Picnic under Eiffel Tower a table with the ultimate view
The best part about a picnic in Paris is shopping. Food shopping in Paris is like strolling through an art gallery where you can actually taste the art. It’s like Rome.
The best part about a picnic in Paris is shopping. Food shopping in Paris is like strolling through an art gallery where you can actually taste the art. It’s like Rome.
Hopefully, his old surroundings would inspire me. That’s why I left the apartment and went searching for Hemingway. He spent most of his Paris life right around my neighborhood in the Latin Quarter. His two apartments are just up Rue Monge from me. The first is on a quiet side street next to the Cafe Bo LeDescantes. A small plaque next to a bright blue door indicates the second-story apartment window where he spent some of his life in 1920-21. Ugly construction equipment mars any kind of romantic reminiscence.
The second apartment is just around the corner on Rue Descartes. He obviously upgraded. Two big, ornately decorated black doors lead into a bright, white apartment building with 19th century guardrail on all the balconies. A tony, romantic cafe, La Maison de Verlaine, is right below it.
Even in his 20s, Hemingway owned Paris.
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Paris in spring is one of the heavenly places on Earth and the amount of tourists is minimal compared to the colossal chaos of summer. The January massacre of the 12 Charlie Hebdo staffers probably didn’t help much, either, although that newspaper’s circulation is creeping up near Le Monde’s. There were only about 15 people in line entering the big glass pyramid that serves as a very artsy security gate. There were only two people in one of the five ticket counters that encircle a round entry hall in the basement.
Seeing the Louvre requires strategy. You must decide what you want to see, not how long you’re going to spend. It’s estimated that it would take one month of daily visits to see every piece of art. The museum map they give you with your ticket is just one fold smaller than my map of China.
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It’s Expo 2015, a six-month-long celebration of arguably the most popular subject in the world: food. An estimated 20 million people are expected to check out this year’s theme of food and sustainability: How do we help feed a world where 805 million out of a world population of 7 billion (8.7 percent) are malnourished?
It’s a massive subject that has baffled mankind ever since the Roman Empire imploded from over expansion about 1,600 years ago. It’s why Expo 2015 looks like a small city. I took Milan’s shiny, efficient subway (OK, it has one thing going for it) an hour to 10 miles to the northwest of town. In a massive space stretching six kilometers, hundreds of pavilions and exhibits explain the world food crisis in such detail I felt like buying a pizza and shipping it to Haiti. (One double cheese pizza from Milan could feed a Haitian village. Trust me.) There’s a pavilion for 145 countries and all 20 regions in Italy.
The Expo features a man-made lake, a 12,000-seat amphitheater and a 6,000-seat auditorium.
It was due to one of the Seven Wonders of the World living up to its billing as the most beautiful building on earth. Eiffel Tower? Take a bow. Ever since I saw you stand over Paris like a Rockette on stage when I was a 22-year-old backpacker, you’ve been my No. 1 gal. Not now. Not after walking through a giant red sandstone gate which perfectly frames the Taj Mahal. It’s true, really. Every hardened traveler who treats crowds like immigration officials say pictures don’t do the “Taj” justice. It’s exactly as wide as it is tall, 55 meters x 55 meters. The four corner minarets make it look like a four-poster bed, providing a romantic image for a building built on love.
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My hotel is in Old Delhi which shouldn’t be confused with New Delhi which is the administrative and government center the British built in the early 1900s. New Delhi is lined with white, ornate architecture, huge official-looking buildings where long ago the Indians moved out numerous statues of British dignitaries. Old Delhi is lined with grime, dust, cheap retail stores, construction, wild probably rabid dogs, crazy drivers and cheap hotels you can’t tell from scruffy garages.
My hotel was an absolute mystery to my baffled cab driver. He asked directions about six times, from auto rickshaw drivers who pointed him in opposite directions to vendors selling dodgy samosas from filthy street stalls. After 30 minutes going up and down the same dirty street, screeching past rickshaws and terrified dogs, we finally found C-Spot Hotel. It’s a single door under a vertical sign which could’ve said the Bates Motel and I wouldn’t have cared.
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We walked into the slightly dense forest and the guide pointed out something in the mud. They were paw prints, big paw prints. “Tiger,” he said. They were from four days ago. Not far away were huge round blocks imprinted in the mud. They were elephant prints from about the same time. A male and a female. They were all heading out of the forest toward the lake we were skirting across.
A few feet later he pointed out a bison skull hanging from a tree trunk. A tiger had killed it four years ago at the same spot where we were standing. Knowing tigers don’t like noise, I was wondering if anyone in our group had an AC-DC tape.
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movies are as much a part of the Indian social fabric as the cotton in saris. Everyone has heard of Bollywood. It’s massive, much bigger than its richer, more famous cousin in Hollywood. However, Bollywood only represents movies coming out of Bombay, now known as Mumbai. There is also Kollywood (Chennai), Tollywood (Hyderabad) and Sandalwood (Bengaluru). Together, India produces more films than any country in the world. At last count in 2012 they made 1,602. Hollywood averages only 120-150, not including 40-60 independent films. For two weeks in India, I couldn’t go five minutes without seeing a movie poster. Beautiful, very light-skinned women in tight jeans fought for billboard space with muscled, tall, leading men with $100 haircuts. Every corner seemed to be plastered with two or three of the latest films.
Last night I went.
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This was the reason I came to South Asia. They are called the Backwaters. They are a 900-kilometer maze of canals that meander through a thick forest of palm trees. Glassy-smooth lakes flow into rivers that flow into canals so narrow you can touch both sides of the shore. With the lime green palm trees against a turquoise sky, it looks like you combined French Polynesia with Venice and kept out all the tourists.
But you kept the gondolas.
I met my boat captain at 6:30 a.m. I never understood his name but he was a tall, lean man with a gray moustache and gray hair he brushed back atop a long face. He curiously wore a white dress shirt over a black print sarong the Indian men wear tied up like long, baggy shorts.
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My mind is blank. It is void of thought. It is empty of emotion, meaning, objects. Lust has left India. This time, it’s not because of sweltering humidity that has crushed my libido like a cobra confusing my penis for a hamster. I am flat on my back in a dark, upstairs yoga studio. I face a wall hanging of a woman sitting in the lotus position with five big circles lined vertically on her body. I am focusing on the one on her groin, not for what you might think. The fan cools the studio but my first meditation lesson of my life has cooled any thoughts of intimacy or lust.
The circle on the groin is a focus point. I have emptied my mind as if I shoveled my walk of snow in order to see the pathway. One sentence runs through my brain.
“I want to experience the silence in me.”
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I’ve taken cooking classes in Malaysia and Italy but the class put on here by my Kerala Bamboo House is a truly gluttonous affair. Ever since I filled out the menu request the day before, I almost fasted. Hey, again, when in India …
Seriously, the menu I filled out included: starter, Indian bread, vegetarian dish, non-vegetarian dish, rice dish, dessert. The guesthouse has a recipe book the size of a Denny’s menu. Many of the dishes’ names sounded like something you’d chant during meditation.
But I fearlessly dove in due to one inescapable fact: Indian food is fabulous.
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My back was already sore from trying to sit upright Indian style (called lotus position in India), a sitting position that has always caused me more pain than dentist chairs. Then the “stretching” started. We kept our legs crossed and put our right arm over our left shoulder and turned our head to the right. We were essentially turning into a figure 8. I looked at Hermione and she was looking straight at the wall to our right. The wall wasn’t even in my peripheral vision. I couldn’t get my head past the wall in front of me.
If I was any stiffer they’d fit me for a coffin.
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