Heaven

About 4 years ago, when I was in the heat of building a business and had very little time for travel, Dave took a biking vacation with his Dad. They came to France to bicycle in the Dordogne. Each day he would call me and tell me about the views of the rolling hills, the beautiful castles, and the unbelievable food. The scenery sounded enchanting, but my greatest heartache was being deprived of the experience of tasting the food. The Dordogne is known for it's foie gras, and for those who know me, you know that foie gras is my ultimate weakness. I know there is so much controversy about it, but I just can't resist it. It’s flavor, the way it melts in your mouth, the sensual feeling that infuses me after I've eaten just a little. It's always served in small portions because it's so rich, so I am always left yearning for more. It's like my craving is insatiable. And whenever I have some, I melt into a puddle of bliss. Each night Dave would tell me about the meals he had and how this foie gras tasted like this, and that one tasted like that, and they served it over duck today, and the served it in a salad yesterday. And I just wanted to cry. I was sitting at home, busting my butt crunching numbers for my business and he was immersed in the sensual pleasures of the French countryside and cuisine. When he came home, he told me how much he missed me because he could just imagine the rapture in my eyes as I luxuriated in all that he had experienced. Then he told me that he would take me there one day.

When we moved to France, one of the first things he wanted to do was to take me to the Dordogne, and to Sarlat in particular. So we checked out train rides and it was going to take us 11 hours to get there! We checked out flights, and they were $500 a person! We thought about driving, but it would still take 11 hours! Oh my, this seemed like so much trouble, but we live in Lyon! We get the best food in France right here in Lyon, right? I convinced myself that our foie gras is just as good as theirs, and we procrastinated on taking the trip.

Last weekend, after our string of guests finally ended, I was exhausted. It has been months of entertaining and hosting people. As much as I love being hostess, and as much as I love my friends and family even more, I was completely worn out. So, Dave suggested that we go away for a weekend to thank me for taking such good care of everyone. And no place could surpass Sarlat. Evidently, this is what I deserved, and what he craved, this weekend. So, he booked the train tickets, reserved a hotel, and took 2 days off of work, and whisked me away to Sarlat. (Well, whisked me away as fast as the French train system made possible.)

The train ride was long, but a very welcome respite from everything. I was forced to take downtime and just read a good book. It put me into a very relaxed mood, and by the time we got to Sarlat I was completely wound down. I was ready for good food and whatever else Dave had in mind for me.

We arrived at about 6pm, checked into our hotel, and immediately went out to dinner. While in Lyon, I have eaten lots of excellent foie gras, but I wasn't able to get any seared foie gras anywhere, so I was aching to have some. Dave took me to a cute little place right by our hotel, and I ordered a seared foie gras for my dinner. It arrived, I cut it with my fork, and put it in my mouth. And oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhh..............OMG I melted. It was soooooooooooo good. Sooooooo...just what I needed. Dave hadn't started eating. He just sat there watching me take that first bite. A huge grin crept across his face as he watched my face transform with that first bite. This was going to be a very good weekend.

Each meal was more delectable than the last. Each new dish burst with new flavors. I was in absolute heaven. Between mealtimes, Dave took me for drives into the hills. We visited castles, sipped wine on lush green lawns next to the Dordogne River, under picturesque bridges, and walked in cute walled towns. Another one of Dave's surprises for me was Chateau Milandes. It was the chateau owned by Josephine Baker, American cabaret dancer who became famous in Paris. Being a dancer myself, I loved walking through it. Seeing all the pictures of her life, looking at the gorgeous costumes and headdresses, and seeing how she decorated her own "little" country chateau was mesmerizing for me. It was also heart-warming to hear about all the things she did to "change the world" with her money and her reputation. She did a lot to help with the Civil Rights movement in the US. She helped with the French resistance. And she adopted 12 children to try to give them a better life. She was a woman who did things with her money. Her story truly inspired me.

After that, we came back to Sarlat and roamed the cobblestone streets to find another little restaurant to experience. We walked into a tiny little side road and stopped at a secluded restaurant to look at the menu. As we stood there reading, a kind gentleman opened his door and exclaimed that this was a very good restaurant. We laughed with surprise at his enthusiasm. Dave asked, "Are you the proprietor?" “Bien sûr!” he exclaimed, "Thats how I know!!" His excitement was irresistible, so we walked inside. And we weren't disappointed. After all the visual stimulation of the tour through Chateau Milandes, this was exactly the gastronomic sensation we needed to even the score. We had a walnut aperitif (walnuts are another thing for which Sarlat is known), another melt-in-your-mouth foie gras, and a delightful soft, creamy local goat cheese to finish it off. It was a day straight from heaven. I melted into the soft sheets of our bed that night with the thought “if this were the last day of my life, I couldn’t have asked for better.”

The next morning, we woke up before dawn and caught our train home. As we sat next to each other, my head resting on Dave's shoulder, I thanked my amazing husband for taking me to heaven for the weekend. He laughed. "That's where angels belong," he whispered. "I love you."


To see pictures of the beautiful Dordogne, go to:
http://s232.photobucket.com/albums/ee52/travelnuts/The%20Dordogne/

NaNoWriMo

No, it's not a chant, a mantra, or the name of a new disease. It's what will consume my life for the month of November! As many of you know, last year I discovered a book called "No Plot! No Problem!" and I got really excited. I have always wanted to write a book, have started many times, but never finished. This book seemed like exactly what I needed. The problem was that I discovered the book just before I left for France, and couldn't dedicate any time to it. So....I brought it with me and read it earlier this year. NaNoWriMo stands for "National Novel Writer's Month," and November is the designated month. So........I've got a couple of friends on-board and we are going to do it!!!!!!! We are going to write a novel in a month. What do you think? Think I can do it? We are encouraged to have friends, family, and perfect strangers take bets out on whether we'll finish or not as a motivation tactic. Any takers? The word is out....I'm taking bets!!!!

Fast Forward Tape II

We have boarded our cruise and are on our way to Norway. As soon as we
board I realize again that, as much as I like the idea of being able
to see lots of places quickly without having to lug my luggage around to
a new hotel each night, cruising is not really my style. We are going
to have about 6 hours at each destination, except St. Petersburg, and
because our time is so limited in each place I feel compelled to just
book tours each day. But each tour starts at like 7:00 in the
morning!!!!! I don't wanna get up at 6am every day of my holiday!!!!! Aargh!!!
But, that's the way they do things on this cruise, so I sign us up
for some interesting tours and then go up to the pool deck and watch the
ocean slip by as I sip a frothy mixed drink in my swimsuit.

We arrive in Norway and board our tour bus. Our first stop is the
Vigeland Sculpture Park. Oh my goodness it's beautiful. You know how much I
adore Rodin's work, but this artist is even more amazing! Where most
of Rodin's work is heavy and dark, this artist sculpted people in every
day life, doing things we can all relate to, even today. He sculpted
them naked so as to make the sculptures timeless, and the figures
all look soft and human, even though they are in stone. It took my
breath away. It turns out that Gustav Vigeland was a contemporary of Rodin, and
so Rodin's work influenced his work, and vice-a-versa. That explained
a lot. What a delightful way to start our day.

Next they took us to their ski-jump. Ski-jump? Why the heck would we
want to see that? Well, it was huge! The tour guide told us that
Norweigian mothers are some "serious mama's" because their children are
born with skis on. It makes for quite a delivery ;) And if they happen
to not be born with ski's on, most children get their first pair of skis
on their first Christmas and learn to ski before they learn to walk.
Talk about human beings adjusting to their environments! It snows so
much in Norway, well of-course they'd learn to ski before they learn to
walk! I'm always amazed at the human ability to survive and thrive no
matter where they are and what they have to deal with.


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Next stop Tallinn, Estonia. Beautiful Eastern European city. Gorgeous
architecture, adorable cobblestone streets, and lovely people. We got
to see the town Mercantile Guild building that was started during the
prosperous days of Tallinn. In order to be able to get membership into
the Guild a man was required to own a house, a cow, and a wife. Own a
WIFE?!!!! Um....not a word from you guys out there! Wives and cows
are NOT comparable, and you cannot "own" a wife!


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And off to Gdansk, Poland. The thing that was most striking about Gdansk is the spirit of the people. We have all met Polish people who have emigrated from Poland to make more money. It makes sense, because things are still pretty bad in Poland. But the people seem so hopeful. Things are so much better today than they have been in the past, and they keep getting better. So the Poles that leave, fully intend to come back to help their country succeed, and the ones that stay in Poland work hard and have a genuine smile in their eyes. They were a true inspiration!

Another interesting thing was the 1 kilometer long building!!! It just kept going forever!


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The next port of call was St. Petersburg, Russia, and we were there for 2 days. I was actually going to write a full blog about St. Petersburg called War, Religion, and Royalty. The city is absolutely stunning, if you like overly ornate buildings, palaces on every street corner, grand domed churches, and canals and rivers. It certainly was an impressive sight to see...at first. But within a few hours I started to wonder, how can a government spend so much money on such decadence, when it's residents still suffer from poverty? Inside of me I found a huge conflict burning stronger and stronger by the minute. After seeing the first couple of churches and palaces, which I found very impressive, I had had enough. Why is there so much?! And everywhere we went they talked about how this royal family was instrumental in the victory of this war or won a victory in that war. By the end of the trip I kept thinking, "If I have to go through one more church or palace, or hear one more war story, I'm going to scream!" So, although it was beautiful, it was too much for my taste.

Having said that, I will say that I feel blessed to have had the opportunity to visit the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. It is huge and if you spent 30 seconds (or 3 minutes...I'm not remembering which) in front of each piece of art in the museum, it would take you 3 full years, non-stop, to get through the whole museum. It was an incredible collection. We saw Rembrandts, da Vinci’s, Raphael’s, Titians and Michelangelo’s. There were also Monet’s, Renoir’s, Picassos, Cézannes, Gauguins, and of course Van Goghs. There were paintings and sculptures, samples of lamoge and delftware. It was a true feast for the eyes. Everywhere you turned there was something stunning. We were very lucky because our tour guide in St. Petersburg is a tour guide teacher, and she is very well known in St. Petersburg. So she got us a special early admission to the Hermitage, so we got to view it privately for the most part. We started with basically a private tour and even after the doors opened to the public we were so far ahead of everyone that we didn't run into anyone else until we were coming to the end of the tour. It was a truly amazing experience.


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(Our next stop was Helsinki, which Dave wants to write about. So I won't put anything here. But stay tuned for his blog about this one)

And next we landed in Stockholm, Sweden. What a gorgeous city Stockholm is! Everywhere you looked it was just delightful. But the best part of my trip to Stockholm was a conversation I had with another lady in my tour group. She was a beautiful older Indian woman. I had run into her several times on our ship and she had always given me a very pleasant hello. She had a beautiful accent and spoke English perfectly, so I wasn't sure if she lived in America or India. In Stockholm she was on my same tour and at one point, as I was sitting alone waiting for Dave to run and take pictures, she sat next to me and started chatting. Toward the end of that conversation she said to me "You are so lucky to have such a loving attentive husband.....and I'm so proud that you married an American." What?!!!! I must have looked completely shocked because she laughed. She continued "Indian men are such chauvinistic pigs. I keep trying to convince my daughter to marry someone better for her, like an American. But she keeps refusing and keeps marrying Indians!!! She's been divorced twice and is dating another one! It's so frustrating!" I must have looked bug-eyed and I had no idea what to say. I couldn't believe an older Indian woman had just said that to me. After a few moments of shocked silence I started to giggle. I told her I'd have died to have her around to talk to my parents when they were trying to arrange a marriage for me, and kept threatening to disown me if I married out of the culture?!!!! And I wished she'd been there when I brought Dave home and hoped to God my parents would look past the white skin and see the man I was in love with? OMG! I couldn't believe older Indian women like this existed! She laughed a beautiful musical laugh and said again how proud she was that I stood up for what I wanted and did so well. Of course, on the very first conversation with my parents after I got back from the trip, I told them this story, and they just laughed. "Yeah, well, no one's perfect," they admitted. "We are so glad you married Dave too."


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We ended in Copenhagen, which is a beautiful city too. We spent the day exploring Tivoli Garden, and walking through the city. We had lunch at Wagamama Ramen Restaurant. Notice, it's a ramen restaurant. Ramen...the stuff we all lived on when we were starving college students...remember? Well, we had a salad, 2 bowls of ramen and a side of 4 pieces of sushi, and tap water. And it cost us $100!!!!!!!!!!!! One hundred flippin' dollars for ramen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, they'd told us Denmark was expensive, but this was rediculous!!!! We got hungry again after about an hour...um, because it was RAMEN...but we couldn't afford another meal in Denmark so we starved until we got back to the ship. No wonder the Danes are so skinny!!!!


Later that day we boarded our ship, ate immediately :) , and the ship headed home......


End of tape II....Recordings ended.

To see pictures, goto: http://s232.photobucket.com/albums/ee52/travelnuts/Baltic%20Cruise/