I am going to skip the writing I did about our Couchsurfing experience, but I'll mention here that its a truly great online community and resource. Also, I am going to skip the writing I did about Hotel Intercontinental, Paris Le Grand, in Paris, although it was amazing for Loic to win a free night as well as a free breakfast there! The following is my first writing on this trip:
I am writing this while sitting, exhausted, within the palace of Versailles, after doing much of the garden, and then most of the rooms available to the public. Versailles still
impresses, even in this age where little is left to impress us. My feet are hurting and my entire body is sore. Loic is disappointed with me for not being willing to do everything that he wants to do. There is still a lot he has to learn about a Diabetic who has had diabetes for 28 years, and especially one who has just reached her 40th birthday. The body undergoes significant changes between 35 and 40, even for the so-called “normal” person. Loic is 4 years younger than I am, and possibly he will be more sympathetic to my condition as he ages himself.
My endurance level and my ability to handle stress is seemingly much less than his at this moment in time. I have been surprised that he did not book or plan ahead of time some of things we were to do on this trip, since I have known him to be a very good planner and strategizer in general. He surprises me in delightful ways and also in disturbing ways. Although we only had four days in Paris this time around, (although we have both been in Paris before, this is our first time seeing it together, and while I am having a birthday), some of our nights were not booked in advance at any hotel. A word to the wise: If you are spending two weeks or less at a destination, it is a good idea to know where you are going to sleep ahead of time, otherwise, so much of your journey is spent figuring that out, or being preoccupied about it! A bonus tip: Make finding the place where you are going to stay the first night easy to find and travel to.
I also discovered recently that booking a convenient hotel near the airport the night before your plane is due to leave relieves a lot of stress. I have learned so much about travel in such a short period of time, possibly because I have done so much of it without the interruption of that pesky thing called a job…. For one, there are often things that you can add to your list of “Never To Do Again” (am I starting to sound like Bill Bryson here?), and two, lack of communication among travel partners can kill the pleasure in travel. You think you have problems communicating in your relationship, try traveling together. Either you learn fast or the relationship will be destroyed.
I am baffled that Loic needs to be perpetually reminded of my needs and limits—I don’t know how else to keep reminding him yet without getting angry. Yet, back on the issue of surprises, and his ability to brilliantly plan, he delightfully surprised me by having planned two weekend road trips while we were staying with his family in France. While in Vienna, he surprised me with two tickets to a classical music concert in the famous music hall Musikwerein (sp?), as an early birthday present. I really enjoyed that.
I enjoyed Vienna, not only because of the art and architecture ( I saw a fabulous collection by one of my favorite artists, Hundertwasser, later Gustav Klimt and various pre-Raphaelite painters as well), but also because of its musical history. My father’s mother’s family comes from there, and supposedly one of my ancestors sang in the Vienna Opera House. The city is very quiet, the public transportation is excellent, and it even smells good. There isn’t much more that could make me happy. Celine, Loic’s sister, and her husband, Sebastien, were very gracious hosts, with a lovely, spacious apartment, a great bathroom (always a plus), and a very comfortable guest bed, which as it turns out, used to be Loic’s when he lived in Paris. I really enjoyed staying with them and getting to know Jolan and Dorian….
Back to the philosophy of travel. There is so much that I do enjoy, and I’ve realized, in Europe especially. If Costa Rica was nature, then Europe is culture. The world becomes my museum—I enjoy the littlest to the most grandiose things, including shopping. This bothers Loic, who has no patience for my stopping and looking at things that could possibly be purchased. As Hundertwasser says, “The line I trace with my feet walking to the museum is more important and more beautiful than the lines I find there hung up on the walls.” (Paris, 1953, by the way!) Ergo, the sleep I have the night before my visit to the museum, or the breakfast I have before my visit, is more important and more beautiful. Nothing else matters if I don’t eat and sleep well, or if I am not relating well to my travel companions, ultimately.
One of the biggest issues, I feel, among travel companions, is that they must expect to spend time apart some of the time. If travel companions and partners of any kind can agree to do this regularly, it can save and even deepen your commitment to eachother. The trick is to plan these times before either of you gets fed up being together. And the trickiest part, really, is to find a happy compromise between time together and time apart.
More of France to come!
you're such a good writer!
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