All About the People -- Part III

(First, Hattie asked a while back if all the photos from my French trip were mine and they are!   I am a little flattered.  As a copyright freak, I always clearly provide a link to photos that are taken from elsewhere or by someone else.)  ( As another prescript you will note that the demographics of these cruises is elderly, upper-middle class, white (except for two Asian women) and therefore, not as interesting as it could have been in other ways.)

I did not get many pictures of the passengers on the ship because I am not one to store these away and try to remember who was who (or is that who was whom)?  There were close to 190 passengers on each of the two ships that I took.  I must have met about 40 on each due to guided tours we took together or eating at the same table.  (Photos included below are street shots of the French and tourists and no one I met.  You can tell the French, as they are in great shape!)

We never talked politics or religion at meals, but with our country as politically divided as it is and with some groups making subjects more politically argumentative than they need to be, we found ourselves tiptoeing around subjects such as the environment, the weather, education, French protests, French labor, French socialism, French economy and even the global economy and  ship labor.  Yet we seemed to find that most of the passengers regardless of the state from which they hailed or the career they chose were in philosophical agreement with us, and thus we were able to be more honest in sharing and learning about others ideas for solutions to problems. 

It was easy to be in agreement with the University of Wisconsin young (50s) professor who was devastated by his governor's cuts to education and then seeing the gov applying the same amount of money as in the cut to a new (unneeded) sports venue and as we later learned selling the public land valued at 9 million to the billionaire sports owners for one dollar.  At the next dinner it was even more interesting to find that the retired geologist, who had worked for decades for most of the big oil companies in the U.S., was very much in agreement with our ideas toward the environment and also our hope to move toward more sustainable energy.  He also had a hobby working archeological digs in the U.S. and encouraged us to contact the Forestry Service to volunteer on one of their expeditions!

No one seems happy in this photo, neither the tourists in the background nor the Frenchman in the foreground.  I can see where this could lend itself to a story.

We were energized by the 80-something British couple who had many grandchildren.  We loved that the male part of this duo was able to walk on all the tours after a double knee replacement surgery a few years ago.  There were at least two other gentlemen with canes that did not let some of the more challenging walking tours up the hills on cobbled streets slow them down.

We enjoyed the couple from California.  The wife was originally from Georgia and we both loved the gentility of the south and the southern authors that we read and mutually enjoyed.  She was the gracious lady that made sure one of the passengers got a birthday card signed by many of us and was also a help with her command of the French language.

It is the same everywhere.  Wouldn't it be funny if they were talking to each other?

We enjoyed the Arizona couple who were not deep conservatives as we expected and fully on board with funding more science research and supporting socialized medicine.  Their son has been working on both an Ebola vaccine and a bird flu vaccine and now so close to success trying to get funding for both projects.  It was fun listening to how much work raising the boy was as a rebellious teenager and then evolving into such a success.  The other son, more conservative and less difficult to raise, was a success on Wall Street.  Proud parents they were.

Must be a new mother model.

We did find one gentleman our age that seemed to be on the verge of a heart attack in the middle of each walking tour.  His face was flushed and he sometimes seemed disoriented.  On the way back from a castle walk up a reasonable hill he actually collapsed just as he was going to go onto the gangplank of our ship.  They put him in a wheelchair and rolled him on in. Later on the second cruise he got lost and was left behind on one of the tours, missed the departure of our ship, and stayed two nights in a hotel in the French town before he contacted the Viking company and finally was reunited for the last two days.  We (the whole group) worried about him until we noticed he did a lot of drinking as well as taking pain pills on this trip.  He was wealthy, traveling alone, and we just shook our heads and felt sorry for the crew who were responsible.

One of our last dinners was with an 80 something woman traveling with her unmarried 40 something daughter.  The daughter was beautiful and wore expensive clothes and jewelry to dinner each evening, good taste stuff, not the turn your head stuff.  She was in real estate in Seattle and seemed to be very successful.  She was strong and opinionated and plotting about her future and search for a marriage partner.  She was trying to date online, but the questions she posed to possible candidates were pretty incisive and like a scalpel cut to the heart of things.  I am sure she was way over the head of most candidates that approached her.  She also seemed concerned about some woman in Seattle who had been on welfare her whole life who wanted her wedding paid for by the government.  I had no real comment for this, as I felt very strongly no one was going to pay for this welfare wedding!

I will let you add your own caption here.

Her mother was also very strong and outspoken and with some quiet "under her breath" comments, made it clear that she did not like the service in the dining room.  (In all honesty they did get my order mixed up twice!)  I later learned from another Seattle resident that this elderly woman lived in an area of multimillion dollar apartments.  Clearly they both were used to much higher standards.  Yet, even though both were strong headed, they seemed ever so supportive and polite and loving to each other and disagreements were quickly brushed aside.

In one of the conversations, the mother ever-so-lightly mentioned she had won a number of medals in the Olympics for Alpine skiing many years ago.  She did not brag, did not elaborate, but it fit into some part of the conversation, some yacht racing story, so she dropped it like a little diamond.  When I got home I researched Olympic medal winners and I am pretty sure that one of the biographies I came upon was her!  The photo was a dead ringer, although taken decades ago.  I now understood her so much better as she has always set high standards for herself and for others.

This post is too lengthy so I have to leave out the details of the Nigerian brother, a business man, and the Nigerian sister, a nun, who were leaving our airport going back to Nigeria with the body of their father who had been honored with an Army military funeral in Washington, DC.  He had been a chaplain. There was the robust engineer with the terrific laugh and his quiet wife who used to teach school that told the story of how they met in the elevator of their apartment building.  There was also the funny lawyer who let his wife do all the arrangements on the cruise, the Jewish history teacher who was so soft and inspiring and such a fount of knowledge for us along with his Catholic wife who had been a high level administrator for some state education office, and I will even leave out the fun wine tastings/map readings with my sister and brother-in-law or my sister's too much wine conversation scolding the Brits (gently) for their support of the "expensive"' monarchy and the Brits explaining to her how the Queen pretty much gave more than she got.  Oh well, just shows I had a great "people" time.  But I do love people and their stories.

It Is All About the Stories--People Part II

Before I travel I tend to collect a few books of fiction and non-fiction on the place I am going to visit.  I involve myself in the idiomatic expressions, the geography that molded the history of the country, the foods that are most traditional and I try to see what makes the people laugh.  I read one Gertrude Stein book on the people of Paris, but did not find it enlightening.  She refuses to use commas, which can be a distraction for someone, like me, that uses commas like salt.  I also read the novel "The Paris Architect" which I mentioned in a prior post.  It is a fictional account of two very different French sisters that found themselves fighting the Nazis from within their own limited world of that time.

Stop for a minute and think back to when you were 18 years old.  Imagine waking up to a war in your country.  Imagine your father leaving to fight that war and not seeing him for 9 years.  Imagine blackouts, bombings and ration cards.  This prologue leads me to writing about the people one meets on a cruise.

One of the best experiences on these cruises is the open table where you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with other passengers.  You can avoid people to some extent, but the true pleasure is meeting and talking to people who have lived very interesting, long lives and are strong survivors of those lives and are in a great mood because they are on a travel vacation!  (Even an introvert like me gets sucked into the small talk.)

This lady wearing the red scarf above was on the cruise.  She was always dressed to the nines.  Earrings, several bracelets, finely knit sweaters, etc.  She stood about five feet tall and was full of energy and enthusiasm.  She was 80-something and traveling alone. She was also very religious as I saw the time she almost missed the bus because she forgot her audio guide machine she crossed herself while rushing back to her cabin. One evening as we sat at one of the round tables she asked to join us for dinner.  Oddly I had not noticed her on this trip until this time.  Her accent was unusual and while she spoke clearly I had to lean in carefully to understand her.  Asking enough questions I slowly got her life story.

She had owned and helped run a cattle ranch in Ohio.  She even raised meat for the Cincinnati Zoo.  She talked about the price of beef on the hoof and the hard work ranching entailed.  When I asked where she was from originally she said France!  (I thought about it and realized that her accent was a version of French, but after decades in the U.S., not easily identifiable.)

She smiled and said that she had fallen in love with a U.S. soldier when just a teenager in France during WWII.  She and her mother and sister were trying to survive while her father had gone to fight the war and they feared he had become a POW.  She married the U.S. soldier while in France and lived in France with her mother and the soldier where he was stationed for several years.  Late one evening there was a knock at her door.  Although the Germans had fled and the war was almost over, she and her mother were afraid to open the door.  Then they recognized the voice.  It was her father!  They had not seen or heard from him for nine years.  She said she almost did not recognize him when she opened the door as he had lost so much weight and was so bruised and weak.  I cannot imagine the emotional reunion, repeated many times across Europe.

Later when her husband was called back she moved with him to the U.S. only to find he was not the man she thought.  He was cruel and demanding and she eventually divorced.  Perhaps the war had changed him more than they both knew until he was back home.  (I did not know at the time she told this story that she was Catholic, but I should have expected as she was French.)  She tells of meeting  another soldier whom she marries and they went on to Ohio to ranching and that is where she spent the rest of the decades of her life. (A lot of the best story of her life is unquestionably during these times.)  She was most certainly a survivor, one for whom the twists and turns of life were just a dance move to be mastered.   She is now a widow and said that, at the end of the cruise, she was going to visit her married sister who still lived in France. 

On these two cruises we met many people of interest and perhaps in the next post I will touch on a few more.

People---Part 1

The next few posts are about the people.  Without that ingredient, travel becomes solid food without wine or dessert.  The first group of people we dealt with on a daily basis were the Viking crew members.  These people are endlessly polite, happy, caring, and even understand English on a basic level.  Their wages are unknown to me, but since staff attitude is one of the primary ingredients that allows Viking to charge so much for their cruises, I am guessing that is why passengers are encouraged to add a generous tip.  Staff treat you as if they depend upon you, and perhaps, they do!   In 2015 Viking (which is Swiss) announced it was going to change all pay to Euros which resulted in a 13% pay cut.  They are blaming this on the minimum wage law in Germany which includes staff on vessels.  Odd since most of the income comes in pounds or U.S. dollars!  I did not know about this until I returned and did some research.  I would not have changed my purchase, though, I am considering writing a letter.

This sweet lady worked behind the desk and we later found she was married to the Chef, who himself was a handful!

 

 

Here is her husband guiding us through an oyster tasting.

Viking is based in Basil and handles 40 river vessels and 2,000 staff.  They are now adding ocean vessels to the mix (I will most likely never take one of those as I hate big cruise ships). I do know that the upper level staff work about 3 months on and then 2 or 3 weeks off.  They are on 24 hour call, so eventually need such a break.  I am guessing it is unpaid leave?  But I do not know.  Higher level staff are paid decent wages, it is those that work in the bowels of the ship, which are of concern to us all.

Think about having a job where you must be polite to stupid elderly Americans that forget what you told them, do not read their brochure and booklets carefully, assume they can walk cobbled streets and in some cases (a future post) are privileged enough to feel that staff should behave as personal servants expecting perfection and in other cases (perhaps a future post) drink too much and miss the boat.  These staff earn it!

During one of our mooring experiences I saw the woman crew member rushing off and decided to follow and get pictures.  These are for Mage who loves the operations on ships.  This gal (no spring chicken) tried twice to throw the bow line over the dock pipe without a using any pole.  Photos taken from inside the terrace room windows!

She threw twice and failed to capture both side hooks on the mooring bollard.  Immediately the big "guy" shows up to assist.  They seemed to be speaking in German.  He took the rope from her with an air of confidence.

I am sure he thought he was going to do it better than she, but after four failed attempts he looked up and smiled at me and I politely quit taking photos and went back to my wine.  We must have eventually gotten docked correctly as we soon disembarked for our afternoon tour.

Next a post on other people.

Friday June 6

Enough about Paris!  After all, I did cruise on not only one but three rivers during this two week trip.  The weather cooperated nicely.  A little rain, a bit too cool for my tastes, but lots of interesting skies for photos.  We did "do" Versailles and the Louvre, both so overwhelming in their size and exotic nature and huge crowds!!  So, I won't bore you with photos.  These are places to return to on colder days when the crowds are smaller---if that ever happens in my life.

How about a sad and thought-provoking experience to share and one of the primary reasons we chose this particular cruise?  The beaches of Normandy.  Our cruise company took us to the American cemetery early one day before the crowds, and held a small ceremony playing both the U.S. national anthem (Brits and Canadians had a separate tour) and Taps and gave us each a rose to place on any grave we wished among the 9,387 crosses that stood starkly against the green.  Absolutely no one was dry eyed that time and very few could sing the anthem!  So many brave young men who gave their lives to save our lives from a wave of horror that spread across Europe.  My father was in North Africa a few weeks after this invasion and was one of those moving up through Italy sweeping the Nazis back.  It was only the luck of the draw that he lived to come home and share in the freedom that he and others had fought for.

The veterans were called to come to the front so that we could honor their service.  Yes, we were all the old folks.  Our French guide thanked us for fighting to free his country and hubby later went up to thank him for his countrymen and their role in ensuring our revolution's success.

liberty equality fraternity

Just a few yards away were the bodies of so many souls and a debt we can only repay by continuing to make sure our freedoms are safe.  The names of 1,557 Americans who lost their lives in the Normandy campaign but could not be located and/or identified are inscribed on the walls of a semicircular garden at the east side of the memorial.

We also stopped at the German bunkers where Naziis had watched the landing and even delayed their response waiting for orders from a higher command.

Above is the Statue Les Braves.  "The Wings of Hope ---So that the spirit which carried these men on 6th June 1944, continues to inspire us, reminding us that together it is always possible to change the future.  Rise of Freedom ---So that the example of those who rose up against barbarity, helps us remain standing strong against all forms on inhumanity.  The Wings of Fraternity---So that the surge of brotherhood always reminds of our responsibility towards others as well as ourselves."

And that event in history was today June 6 back in 1944.

Once a Limit of 122 Feet

Prior to my trip to France I read The Paris Architect which was a novel more about WWII and the Nazis in Paris and how an architect handled that time and less about architecture in itself.  It was a good read, if not a great read.  But it helped me realize how important architecture was to the Parisians.

According to one article that I read, French architecture is a gradual movement touching on all eras:  Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Rocco, Neo-Classical, Empire, Art Nouveau, Art Deco, Modern, Post-Modern, and Contemporary Architecture.  From my quick view of Paris and the rest of the country, this was certainly true. 

Paris began as a Roman city called Lutetia.  But this architecture, while found in other places in France, was pretty much destroyed in Paris as the Roman empire fell.  The medieval period was chaos with no plan for design in the city.  Then came the revival of Paris in the Renaissance period with the introduction of Italian architecture.  Much was done under Henry IV who some say was the earliest town planner.  It was not until the 1600s that Paris began to devise its own classical style with a hint of romanticism.  If I had time and more money I would spend months in Paris just studying the architecture.

One of my readers asked about high rise structures in the capital.  The high rise shown in one of my prior photos is the Tour Montparnasse,  built over 40 years ago, and most agree that it is the most hated building in Paris.  It is ugly, bold, and out of place.  A 2008 international poll named it the world's second ugliest building.  "planned developments are pushing up to levels where they will be visible across large sections of the city. The Norman Foster and Partners-designed Hermitage Plaza, expected to be completed in 2019, will consist of twin towers taller than London’s Shard, currently Europe’s tallest building, but just shorter than the Eiffel Tower. A mixed development combining offices and shops with apartments, its Russian developer says it will resolve what he sees as Paris's lack of luxury property compared to New York and Miami."  Times are changing and Paris is beginning to allow high rises into the city, especially in places where the structures are becoming ugly in age.  It is a slippery slope in my opinion, but money drives everything.

The foreground of this historic area in the photo above does leave something to be desired in terms of architecture.

" Paris currently has office vacancy rates of over 7 percent, as companies reject high rent levels in the city core to relocate farther out in the Paris region. What Paris needs more of may not be taller, shinier spaces to rent out but customers for vacant spaces that already exist, plus improved transport links to get to them (La Défense’s metro and train links aren’t the best)."

And, below, where our boat was docked, right next to a new shopping center and yet just a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower...how convenient.

Icons

I find my reaction to iconic landmarks/art varies over the years as I get my chance to see them.  I was overwhelmed when I first saw the pyramids in Egypt and my knees trembled, but I was also still in my 30s and a newbie to the world.  Seeing the temple of Borobudur in Indonesia was impressive and sad understanding how religious zealotry never wins in its path of destruction over something so ancient.  Seeing the paintings in Uffizi in Florence brought tears to my eyes in inspiration as these were the first really classic works of art I had seen up close.  Yet, the older I become, the more jaded I guess I get, but if you are at a place for the first time with no certainty of returning, you have to see the icons.  I was certainly excited to see the Eiffel Tower, but I also realized I may not be as impressed as I had hoped.  It was crowded, very crowded, with long lines buying tickets to go to the first level or buying more expensive tickets to go to the very top---and yes, you can walk it for free!  With the global terrorism permeating all that we touch, there were lots of guards and security gates and bag checks.  This is one reason I went to the top.  Who can imagine what idiot religious zealot would damage this structure in such a way that it would be closed for some time to come!  We were in line most of an hour, but the wait was worth it. (Click on photos for a closer experience.)

I used to think 1950's culture and Audrey Hepburn romances, etc. when I saw photos of this structure.

The reality is tired and bored guards waiting to go through our stuff, but a very festive mood among the crowd including one rather portly teenage French boy dressed in black slacks, white shirt, beret and fake mustache with artistic easel in hand---but I failed to get a photo. "After Gustave Eiffel experiments in the field of meteorology, he began to look at the effects of wind and air resistance, the science that would later be termed aerodynamics, which has become a large part of both military and commercial aviation as well as rocket technology. Gustave Eiffel imagined an automatic device sliding along a cable that was stretched between the ground and the second floor of the Eiffel Tower."

This is a rather handsome bust of the famous architect.  "The architect, Gustave Eiffel, an innovator in iron design, had worked previously on bridges, the west train station in Budapest and the framework for the Statue of Liberty. He watched his biggest project to date go up like a gigantic work of Lego: 18,038 pieces of iron were fitted together with 2.5 million rivets by more than 100 workmen who functioned almost like acrobats and stuntmen. Not one man lost his life during the construction."

Long lines waited ahead to ride the last elevator to the top if you purchased the more expensive ticket which we did.

...But what a view!!   And it reminds me, as it should, of Washington D.C.

Above you can see the Left and Right banks of the Seine.  Do not ask me which was which.  The river is not very clean in appearance, but there were no smells.  We were high enough to see the curve of the earth.

With binoculars you could watch a soccer game, although why so many are on the field I do not know!

The boat in the photo below moving in the center was the size of our cruise vessel and you can see how sometimes the height of the river closes the cruises that cannot pass under bridges and you must go by bus.

And, as in any good tourist place, there are many wanting to take your money in exchange for souvenirs.  These folks appeared to be from North Africa...Algerians?

This was one of my favorite views as I love that butt!!  Yes, I am getting weird in my old age.

And, of course one must have a romantic photo.  A quick and data filled video on the construction of this tower can be found at this link that follows next.  (http://www.history.com/topics/eiffel-tower)

Boats and Ships

Since this was a river cruise we spent most of our time near the water and the first two days docked in Paris.  Thus, our walk to the Eiffel Tower took us past many water vehicles.

With the cost of renting in Paris, I think it is safe to assume that most of these boats are full time homes.  In some cases they have places to park their cars above the river, but in most cases they do not.  All kinds of people live on these boats...blue collar workers and professionals.  Fees range from 1,000 Euros annually to above 5,000 the closer to the center of Paris.

Clearly some of these boats NEVER move, or do not move far.

This one above looks roomy and gloomy with no windows.

This deck is covered in patio furniture for an evening of wine and socializing.  Of course, these photos belie the loads of maintenance and work that is required on a boat!

Finally after a number of blocks walking and peeping into the lives of the water people we reached the famous Tower and this was my first real view!

Arriving in Paris

One city is very much like another city, the only difference can be found in places in Asia where the pollution controls are less severe and you arrive at your hotel with burning eyes and a sore throat and a film of dirt on everything.  Paris was certainly not like that.  Rare in smells of diesel or gas fumes, clear air and navigating traffic that seemed manageable.  (I have a theory on this which I will share in another post.)  As you can see below, leaving the airport was a fairly smooth event.

My first glimpses of the city were from our bus as we headed to our boat anchored on the Seine.  We were lucky to get a front seat so that I could snap away in my jet-lagged mode.

No recession visible in all this bustling construction!  Looked like a convention of cranes.  The new architecture of Paris was both ugly and lovely depending on your style.  The French are not afraid to try anything and everything and it is usually loved or hated, but rarely ignored.  I will try to remember to show some of the more interesting buildings.

While I kept my eyes peeled for the Eiffel Tower, wondering how large it would appear, the Arc de Triumph was the first landmark we actually reached.  And, as you can see from above, the traffic in the center of the city became much more congested but always seemed to be moving.  Twenty percent of the population lives in the Paris region.

We finally arrived at are our ship which was moored among lots of other boats of all shapes and sizes.  Rivers still play a major role in France and 24 exceed 180 miles in length.   We found, to our joy, we were a short walking distance to the Eiffel Tower which you can see competing for attention with the lamp post on the right!  Since we were staying here the first two nights, that meant at least one visit to the big structure.  More about that in the next post.