Travel

Yesterday I opened a “letter” from my mother; a perfect example of her eccentric idea of correspondence.  Bereft of card, signature, or, God forbid, “Dear Daughter”, the envelope contained 3 newspaper clippings – each annotated with her inimitable, looping script.  To the first clipping, a review cautioning that a new kid’s hardback called “The Graveyard Book” may be too dark for sensitive children, my mother had added “This sounds good!”  A study exploring the effects of the color red on both attention span and anxiety prompted this commentary: “You know I made all red things for your cradle and crib!  How to create an obsessive compulsive?”  And of course my personal favorite, an interview in which Nadya Suleman, the recent mother of octuplets, asserts that she wanted a family to help combat depression.  In this article the words “children” “cure” and “depression” have all been manically underlined.  Radiating a giant arrow, the newspaper’s indent points to my mother’s own thickly inked phrase: “What an idiot!”  She may not write much, but it sure reads loud and clear.

My mother’s attitude towards children and their rearing being what it is, she often chose the Wolf Creek Inn as the ultimate destination on the many and extensive road trips we took together.  Touted as “the oldest continuously operated hotel in the Pacific Northwest” by the State of Oregon’s recreation department, the Inn boasts perfectly articulated period décor, both a ball and dining room, and a magical, perfumed orchard.  It is also remote, haunted, and almost entirely unfit for children (read: no television).

I admit it. I eavesdrop. I love it, but sometimes I end up a buttinsky. I start chatting with random people in a restaurant, and it’s so transparent that I have been leaning way far over in order to hear it all. One time, in New York, I overheard a first date. They met on Match.com. Two middle-aged people (pushing 70, so maybe not middle age) were having a conversation and the cuckoo bird woman was telling her date she was a princess in some obscure country no one has heard of. I’m not kidding. I wanted her to go to the bathroom so I could tell the guy to make a run for it. And it was SO none of my fucking business. And yet, I continue this pursuit even though the hearing is now diminished in my right ear and I have to be seated just so in order to overhear everything.

I’ve been in Quebec the past week and can’t often eavesdrop because everyone is speaking French, damn them -- and me for not learning the language. But, the other night I did spend a great deal of time totally engaged in other diners’ conversation. We were in a small room, three tables of families. The middle table asked the couple by the window how long they’d been coming to Gibby’s. I perked up because hey, it was in English. Apparently, the couple drove many miles, from Laval, to come to this small village, Saint Sauveur, as did the family in the middle who came from Saint Agathe. They agreed it was a wonderful experience and worth the drive. Then the conversation went into a whole boring part with questions from the middle table about the window table’s drilling business. Don’t you hate when other tables’ conversations get boring?

I’m not a foodie.  I seldom watch the Food Channel.  The one cookbook I own came with my microwave.  I only go to Williams-Sonoma to get a gift for someone else.  So I’m surprised that some of the best memories of my bicycle trip in France last summer are of food.
 
I was the only American in our group of 14, the rest were Irish or British.  Every day we biked 20 to 35 miles through the beautiful Provençal countryside and every evening we had dinner at one of the many restaurants in the village where we stayed.  Even the smallest towns had dozens to choose from.  Sometimes we were the only ones in the place. 
   
Dinner was our evening’s entertainment.  The group would meet in the hotel lobby, then wander the narrow streets checking out menus in restaurant windows until we reached a consensus.  Usually, the only dissenter was a snooty vegan, a London financial planner studying to be a yoga instructor.  She would frown as she studied a menu. “Can’t eat that.  Won’t eat that.  Ugh, no way.”  Then she would drag her poor husband off for a salad somewhere.  Once, I offered her some of my sunscreen.  “I don’t put chemicals on my body,” she told me.  She came back at the end of the day with a spectacular sunburn. 

One of the most important historic cities in Great Britain is York. Famous for its towering Minster and ancient walls that surround the city, York was the home to the Romans where in 71 AD the first Roman outpost was created. Today beneath the stage of York Theatre Royal lies a well dating back to that era. An important and spectacular part of the Roman defenses was the Multangular Tower built between 209 and 211 that can be visited on your tour of the walls. Monk Bar Gatehouse is the most elaborate and ornate of the surviving gates and contains a dedication to King Richard 111 who is revered in this city. The Vikings came to York in the 10th century intending to make it the trading post of their kingdom and you can visit the Jorvik Viking Center to board the state-of-the-art flying capsules and travel back in time to experience the sounds, smells and images of the city of Jorvik in AD 975.

York’s winding streets with overhanging beams date back to medieval times and the Shambles is one of the best-preserved shopping streets in Europe lined with quirky boutiques, cafes and bookstores. Georgian York ushered in a period of new elegance still to be seen in many shop fronts in Stonegate. Ghosts, of course, abound in York and every night of the week there are guided walks around the city in search of the supernatural and the unexplained. The Black Swan in Peasholme Green is just one of many York pubs said to be haunted.