Often I sit in the departure lounge to write. I like to enjoy each place fully and the experience isn’t over until the call to board the aircraft. This time we left Paris by train which meant I didn’t have the mundane airport or the back of an airline seat to stare at. Instead, the landscapes of Paris gave way to the landscapes of Belgium and after only an hour, the ride was over. So here I am in Brussels, Belgium writing of Paris. But let’s pretend I am sitting in my new favorite Paris cafe, Fondation Cafe (the one with the mint green cup and saucer on my Instagram), sipping my cafe creme and writing to all of you.

Here goes:

It is no secret that I love Paris. My college roommate and her friends were French and we became fast friends and I fell in love with a Frenchman. In the summer of 86, eight of us traveled together throughout France. They brought me to their homes, second homes and bateaux on the Riviera. It was a dreamy experience and there was a time when I might have lived here. We have since fallen out of touch but my love for Paris hasn’t wavered (much).* I love the grand boulevards, thank you Mssr. Haussman, and the maze of the Marais; I love the flowers in the markets and storefronts, the gardens and squares, the food and wine; I love the sweet soft sound of the language and the sensuality implied in all of it. Andy and I traveled here when we were still testing our relationship, we passed obviously, and we returned several times alone and with Tania and our girls. The last time we were here, Rose was 3 and Lauren 5. This is why they wanted to return. They didn’t remember it and they felt it was a key place – “How can we go around the world and not see Paris, the Eiffel Tower?” So we came. We saw the sights. The Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo in the Louvre. Impressionists at Musee d’Orsay. The Tour d’Eiffel and Place d’Etoile, Pont Neuf and the bridge of secrets (locks). Cathedral Notre Dame. And then we just walked a neighborhood or two – crepes at nowhere special in Quartier Latin, benches in the Place des Voges, more crepes on the Isle Saint Louis. And we went to some old faves – two challah from Rue des Rosiers, a chocolat chaud “L’Africain” and a Mont Blanc from Cafe Angelina, a new dress from Catherine Andre :-).

Four days go very quickly and, as with every visit to Paris, I leave vowing to return.

*Much – because in Cape Town we saw the rudest French people EVER. The line for the cable car up Table Mountain was long, even with the pre-purchased tix, and it was hot hot hot like 95F and this snotty little group of French cut the line! The audacity of the move floored me. How can I explain it? Ok, let’s say the line was 100 meters / yards long. Well, they cut in at the 5 yard line! I threatened to learn a new language and eschew les francais, completement. I would learn to speak Japanese or Canadian – the two politest nationalities I’ve come across yet.

But here is what I have learned since Table Mountain. The wealthy french are traveling (and rude) while those actually in France are working and lovely and often immigrants. The Polish waitress, lovely. The Spanish sales clerk, helpful. All of this is anecdotal but in the Cape Winelands (South Africa) we met a french couple in finance who explained that there are no jobs in France. The finance people have moved to London and Paris is just a shopping and tourism city. A nice place for the wealthier set. I’d like to say its not true; but in my heart I know I’d be lying.

When we left South Africa for Jordan and Israel, I expected really cold weather. Nothing compared to the polar vortex that our friends back home are enduring, but cold enough that boots, hats, and jackets might be required. We had hail and snow in Petra and Wadi Rum and then all of the sudden it was spring.

Jerusalem’s trees flowered. Tulips greeted us in Istanbul. (Istanbul planted 7 MILLION tulip bulbs this year and apparently the Turkish Sultan Ahmet III was known as the Tulip King.) In Cappadocia, I saw carpets of small purple wild flowers and shrubs with delicate pink flowers that I don’t recall in Turkish but I think are barberry. Rome’s grand streets were lined with flowering plum trees, its courtyards covered in wisteria. And now, we are in Paris. Glorious Paris.

It’s a fanciful image but I feel like I’m experiencing a scene from Disney’s Fantasia – the one set to the Rites of Spring when the fairy flies over the land and all that was dormant is made to thrive again. No matter how mild or miserable the winter, spring makes it all better.

A special hello and happy birthday to Anthony. Tania’s little boy turned 2 on April 2 but today’s his party. We love and miss you guys. Turn your Skype on!!

Photos of Spring as the Fairy works her magic:

Wadi Rum

Jerusalem:

 
Istanbul and Cappadocia

Rome’s Flowering Trees

Paris. Glorious Paris.

Pagans: Way back in the day…the Romans worshipped many many gods and they didn’t take kindly to those who failed to do the same. Romans killed Jews and Christians alike for failing to bow down to the Roman emperors and their gods. Oftentimes, these killings were on public display in the Roman Colosseum. The Colosseum was the Madison Square Garden of its day but the primary form of entertainment was more violent than hockey; Romans watched fights to the death. When Romans conquered Judea and other places, they brought their prisoners back, paraded them through the gates of Rome and the Roman forum before locking them in the chambers below the Colosseum. Later these prisoners would become part of the Emperor’s (and commoner’s) entertainment and would be matched against other spoils of war like lions and other beasts. The accounts of such events make the stomach turn.

Popes: According the Church History, St. Peter was Jesus’s designated successor – “the rock” of the future church. St. Peter traveled to Rome praising the Word of The Lord seeking to convert the pagans to Christianity. St. Peter, martyred here on Vatican hill in 64 AD, is considered the first “pope” of the Catholic Church and so it seemed a fitting place for Constantine to dedicate a church to St. Peter. When people think of the Vatican, they often think of the pope standing on a balcony from St. Peter’s Basilica addressing the crowds. It is an enormous church, two football fields long and 143 feet high in the aisles, 450 feet to the top of the dome. The Vatican is its own country, with its own post office, and its treasury is rich in cash and art – early Egyptian mummies and pottery to works by Matisse and Chagall. Not to mention the papal studies and antechambers of Renaissance art – whole rooms of Rafaello and Bernini. Then, of course, there is the Sistine Chapel, a work of art in itself – frescoes painted by Michelangelo on nearly every surface.  Did you know…….Michelangelo originally refused the assignment?  He told the Pope that he was a sculptor and not a painter but Pope Julius II insisted and in the end Michelangelo could not refuse. So for four years, 1508-1512, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with the story of the Torah/Old Testament from Creation to Noah’s ark. The images are full of hope and goodness. Twenty three years later Michelangelo painted the Last Judgment and the images are darker, not only because it’s about Judgment Day, but because he had become disillusioned with the church and the protestant reformation was just getting underway.

Today’s Pope, Francis I, is the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church. He is the first to come from the Americas and the first Jesuit. I like the Jesuits; they value education as an individually unique pursuit (cura personalis) and didn’t judge me for choosing to be Jewish. Which leads me to food…

Pizza: we ate lots of pizza! Our AirBnB host, Emanuele, gave us two places that locals believe to be the best and I had a list of a few others from favorite food blogs and guides. In the end, we agreed that Gaudi wins for the freshest ingredients but it has a thick crust (we prefer thin); La Baffetto had the best thin crust and good proportion of tomato to cheese, but the cheese was of standard quality; and Monte Carlo wins best all-round with excellent quality cheese, good balance of tomato and good, if slightly charred, thin crust.

We searched out the best Cacio e Pepe as well – two standouts were Felice and Roshioli but if, like us, you are going to compare it to Mario Batali’s version at Lupa you might be disappointed no matter where in Rome you are.

From here we are heading to Paris. And just so you know, this was not my idea. The girls want to go and as you probably know…I can’t say no to Paris!

David Sedaris keeps a notebook. In it he scribbles notes of things he sees, fodder for short stories. Wish I had done that in Jerusalem. There are so many things to write about but I am having trouble putting it together – it is all jibberish. Thoughts just flood in and I have no capacity to organize them, thematically or otherwise. So I am going to retrospectively take a Sedaris approach to keep the jibberish to a minimum and hope that I’ll make something of it later…

Friday – got to get there before shabbat and all is closed; tired from 5 hour drive; Rose and I rush to market; secure wine, challah; house has candles; post blessing reservations at Adom made; wine opener broken; second wine opener broken; fruit of the vine is tomato; cancel Adom; sleep instead; not what I had imagined for our first shabbat in Israel

Saturday – Israel Museum – Eldad’s awesome education program; is it too late to be an artist?; art world conflicts – schools from TLV v. Jerusalem; sculpture garden link to Zen gardens in Kyoto; mind wanders off to recall the images of the Silver Pavilion (Ginkaku-ji) and the art on Naoshima, the polite culture of the Japanese which I prefer to the Chinese tourists I still think I hear spitting behind me; an amazing lunch with Miri’s cheesecake – maybe I will learn to bake; Netta and life in the military; L&R continue to impress me with their manners and ability to engage with grownups; txt msg – their best friends have arrived at the house in Jerusalem; REUNIONS – Liv and Nan and Leon; hugs and nonstop laughter – if I could I’d stream it in the background for next six days; boy bands 1D/5SOS; get hamentashen and mishloach-manot

Sunday – full day tour with Danny the Digger; one god, three religions; one state v. two state solutions and lots of we-they; wet tunnel, narrow, dark, worth it; antiquities – shekels, oil container and lamp from time of Maccabees; prayers at Kotel; textile merchant with 6th C church he found under his shop; dinner discussions of property rights – examples of those returning home to east Berlin after wall came down; art looted in WWII; meaning of life

Monday – Purim; up early; taxi to wrong synagogue – Great Synagogue is not the same as Great OLD Synagogue; first is the home of a man from White Plains, second is orthodox; oops – women upstairs; seated; ahhhhh Megillah; tzedacha; do it again; women read Megillah at first station; girls listen; break for ice skating; Mehane Yehuda purim reveling; joyful feast at Chakra

Tues – Western wall tunnels; stones are massive; men and women praying (separately) closest to temple; hummus Ben Sira; homework day; more 5SOS

Wed – Yad Vashem; generosity of Scott; warmth of Malkie W; experience is more educational and less gruesome/dark than I recall; girls take it all in; story of Rivka’s courage and the commitment of true love; view out over the city – Am Israel Chai…

Thursday – Masada; nice Kiwi travelers and suggestions for another great walk on the South Island; gondola; En Gedi’s ancient synagogue; floating in Dead Sea; mud scrub; ouch there are rocks in that mud!; shower, repeat; harvest salt; mud for Rachel; drive back and talk abut the walls that separate communities

Friday – marathon; post office worker warm and kind, Bank Leumi teller cold and surly; Liv’s amazing packing skills gets L&R organized; shabbat at Kotel with davening black hats, tourists, military officers singing Am Israel Chai, remembering Malkie’s tour; a working wine opener; two loaves; Rose and Nan light candles; adults bless wine; Lauren and Liv make motzi; have they outgrown the camp chorus or never liked it in the first place?; from pre-K to bat mitzvah to Aliyah; don’t cry

Saturday – 5am departure; 5SOS news alert; hugs and farewells; no traffic

See what I mean?

We arrived Tel Aviv March 9 very tired.  We had been traveling since 10am March 8 from Knysna, South Africa.  We had to recover quickly as the agenda for visiting Jordan and Israel would be jam-packed.

As is our practice now, when we arrive in a new country we make two key airport purchases.  First stop, ATM for cash.  Some charge a small fee and others charge fees that are down right criminal.  Second stop, and this one can take a while, we get new SIM cards.  Andy and I have second phones for which we need local phone SIMs and then we get a data only SIM with 3-5 Gig capacity for our MiFi (portable wifi).  This is key because the girls have to keep up with their school work (a subject for another post but in short, they are maintaining high scores and working very hard).  Anyway, sometimes this is a painful process and other times not so much.  The girls have become used to the extra hour in each airport as these essential items are procured.  Lauren is adept at finding free wifi and settling down for the wait. Our Israeli SIMs took a long time but the staff at Cell C couldn’t have been nicer.  I left with a suggested driving route from Tel Aviv to Jordan; a list of restaurants in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem; and the name of an area, far from the hostilities, where young Israelis and Palestinians share natural springs and swim spots in peace.

One night in Tel Aviv meant that we wouldn’t see much but we did our best to see the old fort; walk one of the hip shopping streets; and enjoy an excellent Tel Aviv bakery.  We followed our Cell C recommendations and drove from Tel Aviv to Eilat by way of Mizpe Ramon (making a stop to lay a stone at Ben Gurion’s grave) and the great crater area (Israel’s mini Grand Canyon).  One night in Eilat (which I hope to never repeat) and then a seamless crossing into Jordan at 7am on March 11.  Ahhh.  From here we will slow our pace and take in the amazing landscape and history of Jordan and Israel.

Petra

This is the beginning of the Rift Valley.  Go ahead, open Google Maps and take a look.  Or, here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_African_Rift   See in the insert the line that runs through Jordan and the Arabian plate and then the valley that is created down to East Africa?  The breaking apart of the three plates has created a valley that runs from Petra to Tanzania!  I find this especially interesting.

So here we are in Petra for two days.  To enter Petra (the “Lost City”, the “Rose Red City”) we must pass through the Siq – this is that fault line.  So cool.

On our first day, we saw the Treasury and then took the moderate hike to see the Monastery.  On our second, we hiked to the High Place of Sacrifice.  This is where people came to offer animal sacrifice.  On our leisurely walk back down, we visited various tombs and even got lost.  The Bedouin children are quick to the rescue with directions, for a dinar.  If it hadn’t been snowing, we might have hiked up to see the Royal Tombs as well.  But alas, we were cold and the rocks are slippery when wet.

Wadi Rum

Wadi means valley and Rum means mountains.  It’s an accurate naming of this place. We left Petra at 9am and were sand-boarding by 11am.  I took a really funny video of the girls going down together with a full tumble at the end that you might have seen on my Instagram!  Our guide, Adil is sweet young man of only 20 years.  Most of our guides on our trips have been older, some with PhD’s.  It was fun to be out with this young man and his jerry-rigged car stereo. He sang full out with his stereo blasting as he drove us from site to site in this great valley.  We were in the desert with near freezing temperatures but his youthful attitude was warm indeed.  We roamed the valley taking in various sites, made lunch in a walled cave, hiked through valleys, and then Rose drove the jeep. She did well and we survived.

That night we joined with six others at our tented camp to drink lots of tea by the fire and hear stories passed from grandfathers to sons over many generations.  The Wadi Rum was a key passageway in ancient times and the people who lived here were wealthy from trading with the caravans as they passed from Damascus to Mecca.  We saw rock carvings of the people from that time, Lawrence of Arabia’s home, the fresh water spring that watered camels as they passed, and families still living the Bedouin lifestyle in the valley (somehow, I don’t have any photos of them).

We left early March 14 for Israel.  The border crossing was equally easy, though Lauren and I both had our bags thoroughly inspected by the Israeli soldiers.  (Note to self:  lingerie should always be in its own bag.)  From here we would make our way to Jerusalem…

I am now a licensed pilot on three continents. As with Australia, flying in Africa was not without its difficulties.

Our African flying experience started in Tanzania where we took several flights on Cessna Caravans between various safari and other locations. Although these were commercial flights, I was able to fly “right seat” on most of them, I even got in some time at the controls. Flying in Tanzania is interesting as many of the runways are not paved, and there is limited radar coverage. All of our pilots, but one, were excellent. That one pilot flew like it was it first day on the job and unfortunately I was not in “right seat” during that flight so I all I could do was sit in the back and hope for the best.

Once in South Africa, we were set up to rent a small Cessna 172 for two weeks from Hank’s Aero, a company that specializes in self-fly safaris. The South Africa validation process is nothing like Australia. Thanks to the help of Ross, who works for Hank’s, in one day my South Africa validation was complete. Hank’s arranged for me to meet an air traffic controller and an instructor for the flight test. The whole process was painless and informative.

The plan was for me to fly the seven hours from JoBurg to Cape Town by myself and for Karie, Lauren and Rose to take a commercial flight. From there we would go on various day trips and other short flights. The night before the flight, I checked in with the airports along the way and found out that the runway at Stellenbosch, the airport that I was planning to use near Cape Town was going to be closed for the week. I found an alternative airport and planned my route.

My early morning departure from JoBurg featured hazy skies, but I was well prepared for the route. I did have some trouble understanding the controllers, more due to the lack of good headsets than accents. An hour into the flight I had a major problem. The ammeter was jumping wildly and there was a smell of smoke in the cockpit. I shut down the alternator and some unnecessary electronics and the smoke smell went away. Nevertheless I was not willing to continue to fly in an unfamiliar plane over an unfamiliar country with some electrical failure.

I informed Air Traffic Control of the problem, and requested landing at the nearest airport. I didn’t know anything about the facilities there, but I figured that it was best to get on the ground quickly. I was able to land without incident as the plane was flying normally and there was no additional smoke or smell.

Fortunately, I landed at Klerksdorp, an airport with a mechanic, a restaurant and even a charter service. I took advantage of all three. While the mechanic was checking out the plane, I had lunch at the restaurant/bar. At first it seemed that the plane could be fixed, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. I then chartered a flight the rest of the way to Cape Town.

In Cape Town I made several attempts to rent a plane. However I wasn’t able to schedule another plane or instructor due to the closed runway at Stellenbosch, the short notice, and the limited number of planes available for training and rental. My flying in South Africa wasn’t a complete washout, however, as I went for another sightseeing flight over the Garden Route.

We hope to return to both South Africa and Australia at some point and I hope to fly some more in these fantastic countries.

–Andy