Paris Continued

Tues 23 March: This begins our last week in Europe unless the threatened strike by British Airways stalls us. To be truthful, neither of us would mind. I'm not anxious to end this big adventure. Be that as it may, we awoke to a bright sunny day. We went to McDonald's for breakfast. Money is tight. They have almost as good coffee as we've had in Europe; the breakfast is satisfying, and it cost 5,20 euro for both of us. Compare that to 18-20 euro at a sit down restaurant. Moreover, at three blocks from our hotel and a dozen steps from our underground stop, it's convenient. After breakfast, we caught our crowded train, made a transfer, and stepped out into bright warm and welcome sunshine. It's the best weather day we've had. First, we walked to Rue Cler to find a "train boutique"- a place where we can make reservations for our Calais to Dover crossing, but it was closed. We walked the Rue Cler with it's wonderful markets, restaurants, and shops- a real slice of Parisian life.We stopped at this charming cheese shop. Keep in mind the French revere their cheeses. It is said that smelling good cheese is like smelling the feet of angels. I don't know about that, since I'm not likely to get close enough to an angel to smell its feet. Meanwhile, I'll take the cheese. With so many choices, Sheila and I could not make up our minds, so the shopkeeper suggested that we take a sampling which was a container with a variety of cheeses. Apparently we were not the only ones with our problem. The shopkeeper said, "But you must also have bread and only wine not water." as he pointed to the water bottle I carried. When we had to select from a variety of breads and wines, we had less problem making our own unguided selections. We asked if their was a problem drinking in the Tuilleries Garden where we were headed. "No problem he said," with a wave of his hand and he supplied us with ice cream cups for the purpose. We paid for our purchases and walked on to the Tuilleries Gardens. Their were signs indicating that consumption of alcohol would not be appreciated despite the shopkeeper's assurance to the contrary. So, we walked on to the Eiffel Tower. This monument, once the highest structure in the world, to French industry is really impressive. It is almost 1000 feet tall. People in long lines waited to take either the elevator, an innovation in itself, or walk the stairs to the upper levels of this tower. I'd been atop the Arc de Triomp so I felt no need to wait in a long line just to test my acrophobia. Besides, our museum pass did not cover the 8 euro cost. As we threaded our way through the crowd, we were stopped by vendors trying to sell us miniature Eiffel Towers and beggars wanting to know if we spoke English. If you answer in the affirmative, the beggar, usually a little girl, gives you a note written in English asking for money. We've just learned to hold up our hand and shake our head, no. They move on. I forgot. Sheila witnessed a man get his pocket picked on the crowded subway. He just reached into the man's inside jacket pocket, took his wallet, and disappeared into the crowd as the doors opened. Apparently pickpockets are most apt to steal something just before the doors of the train open so they can get away. They have it worked out. Sheila an I ran the gauntlet and walked down to the River Seine. We found a comfortable spot on the steps, opened our wine, had wonderful bread and cheese, and watched the river traffic. It was a gorgeous day. We lingered there passing time in a relaxed way, talking, laughing while Parisian life passed around us. We walked to Napoleon's Tomb and the Army Museum both worth seeing and both covered by our passes. I was very interested in the Military Museum. It has extensive exhibits covering both world wars. Following that, we went to the August Rodin Museum. That too was good especially "The Kiss" and "The Gates of Hell" It was interesting to see a group of school children I estimated to be about ten getting art instruction in front of a statue that was anatomically explicit. Would I, as a teacher in the US, take a group of pre adolesents to sit and stare at someone's privates? Answer: No! We wouldn't be allowed. Someone would complain. All the same the statuary was great. I've heard that Rodin was the greatest sculptor since Michelangelo. I don't know, but it's impressive all the same. We walked back to the river and sat beside some barges that are clearly peoples homes and finished our bread, cheese and wine while watching the sun go down back lighting the Eiffel Tower. It was very picturesque and romantic. We walked some distance back to a place where we could catch the #7 to Gare Est and make our ferry to Dover reservations. From there, we caught the train back to the Cadet, our stop, went to the market, then walked back to the hotel on tired even sore feet. We'd walked a long way, seen a lot and enjoyed a nice day indeed. More later. Love to all.

Ahh, Paris

Mon 22 March: Sheila and I had a nice breakfast at the hotel. It was nice until the desk clerk told us it cost 12 euro each. We should have asked first. Well, live and learn. We won't do that again. We took the subway to the Louvre Museum and struggled to find the underground access. We never did so we went through the front entrance- the famous and controversial glass pyramid. We located the museum pass office and purchased a couple of passes for 48 euro each. Sounds expensive, but it's really cost effective if you're planning to visit places like a tourist. It gets us into everything we want or have time to see. Then we tackled the museum itself. Tackled is an apt description. Off season and this place was packed with people- guides, school groups, artists with their easels, security people, and the Louvre is huge twelve miles of exhibits in three wings. It was exhausting. We saw some amazing things though. I was most taken by the stela of the Code of Hammurabi- civilization's first written code of law. Additionally, we saw all the things the Louvre is famous for: winged victory, Greek and Roman statuary, famous paintings by many of the masters. It is overwhelming really in the same way the Vatican Museum was. It's almost too much. We had lunch in the food court that sells fast food from around the world. The trouble with so many food choices is when some one passes with a tray, you think, "I wish I'd gotten that." Then we walked through the Carousel-a shopping mall under the Louvre. You could live in the Louvre. Then, needing to be outside, we walked through the Tuilleries Gardens sat for awhile then walked the Champs Elyses to the Arc de Triomph and climbed the 240 steps to the top the cost covered by our passes. We had a clear day, and the view was magnificent. Standing where we were, we were truly in the heart of the city with the major streets radiating from the Arc. All the major sites were visible. The Arc de Triomph was started in 1806 by Louis Philip to commemorate French military victories. They are numerous as they are with any colonial power, but I remarked to Sheila that there is no equivalent monument to their defeats: Germany 1871, Germany again in 1940, Algeria in the fifties, Dien Bien Phu in 1954 to name a few. We had bought a packet of ten train tickets each so we took the train to Isle de Cite and the Cathedral of Notre Dame. The stained glass is amazing as are the flying buttresses that hold up the Gothic walls. A statue of Joan of Arc proclaims her rehabilitation as a saint after she'd been burned alive for heresy and witchcraft. Upon seeing this, I asked Sheila, "Who burned her in the first place?" We walked to the Jewish Deportation Memorial which is right behind the cathedral, but it was closed. We took the train back to our neighborhood, bought food and wine from a local grocery, and ate dinner with the window open overlooking the street below. We watched the English version of CNN News- a news program much different than in the US. I wouldn't say we sensor, but stories about the war in Congo or US health care are much harder hitting here. More later. Love to all.

On to Paris

Sun 21 March: I went down to breakfast before Sheila to write in my journal. I knew I'd have a lot to say. When Sheila joined me, I put it aside, and we had a nice breakfast. We are both looking forward to traveling to Paris on a high speed train arguably the most luxurious one in the world. I paid our bill with our ATM the first time we've done that in our travels. I went across the street to buy a souvenir beer mug for Michael Sander. It has a picture of a British soldier, and it says Ypres Salient 1914-1918. He'll enjoy it for two reasons: it's historic, and it holds beer. We had spent all of our available cash, so we stopped at a nearby ATM to get some. My card was rejected then rejected again. Sheila tried her card same result. Ok, now what? what if we can't get cash? What happened? Did paying our hotel bill in US currency trigger some stop mechanism? We didn't know, but it was nerve wracking. We got our stuff from the hotel, said good bye to Philip, the host, and started out for the train station in a grey drizzling rain. We stopped at another bank to try our card again-no luck. We caught our train. Using our Eurail pass, we made it to Brussels with no problem. Once there, we checked on our train, a very sleek, modern , spiffy looking thing painted maroon and metallic silver. We got on and settled into a very luxurious ride. Uniformed attendants served us unlimited food and wine. We might be broke as hell, but we were sure going to enjoy the ride to the poor house. We were traveling 300 km/hr. We were passing power poles faster than a car passes pickets on a fence. We got to Paris in 1 hour and 15 min not nearly long enough for me. We found another ATM. No problem this time. Whatever it was, it was no longer a problem. We left the station and walked for about ten minutes. We soon discovered that we'd taken a wrong turn. We congratulated ourselves on our fitness and on our ability to roll with mistakes. Neither of us get to excited about things like that. After a while, we found the right street and our hotel, L' Ocean. It's a funny thing, but some hotels make a big deal out of seeing your passport and dutifully writing down the number. This hotel manager couldn't have cared less even after I offered thinking he'd want it. Maybe it's just the French. They really don't like to be told they have to do something. I liked it. Anyway, we checked in, settled into our room, opened the window, and put our feet up on the window sill to watch this little slice of Paris roll by. It was a beautiful evening- blue sky and warm. After awhile, Sheila and I walked to the Seine about 2km from where we were staying. We saw, I for the first time, the Louvre, The Tuilleries Garden, the Orsay Museum, and the Eiffel Tower. It was really magical. Here I was: another pinch me moment seeing many of Paris's major attractions. I was very excited. We walked back, and by this time, I was a little leg weary. We'd been walking for three hours. More later. Love to all.

Ypres Salient Continued

20 March: The Tyne Cot Cemetery also contains a small but interesting museum. The names of the fallen are read quietly but continuously. We saw poetry, the language of the heart, relating feelings toward the horror, the love of home, the resignation to death. The soldier's letters all contain some reassurance for their families and thanks for small favors: cookies sent from home, tooth paste, soap etc.. There are 12,000 in this cemetery, and 34,000 names of those never found. We went to Hill 62, a small private museum. It's filled with artifacts, but most interesting because of the preserved shell holes and trenches. The trenches, a device developed out of the stalemate on the Western Front, were dug to shoulder height. In the rain and snow, these things filled with mud making the duck boards useless. Sheltered places, if you can call them that, were covered with arched galvanized corrugated steel. Farmers today use it to cover firewood. It's hard to believe people lived in these places. A soldier was given about 6ft of space for which he was responsible. He ate, slept, and sometimes defecated here though ideally there was a designated area for this. A soldier was promised one hot meal per day and .125 liters of rum, but under the pressure of war this was not always possible. If a part of battlement, the sandbag protection in front of the trench were destroyed, it was quickly rebuilt with anything at hand sometimes with the bodies of their fallen comrades. The British soldier typically spent a week at the front before being sent rearward for a rest and laundry unless, of course he was needed at the front. Lice were constant companions. Even a delousing and boiled clothing were not enough to rid soldiers of the infestation. After a month at the front, a soldier was sent farther back. Battle fatigue was seen as cowardice and was sometimes punished with execution. A French regiment mutinied in 1917. One in ten were shoot as punishment. After a brief lunch, we were joined by three Brits. We drove to Hill 60 to see the site of the Battle of Mesin Ridge. The allies tunneled under the German position. They dug 21 tunnels sometimes 1000 meters long. They packed these mines with thousands of pounds of explosives. They were detonated simultaneously. Nineteen exploded sending pillars of fire and earth into the air and creating a concussion that was felt in London. Ten thousand Germans were killed outright. Those nearby not killed by the blast were buried alive including 300 Irish. The explosions created craters visible today as deep as 70 feet and 400 meters around. We went to the battle field at Mesin where an artillery barrage 12.5 miles long pounded the Germans with literally millions of shells as the Germans huddled in their reinforced bunkers.(Hitler fought and was wounded here.) The allies, convinced no one could withstand that bombardment, attacked. The Germans were prepared for this. From 7:30a until about noon, the Germans fired 500 rounds a minute per machine gun changing barrels on their weapons when necessary. Over 60,000 soldiers were slaughtered in about 5 hours nearly as many as 3 days of Gettysburg and more than 9 years of Viet Nam. Next, we went to the site of the Christmas Truce. On Christmas Eve of 1914, the allies heard the Germans singing carols. The lines were so close they could hear each other. Soon the allies joined the singing. The Germans invited the allies over. The officers ordered the men not to go thinking it was a trap, the men went anyway. The Brits took their rum, the French their wine, and the Germans shared their beer, and they all celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace. This spread along the lines, and it lasted for days. The "enemies" sang, swapped stories, played football, and exchanged gifts of buttons and badges. In one story, a Brit, who'd spent some time living in Munich, recognized his former barber. Now, the difficulty for the officers: how to get the men to resume the war against newly found friends. Finally, the officers threatened the troops with execution if they did not fire on the Germans. Something like that I'm sure happened on the German side, and the killing resumed. We stopped for a beer. Then Andre took us to the American Memorial to troops who died in the area. It's humorously small. This memorial to the American service dead who gave the "last full measure" is a joke. So I told our companions, who'd remained respectfully silent, "It's nice to see that at least the Americans have a sense of humor." We said our good byes, and Sheila and I went to dinner. I'll never forget this day. World War I broke out in Belgium, trenches were first used here as was lethal poison gas. The Great War as it's called is so significant. It leads directly to the rise of National Socialism and the outbreak of WWII. It is the real end to the old regime in Europe. It leads to the Bolshivek Revolution in Russia and much more. But , to me most importantly, it destroyed a generation of young men. Even if they survived the war, their lives were short circuited physically, mentally and emotionally. How, witnessing such madness, could they not be irrevocably altered? How, if 5000 years of human history could not generate the wisdom to prevent the carnage, could anything make any sense? More later. Love to all.

Ypres Salient

Sat 20 March Sheila and I awoke to the clatter of shopkeepers setting up their open air stalls in the square below our window. It's like a mini mall really selling fresh meats and vegetables, flowers, leather goods, clothing, jewelry, CDs and the like. At 9:30, we met Andre, our guide from Over the Top Tours. Sheila and I had him all to ourselves for the morning. There is something about this war in its tragedy that touches me like no other conflict. It was such a waste, and it was so unnessary. I have looked forward to this tour since we started planning our trip here, and I was not disappointed. In military terms, a salient is a position surrounded on three sides by the enemy. For obvious reasons, it makes it a difficult defensive position. You have to fight on three fronts. After a short drive, we stopped at the Essex Farm Dressing Station and cemetery. There are 163 of these cemeteries in this area. We noticed that gravestones are often grouped together in twos, threes or more the victims of a shell blast or a machine gun spray. Frequently, men were buried where they fell. Most of the men in the cemetery were unnamed. The British used stiff cardboard dog tags. These were often destroyed making identification impossible. Letters home were impersonal where an official crosses out the inappropriate reason for death. It was most frequently: "Missing in action. Presumed dead. At the Menin Gate, there are 53 thousand names. At Tyne Cot 34 thousand. At Langemark there is a mass grave with 25 thousand Germans The monument also contains the names of tens of thousands more dead yet unidentified soldiers. These monuments listing the names of the fallen are all over. Men or parts of men as young as 15 and as old as seventy are buried beneath Flanders Field wrapped in a blanket, the usual method of burial. You get the point, the extent of the devastation is staggering. Nothing in anyone's experience could prepare you for this kind of horror and destruction.The dressing station, no more than a dank low ceilinged bunker designed to help those they could help, and triage the rest. It was so small there was no way they could have kept up with the casualties in one of the most destructive wars in history. There were six of these facilities near here. Only one remains. We visited a German bunker, a shelter from intolerable bombardment with steel reinforced 2.5 meter thick concrete walls capable of withstanding a direct hit. The allies had nothing like it. The Germans took much better care of their troops. We went to Langemark, the German cemetery, which, in part, served the Nazi propaganda machine commemorating what they called the slaughter of the innocents. As they tell the story: Kaiser Wilhelm, believing that the Germans would break through the Allied lines, sent a group of school children to witness it. The Nazis claim thy were gunned down holding hands and singing. In truth, they were running toward the German lines singing in the hope they wouldn't be mistaken as attacking soldiers by the Germans. Who gunned them down is lost in the fog of war. We visited the Canadian Memorial at St Juliene. It was here on April 22, 1915 the Germans released thousands of pounds of chlorine gas the first use of lethal gas in warfare. When the allies realized what it was, they ran creating a huge hole in the allied lines. The Canadians were called in to fill the breach. Some 2000 died here. Fortunately, there were two chemists among the Canadians. They knew that alkaline neutralized chlorine. The only readily available alkaline: urine. The Canadians were instructed to pee on cloth and hold it to their faces for protection. Later, of course, as both sides used gas phosgene then mustard gas, gas masks were developed. Ironically, a German Jew developed these gasses and Zyclon B for the Germans. A short drive later, Andre stopped the van and pointed to two objects beside the road. " Those are hand grenades. Those were not there yesterday," he said. We stopped the van to look. Unexploded ordinance is all over the place here. When something is found, people put it alongside the road and the army comes by to pick it up. We pulled into a farm and went into a barn. There were all kinds of WWI artifacts here: Royal Enfield rifels, parts of machine guns unexploded cannon shells in enough state of rot that we could see the musket-like lead balls that scattered upon detonation tearing to shreds plants animals an men. Chilling. Next, we stopped at Tyne Cot, the British Memorial to the Third Battle of Ypres or Passchendaele. The area is barely above sea level and is kept dry by a complex drainage system. Continuous bombardment destroyed this system. That coupled with a very wet Winter and Spring made the area a quagmire of soupy mud. Men and material had to move along duckboard cat walks. Were a man, wearing up to 100 lbs of gear, to fall into a mud filled shell hole, he would drown before he could be rescued. The fighting was severe and constant. It took the allies 2.5 months to take Passchendaele Ridge. The Germans recaptured it in 3 days. I've read that it cost one human life to gain about 2 inches of territory, but this cost 500,00 lives for no gain whatsoever-a testimony to the futility of war. More later. Love to all.

On the Road Again: Hello Ypres

Fri 19 March: Sheila and I were up early enough to say good bye to Beth, Jeff, and the kids. After they'd gone, we finished our packing, which by this time in the trip has become a matter of minutes, and we were out the door. We made the walk to the train station in a drizzling rain stopping to take pictures of the local residences. It seems that residences are taxed according to the linear footage that faces the street. So houses are narrow and tall. Interesting. We caught the train to Rotterdam Central where we bought food and wine for the journey. Or train to Brussels was supposed to leave from track 4, but track 4, we discovered, did not exist. Really, it didn't exist. We asked an official. She asked where we were going and said that train was rescheduled for track 6. Track 4 was under repair and out of service. It reminded me of a scene from Harry Potter when he looks for platform 7 and one half. Well, we go to track 6 only to find that our train is delayed for 24 minutes. No problem, so we wait. A train arrives several minutes ahead of when it's supposed to, and it looks like a local and not an international. Everyone is confused including the locals. After several minutes of confusion bordering on as close to panic as Sheila and I ever get, we take a leap into faith and climb aboard an extremely crowded train. For the first time in our travels, we cannot find seats together, and we're still not sure this is the right train. Soon we got verification that this was indeed the right train. After a few stops, the train empties out a bit, and Sheila and I find seats together. All is well, and we enjoy the ride together. After about 2 hours, we arrive in Brussels. As trains often do, we paused before pulling into the station. There, below us, prostitutes. (pun intended) Dressed in their "work clothes" thongs, teddies etc, these ladies of the evening sat in large bay windows which were surrounded by a thin red neon light. Advertising. The entire male population on the train was on our side of the car. I feared we'd tip over. There were several city blocks of these young ladies. When they have a client, they pull down the shade. Closed for business. The level of personal freedom is amazing. Sex is regarded as a natural human function, and space is made for it in the culture Soon the train pulled out. (pun intended), and we arrived in Brussels. We had time to make our train reservations to Paris via the high speed train. Reservations cost 82 Euro, the most expensive in Europe. You'll see why when we go to Paris. Nevertheless, we made our connection to Ypres, the site of our tour of the WWI battlefields in the area. Our train was a composite meaning that only the last three cars in the train went to Ypres. The rest are split off and go somewhere else. Lesson: always make sure you're in the right car. We got to Ypres just before 15:00 hrs in time to locate Old Tom's, our hotel and have a walk around. As we were coming into Ypres, I pointed out to Sheila the increase in the number of cemeteries we passed. We checked in and walked around. We found the shop where we are to meet tomorrow for our tour. We walked to Menin Gate, a large arch, where, engraved in the sides, the names of 54,000 soldiers whose bodies were never accounted for. The identified casualties are buried in grave yards with a headstone marking the spot. This is a charming little city quiet, peaceful, and full of commerce.It's an interesting irony that one of the world's great tragedies has resulted in an economic boom for this little town. Shops, tours, souveniers, museums all are dedicated to the events of 1914-18. As I said this is a peaceful place full of life and commerce normal in.every way: children playing,lovers sitting on park benches, people going about their daily lives, but at one time not too long ago, this place was laid to waste through man's violence and folly. Pictures taken at the time show Ypres as a wasteland. Not a single building stood the ravages of bombardment. It happened almost a century ago, yet there is an immediacy about it. Little paper poppies decorate the memorials put there by relatives or children in school groups.In fact every English school kid is required to visit these battlefields as part of their graduation requirements. After dinner at the hotel, Sheila and I went to the Last Post Ceremony, a ceremony held with the exception of the 1940-44 German occupation 20:00hrs since 1928. Half a dozen buglers play something equivalent to taps. Someone lays a wreath at the foot of the Menin Gate usually school children. It is very moving and very powerful. I am excited to be here, and I look forward to the tour tomorrow. More later. Love to all.

Last days in Rotterdam

Thurs 18 March: We decided to make today an easy one and spend it relaxing and taking care of some details. We made reservations in Paris so we're all set for the rest of the trip. I blogged, but soon we were out the door enjoying the relatively warm Spring day. The tulips, daffodils, and crocus are just beginning so we got an idea of what this place is like when Spring is in full flower. We took the bikes out got a snack of french fries at the local eatery. While we were there, a man came in with a large barrel, about forty gallons I'd say, and he collected used fat for fuel recycling. I thought that was cool. We biked around the local lake. It was very casual and relaxed. We stopped at a golf course called a golfbahn had a beer and watched the golfers come in. This is a very small par three course with no greens really just a flag in a designated spot. We had promised to do dinner so we stopped by the super market, got some vegetables and the fish market for some salmon. We had just gotten in when the family arrived. The weather was warm enough that we all sat outside, had a beer and visited. We had a lovely dinner together on our last night with Beth, Jeff, and their kids. They have been most generous.