Home and Native Land

I'm at the cottage and all is good. My flight was great because my lovely wife upgraded me at the last minute and I was very comfortable. My brother and his wife were kind enough to lend me one of their vehicles so I could drive up here.

I've been away from Canada for extended periods of time before so I wasn't expecting any sort of culture shock when I came back, but things were weird at first. When I was in the Navy and we'd go away for six months at a time, I was always with people who spoke English and we always ate familiar food. The first thing that struck me was that I could understand every conversation I passed as I walked through the airport. It felt a little like sensory overload at first. I have grown accustomed to tuning everything out in France so I could focus on only what I needed to hear or say.

Once I got to the cottage, things felt more normal for me. There were a couple of challenges when I got here though. There is considerably more snow in the driveway than I had anticipated. I spent most of yesterday clearing the driveway. I have an intimate relationship with my snowblower now. Getting the water back on wasn't an easy task either. I was trying to figure out how I was going to heat enough lake water to take a bath when the plumber gave me the thumbs up.

I'm a little stiff and sore this morning but now that I've adjusted to the time zone, I feel good. It is Saturday morning and to me that means bacon and eggs. That made me feel good as well. Tonight I will be enjoying another Canadian tradition, I get to watch the Bruins destroy the Leafs on Hockey Night in Canada. I was out of the country before the NHL starting playing again so this is the first time I can watch a hockey game on something other than my iPad.

46

Many of my 46 birthdays have been spent away from home. Some places like a beach in Puerto Rico, skiing in the Rockies and partying in Las Vegas have been by choice. Others, like sailing the North Atlantic or the Arabian Sea, were not by choice. This year I get to spend it in Paris. All things considered, it's a pretty cool way to spend my birthday.

I do have to take a break from our little adventure though. On Thursday I'm flying back to Canada for two weeks. Most of you know that we have reluctantly decided to sell the cottage. We love the cottage and we hope to one day retire in that area, but it just isn't practical for us at this time. I'm going back there to open it up, get the water turned on and start packing up our stuff. We've had one possible buyer so far, but no offer yet.

I won't be blogging much over the next couple of weeks. I'll just be hauling stuff to the dump and packing boxes, nothing too exciting. Lori says she might blog while I'm away. She's only written once so far and I had to twist her arm to do that, but you never know, she might surprise us. Anyway, thanks for reading. We've had over 1700 page views so far, which is amazing.

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Brussels

We had another great weekend away. The train to and from Brussels worked great. We still haven't fully adapted to train travel though. We are so used to air travel with full body scanners, pat-downs and bag searches. With a train, you just get on and enjoy the ride. The conductors come by later to punch your ticket. It's great.

Belgium is a lot like Canada is some ways. There are two distinct groups of people, who speak different languages, living in the same country. The Flemish, who speak Dutch, live in the North and the Walloons, who speak French, live in the south. Also like Canada, there can be tension between the two groups.

Brussels is a grittier city and more of a party town than I thought it would be. Not that it's a bad thing, I just had a different vision in my head. Being the capital of the European Union and the home of NATO's headquarters, I thought it would be a little more reserved but it sounded like Mardi Gras just outside our hotel on Friday night.

Even though we were in Belgium, we ended up in a restaurant that specialized in Swiss cuisine on Friday night. Doesn't matter where I am, I'll take bread and melted cheese anytime.

On Saturday, we toured the city and ended up in a little restaurant over looking the Grand Place square. It was perfect for people watching.

Of course I sampled a few different types of beers. At the end of the meal I had a cherry beer for dessert. It was very good.

Then I had to go buy a few to bring home. Don't I look happy with my Basket o' Beer?

I really like Brussels but it would be dangerous to live there. It would be a race to see which gave out first, my heart from all the chocolate and waffles or my liver from all the beer. It would be a fun race though.

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Weekend

We are off to Brussels this afternoon. As a beer geek, I'm really looking forward to it. I hope the weather holds out for us. We might get wet this weekend but judging by the forecasts across Canada, a little rain would be a welcome change for most. Hope everyone has a great weekend and stay warm. Talk to you on Monday.

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Andouillette

I wasn't sure I was going to share this with everyone because it's rather unpleasant, but it's a funny story so I thought I should. On Saturday, we were tired from touring Dieppe and the surrounding area so we decided just to eat in the hotel restaurant. It was a very nice restaurant and everything was very good. Everything except my main course that is. I'm a pretty adventurous eater and I'm always willing to try new things. Almost every time it's a success, but this night was the exception.

I ordered the Andouillette sausage. I assumed it would be similar to Andouille sausage, but I was wrong. When I ordered it, the waitress asked if I have ever had this before. When I said no, she warned me that I may not like it. In fact, she tried to talk me out of it. She described it as having a very strong taste. Strong is not the word I would use. Vile or disgusting would be more appropriate. I thought maybe she meant it would have a gamey taste so I asked if it was made with Venison or other wild game. Unfortunately her English was only slightly better than my French and she couldn't remember the English word for the main ingredient and I didn't recognize the French word. I ignored her warning and went for it.

With some further investigation we discovered the English word the waitress couldn't remember was tripe. Tripe is the lining of a cow's stomach and in my humble opinion, it is not fit for human consumption. I'm not sure dogs would eat this. I will spare you the gory details of the smell and taste, I will simply say that the next time I pass a cow pasture on a warm summer afternoon, I will have a much better understanding of where that smell comes from. It took every bit of strength and willpower I could muster in order to get my one and only bite down and keep it down.

I'm not discouraged though, I will continue to try new things and expand my culinary horizons. I'm not worried about an experience worse than this, because quite frankly, it would be impossible to have an experience worse than this one. We're going to Brussels next weekend and fortunately for me Belgium is known for beer, chocolate, waffles and fries.

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Dieppe

We had a wonderful weekend in Dieppe. Picking up the car on the outskirts of town worked great. Navigation was a breeze thanks to Mr. Garmin and his wonderful GPS contraption. By the way, if anyone is traveling to Europe and plans to drive, you're welcome to borrow our GPS. I was a little concerned about the traffic circles or roundabouts at first, but not only am I a pro now, but I'm also a huge fan of them. If you think that every traffic circle would normally be a stop sign or traffic light, where you're sitting still wasting gas and time, traffic circles make much more sense.

Saturday morning we toured the town and specifically the sights relating to the raid by Canadian soldiers on August 19, 1942. Right across from the hotel was the Square du Canada war memorial.

The Dieppe raid was conducted by 6000 troops who were mostly Canadians from the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division. The main goal was to take the town temporarily in order to prove that it could be done and to gather intelligence. It was never the intention of the Allies to hold Dieppe. The raid was not a success. Of the 6000 men, almost 60% were killed, wounded or captured. When you see the beach heads, you can understand why it wasn't a success.

Later one of the British Commanders, Admiral Mountbatten, said that the lessons learned at Dieppe were put to good use on D-Day, claiming "I have no doubt that the Battle of Normandy was won on the beaches of Dieppe." I don't know if he truly believed that or if he was simply justifying what happened in Dieppe.

There are 707 Canadians buried in the Dieppe Canadian War Cemetery. This cemetery is unique from other Commonwealth war cemeteries. It was actually created by the Germans after the raid and was set up in the fashion of German war cemeteries. The headstones are placed back to back in rows. After the war, the headstones were replaced but they did not want to disturb the bodies. It was a sobering experience, to say the least, but I think it's an experience all Canadians should have.

Later in the day, we drove up the coast to Boulogne sur Mer. It made Lori feel right at home because the fog was as thick as pea soup. It was a very lovely town but I don't have any pictures because they would have been completely white. We had a late lunch and then headed back to Dieppe.

The next day we headed in the opposite direction along the coast and visited the Juno Beach Centre in Courseulles sur Mer. It opened in 2003 and not only commemorates the Canadian contribution to the D-Day landings, but the entire war as well.

It's a great centre with lots of interactive displays. It seemed to be geared towards teaching children and young Canadians about what happened here on June 6, 1944, which I think is great. We need to keep those memories alive.

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Weekend

We are heading out of town for the weekend. We want to get out and explore the countryside and smaller towns of France, so we are going to Dieppe on the coast of the English Channel. We are both missing the ocean as well. Lori came up with a great idea, we are renting a car close to where she works, which is on the outskirts of the city. I'll just take the metro and meet her there and that way we won't have to drive in the congested city centre. We bought our train tickets to Brussels yesterday as well and we are going there next weekend. It will be my birthday treat. I'm looking forward to both trips.

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Good and Bad

I've lived in enough places to know that there are good and bad things about where you live. We've been in Paris for six weeks now and I think that is long enough to decide what's good and bad about living here.

Smoking
Good - They have passed a law banning smoking in public places, which means you no longer have to eat your meal or drink you coffee while sitting in a cloud of smoke.
Bad - Everyone still smokes. Now they just smoke as they walk from work to the cafe or from the cafe to home. When you walk down the street you pass through clouds of smoke everywhere.

Dogs
Good - There are dogs everywhere in Paris. Big ones, little ones and every size in between. Lori and I are dog lovers so it makes us happy to see dogs everywhere.
Bad - No one picks up after their dog. Once again there is a law and I do see people scooping in the middle of the day, but late at night or early in the morning, they just pretend they didn't see anything. You have to keep your eyes on the ground constantly.

Groceries
Good - The food here is excellent. The oranges from Spain, tomatoes from Italy, seasonal mushrooms from France are so good. Even simple things like potato chips are better than in North America.
Bad - It is ungodly expensive to buy food. The general rule is; everything is half the size and twice the price.

Petit Déjeuner (Breakfast)
Good - The coffee is excellent, the croissants are delicious and the pain au chocolat is out of this world. I know I will crave it as soon as I'm back in Canada.
Bad - No bacon. We have found a reasonable facsimile of bacon but it is really thin and doesn't have much taste. Life can be wonderful in France but if you're not eating really good bacon on a regular basis, I'm not sure what the point of it all is.

Eiffel Tower

We left here yesterday morning and headed towards the Eiffel Tower, but we got sidetracked a couple of times along the way. First we had to cross the Paris Half-Marathon twice. There were thousands of runners and it was tricky trying to weave our way through them.

We finally made our way onto the islands in the Seine. We crossed Pont Saint-Louis, which is a bridge connecting the two islands. It's one of several bridges in Paris where lovers place locks on the rails and throw the keys into the river to symbolize their everlasting love.

Once on the other side of the river, we stumbled onto the Great Canadian Pub. Adam told me about it when I saw him the other day. We went in for brunch. They serve Tim Hortons coffee and Caesars. We had the Great Canadian Breakfast. The bacon was pretty good but it still wasn't the same we get back home. The door handles are hockey sticks.

As we walked on the Left Bank of the river, we had a great view of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

Eventually we made it to the tower, but because it took us so long, the lines were enormous and I wasn't in the mood to wait. It was the first sunny day since we've been here. I think everyone was out yesterday.

Lori is off to the Kurdistan region of Iraq for a couple of days. She'll be back on Wednesday.

Marais Walk

We have a guide book of Paris and in it there is a walk through our neighbourhood of Marais. We thought it would be a good way to further explore the area and learn a little history as well. We started at the Place de Bastille. This monument marks the spot where the Bastille was stormed in 1789, triggering the French Revolution. There is nothing of the Bastille left today.

It seemed appropriate to stumble across a protest in this area. A group of cyclists made their way around the traffic circle a few times before heading off. I'm not sure what exactly they were protesting but it had something to do with cyclists rights I think.

Our tour took use into the Place de Vosges, past the Carnavalet Museum and through the Jewish Quarter. We constantly said to one another that this would be beautiful in the summer. Winter in Paris is very grey. The sky is grey, the buildings are grey and the roads are grey. We're ready for some sunshine and some colour.

The tour ended at the Pompidou Centre, which houses a library and the modern art museum. The building was built with an exoskeleton, meaning the structure, ventilation and electrical systems are on the outside of the building. Personally I think it looks ridiculous, but what do I know.

We're supposed to see the sun today so we're heading across town to the Eiffel Tower. We've never been up the tower but today we'll brave the long lines in order to ride the elevator to the top. I'll have photos tomorrow.

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