Tired Uffizi

That's not my joke. I got it from Rick Steves. And it's terrible, but I like it anyway. Hope everyone got a good groan out of it.

August 9:

Got up bright & early yesterday for a 9:15am rendezvous with the Uffizi. That place is huge. We were in there for nearly six hours but we did the whole thing, top to bottom, and had lunch in the museum cafe. Derek had a ham & cheese panini. I had a plate of olives, salami and cheese (pecorino romano and parmigiano). And we both got tiny intense little cappuccinos.

The highlight for me was definitly the Botticelli room. They are so beautiful. I thought 'Spring' would be my favorite, but the 'Birth of Venus' was so very very lovely. After those, I kinda tuned out for a while.

Off to Grom for a peach gelato, then to the Pitti Palace. We got there kind of late in the day, so didn't see a huge amount of it, but did get to visit a costume exhibit (the wearers of the oldest clothes must have been tiny!), a bit of the huge Boboli gardens (lovely views of the city from up on a hill), and a strikingly ugly grotto housing copies of Michelangelo's four unfinished 'Slaves' (originals of which we saw in the Accademia).

Back home to collapse for a bit. Sooooo tired.... Then dinner at Osteria del Porcellino, recommended by Rick Steves - and just downstairs from our hotel. It was a comfort food sort of meal. Antipasto of fried brie with truffle oil & salad (hooray for fried cheese). Derek had tortellone (really big tortellini) with goat cheese, pear, and walnuts, in a lovely creamy & buttery sauce. I got the Ribollita (lovely bean & veggie soup). Shared a half-bottle of Chianti. Coziness.

Today I think involves the Precious Stones Museum and some churches, or maybe the History of Science Museum? But we're getting a bit of a later start. I have stumpy feet (hello, Earl family!), and Derek is sleepy. We'll get moving any minute here, though....

Molto bene

August 8:

Light breakfast in hotel. They don't really serve breakfast, but there are a plethora of little cakes and cookies available in the kitchen, as well as plentiful tea & coffee fixins. Good enough. The fundamental ingredient in any good breakfast is, after all, caffeine.

Off to the Accademia! Our hosts made reservations for us, which rocked. Line? What line? And it was amazing. The David is AMAZING. So big, and so very very beautiful. Great Mapplethorpe temporary exhibit. Upstairs filled with soooo much gold-painted iconography...eyeballs still glittering.

Lunch at Rick Steves recommended Robiglio (next to another couple also taking his advice).

Note: If anyone should be looking at a menu in Italian any time soon, here's something that I got wrong. Now, you don't have to.
pesca = peach
pesce = fish
...Very different things.

Derek: Gnocci with a sauce of white fish (sorry Derek!). Was still delicious, but if you're expecting peaches and get fish...well, one is bound to be a little dissapointed, no? Glass of a really lovely red wine, whose name entirely escapes me.
Ariel: ItaliannameIshouldhavewrittendown, which translated to sauteed slices of chicken breast in a delicious gravy with the most porcini mushrooms I have ever seen on a plate at one time. YUM. Glass of fresh, cool pinot grigio.

Stepped from the shaded restaurant patio into the HOT sun (with a full belly and a glass of wine in me), and my brain melted. It was kind of amazing. I. Could. Not. Think.

So, obviously, we had to go get gelato.

Back to Grom.
Derek: Lampone (raspberry)
Ariel: AnotherItalianwordIcan'tremember meaning sweet cream with mint

Back to the room for a bit for siesta, then out again for a walk along the Ponte Vecchio (sparklies!), and down through Oltrarno (Florence on the other, southern side of the Arno river). It started to sprinkle, so back to the room so I could grab my umbrella (Derek had his with him, the smarty), then out to look at Orsanmichele.

Wandered along little streets and came to a little church with open doors and organ music pouring out. Sign said free concert, so we went in and...amazing. A big organ in a little church is better than listening to music in the car - total surround sound that you can feel in your chest. Beautiful little church, too, with candle-lit nooks filled with beautiful paintings & sculptures all round. Second favorite thing of the day, think, after the David. What a treat! And apparently these organ concerts happen every night, so we may just have to wander that way again, say somewhere between 8:30 and 10pm.

Wandered to the Duomo, to see what it looks like at night. Beautiful and impressive.

Headed back across town, passing a quartet of French breakdancers (!) in a square. The were so good - had a whole choreographed piece put together.... I can't imagine having feet so coordinated, or arms so strong.

Dinner at the current number one recommended place on TripAdvisor.com (use it!), La Bussola. Shared a great bottle of chianti and an antipasto plate of pecorino romano cheese, lovely thinthinthinly sliced salami, the most delicious sun dried tomatoes I think I've ever tasted, fig jam, and rucola (arugula/rocket) lettuce. Soooo much fun, mixing and matching all the different flavors, but Derek found the best combination which was everything all together at once! Yum.
Derek: Pizza of pear (making up for the not-peach gnocci earlier), walnuts, pecorino romano, and honey
Ariel: Pizza of duck salami, fresh tomatoes, pecorino romano, and a sheep cheese with (!) truffles in it. I love truffles.

I've been winning 'best meal choice' mostly so far, and Derek has been winning 'best gelato flavor choice' (says him), but these pizzas were totally tied. So different, and both delicious.


And now I must run!!! Off to the Uffizi! Botticelli...eeeeee!

L'Italia è bella (e deliziosa)

Temporary conversion from Derek's lovely narrative posts to Ariel's considerably less polished (and definitely less entertaining - my apologies) bullet points. But I am not so patient as Derek when it comes to writing, and I want to put this down so I don't forget all the travel and places and food food food....


August 6 :

Metro to bus to plane to bus to Treviso.

Dinner: English pub. Bruschette (giant rounds of toast with lovely things baked on top).
Derek: Iforgottheitalianname (parma ham, mozarella, tomato sauce, and yummy caramelized yellow bell peppers).
Ariel: Porchetta fungi (tomato sauce, mozarella, chopped button mushrooms, and ohmygoddelicious (delicious!) sliced roast pork).

One night at lovely (and blessedly air conditioned) Hotel Continental.


Side note:
I love staying in hotels. I get so excited about it. When I was a kid we didn't have air conditioning, and sometimes when the weather got just too darn hot we'd drive a couple of towns over and stay at a hotel. The hotel was the vacation. Air conditioning, and a pool, and those danishes with little blobs of jelly in the middle, and way more television channels than we had at home...what more could you want, really?


August 7 :

Pleasant breakfast in hotel's 'Coffee Room'. Yogurt and granola and very yummy very very strong coffee and tea and the cutest little individual-sized packets of nutella and honey and whole-grain rolls and wonderful wonderful (I ate two) peaches. Snagged apples for later snack, and picked up sandwiches for lunch at the Treviso train station.
Derek: Was going to get traditional ham and cheese, but (based on last night's roast pork yumminess) went instead with notquitesoyummyaslastnight,butstillquitegood porchetta. An excellent decision.
Ariel: focaccia caprese, which I though would be just nice, and actually turned out to be really delicous (flat bread filled with mozarella, tomatoes, basil, and - this was the best part and a delightful surprise - green olives. YUM.)

Train from Treviso to Mestre to (!) Florence. Short walk to hotel, the even lovelier Relais Cavalcanti. Met at the door by our very friendly host. Short break for settling in & (for me) a brief siesta.

Back out into lovely Florence! Went to the Duomo (inside just closed), walked around it & saw the very short line to climb the dome - why not! 463 steps is a lot. I have a feeling my legs will have something to say about it later. Lovely views. Pictures later. Florence sure is pretty.

Made it down (legs already talking to me), and went to the highly recommended (thanks Jessica, and also Rick Steves) Grom for gelatto. YUM, and cold and we'regoingbackeveryday,maybetwice,ifihavenanythingtosayaboutit.
Derek: limone (so tart that it tasted extra cold)
Ariel: melone (made with special 'Honey Moon' melons, said the sign, and since this is sort of a honeymoon trip...)

Went to the baptistry - gorgeous, amazingly gorgeous mosaic ceiling (so very much gold), and intricate stone-tiled floor - then for a lovely walk through crazily beautiful piazzas, past statues out of art history text books, to the river.

Dinner:
Osteria de' Benci - a wonderful recommendation from our hosts. Shared an antipasto plate of a variety of sliced cured hams and sausages, and got a mezzo (50cl carafe) of the house wine - YUM all around.
Derek: spiral pasta with (lots of) garlic, parmesan, and spicy peppers.
Ariel: macheronette pasta with pecorino romano cream sauce, fresh cherry tomatoes, and fresh basil (drooooool)

Home to shower and collapse - soooooo tired.


And now it's the next day, and we're off to the Accademia! Oh boy oh boy....

Homeward Bound

It's now 100%, absolutely, positively, without-a-shadow-of-a-doubt, officially certain that Ariel and I are heading back to California in the next couple of months. Of course, this may not exactly come as news to anyone, so why am I even bothering to announce it (again)? Because, at long last, I finally bought my ticket. Mark your calendars, boys and girls, because my flight to San Francisco leaves on October 6, 2009, at 1:30 pm.

I have to say, I'm feeling pretty ambivalent about this flight. I've really enjoyed the past year that Ariel and I have spent here in Paris (and I'm going to continue to enjoy it up until the Oct. 6). To be honest, there's a big part of me that doesn't want to leave. I live in a beautiful apartment in a beautiful city, my work is going well (though it won't exactly be rewarding in the financial sense this coming year), and I have a whole big chunk of my family just a train ride - or even better, a 10 minute walk - from where I live.

At the same time, it's going to be nice to be back in California around good friends, close to other parts of the family, and where hopefully work will still be good (albeit equally nonpaying). Also helping the whole excited-to-go-back-to-California side: the fact that Ariel will already be there. She's leaving Paris on September 19, so that means there's going to be a little over 2 weeks here in Paris without her. If two weeks without my wife won't make me want to jump on a plane and fly 17 hours to San Francisco (with layover), then I don't know what will.

Uncle Scrooge, Minus the Scottish Accent and Money

Over the past few months, my niece Sofia has become a talking fiend. She's learning to speak in three different languages, and her words in all three make frequent appearances amid the babble that pretty much constantly flows from her mouth when she's not unconscious. Give her something to eat and she says "merci." Take her for a walk to the park and she'll chant "volta, volta!" ("trip, trip!"). Change her diaper and she starts crying "I know" (Sofia tends to cry a little when you change her, so Lee and Pegs try to calm her down by shushing and saying things like "I know," which has led the Littlest Pool to believe that "I know" has something to do with diapers and booty wiping).

Lately Sofia has especially enjoyed saying people's names, which tend to get stuck on "repeat" in her brain. A pretty big chunk of her day now is spent calling out "Daddy, Daddy, Mama, Mama" over and over again (which actually sounds like "Dadee" and "Mama"). Mixed in with her parents are Yia Yia and Papou (Pegs' parents), Mamie and Pop (Lee and my parents), Bon Papa (my grandfather), "Iki" (Pegs' sister Nikki) and her children "Adada" and "Eva" (Alexandra and Eva), and us Vandersibs. Sofia got Vanessa and Ariel's names down pretty quickly: "Nana" and "ao." Damien and I have been a bit trickier, though. I'm still not exactly sure what she calls Damien, but this past weekend she finally found some semblance of my name that's been able to repeat, and she spent a good chunk of Saturday saying over and over again: "Duck."'

To me, this is excellent knews for several reasons. 1) I have now joined the pantheon of names Sofia repeats ad nauseum, which makes me feel all special. 2) "Duck" is far better than her previous attempts to say my name, which usually ended up as something closer to "Dick." And 3) looking back on Sofia's first word, it is now abundantly clear that she's been trying to say my name the whole time - indisputable proof that I am her favorite uncle.

Damien and Young: Suck it.

When Stereotypes Come to Life

We've all heard the stories of the awful American tourist. Hell, network news programs have even produced terrible, cringe inducing "reports" on them. But they don't really exist, do they? I mean, no one could possibly be that obnoxious, right? Well tonight, as I write with the apartment windows open, I am listening to what can only be described as the platonic Awful American Tourist stereotype made flesh as he shouts and cackles on a hotel balcony across the street.

Let me add that I live on a fairly busy street, near a fairly busy intersection. It's 11:45 p.m. right now, and there are still cars regularly driving by, people are in cafés and restaurants chatting, and I can still hear this guy's every word. What's he doing on this warm Paris night in the middle of what must be his summer vacation, you might ask. Based on the amount of time he's spent on the phone, I'd guess that he's calling every single person he has ever known to tell them that he's in "Pair-ee - ha HA!!"

A selection of excerpts from his many, many conversations:

"HEY HOW YA DOIN' KEN! GUESS WHERE I'M CALLIN' FROM?!!! [Yes, capitalization and extra exclamation points are necessary]."
...
"We're staying on the sixth floor of this hotel - I need some fuckin' GARGOYLES up here, ya know? Ha HA!!"
...
"I went up fuckin' Noder-DAHM today, I ate fuckin' mussels, I went to the fuckin' market...I'm lovin' it, I'm LOVIN' it! [Noise that sounds like a cross between a laugh and a lung being hacked up]!!"
...
"Yah, we've done the whole Louvre: I saw the Mona Lisa. ... No, we've BEEN THERE ALREADY!"
...
"I'm looking at that Tower right now!"*

Maybe I'm being too hard on the guy, though. Maybe this is one of those situations when, as an American, I feel more self conscious and am more irritated by the rudeness of a countryman than the French themselves are. I mean, at least the guy seems to be enjoying his visit.

...And just as I finish writing that thought, his wife gets on the phone and shrieks, "Tom, guess what? They got fuckin' Segway scooters out here! Segway scooters!!"





*(editor's note: he wasn't. You can't see the Eiffel Tower from this part of the city)

Extension for ao!

After almost two months of waiting to get the final word from Stanford Medical Library about Ariel's job and if/when she would start up again, we finally have an answer. And if you've read the heading for this post, you know it's good.

A little background first, though. Ariel first got the okay for her leave of absence to come to Paris for the year back in August of 2008, taking effect on September 1st. The leave was only good for one full year, though. After that, Ariel would have to ask for an extension, which would involve asking higher-ups at the library and human resources, etc. Despite that, Ariel was told that asking for an extra month wouldn't be a problem, provided that she made the request well in advance (like, in the spring of 2009, for example).

Of course, that was before the global economy was flushed down the planet-sized toilet.

Fast forward to early May. Around that time Ariel wrote her boss at the library checking in and (half)jokingly asking if, you know, ha ha, she still had a job when she gets back to Palo Alto. Turns out, the answer was, "We'll let you know in a week after the big meeting." Ominous much?

Thankfully, following the scary meeting Ariel still had her job (sadly, some of her friends didn't have theirs anymore). But the question of whether or not she could get the extra month extension was still up in the air. Obviously she wanted it, but she was scared to press too hard for it out of fear of endangering her job status at the library. And if she couldn't get it, she would have to go back to Palo Alto sometime in August, which be a royal pain in the ass because a) it's already the end of June and getting a ticket for August would be damn near impossible and b) I wouldn't be able to go back with her, since I wouldn't be done with my research, meaning Ariel would have to not only be in Palo Alto alone for a month and half to two months, but she'd also have to find a place for us on her own. Needless to say, not much fun.

At first, we thought we'd hear back from the library pretty quickly. Then a week went by, and then another, and another... We started getting nervous, and I for one was convinced that she was going to have to go back in August. Ariel, meanwhile, was preparing an email to send to HR asking for the status and gently pushing for an answer if only to get a plane ticket. And then, literally as we were talking about her email and when to send it, dear sweet Marcia from Stanford Human Resources wrote to let Ariel know that she could return to work on October 5th.

Victory! Huzzah! Woot!

So, that was an incredibly long and probably boring story to say that Ariel and I will now definitely be heading back to Palo Alto at the end of September. Or, at least, Ariel will be. I still need to find a plane ticket (but that's another story). Still, we'll both definitely be back in California by early October at the latest.

In the meantime, Ariel and I celebrated tonight by drinking a nice bottle of chilled white wine along with our tasty dinner and eating some ice cream to cool down from the 90˚ heat that we had in Paris this afternoon (yet another story).

Yep, it's been a pretty good night.