites, fabulous restaurants, and the people were friendly. I suppose we had a preference for the smaller towns in Provence, but Arles made the perfect base of operations and I so glad my husband chose it over Aix.

Next up will be the Montmajour Abbey, which has so many photos that it gets a post of its own, even though we visited it on the same day as Fontvielle and St. Remy.

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