WARNINGS and DISCLAIMERS

This travelogue is based on events that ACTUALLY HAPPENED, but the highly precise digital nature of this presentation reveals the flaws in the source memory material. Events may actually be smaller or larger than they appear in the account, and the timeline may be slightly adjusted for clarity or cheap laughs. Otherwise, it's all ABSOLUTELY TRUE. If any of it turns out to be illegal, well then we just made it all up. Honest.

Furthermore, this travelogue is from the perspective of only one of three travellers. In cases where my opinion or version of events differs from my companions, I'm right.

Aside from being a very public act of narcissism, this account is also a personal remembrance for those actually involved. As such, there may be occasional oblique or private references which will make sense only to those of us who were there. Where it advances the story and where not prohibited by law or international treaty, I will try to explain these references. Any remaining references that you don't understand aren't meant for you anyway, so just ignore them.

Finally, and this bit really is serious, the entire text of this travelogue, as well as all images contained herein (unless explicitly marked otherwise), are Copyright (C) 1999, Dan Rowley. Except as noted, all of the text is my original work, and all photographs were taken by me or another member of the travelling party. The text and images may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, electronically or in print, without my express written permission. All images are digitally watermarked for my protection.



DRAMATIS PERSONAE

"DAN" - Dan Rowley. Your narrator.

"BILL"/"BilFish" - Bill Fisher, Fuzz's boyfriend.

"Fuzz" - Kate Oneill, Bill's girlfriend.



THE BEGINNING

   All adventures have a beginning, a middle, and an end, and this adventure is no different. Long standing convention dictates that I begin at the beginning, and so I shall, or rather a little bit BEFORE the beginning. Ever since our last foray across the pond (see Bill's excellent travelogue chronicalling Euro '97), we had been planning how next to inflict ourselves upon an unsuspecting Europe. By planning, I mean that we all agreed that "we gotta go back to Europe, dude." Such are the grand dreams that fond memories are made of, no? Anyway, our resident Europhile, Bill, took it upon himself to design a tasty two week romp across Western Europe, beginning and ending in Paris and taking in the Berner-Oberland region of Switzerland, Austria, and Munich. By pure coincidence which I'm sure was not planned in advance, our arrival in Munich would happen to correspond with the beginning of Oktoberfest, that uniquely German celebration of that most sublime of beverages - beer. As it happens that the members of our travelling party are not adverse to a sip of beer now and again, this was happy serendipity. (note - For those readers unfamiliar with the literary device known as irony, that previous sentence is total bunk. This Euro trip, like the last, was planned entirely around beer. Beer is to this trip as cast iron is to the Eiffel Tower. Ha! See how I painlessly slipped that bit of trivia in there? You know, how the Eiffel Tower is really made of cast iron? Get it? Oh, hell - never mind.).

   I'll spare you the gory planning details, except to note that we travellers were to arrange our own cross-pond transport, and meet on the appointed date, at the appointed place - in this case, the estimable Hotel de France in sunny Paris (to get the proper flavor of this sentence, I recommend that you put on your best faux-french accent and pronounce Paris "Paree." Go ahead and re-read it. I'll wait), on the tenth day of September, 1999. If you have a calendar handy, and are perhaps familiar with how long it actually takes to GET to Paris from the states (9 hours or so, from Houston), you will note that this entailed travel on September 9th, or to use the popular parlance, 9/9/99. Unless you've been living in a cave for the last year, dear reader, you know that all sorts of bad things were supposed to happen on this "mini-y2k" day, and there were those who predicted that airliners would fall from the sky, commerce would come to a virtual stand-still, and that Indian rug store at the mall (you know the one - the one with the six year long "liquidation" sale?) finally WOULD go out of business and close. I wish I could say that we had this fully in mind when making our plans, and were boldly thumbing our noses at the establishment - standing on a windswept mountaintop, setting sun at our back, shouting to the world that we had FAITH that all would be well - you know, like those commercials for antidepressants and allergy medicine. The truth is, though, that it never even occurred to us until after we'd bought the tickets. Oh well. The fact that you are reading this account (you are still reading, aren't you?) is proof that we survived, and if it weren't for that previous moment of candor, I could claim to have known all along. So there.

   Despite the best efforts of the airlines to prevent me from using my frequent-flyer miles to go anyplace I'd actually LIKE to go (ever notice how there are always plenty of reward seats available to places you didn't even know had airports?), I was able to spend some hard-earned miles to procure a first-class upgrade for my air travel. The trick was, the upgrades weren't guaranteed - I wouldn't actually KNOW if I'd gotten into first class until I showed up at the airport to check in (or even later, as I soon learned). Not that I blame the airlines, mind you - those seats go for five or six thousand bucks apiece, so I'd jump at the chance to sell them up until the last minute, too. Actually, this isn't completely true. The airline helpfully confirmed the first-class seats on the two short (less than 3 hour) DOMESTIC legs of my flight, effectively "spending" my upgrade miles even if I didn't get first class on the INTERNATIONAL legs. This on top of the fact that I'd already spent another $150 more on the ticket than I had to, in order to get on the airline on which I've earned all of my miles. As it turns out, it wasn't until about 2 hours before my flight, in Houston, that I was finally able to confirm my seat. This was nice, because it saved me the trouble of drinking myself into a stupor before cramming myself into a coach seat for 9 hours.

   Was it worth it? You betcha. This was apparent almost as soon as I sat down, when I was presented with my "amenity kit" (a pair of socks in which to wander the plane, eye blinders, some tic-tacs, earplugs, a hairbrush, a mirror, a toothbrush, and some toothpaste) and an impressive dinner menu, complete with four or five choices of wine (from bottles with CORKS - no screw-off caps here). I chose the Rack of Lamb (not exactly on a par with Vincent's on Camelback, but nonetheless quite good). This, combined with the fruit and cheese tray, the appetizer tray, fresh bread, and a lovely dessert was more than enough to sate my hunger, as well as keep me busy for a couple of hours.

   The trip passed uneventfully - I slept a little, watched the English-dubbed version of "Life is Beautiful" on my little personal video screen, and had a lovely conversation with the woman seated next to me, who was making her fifth or sixth trip to Paris in as many weeks. She shared with me the secrets of how to spot an American in Paris from twenty paces - Look for the tennis shoes, the loud-colored clothes, or the perfect teeth. If you miss all of those, just listen - Americans really ARE a loud bunch, I'm afraid to say.

   Fast-forward to my arrival in Paris. I may not be a big fan of the French, but I have to give them credit - the free coffee at the baggage claim was a nice touch. It's hard to get steamed about waiting for your baggage when you're enjoying a hot cup of espressso (even from a machine, the French coffee was better than some American coffee shops). After a perfunctory pass through customs (not a word was uttered, and I didn't even get a stamp in my passport) I embarked upon the complex negotiations of securing a cab to my hotel - a task made more difficult by the fact that I spoke approximately seven words of French, four of which are needed to ask for the bathroom. Sensing that the cab driver could not or would not take me to a bathroom, I resorted to waving and pointing at my faxed confirmation from the hotel.

   300 Francs later (about $50), I was dropped off at a street corner which my cab driver assured me was correct (or at least I imagine this is what he was saying - he could just have easily been reciting Hamlet's soliloquy or his grocery list), but was disappointingly devoid of hotels. The cabbie pointed helpfully at a random door on the adjacent building and said something else incomprehensible. Unable to divine what it was he wanted me to notice about this door, and sensing that his usefulness to me was at an end, I tipped him so he'd go away. After a few moments spinning around confusedly with my luggage in-hand (add a little rain and it could be a scene right out of the Out-of-Towners), I managed to spot my hotel right down the road, about a block away. It turns out that the door to which the cabbie had pointed bore an address number strikingly similar to, but nonetheless different from that printed on my fax confirmation. I have no explanation for this, other than to surmise that the French count differently than we do, or at least that French cabbies do.

   Before we continue, a word on the source material for this story. In order to help jog our memories, we keep a log of things we see and do while we travel. This, combined with the mountains of photos we get back from the processor when we return is usually enough to reconstruct most of the interesting moments on the trip. In a story that Bill loves to retell, the notes for the 1997 trip to England, Ireland, and Wales were taken on a high-tech gizmo known as a Newton (a short-lived Personal Digital Assistant by Apple). Unfortunately, a freak data-retrieval accident upon our return caused me to lose all of our notes before I could transfer them to a safe haven on my desktop PC. So, the Euro '97 trip had to be reconstructed almost entirely from memory. This time, I took notes on a decidedly low-tech $1 pocket notepad, which survived the entire trip and is in my hand as I write this. I take travel notes in a unique form of short-hand, best described by Bill as written as if I were writing questions for "Win Ben Stein's Money" (a game show on Comedy Central). In other words, most of my notes are one-liners (often puns) which attempt to capture both the spirit and the substance of the moment in as few words as possible. The original source note for that entire previous paragraph was "Elementary Counting for Cab Drivers." Where it is instructive or illustrative, or where I think it might get me a cheap laugh, I will include the original source notes in this narrative. Where, as I imagine it will more often be the case, the notes are no longer as funny as in the original drunken moment of inspiration, I will spare you, my gentle readers, the pain of reliving them.

   As we are now just on the cusp of beginning the vacation 'proper', as it were, this is a good spot to stop and take a breather. When you're ready, pop on to the next installment, where we learn how to use our cameras, explore the Paris Metro, and generally play tourist for a couple of days.

stay tuned for part II - My, That's an Eiffel-ly Tall Tower You Have There


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