Paris… Amboise… AMSTERDAM!!!

When last we left our traveler, he was about to head to Paris to meet his beautiful wife.  I haven’t written since then because the i-net is SO expensive…   So here is the executive summary:

 Paris> 

In Paris, there are little elves that get inside your pockets and steal Euros.  I swear.  I don’t know how, but one minute you have twenty euros in your pocket, and the next there is nothing. You didn’t eat, you didn’t drink.  You only rode the metro and saw a museum and bought a postcard, and voila, no more Euros. 

 Solution?  Franprix, the local neighborhood grocery store, where you can buy two slices of ham for .60euros, a baguette for a euro, and then fill up your water bottle outside Notre Dame cathedral.  There you go. 

 Amboise>

Toni and I visited a castle where a bunch of French kings lived and that later Napoleon had torn down.  I saw how beautiful the original plans were, and felt myself getting a bit mad at Napoleon for tearing it down.  He was a short little guy, though, so I am sure it made him feel good to tear down someone’s palace.

Leonardo DaVinci lived there was well and was good friends with a french king (Frank II, I think) and spent his last three years there developing a good friendship with Frank.  We had to pay 8 euros to see Frank’s castle, and then they would have charged 12 euros to see Leo’s place.  Leo’s place looked cooler, and then I checked my pockets and it appears the elves followed us down from Paris. 

 The next day we rented bikes and rode from Amboise to Chenonceaux and saw Henri II’s castle.  There he housed CAtherine de Medici after housing his lover Diane Poitier.  Diane had the bigger garden of the two women, and obviously the bigger place in Henri’s heart.  But then Henri died and Catherine told Diana to hit the road, and then proceeded to paint her initials all over the whole house.

I realized out there that what we call the study of history is little more than memorizing a 500 year old gossip column.

 On to Holland>

Last night we rolled into Holland, starting to get excited in anticipation of the CA staff conference.  Excited about worshipping our God, about pouring out our hearts before Him, offering our emptiness in exchange for His fullness.   Our tiredness for his energy.  Our weakness for His strength.

 So this morning we did a walking tour through the red light district and around the city past all the Coffee Shops where you can smoke a joint in front of the cops.  I turned my head neither to the left nor the right, and made sure not to breathe to deeply.

We paused to consider the ramifications of the legalization of marijuana, and then walked on to nicer parts of the city.

Of all the travels so far, Amsterdam is definitely the most beautiful.

 The elves are in my pockets again eating Euros even as I type, and so I close.

Hemingway, Argentines, Santiago on Pilgrimage, and Me

Well, these past four days have been an amazing time.  I bussed overnight to Pamplona and then wandered the funereal streets for half an hour at 6:30 in the morning trying to get something to eat when I ran into Gabriel, an Argentine globe-trotter who had come into Pamplona by train and had been wandering around the funereal streets for half an hour, you guessed it, trying to get something to eat.

I (or we, not sure) decided to hang out together looking for food.  We were headed backwards down the street where the Running of the Bulls takes place, and I figured if there were any bulls, we would be better off together than separate. 

 We continued walking and asked a few people about food, and then it happened.

 A very nice woman who was out for a stroll at 7:00 am on a Sunday morning, came up and started walking alongside us.  We asked for a place to buy bread and coffee and she said she would walk with us.  

 She saw our backpacks, saw that we were together, and asked, “So when did you begin the pilrimage?”  Paolo Coelho’s book on the Pilgrim of Compostela came crashing back into my mind, and I remembered that it mentioned Compostela. 

If you’re Catholic, you know about it already.   St. James went to Spain and walked the length of the northern part of the country, from Roncesvalles, France all the way to Santiago de Compostela and built this gargantuan Cathedral.  Only, it wasn’t then called Santiago de Compostela, and he didn’t really build the Cathedral.  Anyway, thousands of people dedicate a month or so to go walking across Spain to recall his travels.

I had only been walking on the brick streets for half an hour, by this time hungrier than ever, and my ankles hurt like the dickens.  There were a few awkward things that we had to explain to her and I felt bad at the end.  First of all, we weren’t together.  I mean, culturally, we had this Rioplatense connection, and we had been chatting for some five minutes, but we weren’t really together. 

Secondly, we weren’t on pilgrimage.  Well, not on that sort of pilgrimage.  Gabriel had been to his great-grandparents house in some podunk town in southern Italy, and I was slowly headed to the Christian Associates staff conference.  So, I suppose, in some strange way, we were both on pilgrimage. 

At first she didn’t get it.  Why would be on this backpacker’s holy highway, wearing backpacks, walking together, if were just looking for a cup of coffee?  She had biked the whole route last summer in two weeks, but she thought you should really walk if you can so you can really take it all in.

I thought on that for a second, and wondered what I would miss on a 500 mile journey if I was riding a bike rather than just walking.  You might underestimate the number of yellow flowers that were in that field you passed.  Or maybe you wouldn’t see as many cigarette butts when you went through the towns as you would if you were walking.  I would be tempted to do the whole thing screaming down the highway in a convertible listening to the Benedictine Monks Greatest Hits or something, stopping to pray before I ate a hot dog or something like that. 

 Bueno, the short story is that I got caffeinated, and ate some bread, and then continued to walk after I exchanged email addresses and bade a sad farewell to my fellow pilgrim, who had walked together with me the long road from the Saturnine Church to the Bakery.  I will miss him.

 From there I headed back to the Santiago Road, and then started getting weird looks, because now I was doing the whole thing backwards.  I greeted fellow soujourners as they walked by and gave me odd looks (didn’t the arrows point in the OTHER direction?).  Many local well wishers greeted me also.  “Buen viaje” (Have a good trip), they said, with a slightly confused, pious look in their eyes.

I went to church and then continued walking, up the running of the bulls road all the way to the Bull Ring and these beautiful dedications to Ernest Hemingway.  Now I can add another photo to my literary greats photo collection.  I have a picture of Kevin Compton and myself at Faulkner’s grave, and now I have the bust of Ernest Hemingway to add to it.

 I went down and spent a few days out in the country, where it was hot, dry, and beautiful.

 Now I am back in Pamplona, catching up on some work details, sending off a couple of postcards, blogging, and trying to get to the train station by 5:00 so I can head off to Paris. 

Eddie, Quijote, and Sancho

Well, I am sitting in a cyber watching the clock tick like mad, trying to load up some photos I have taken, but alas, can’t.

I am on day 3 in Madrid, and it is amazing how fast you can run out of Euros. Day one was out to see Franco’s final resting place, and the Monasterio San Lorenzo de El Escorial, which is sort of the Westminster Abbey of Spain. And I thought the Recoleta cemetery in Buenos Aires was impressive. Nada que ver.

I am trying to get my head around living in a place that is so steeped in history. “Oh yeah, that building there? That was built in 1100. You know, 500 years before the pilgrims set foot on Massachusettes soil. Long before Martin Luther ever thought about reforming anything.” I mean, if Luther himself had seen it, he would said, “Man, THAT’S an old building.” Except, he would have either said it in Latin or in German, depending on whether or not he had started reforming anything. Amazing.

Yesterday was 3 hours around the Thyssen museum, learning more about art than I ever thought I would. They had one de Kooning (red man with moustache) and one Pollock painting (don’t remember which). I only thought of Val Kilmer and Ed Harris (drunk and in charge of an automobile).

I went to a €2.50 cinema last night and watched The Big Fish. It was about a guy living in Paris whose Dad is dying in Alabama. He doesn’t talk much with his dad on accounta bein’ so far away and on accounta seeins’ how his dad is a real show stealer with all his stories and tall tales. I thought I had seen it before, but then remembered it was when I was heavily medicated. I had only seen the first 15 minutes and last 5 minutes. I was glad I didn’t know what movie I was going to, because I would have said, “Oh, I already saw that and I don’t care too much for it.” Aside from being a bad guest (I was going along only halfway invited anyway), I would have missed a movie I really enjoyed seeing, and would have been forced to sit somewhere at an outdoor café eating tapas and drinking beer by myself, sad that my wife was in Memphis and I was in Madrid (there is a whole bunch of embedded mockery toward culture purist snobs in there, I hope it is easily recognizable).

Tonight I am going to worship with the people from the Oasis church, a small outfit in Madrid that is doing all sorts of experimental stuff. I got the whole scoop from Kelly Wills and Amy Swacina, and if you google their names, you can scoop yourself.

This afternoon I managed to eat lunch on €2.00, buying a Baguette and 100 grams of turkey lunchmeat and a beverage of my choice. I felt like I beat the tourist establishment and then felt a little guilty like I might be starting the downfall of Spain’s 20 year ascendancy on the world stage. I mean, what if all the tourists that ever came here just crashed on a friend’s sheetless furniture and ate €2.00 meals? I feel the Inquisition coming on already. Well, I am sure I’ll make up for it in Paris, once my bride arrives and we start living the fantasy land of l’amour (free) and Mastercard.

Tonight I am off to Pamplona and then a few days in the country.

Heading to Madrid with Eddie

Sitting in my living room right now handling final details.  Allie and Toni are showering, and in another couple hours we are off to the airport.  They’ll drop me off first and then hang out with some friends before being taken to the airport themselves.  Next stop, Madrid, Jay Sensenig, Kelly Wills, and Amy Swacina, who will be showing me what Christian Associates has going on in Madrid.

  Allie sends me off with a picture of herself and Mamaw so that I can remember her while I am travelling.

Bon Voyage.