Day Fifteen

Home Again, Home Again

We had breakfast, loaded the buses, and got on our way to Frankfurt. It was pretty uneventful, until we were sitting around waiting for our flight. We were on the second floor, right next to a big glass partition that looked out over the main floor. All of a sudden I heard...bagpipes. I looked around to see if I was hallucinating; several other people also had quizzical looks, so I figured they heard them, too. I got up and looked around, and on the main floor was a piper in full regimental dress, playing for some men in uniform. It was like they knew I was going to be there.

I'd like to thank the following people for being such an integral part of my experience. These are the people without whom my trip would not have been the same, or even possible. They are:

my parents; the Hs; all the directors, especially Mr. Cole; Alex; Clive; Nathaniel and Jared; Josie and Nicole; the moms; Erich, Sven, and Cole; Heather, Jenna, Steven, Zach, Amy, Justin, and Cassie; and Amy, Liz, Sarah, Brian, Curtis, Jenna, Emily, and Sarah.

My life flows on in endless song
Above earth's lamentation
I hear the real though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation
Above the tumult and the strife
I hear its music ringing
It sounds an echo in my soul
How can I keep from singing?

Day Fourteen

Rothenburg

We had a leisurely morning, and a bunch of us headed out to look for the Mittelalterliche Kriminalmuseum. We wandered into a fairly likely-looking building and went up a flight of stairs before we realized that it wasn't the museum. Since we were already there, though, we paid the two marks each to climb a steep little ladder up to the tower. From there we had a view of the whole city and the surrounding countryside.
After we actually got directions to the Kriminalmuseum we found our way there. In English they call it the museum of crime and torture. It was not really graphic or scary in its depiction of medieval (that's the mittelalterliche) punishments; the worst part was imagining having to wear the scold's bridle. I would gag. A scold's bridle is a kind of face-mask thing that they used to put on women to keep them from talking; it usually had a depressor that held the tongue down. The women who were sentenced to wear a bridle had talked when men thought they shouldn't have, or said things that men thought they shouldn't have. I also liked the ducking stool they had outside.

Rothenburg has several year-round Christmas stores, though I'm not sure why. I went in some of them to look around. They were like little Christmas theme parks. There was tons of cotton-batting-snow and lights and fake trees. Most of the ornaments were arranged by color, so you'd go into a section and there would be a whole wall of red glass balls and spindles and stars, then a whole wall of blue ones, and so on. It was pretty crowded, and most of the ornaments struck me as expensive (and fragile and difficult to pack), but then I saw it: a brown and gold glass ball for seven marks. I had to get it. How could I not?

Looking into the Marktplatz. In the building just right of center is a clock that reenacts an event when the mayor saved the city by drinking beer.

We went back to the hotel to get changed for our final concert, in the Marktplatz. It was raining sporadically, but the band played on. Before the concert, though, our special visitors showed up. Two of our classmates from school happened to be in Germany on a separate trip, and we'd told them when our concert was, so they showed up with their German host. We ended up going to a German/Italian restaurant with them, where they spoke lots of German and we felt dumb. I got bratwurst with sauerkraut, and E taught us how to flip a coaster (actual coaster from the restaurant scanned at right). We went back to the hotel and hung out for a while, and then they had to go. It was unexpectedly fun.

After dinner we went on the Nightwatchman's tour of the city. You may remember that around Christmas this past December I posted an entry about how I saw our nightwatchman on TV. His black cape and the evening hours made the city seem so much older and more mysterious. It was really cool.

Finally, we had our end-of-the-trip meeting. Our head director talked to us for a while, and some of the other directors did as well. Then they let any of us who wanted to talk. I don't remember who spoke, except for one of the crew. He got up and talked about how good the trip was, and how he was sorry if we annoyed anyone, and how the back of the bus ruled. My journal says that "We all cheered for him because he is one of us." We took lots of pictures and said goodbye to friends.

Tomorrow: a special send-off at Frankfurt airport and thanks

Day Thirteen

Germany Past

We loaded up and left Seefeld after breakfast. It was around 11 when we reached Dachau. Dachau was one of the concentration camps in which prisoners were held by the Nazis during the Holocaust. In 1945, my grandfather was present at the camp's liberation. My family has pictures that he took then of bodies stacked in railroad cars. Going there was even more important for me because of the history and because my grandfather had been there 55 years before.

The gates to the camp still stand, and still read "Arbeit macht frei." The first building you enter is set up most like a museum. There are pictures of important events, a basic history of the camp, and posters and things like that, but all of the tags are in German. There was one room off to the side that was filled with wreaths and memorials and markers that visitors had left in honor of the victims and the liberators. That room made me cry. One wreath had a ribbon that said "Ils ont brisé nos chaînes"--they have broken our chains. That sentiment in particular really touches me, even today.

Many of the original buildings were pulled down, some by the Allies after liberation. There remain some guardhouses, two barracks buildings, and the crematoria. There are also a few memorial chapels, built since the camp closed. It's a little frightening to walk through the crematoria, one of which has a gas chamber in the same building. Outside the crematoria are two large plots where ashes were buried. One is marked with a menorah, the other with a cross, and both "Grave of thousands unknown."

One barracks building is set up as it would have been at the beginning of the war, when there weren't as many prisoners. It wasn't that bad, relatively speaking. But the barracks from nearer the end of the war didn't have beds; it just had shelves stacked up three high.

There is an international memorial at the resting place of the Ashes of an Unknown Prisoner. In different languages it says "Never Again."

When we left Dachau and were on the bus on our way to lunch, some of my friends were wondering why we had visited a concentration camp. I could not begin to explain to them why it was important that we took time from our fun to remember the suffering of millions of people, of entire countries. It enrages me that there are people who actually have the nerve to deny that the Holocaust happened. That's why we went, because those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it. Because we should never take our blessings and liberties for granted, and because the people who died in these camps deserve to be remembered.

From lunch it was back on the bus and on to Rothenburg ob der Tauber. Rothenburg dates from the 13th century, and is (fanfare please) a walled city. I don't know if it could be any cooler if it tried. During World War II part of the wall was destroyed, but it was rebuilt after the war ended, with donations from around the world. The oldest part of the town is inside the wall; that's where our hotel was. After dinner I walked on the wall with one of the other kids from school.

The walls are several feet thick, and in some of the rebuilt sections there are plaques with the names and messages from people who donated to the rebuilding. The wall doesn't go all the way around the town; there are places where you have to descend and walk a little on the street before climbing up on the wall again. At one of these points we were about to go down through the tower when my friend, who was ahead of me, yelled and jumped back. That reaction in turn startled me. It turned out that a cat had run through the tower, but the blur of movement in the dark was enough to freak us out. We were able to psych ourselves up enough to run down the stairs and outside the wall and walked through the moat for a while. Then we met up with some of the others, and we managed to get back to the hotel without getting lost.
Tomorrow: crime and punishment, Christmas in July, our last concert, visitors from afar, the nightwatchman, and testimonials

Day Twelve

Venezia"It was as if all the angels in heaven had fallen asleep at once and Venice were their collective dream."
The Old Contemptibles by MarthGood day, and welcome to day twelve.


The buses left early, and I slept a lot of the way. I know I should have paid more attention to the countries we were driving through during the whole trip, but the schedule was so packed that sleeping on the bus was really necessary sometimes. After a few hours we stopped at a rest stop in Italy, and I paid 500 lira (about a quarter) to use the restroom. In many places in Italy it's strongly recommended that you leave a donation when you use a bathroom.

We got to the vaporetto port at 11. The city of Venice is a series of islands in the Venetian lagoon. I think it is possible to drive there, but it was impractical to take buses, so we parked and rode the vaporetto or water taxis over. Venice seems like a strange place to build a city--the land is not really stable and has been shored up with posts for hundreds of years, and the city may still be sinking. Even today when it rains hard the city floods. But Venice is near the Adriatic Sea, and was a prime port for trade from the east to come into Europe. Venetians were well known as traders in the Middle Ages, long before the city-states' consolidation into present-day Italy. And Marco Polo called himself Venetian, so that's all you really need to know.

It's a very dreamy place. I would have designed a city like Venice when I was little. I think many people would have; kids love the idea of a city where you can get places in a boat. By the same token, it's a little hard to believe that people live there every day.

We took a brief walking tour of the city as a big group, and our guide pointed out the church where Antonio Vivaldi was baptized, and the doge's palace, and the Bridge of Sighs. We also cruised through St. Mark's rather quickly; I remember there being an awful lot of gold leaf. Then we went to a glassblowing demonstration. Murano is one of the islands in the lagoon, and Murano glass is famous for being pretty. It was amazing to see a man start with a lump of thick, molten glass, and in the space of a few minutes to make a delicate vase. In the adjacent store I bought a millefiore pendant for my mom for 70,000 lira. That was one of the best things--the exchange rate was about 2,000 lira to one dollar. So the necklace was only $35. I liked being able to spend thousands of lira at one shot.

I and two others were determined to take a gondola ride. The guide told us all beforehand not to pay more than 12 to 14 dollars per person (and not to stick our hands in the canal water), so the three of us set off to find a sympathetic gondolier. The first man we talked to wanted 100,000 lira apiece, and suggested that the price our guide told us was about 20 years out of date. As we walked away, another man came us and asked what we would pay; we told him and all he said was, "Bye." We happened on a group from our bus, and they told us which gondolier to talk to. He told us that for three, four, or five people we would pay 150,000 lira; so we rushed off to sucker some other people into coming with us. We found two people who agreed to join us, and we rode around the canals with our gondolier. The best part was when we passed another gondola and heard a cell phone ringing. The other gondolier answered the phone, spoke a few words, and hung up. We joked that he'd said, "I can't talk now, I'm driving."

Then I ate a ham, cheese, and mushroom calzone. We waited for the rest of the group in St. Mark's Square, and as I was leaning against a lamppost, being all cool, a pigeon defecated on me a little. At least it happened toward the end of the day, rather than the beginning. Then it was back on the vaporetto, back on the bus, ciao Italia, and back to Austria. And now whenever I see a painting of Venice I cannot help but point out, "I've been there."

Tomorrow: a visit to Dachau and on to our final town, Rothenburg

Day Eleven

The Hills are Alive
Also wherein foreshadowing comes into play
In the morning from Seefeld we went to Innsbruck. We went to the park where the 1964 and '76 Winter Olympics were held, and saw the ski jump, which was covered with grass, it being summer and all. I'd never been to an Olympic site before, so it was cool. The torch and the rings were there, too, and that was neat.


We then visited the Wiltern Basilica. The basilica is an extremely rococo church. I'm sure it has a lot of historical significance, but I can't recall any of it. It dates from at least the 19th century and probably earlier. One interesting thing I do remember is that the outside of the basilica is painted yellow, which is not a color that many of us were used to seeing on large churches. In my mind, things like cathedrals are made of stone. But lots of buildings in Austria are white or yellow, or both.

In Innsbruck there's a famous thing called the Golden Roof. It's a little hard to explain. There's a regular white building with a plain wall, and then fixed to it is a balcony with a gold roof. When I heard "Golden Roof" I thought of a whole big roof. The balcony was used by the Emperor Maximilian I to view events in the square below.
Innsbruck also has the Swarovski Haus, where you can buy anything crystal, from simple stud earrings to intricate sculptures. Swarovski Haus seems like part store, part museum, but that's probably only to people like me who who can't afford all the big things. I bought some gifts there, but nothing too big. It was a very shiny, glittery place to be in, but also a bit crowded, and that was scary in a store full of breakable things.

the Back of the Blue Bus kids in Innsbruck...miss you guys!

We drove back to Seefeld and changed for our concert that afternoon. When we got to the bandshell where we were to play, they gave us all cunning alpine hats. I still have mine in a place of honor in my room. We got set up and ready to play, but the weather turned to sprinkling and then raining. Since water is bad for some of the wussy instruments like clarinets, the directors decided to cancel the concert after two songs. Besides, nobody was going to come listen to us in the rain anyway. We packed up our horns and stands, and one of my friends, A, and I stayed with a few other people to help get the trailer packed while everyone else went back to the hotels. Once everything was safely packed up, A and I headed back to the hotel. The hotel that was only 7 minutes from town. Where we were allowed to walk around by ourselves because the worst that could happen would be getting lost.

Well, we meant to head back to the hotel. We went the wrong way out of the park, and ended up walking to someone's house. We turned around and walked back, and even asked one of the directors we saw how to get to our hotel, but missed the turn again. Even though it was raining and we were lost and A wasn't wearing comfortable shoes, our spirits were not low, and we sang songs while we walked. Who else has gotten lost in Austria in the rain? A and me, that's who, and it was just so like us. And I am not making this up: When we finally got on the road that went straight up the hill to the hotel, a rainbow appeared in the sky over the hotel. A turned to me and said, "All we had to do was follow the rainbow." It was ridiculous and great. The experience was summed up in our homage to American Pie: "This one time, on the band trip, we got lost in Austria, and it was raining, and it was so not funny." Not terribly clever, and probably not terribly interesting to anyone but us...you just had to be there, in the rain, in Austria.

My heart will be blessed with the sound of music
And I'll sing once more

Tomorrow: Venice for the day

Day Ten

Liechtenstein and Austria

We left Champéry at 7 and got to Liechtenstein around noonish. It was sad to leave Champéry, since it had made such a good impression. Until that point, Switzerland had been near the top of my places-I-want-to-visit list; now I had been there. It was hard for any place to follow that, but they did admirably. (For the next four years, Canada moved to the top of the list.)

Liechtenstein is one of those small countries, like Andorra, Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City. Liechtenstein is 62 square miles. The capital city is Vaduz, which is where we stopped. The country has a royal family who is apparently pretty popular, or at least was when we were there.
Since we were only there for about an hour, and since we would have had to try really hard to make or find trouble, we were allowed to wander off by ourselves. We must have been allowed to, because I did. The most famous landmark in Vaduz is the castle, which is up on a hill. That's not a great picture of the castle, but there it is. The royal family owns vineyards; I was a little surprised to see any vineyards at all there. It didn't strike me as especially good grape-growing weather, but what do I know about horticulture. I also saw a nice church. I'd started off walking along a road, not knowing at all where it went, and after a while I decided I'd better turn around before I walked straight out of the country. Of course I couldn't have actually walked all the way out of Liechtenstein, but I didn't know that at the time.

From Liechtenstein we continued on to Austria. We got to Seefeld around 4 and got settled into the Hotel Marthe. The hotel was about seven minutes' walk and up a slight hill from the center of town, so once we were checked in some of us walked down. I exchanged some money, everyone else bought ice cream, and we went back to the hotel for dinner. We watched part of a movie in French on TV, which was a little inexplicable, and then to bed.

Tomorrow: Innsbruck, and the second-most memorable concert of the trip

Day Nine

The Mountain That Wasn't There

I don't know if these pictures are out of order, but here are a few more pictures of Champéry.

The front of the Hôtel des Alpes, with wet flags. The center two windows and the left balcony on the first floor were our room.

Alex drove us to the train station in Täsch after breakfast. From there we took a train to Zermatt. The train was a little crowded and we all had to stand up, but the ride was less than ten minutes. Once we got to Zermatt we were free for a few hours.

Zermatt is in Valais, the same canton that Champéry is in, but it's in the German-speaking part. Although it wasn't all that far from Champéry, the German feel was much stronger there. There are no cars in Zermatt; the only vehicles are small and electric-powered, like golf carts, and animal-drawn vehicles. As a result, it's a lot quieter on the streets. Of course, it's easier for golf carts to sneak up on you, too, since you can't hear them as easily, but it's nice being able to walk down the middle of the road.

We looked for souvenirs for a bit and bought some pastry from a bakery. I had apple strudel, because it seemed like the only logical choice. Around noon many of the shops closed, so we took that opportunity to get on the little train up to see the Matterhorn. The train was underground, on a very steep track, and it was cold. After a few minutes we were at the top, ready to see the glory of the Matterhorn.

Here's the thing about summer in the Alps: sometimes it rains. And when it rains in Zermatt, there is no Matterhorn. All we saw was clouds, fog, and sheep. It was a little disappointing; you expect to see one of the most famous mountains in Europe, all pointy and majestic, and instead there's nothing.

It should be right behind the sheep.

We waited at the top for a while to see if it would clear up, but alas, we were not so lucky. So we headed back down and I had to buy a bunch of postcards of the Matterhorn since I didn't get to take any pictures myself. I also bought my brother a Swiss army knife and had it engraved with his name. There are really a wide variety of sizes of knife; there are the tiny pink ones for girls who like pink things, and then there are the three-inch-thick, five-inch-long ones with the corkscrew and the tire pressure gauge and the satellite antenna and whatnot. I really should have gotten a knife for myself, and my parents. That's one of the things that I regret about the trip: I didn't get enough cool stuff. I thought it was more important to spend my money judiciously, and I ended up having a lot left over when we came home. But it wouldn't have hurt to have gotten more Swiss army knives in Switzerland. And I should have taken more pictures. Guess I'll just have to go back with a better camera. So anyway, here's a scan of a postcard I bought of what the Matterhorn apparently looks like when the sun's out and you can actually see it.

The thing in the middle of this picture is actually a river. In person it was more of a silvery-grey than white. We saw a few rivers like this in Switzerland and Austria; they're that color because they're glacial water. I've never seen anything that looked colder than that river.

On the train on the way from Zermatt to Täsch we got to sit down, and then it was back into the bus with Alex. Back at the hotel we had dinner, and got in a little trouble because some people decided not to come to dinner and then others left early, which, although they didn't intend it to be, was rude; but we were allowed to go to the party that the town was giving us.

There was a little band at the Centre Sportif, with a trumpet, clarinet, accordion, and drums. They also had traditional Swiss instruments, like an alphorn; and they let some of the kids try it. Of course, some fool kid blew on the alphorn and said, "Ricolaaaaaaaa." Totally cliché and unoriginal. Then they taught us to polka, which was fun. We all did the polka and the chicken dance. Later, when we went back to the hotel, my dearest darling roommate took our one room key, locking me out for a while. I ended up joining some friends in their room, which wouldn't have been a problem, but people of the opposite sex were not supposed to be in the same hotel room at once, and we were. And, once again, it wouldn't have been a problem, except for room check. Luckily for us, it was our director who checked that night; so when four of us were in the bathroom, three hiding and the other running the water to muffle our snickering and, on my part, shushing, our director fairly obviously knew we were in there, but let it slide. I think he was secretly amused. After he'd gone, the three of us checked the hallway, and seeing it clear, booked it down the stairs to our rooms. Although it was slightly terrifying at the time, I have since come to view it as a growth experience: how to make the best of a situation, without getting caught.

Tomorrow: Liechtenstein and Austria

Day Eight

Switzerland

On Sunday morning we had some free time. They opened the bank specially for us so that we could change money. Some friends and I went for a walk out of town and into the residential area--sort of like a hike, except we were pretty much stuck on the roads. There was no place to walk through fields that wasn't part of somebody's property. Once we were out of the big cities, they let us wander around in groups by ourselves, because the worst thing that could happen would be getting lost, and we couldn't even get that lost.

Just after lunch we got on the buses and drove down to Montreux. We took a tour of the Château de Chillon, a castle set right on the edge of Lake Geneva. The château was begun in the 11th or 12th century, and was never besieged. The dungeon has a place where Lord Byron carved his name in the stone; he was inspired to write the poem "The Prisoner of Chillon" after a visit there. The great hall is decorated with the coats of arms of all the families who controlled the castle.


We had some free time in Montreux after our tour, and most of us went souvenir shopping. Montreux is the home of the world-famous jazz festival, which was going on while we were there. Just walking around town we heard some of the bands playing. People bought cuckoo clocks, Swiss army knives, watches, and music boxes. I bought a little cowbell painted with flowers and "Montreux." For some reason I did not take a picture of the statue of Freddie Mercury of Queen in Montreux. I must've either been out of film or really dumb.

Back in Champéry we had our concert at the Centre Sportif. There was another band and choir performing, and our band was on last. The concert must have been long for the people listening, but they seemed to be in really good spirits, and they were appreciative of our efforts. When we played the "Radetzky March," which is like the "Stars and Stripes Forever" of Europe, the crowd were on their feet clapping. Some of the brass players from the other band joined us on our last song, making it even louder and more fantastic. It was exciting; that was the only concert where I've really felt that vibrant connection between performer and audience that you always hear about.

I walked back up the hill alone, at nearly midnight, with my heart blazing. It was not quite truly sublime, but right up there with the best moments of my life so far.

Since love is lord of heaven and earth
How can I keep from singing?

Tomorrow: Zermatt and the theoretical Matterhorn, and a polka party

Day Seven

Driving to Switzerland

I called home and found out today that my dog had had puppies, one of which is my current dog. :)

Most of today was spent on the bus, and for at least part of it I slept. We stopped for lunch at nearly one, and I got to exercise my French again, helping people order from a fast food place. It was kind of weird, because in class we learned much more about ordering from cafés than from fast food joints. I got fries and a Coke, because 1) I am selectively cheap and 2) I love fries and Coca-Cola.

Now would be a good time to tell you a little more about our bus group. When we first arrived at Gatwick, my friends and I just plopped down near the front. But somehow we eventually moved toward the back, joining a few other people from our school and seven kids from three or four different schools. We made friends with them and ended up having good times. The Back of the Blue Bus Crew is very important to my Europe experience.

A few hours after lunch we were in Switzerland, driving around Lac Léman. The lac is known as Lake Geneva in English. Switzerland actually has four official languages: French, German, Italian, and Romansch. The first three are the languages of countries that border Switzerland, and the last is an old language of the area that not many people speak anymore. Switzerland is also broken up into 26 provinces called cantons, and each canton has an official language. We were headed to Valais, whose languages are French and German. From the Lake Geneva area Alex drove us up to Champéry, where the fear part of our relationship with him really came into play. He took those mountain roads in a coach pulling a trailer at speeds that many people would not attempt in a regular car.

I almost don't want to describe Champéry because it's so amazing. I think most people on the trip would say that it was their favorite place we visited; some of us would say that Champéry is our favorite place in the world.
When we first arrived and got off the bus it was around five or six in the evening, and a church bell was ringing the hour. We looked out across the valley to the mountains with the bells ringing, and it seemed almost surreal. The mountains looked almost as if they were a painted backdrop. One of my friends said that it looked like if you pulled the string the whole vista would roll up into the sky and leave nothing behind. It was like I would imagine living in a snowglobe would be like.

We stayed in the brilliant Hôtel des Alpes. The hotel had a Swiss flag and an American flag hung on the front of the building. Our room was on the first floor, and we had a little balcony that faced the street.
This is the view from our room. The building on the left (well, below, as the formatting makes it) is a church; the one on the right is, I believe, a residence. The flag in the right picture is the flag of the canton of Valais. This is what we looked out our window to see. Furthermore, our room itself was great. Instead of three people per room, as there'd been in London and Paris, we now had two per room. The room had no closet, but a wardrobe; a table and two chairs between the windows; and a pair of beds with featherbeds. It was simple, uncluttered, and wicked comfortable.

After staying in two capital cities, Champéry is a huge change. The town was fairly quiet, and the view was mountains, trees, and streams instead of buildings. The whole ambiance is more peaceful. Champéry is a ski town, so in July there weren't a huge number of tourists. If I ever go back in the winter it might shatter my perception of the town. There was a little festival going on downtown when we arrived, and we walked down to see it before dinner.

We ate dinner at the hotel's dining room, and afterward we walked down to the Centre Sportif (Sporty Center--that's a pretty literal translation) for our orientation meeting. It was down a hill, so we had to walk back up to get to the hotel. But this being Champéry and therefore awesome, there are fountains in town where water flows down from springs through a spigot and into a trough. We were warned to get the water from the spout, not the trough (because the water in the trough has already touched people's hands and sometimes animals' mouths). It was high-quality water. Arrowhead, Poland Spring, Aquafina, Dasani: you got nothin'.

Tomorrow: Chillon, Montreux, and the Best Concert Ever

Day Six

We'll Always Have Paris

Yes, it's been done, but when you're young and in Paris with your friends, I think you have the right to say it.

Our first stop this morning was the Eiffel Tower. Fine way to start the day. When we arrived the line was longer for the elevator than for the stairs, and the rest of the group was taking the stairs (18 fr) anyway, so I did too. It was not the hardest thing I'd ever done, but it wasn't the easiest thing either. But it was, of course, worth it. You can only walk up as far as the second observation level; after that you have to take the elevator if you want to go all the way to the top (another 18 fr). Even though it was a little hazy that day, the view was still really good. We all signed our names on the tower--but only with ballpoint pen, as no one had a permanent marker, and only because hundreds of other tourists had done it before us.
Once we got down we walked around a little bit, got some lunch, did some shopping. Then we took a bus tour of the city. The opera house, the Bastille, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysées, the Rodin museum with a copy of "The Thinker" in the garden. The bus let us off for a little free time at Notre Dame.

La Cathédrale de Notre Dame de Paris is probably the most famous cathedral in the world. The name just means Our Lady of Paris; it's kind of funny, if you think about it, that most people just call it Our Lady. Construction began in 1163, and finished in 1345 (this is actually common for cathedrals). Notre Dame is a prime example of the Gothic style, and is well known for its flying buttresses, its gargoyles, and its stained glass windows. My journal says that I found it "huge and inspiring."I love this picture; it's like the guy is all, "Whoa! Notre Dame!"

Les escaliers de la butte sont durs aux miséreux
Les ailes du Moulin protègent les amoureux
"Complainte de la Butte"

After the cathedral we took the bus to the foot of Montmartre. La butte de Montmartre is a hill, and Montmartre is the general neighborhood on and around the hill. The area became a dwelling place for artists, and the famous Moulin Rouge was in Montmartre. We walked a few blocks up the hill, then the steps began. There were several. As the song says, the stairs of the butte are difficult, but at the top you're rewarded with views of the city and Sacré Coeur. Sacré Coeur is a pretty white church at the top of the butte. It's very different from Notre Dame, but equally beautiful. Unfortunately, the basilica was being worked on while we were there. After we walked around it and the Place du Tertre the whole big group walked back down the hill together to our buses, which took us to dinner, and after dinner it was back to our hotel a little early to get ready for an earlyish start in the morning. It was a day of a lot of stairs, and I don't know if I could do this day anymore. Every step was worth it, though, sore knees or no.
Tomorrow: Switzerland!

Day Five

Paris

The day started off with breakfast at the hotel: croissants, rolls, and pain au chocolate. The coaches took us to a church near Notre Dame where the choir was going to perform, and the rest of us were free for a while. We (when I say "we" I usually mean between six and ten people from school who did a lot of stuff together) looked around a few shops and then headed for lunch. We found a café that looked relatively inexpensive and sat outside. I had salade de tomates, which was tomatoes with spices and maybe some olive oil; everyone else got a prix fixe meal, with salad, an entrée, and chocolate mousse. Three kids got spaghetti and the other three got steak frites, or a steak with fries. It was great seeing steak frites on the menu, because that's one of the foods in every French textbook. We all got bottled water as well. I was able to astound my friends with my mastery of the French language. One of the guys kept telling the waiter "Gracias," although at the end he finally got it right and said "Merci." Unlike the stereotype, our waiter was nice; he made fun of us a little bit, but we deserved it, and it wasn't mean-spirited. Lunch was 452 francs for seven people, or about nine dollars a person. Not too bad at all.

I believe this is one of the train stations.

Our concert that day was at the Jardin du Luxembourg, another famous thing from French textbooks. In English the name would be "Luxembourg Garden"; the Jardin is a park, apparently the largest public park in Paris. The weather was good; there were people enjoying the day all around us. I don't think anybody expressly came to the park (or anywhere we played) to hear us, but no one seemed bothered by us. People seemed to like the Radetzky March best.

After the concert it was on to the Louvre. I don't recall standing in line for a long time, though I'm not sure how that would be possible, since it was summer. Going into the museum we went down an escalator, and I, for some reason, decided to jump down the last few steps. I then banged my elbow into a sliding-glass door. My director was not amused, though one of my friends was quite, and told me I had leapt "like a gazelle." We did see La Gioconda, otherwise known as the Mona Lisa. I didn't try to fight the crowd to get up really close, but she looks just like every reproduction you've seen. That's probably giving Signore Leonardo short shrift, but to me there are more interesting works of his to look at. Plus, the painting is in a little room all itself that juts into the larger gallery. We saw many huge paintings, canvases as big as the wall in my room, with such detail. One painting was of a square, with preparations for a festival going on in the middle, but in the buildings around the square there were tiny people in the windows. We saw the painting of Napoleon crowning Josephine, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace. It would take days to see everything in the Louvre, and we only had a few hours. I would recommend trying to make a plan of what you want to see before you go.

Then it was time for dinner, which was good again, and after that a boat ride on the bateaux-mouches. These are boats on the Seine River; the name means "fly boats," for some reason. It was a good way to get an overview of the city. I really recommend guided tours in a new city, even if you think it makes you look like a goofy tourist. Paris has beautiful architecture, including its bridges. We saw Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, and the islands in the Seine. I really enjoyed it; the air helped my hurting head clear. When we got back to the hotel I fell asleep straightaway.

Tomorrow: Notre-Dame de Paris, la tour Eiffel, Sacré Coeur

Day Four

Crossing the Channel and on to Paris

(I almost subtitled this "Invading France," in respect to our unruliness, but I thought that might be in poor taste. I like France.)

We left London early and boarded our coaches for Dover to the southeast. The buses drove onto the ferry and we got off to hang out. I was doped up with Dramamine because I've had some problems with motion sickness in the past, but it was fine this time. I'm highly glad we took the ferry and not the tunnel. I'm not copasetic with really long tunnels, especially not ones underwater. I didn't used to mind, but then I started thinking about water pressure and things like that.

There'll be bluebirds over
The white cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow, just you wait and see

Dover is known for a few things. One is the ferry crossing/Chunnel; another is that many swimmers across the English Channel leave from or arrive in Dover. Both of the previous are because Dover is one of the places in England closest to France. In good weather you can see England from France and vice versa; and during the wars people in southern England could easily hear explosions on the Continent. The other thing is the white cliffs. The cliffs are white because they're made of chalk--although they and the sky and the water were pretty grey-looking when we were there.

The crossing went fine. The bad part was that we were too late for breakfast but too early for lunch, but I bought some candy bars (four for 99p) and a Fanta. Soon thereafter we got back on our buses and rolled out. We stopped at a rest stop to wait for one of the other buses and got some food, including honest-to-goodness frites.

Not many people were impressed with the outskirts of Paris--there were a few comparisons to Tijuana, which I can neither confirm nor deny, never having been to Mexico--it can't have been worse than the Bronx.

We ate dinner at Restaurant le Saulnier, where we had quiche lorraine, chicken cordon bleu, potatoes, and crème caramel. It was just as good as one would expect from a Parisian restaurant. At our hotel 45 minutes away we had an orientation meeting before bed.

It doesn't seem like we did a lot, and admittedly I slept a while on the bus. But bracing sea air is not to be scoffed at. And we ended the day in the City of Lights.

EDIT: At the time I wrote this, I didn't remember exactly what day one important story happened, but a check of another journal said it was today. When we were eating in Restaurant le Saulnier some of my close group were acting goofy--laughing and tapping on their glasses with silverware. Apparently such behavior was not acceptable, because the local coordinator came over and scolded us, saying, among other things, "This is a nice French restaurant!" We simmered down, but not without cracking up. For the rest of the trip we would turn to each other at random times and say, "This is a nice French restaurant!" and it was always good for a laugh.

Tomorrow: café life, a concert, et le Musée du Louvre

Day Three

Still London

We went first to Westminster Abbey. I liked it, although it was different than I had expected. Elizabeth and Mary are buried there, and the coronation chair is there. Poets' Corner is especially cool, but I totally missed Chaucer's memorial, and now I feel like an idiot because now me and Chaucer are tight. Poets' Corner also has memorials to, among others, Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, Burns, Kipling, and Olivier. Shakespeare's pose was quite jaunty in his statue. I didn't take any pictures inside because I try to limit my photography in active places of worship.

They're changing the guard at Buckingham Palace--
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
Alice is marrying one of the guard.
"A soldier's life is terribly hard,"
Says Alice.from "Buckingham Palace" by A.A. Milne

From there we had some "free" time--free as long as we were in a group and had at least one chaperone with us. A bunch of us went to see the changing of the guard. Clive took us to where the ceremony begins, at St. James' Palace. For part of that summer the Australian army and navy were guarding the queen, and that's who we saw. We followed the army band and the sailors down the Mall to as near as we could get to Buckingham Palace. We also saw some Horse Guards, and some of the iconic beaver-hatted guards. As far as I know, no one went up and harassed them.
We had lunch at McDonald's--not my choice, they gave us meal vouchers--and it took us a bit for the gang to get sorted, but some of the adults and one of my friends and I went to the National Gallery for an hour. It was a good choice. The National Gallery is on Trafalgar Square. It has a good collection, including famous Impressionists, and many British artists. There was a huge painting of a horse that I remember quite vividly. My two favorite paintings at the Gallery are "Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba" by Claude Gellée and "Saint Mary Magdalene Approaching the Sepulchre" by Giovanni Girolamo Savoldo. There's a version of the latter at the Getty, too, that I saw not long after we got back to the States. In the one in the National Gallery Mary is wearing a beautiful silver cloak. It's amazingly detailed, and the light is perfect on the folds of the fabric.

Trafalgar Square with Nelson's Column. And pigeons.

From the National Gallery we walked to the British Museum, where there was construction going on and thus no air conditioning. I really wanted to see two things: the Book of Kells, and the Rosetta Stone. After we wandered around for a while, my friend asked where the Book of Kells was; apparently it wasn't there, although the guard was a little hard to understand. But we found the Rosetta Stone! where I was mistaken on two counts. The first was that it was a lot larger in person than it is when you see it in textbooks. Honestly, in the books it looks like it's not that big, but it's probably a foot and a half wide and three feet tall. The second was that it was in a glass case, unlike two years earlier when my brother visited and touched the Rosetta Stone when no one was looking. I'd really wanted to touch it, and was wickedly thwarted.

Outside the museum we met up with the rest of the group and then broke off for further endeavours. I went back to the hotel with one group, which then split into walkers and Tube riders. The walkers made it back twenty minutes before we Tube riders did.

That night when we were in our room before bed we were watching TV and I thought I heard thunder. When I looked out the window there were fireworks near the horizon. Some English boys walking in the square outside called out hellos, and other kids from the group stuck their heads out their windows and talked. It was really pleasant, and a nice end to a nice day.

Tomorrow: the Channel and salut Paris!