Days 296-302 – Roaming through Europe

When I started my traveling (10 months ago!), I decided that this trip would not include Europe. After all, you can go to Europe for several days any time, during any vacation. But how happy am I now that the chance placed me here! Only now I realize how much I actually missed Europe with the serenity of its petite streets, magnificence of architecture, stately splendor of interior design, haute couture, haute cuisine, haut art! I am happy to be here!

I have never been to Italy. Well, this is not entirely true. Once, when I was 20, I went on a business trip to Turin. And… absolutely hated it. Not sure what exactly I disliked so much, but I remember being utterly unhappy during my entire short stay. My whole body was against me being in Italy that time: my stomach was constantly upset because of the unfamiliar food (now I love raw ground beef, but back then I guess I was pretty unreceptive to anything beyond salad Olivier and meat stew); I had gotten a pretty bad eye infection before the trip and was perpetually disturbed by the bright sun reflecting on the snow mountains; my feet were hurting because of uncomfortable new shoes; and on top of everything my Italian contractor (a sleazy middle-aged gentleman) was pestering me with his importunate attentions all the time. This is how I turned out to be the only person I know who didn't enjoy their trip to Italy. And this is why many years ago I decided that it's best to consider that I have never been to Italy.

I have never driven through Europe. Now, this is entirely true. In fact, I have never been to more than one European country during the same trip. And since at the moment I have the time, a driver's license, a GPS navigator and an irresistible desire to finally visit Italy, why not?

Two nights in Amsterdam – Just like home

Holland has a special historic connection to Russia. When a new Russian tsar Peter the Great came to power, he was determined to modernize Russia, and when he was 25, he took his first journey through Europe to learn various trades (sometimes incognito) from shipbuilding to silk spinning to pulling teeth. When he decided to build a new capital city, he looked to Holland for inspiration, and Amsterdam's canals and street patterns became his model.

This is why I feel like I'm at home in Amsterdam. The effect is intensified by the same shitty weather we usually have in Saint-PetersburgJ.

I stayed at: The Toren Hotel (my rating - 5 out of 5)

I dined well at: Damn, one of the restaurants was spectacular, but I completely forgot the name. Damn, damn, damn!

Two nights in Paris – I speak French!

I also feel completely at home in Paris. It has always been this way. In spite of my regular complete "topographic cretinism" I never get lost in Paris, I somehow know where to go straight, where to turn, I just feel this city (and it took me years to figure out how to exit NYC subway on the right side!).

So I wasn't a bit surprised to feel so comfortable and at ease in the streets of Paris. What I was really surprised about is that I speak French!!! I studied French at school, but never really talked to anybody in this language since then, although I did read quite a few French books until I stopped bothering with it several years ago. On the road from Amsterdam to Paris I was trying to remember how to at least order coffee in French, but all I could muster was uno café con leche por favor, and that is not French, that is Spanish. I was deeply annoyed that for every French word that I tried to remember I had a Spanish equivalent in my head. At some point I just gave up, put some music on, and no more linguistic thoughts overclouded the rest of my trip.

So imagine my shock when upon entering the hotel I heard myself saying, Bon soir, madame, je m'appelle Maria Hykin, je vais rester dans cet hotel pour les deux prochains jours. What? Wow! I spoke French with waiters, chambermaids, bookstore attendants, museum cashiers, people on the streets (asking ME for directions by the wayJ). This feeling is beautiful! And I honestly think that I can attribute this success to my learning Spanish. Somehow this helped me forget about my usual inferiority complex and proceed on making mistakes right and left, but making them WHILE speaking and not just in my head! Of course, my French leaves much to be desired and I don't remember all the complex structures so typical for this language, but I can speak! I can speak and I am understood! Now I want to spend some more time in France so that I can practice and re-learn this wonderfully sounding language that once upon a time used to be my favorite. Dear Lord, there are so many things I want to do! How long should my lifetime last to fit all these desires? Although… when I was 15 a street gypsy forced a fortune telling on me promising a long happy life till 90 (at which point I will die a violent death by the way – an interesting prospect). We shall see about my longevity, but so far at least half of her fortune has come true – my life is a very happy one.

I stayed at: The Seven Hotel (my rating - 4 out of 5, nice concept and good location, but service isn't that great and breakfast is ridiculously poor)
I dined well at: Le Grand Cafe on Capucines (wow!), La Rotonde on Montparnasse (wow!)

300

Following the tradition I personally created for myself, I celebrated my 300-day travel anniversary in style – dinner at Les Terrases de Lyon with a spectacular view of the magically lit evening city was outstanding and featured assortment of scallops, lobster a la Brittany, and lamb millefeuille.

Intuition, Mont Blanc and… I really know French!

The fastest route from Lyon to the North of Italy lies through the Alpine Frejus tunnel. I learnt this by carefully studying the maps of France and Italy (purchased at a gas station on my way from Amsterdam to Paris just in case, to supplement my navigator). When I laid them on the hotel room floor and spent half an hour on all fours trying to connect the road dots so that they make sense to me, I thought to myself, How stupid I am spending my time right now, why would I need all those road names and numbers when I have a perfectly functional navigator at my disposal. However, very soon, I came to thank my intuition, as always. Another strike of intuition was tuning in to the local traffic radio station. I never listen to the radio while driving, but all of a sudden, the numbers 107.7 – branded in my brain since the road signs on the Amsterdam-Paris highway – decided to get transferred into pretty useful radio waves.

It turned out that the Frejus tunnel had just been closed due to some major truck-on-fire accident. The funny part is that there were absolutely no announcements on the road about this. In the meantime, on the radio the news was fed to the audience in chunks. It took me several traffic reports to piece the puzzle together: at 8.30AM a paper truck caught on fire in this 13-km tunnel, reason undetermined, the tunnel will now be closed indefinitely, the traffic going to Italy is re-routed though the nearby (relatively speaking) Mont Blanc tunnel on route 40.

Every cloud has a silver lining, and in compensation for several nerve cells killed during my intense listening to the traffic report and an additional half hour of driving, this incident brought me two great things: a gorgeous close-up of Mont Blanc and a confirmation that I really know French, and all I need to do now is find some way to practice, practice, practice.