St Louis in 2.5 hours

Flight to STL was delayed 30 minutes--which meant 30 minutes less of 60 degree weather!

Took the Metrolink light rail downtown and across the river to the first station in Illinois. Then walked back to Missouri and the Gateway Arch.  Took pics but battery ran out. I am getting one of those external batteries---a smartphone used all day just doesn't last, and to travel light I had no additional camera.

I decided to cut it closer by arriving to the airport 1 hr before my flight (instead of 1 hr 20 min). I was walking from the Arch to Union Station but I wasn't going to make it so go on at 8th and Pine.

Used the priority security line and all was well. A bonus: my Detroit gates were th same for arriving and departing!

Minneapolis in 2 hrs

I achieved my goal:took the light rail into town and saw the Mary Tyler Moore statue! I even explored a bit of the downtown Skyway system. Definitely a way to not freeze in the winter!

Returning to airport was efficient; my next flight was delayed a half-hour but I stuck to my schedule to avoid surprises. A Metro Transit police officer checked everyone's tickets south of downtown.  Everyone appeared to have one!

The Skyway Security check point is great if you only have carry on luggage. It is closer than the main entrance to the underground light rail station, and is reached by a series of escalators or elevators. I forgot a small water bottle saved from my first flight so had the embarrassment of TSA removing that.

Flight is still delayed until 1:34 but heading to gate soon.

Photos: light rail station and train, Mary Tyler Moore statue next to Macy's on Nicollet Mall.

Cheap trip for miles...

I travel enough that I earn enough for a flyer miles that I reach the lowest status that allows me to get free upgrades and certain mileage bonuses. The problem is it becomes a never ending cycle of needing to purchase more and more tickets to achieve the status every year. I ended the year with your miles an expected but really close to what I needed. So I searched for a inexpensive flights that would give me the miles I needed without serious inconvenience. I found such a flight in a round trip from our home airport in Madison to St Louis Missouri.
The layovers are such that I will be able to leave the secure area in both Minneapolis and in St Louis, and be able to ride each city's light rail system to a downtown landmark.
My trip got off to an inauspicious start when I forgot to pack my city bus pass, and also forgot to bring small bills, so my trip by city bus to the airport cost $10 instead of being included in my bus pass.
Because of the early hour on a Saturday, I had to transfer buses at a location at a large shopping mall. Even though it is freezing out, still before sunrise, the moon is out, and the mall parking lot is almost empty the mall open for another, a Jehovah's witness appeared out of thin air to offer me Watchtower. I think she was giving another bus passenger a ride.
The second small mishap was that I forgot to eat my yogurt before clearing security, however they didn't seem to notice it on the X ray.
Photos: my first bus, the unfortunate bus ticket, moon over the mall

Multiple trains

Our flight got in early and immigration and customs was no problem. We took the Malpensa Express train service operated by Trenord to Milano Centrale. The airport station had smooth wheelchair access to the train--elevators to the ticket office and platform and a no step plank to train. However at Milano Centrale as well as Porta Garibaldi, there are two large steps down.

The Sala Blu is an office at larger train stations that assists passengers with disabilities.  For our Frecciarossa high speed train to Florence, they arranged for a wheelchair lift at Milan which worked well. And sorted out some confusion regarding getting a seat with wheelchair space. Hopefully it will go smoothly in Firenze as well.

The train has free wifi but due to Italian law,  they require a credit card transaction. ..of 1 cent.

Setting off

Smooth trip so far, and now on board last leg to Milan. Charlie's wheelchair is safely in the storage closet on this Boeing 767-400ER (all the way front left, with a lip of about 4 inches).

We are back in Economy. Business Class toilet clogged so a bit odiferous even back here. Maybe they should serve oatmeal in Business Class with Metamucil shots...

Testing mobile app

The mobile app has some pretty negative reviews (and perhaps valid criticisms). So I'm trying it out. One was that photos can't be placed within the text. You can do bold and italic and add links as well.

It does seem like the photos insist on sitting at the end of the post. 

Yikes! Check your lists of blogs now and then!

I neglect this blog whole-heartedly. And, I had listed several blogs of interest to me, including by other LGBTQ folk involved in parenting. One of those blogs had let its domain name registration lapse and it had been replaced with something not exactly family-friendly. I'm not a prude, but the lesson is--if you set up links to other blogs or web sites, you need to check on them now and then! Mea culpa.

Leiden celebrates defeat of the Spanish

Monday October 3

I slept very soundly! Around noon Eric and I went to Lisse to get groceries (4mi), then dropped them home and headed for Leiden, celebrating the defeat of the Spanish siege there in 1574. Bike paths the whole way, albeit with some detours due to construction. Many shops are closed Mondays (maandag gesloten) as were both bike shops in Sassenheim as my rear tire went soft. We pumped it up and soldiered on.

The main train line from Amsterdam to points south runs along part of the path so I got to see several trains. Central Leiden was packed for the festivities--rides, games and fried food. I had poffertjes with gran marnier and then we visited a supermarket that happened to be open for drinks and snacks. The health stores in town were closed so we had to stop at one in Sassenheim on the ride back. (15.5mi)

After refilling my tire at home I took the bike out for 3 miles or so to test it and go in another direction. While you can't get lost, you can get stuck in residential neighborhoods.

Beach and Turkish Pizza

Sunday October 2

We headed out after a late breakfast toward the North Sea and the beaches. From De Engel along country lanes to a bike path (fietspad) along a busy road up to Noordwijk and then along brick-paved bike paths through the dunelands to Katwijk and its beach and then up to Scheweningen, which is the beach town for Den Haag. It has a huge double-decked pier with casino, restaurant, bungy jumping over the North Sea. We ate Turkish pizza--large pita bread with meat and veggies and spices. The trams from The Hague run out here and there was a crushing number of bikes parked near the beach.

On the trails, continuous bike traffic. Serious road cyclists with Lycra and helmets, omas and opas, families with kids, electric mobility scooters that go the speed of a slow bike. There are some of the larger hills in Holland along this route. We covered about 40 miles in all.

All bikes here

Saturday October 1

Arrived Saturday afternoon after sleeping well on an overnight flight. Our friends Eric and Pavel met me at the airport, and after we got to their apartment in De Engel, we headed out on a bike/shopping adventure in Lisse. Pavel had a work event so Eric and I later went out on a ride to Noordwijkhout along the river and railroad tracks. No trains, unfortunately--they were doing trackwork. Also we passed the old Lisse train station which is now a restaurant, currently named Lizs.
And the seasonal flower gardens of Keukenhof and the castle of the same name.

Along every road is a separate bike path--paved and limited to bikes and sometimes mopeds. You can ride across the country this way. Tiny country lanes might not have separate paths but then they also have very light car traffic.

As evening fell I was dozing off so I got a great night's sleep!

heading on an adventure...

I am going to the Netherlands for 6 days to visit some friends who moved there last year. I hope to get lots of biking in and will share my adventures on this blog!

Promenade Plantée

I walked part of the Viaduc des Arts from rue Malot to behind the Bastille Opera building the other day; now I was going to walk the other direction, toward Vincennes.
I could see arches of the part I'd already covered down a side street.



First, I dropped by the covered market, and found it opening and busy. Cheese, cold cuts, butchers, seafood, produce, everything was here. Three of some sort of animal carcass (pig?) hung from the ceiling behind one stand. Having not enough cooking skills nor hungry mouths to take on such a purchase, I headed on to rue Malot to access the viaduc.



It wasn't raining today, but it looked like it could if it chose to. The walkway is nicely planted with small trees, shrubs, and landscaped with trellises and even fountains and pools at one spot, although those were drained for winter.




Little surprises are around every corner, like when the clock tower of the Gare de Lyon peeped between some buildings.





And more greenery and lampposts.



Sometimes even over the path itself, like this apartment building which spans the path.





Further down, I eventually arrived at the back end of the Gare de Lyon tracks and had a nice view of some TGV high speed trains, albeit parked and waiting for their next runs. Later, I would hang out at the station and see them up close.



I passed another elevator and was excited, until I read the sign, which said that this broken elevator was currently owned by the private sector but was in the process of being acquired by the city of Paris.




There was some interesting (Art Deco?) ornamentation at the top of one older apartment building.



And after looking back at another building cleft by the path, I was at the Jardin de Reuilly (Reuilly being a former small suburb, now part of Paris).


Here there were stairs one one side (to the left of the split building), and a level access to another local city street on the other (to the split building's right).







The mairie (town hall) had distinctive architecture, viewed across the green jardin, as did the former Gare de Reuilly, now used for something else, and a small park where the tracks once ran.







Then the former trackbed descended to street level (or perhaps the streets rose), and ended up in several tunnels under existing roads or above-ground subway lines.



Pedestrians and cyclists even had their own lanes at this furthest western part of the trail. It's also the older part of it, developed by the neighborhoods out here. The paths run in sort of a "trench" valley, and the greenery seems more wild and less organized, unlike that up on the viaduc closer to central Paris.



Are we there yet?

I enjoy walking and exploring, so bear with me!




Then along some less exciting apartment buildings, through a less-inspired park, the trackbed curves on its way to rejoin la Petite Ceinture, the little beltway railroad which is mostly abandoned but peeks in and out especially on the east side of Paris.



The bridge of the Petite Ceinture viewed from the bridge of our ex-railroad siding.






The path ends just past a jardin partagé -- a community garden! It looks like they had some local outdoor artists decorate the toolshed, which looked pretty cool. (I like the eggplant wielding the rake.)





There was some rainbow chard and perhaps leeks planted and sort of growing; even in February, it's not as brutal in Paris as it is in Wisconsin.




Finally, we reach the end of the line, literally. A cyclone fence prevents access to the Petite Ceinture tracks that are still in place, although I'm sure it doesn't stop the more dedicated explorers and artists.

I noticed a post office down below, and so backtracked to the closest park with street access, and bought some postcard stamps.

I did a bunch more today, but that will have to wait for a bit.

Street of the Fishing Cat

This is being written about two weeks later, so the facts may be fuzzy.



First, a couple photos from Monday night's walk: one of Paris's smallest streets, rue de la Chat qui Pêche (street of the fishing cat) which runs between a pedestrian street full of ethnic restaurants and tourist shops, and a busy street alongside the Seine with a great view of Notre Dame.




I walked down, across the street, across the river, and across the square in front of Notre Dame to get a better picture of its impressive façade. A large Christmas tree was still up in front of it, close to Point Zéro, the marker in the pavement, from which all kilometer markers in France are measured. Some tourists stop to look at it; other obliviously stand on or near it when admiring Notre Dame.



I had to use the flash AND manual focus to get the camera to take a recognizable photo.

Feeling Medieval

I slept in a bit this morning. It has been so nice having neither my middle ear pain nor heartburn that I've been enjoying sleeping more. And now that I have succumbed to closing the window shutter and putting something over the cable box display, I am sleeping more soundly.

When I was finally ready to go, it was early afternoon...just a bit off schedule. I headed for the Cluny, whose formal name is le Musée National du Moyen Age et Thermes de Cluny (National Museum of the Middle Ages and Cluny Thermal Baths). It is a late 15th-century city mansion of the abbots of Cluny (which is in central France), today used as a museum. But the original mansion was built adjacent to baths built during the Roman period (1st-3rd century AD), and those are open in part for viewing, and in more depth if one goes on a guided tour of the underground service passages. Unfortunately, they didn't think about accessibility much in in the 3rd century, and that lack of forethought extended at least to the 15th century, so the building is really not wheelchair accessible.

I decided to buy more métro tickets on my way there rather than the way back, as it might be rush hour on the way back. (That said, in some stations, there are nice machines now that sell metro tickets and some of them even take bills!) The young man at the head of the line got upset with the cashier about something (either a policy you had to show I.D. with certain payment types, or that the fares had gone up, or both) and told her not to yell at him (she wasn't yelling--and he even had headphones on for the exchange--maybe someone's hearing was off due to too much headphone use). A woman who had arrived after me in line said to me in French, "What is it about today? I was on the bus and this big argument broke out, and I just couldn't take it, I got off and waited for the next bus. I wasn't the only one who got off, either." I suggested perhaps it being Monday or the moon being full.





My route on the metro was: Line 8, Bastille to Gare d'Austerlitz, then Line 10 to Cluny-La Sorbonne. I wasted a bit of time at Gare d'Austerlitz trying to figure out which way to take Line 10 (only one direction was labeled) when I realized Line 10 starts at Gare d'Austerlitz, so of course there was only one direction. I did use my confused state to take pictures of some ads that I thought were interesting.
(The cell phone has a 'monstruous'ly-big touch screen; and there's an exposition on world languages next week.)

When you come out of the Cluny station, you're right on the same block as the museum, on a corner by the gardens. When I was a child and we lived in France, I remember on a visit to Paris there was a street vendor selling fresh coconut on that corner. He had a little fountain that kept the cut chunks of coconut moist and cool. He wasn't there, but then the Cluny station wasn't there when he was: it was closed during the war and only reopened in the late 1980s, with new connections built to the RER trains that are within block. Even the metro stations are dense here: from the platform at Cluny, you do not even need to lean over the tracks to see the next station, Maubert-Mutualité. (The photo on the wikipedia page above appears to allow you to see the lights of that station down the tunnel, also.)

A press kiosk was selling 10 postcards for 1 EUR, and I seem to remember this particular kiosk having a good price, so I agonized over which 10 were the right ones to send to various nieces and nephews and kids.

Finally, I made it to the museum. The courtyard with the stone well was full of French kids--talk about a school field trip! After one class exited the single carved wood and leaded glass entry/exit door, I made it in. I had made one small mistake--the exhibit on Rayonnant Gothic doesn't start until February 10. But there's plenty to see at the Cluny.



And there's always something new, it seems, despite the museum's specialty in objects from about the year 400 to 1500. This tapestry was in one of the first 2 rooms, of newly displayed or refurbished items, and features "Giorhargius (?) and Tubalcain" and the invention of weighing and forging. The text is actually French and says "Giiorhargiiius trouva l'art de passer aus pois [aux poids]" and "Tebaqain trouva l'art de forger en tous metauls [metaux, sorry, there really was an "-auls" ending that got chopped off]".



The amateur art historian in me, regarding this Virgin and Child, thought it was more likely to be a sculpture of Saint John the Baptist as a baby with his mother. (OK, that's a not funny joke.)



There's a room of stained glass window-lets from the 12th and 13th century, many of which are from the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. Apparently after renovations they had some extra windows (?). I'm assuming they were not salvageable due to some structural problems, but I'm not sure about that. It is neat to be up close to the windows to be able to see why they look the way they do from 20-30 meters below. The information card in the room explained their manufacture: first, forest artisans made 40cm diameter glass disks of a single color. Second, the artisans on site made drawings but also had to plan for scaling to the size of each window. They eventually cut the glass and leading strips. The drawings on the glass for folds of garments, faces and fingers and other small parts were made with 'grisaille', a mixture of iron and ground glass, that then had to be baked on in order to stick.



The Lady and the Unicorn (La Dame a la Licorne) room had a school group sitting on the floor with a guide doing an age-appropriate explanation of the tapestries, so I listened in. The 6 tapestries represent the 5 physical senses plus a 6th tapestry labeled "A Mon Seul Desir". The guide started explaining the Sixth Sense ("pas le film", she explained, not the film), and pointed out the sixth tapestry, with the lady standing and her servant holding a small chest, and asked what the lady was doing. One kid called out, in French, "she's voting!" which provoked a lot of laughter and the guide said no one had ever called it that, but that no one was voting back then.



Due to Salle 14 being closed for no obvious reason, Salles 15-23 appeared to be inaccessible. I asked the guard and he pointed to a lit corridor behind the unicorn tapestries (literally: running behind the wall they are mounted on) that had tables and chairs stored in it, and led to Salle 17, Hispano-Moorish ceramics and Gothic ivories. One ceramic caught my eye; the star motif reminded me a bit of Cocteau or Van Gogh.



Then there was the treasury, the life of Saint Stephen tapestry series--about 20 of them--which are great fun because they are all labeled with a paragraph of French. Many of the "s" characters look more like "f" and there are other spelling and shorthand variants. But if you read them, and then look at the picture, you figure out more about what is happening.

This particular one is labeled:

Comment le corps [de] St Etienne est delaissé au lieu de son martire;
et exposé au bestes et par la divine puissance preservé.

(How the body of St Stephen was left at the place of his martyr;
and exposed to animals and by divine power preserved.)

I only figured out "divine" because of "puissance" following it. However....I do question a bit the risks that any human remains would be subjected to the animals shown. There are seven: a lion, a monkey, a deer, a porcupine, a bird (a partridge?), and a unicorn. I know lions are carnivores; the monkey's pretty small; and the deer and the bird are probably not going to eat a person. The porcupine might lick him for salt. And the unicorn is probably a pretty light eater.



I am exhausted after doing two blogs in a row. All I would write about is: buying tourist trinkets for relatives; visiting Notre Dame during evening services; and taking a sardine-packed metro train home. Then, hunting for a bakery still open (hint: follow upstream against the people carrying baguettes). And so I close with a photo of dinner: lentils cooked with carrot and onion (from a can), soupe au pistou, spreadable cheese in two flavors, very fresh french bread from the last bakery open at 19h45, and for dessert (sorry, didn't have it out, and now I ate it), a flan nature (custard pie).

Bonne nuit!