Images of San Francisco

Tristyn and I returned from San Francisco early Tuesday morning. Photos from the trip follow. (Full San Francisco thread here.)

Saturday we took a cable car to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building. Locally grown produce is sold outside, and shops selling housewares and food are inside.


They're very serious about recycling: there are even compost bins. And a political satire of the famous kids' book.


Across the street is an artists' market. Stalls are only allowed to sell their own work. We bought a handmade glass tray similar to the black and white one on the left.


From there we took another cable car to the Cable Car Museum. Until then I did not realize that cable cars have no propulsion of their own - rather they "grip" a steel cable that constantly runs (at 9 1/2 MPH) under the ground. The city-wide cable is driven from these engines in the museum:


I assume this was from after the 1906 earthquake/fire that destroyed the city:


We had lunch at the Gallery Cafe cafe across the street, which offered free wifi and private glass alcoves.


Next we went to Vesuvio's, a bar popular in the 50s with Beats like Kerouac and Ginsberg. It was only fitting to drink a 'Jack Kerouac.'




We stopped by Grace Cathedral. The outside looks like Notre Dame, and the inside is similarly Gothic - except that the ceiling arches don't actually hold up the structure, as in real Gothic structures, but simply add decoration to a steel frame that does. Maybe that makes it more earthquake-proof, but it looked a little redundant.


We had dinner at Mel's Drive-In - not really a drive-in anymore, but still a good diner. Across the street is Tommy's Joynt, where we ate the next night.


On Sunday, we went to Fisherman's Wharf and Alcatraz Island. It was Fleet Week, so the Blue Angels and other squadrons were flying overhead in acrobatic formations all day. Thousands of boats were on the water to see the show.


Tristyn and me at Fisherman's Wharf after a big meal.


From the Wharf, we hiked up steep roads to see the Coit Tower. A statue of Christoper Columbus - fitting for Columbus Day weekend - stands outside the tower.


The view in two different foci from the trail near the tower.


For dinner, we went back to The Stinking Rose: A Garlic Restaurant. I agree with the guidebook that their cuisine isn't particularly exceptional, but I do like garlic and the place is fun. The vanilla-garlic ice cream, however - which I didn't try two years ago but was determined to try this time - was (not surprisingly) pretty awful. The ceiling was adorned with wine bottles decorated like garlic bulbs.


On Monday we spent the day in a park near the Civic Center. I read Yann Martel's wonderful book Life of Pi and T studied for classes the next day. A man there was flying a hopeful kite.

In San Francisco

Tristyn and I are in San Francisco for the extended weekend, two years since we were last here. We got up early and the flight was tiring, so we rested for much of the afternoon after getting in. We have a long day planned for tomorrow. I'll take lots of photos. Stay tuned.

Hawaii Slide Show

I just discovered Picasa's wonderful "embedded slide show" feature. Enjoy...

Hawaii underwater (Sharks!)

The last set of photos from the underwater film cameras is now developed. Enjoy!
(I'll be posting the shark video soon, so stay tuned.)

Hanauma Bay:

North Shore:

Waikiki Beach:


Update: here's the video with the sharks (pay special attention around 1:25):

Honolulu 360°

A 360° view from Diamondhead Mountain in Oahu, stitched together (scroll horizontally to see the whole thing):

Hawaii, pt. 3

(Continued from here, full trip log here, photo album here.)

On Thursday, we went to Hanauma Bay, recommended by everyone for snorkeling. Formed by volcanic activity (an eruption or collapse, I'm not sure), it's full of coral and sea life and is now a protected "marine life conservation district." Visitors are required to watch an orientation video about the bay's history and protection before entering. About 100 feet out are rocks, beyond which the waves were too rough for swimming, so the available area was limited. We started snorkeling in the middle area and didn't see much - the coral was gray, there were some fish but nothing amazing. We got out and sat on the beach for a little while, then went back in on the left side, and this time there was a lot more to see. Overall I was disappointed with the coral, however: my mental image of coral is of many colors and shapes, but the Hanauma coral was all gray and uniform. Other snorkelers reported seeing turtles but we didn't see any. It was still very nice underwater, though, and I got some more good photos (also coming soon).

(I learned an interesting tip there for de-fogging a diving mask. The usual suggestion is to use spit, but that didn't work with these masks, so a park guide suggested I break off a leaf from the bushes there - I don't know what the plant is called, but the leaves are slightly thick, bright green and moist inside - grind up the leaf, and apply the liquid to the inside. It worked!)

For dinner Thursday night, we went to the Cheesecake Factory, always delicious, and with huge portions so every meal there basically includes another meal to bring home. I had one of their off-menu specials, salmon with a ginger crust top, and it was delicious. (Incidentally, we didn't get cheesecake.)

Friday morning we woke up very early and took the bus to Diamond Head, also the result of volcanic activity (like all of the Hawaiian islands, in fact), and with a peak that gives an amazing view of Honolulu. It's necessary to go early because by afternoon it's too hot to hike. There's a good walk from the bus stop to the start of the trail, and then another half hour or so to the top, including a long tunnel that was only recently fitted with lights, and several staircases and ladders. Around World War 1, I think, the site became part of a sea targeting system, and the concrete watch tower with its narrow viewing window overlooking the sea is still there. (I stitched together a 360° panorama of the city, which I'll post soon.)

Friday afternoon, we went to the Bishop Museum, reputed to have one of largest collections of Polynesian artifacts in the world. It's actually several museums in one: an interactive science museum for kids, another science pavillion with a planetarium, a Polynesian art/history/culture museum, a Hawaii Sports Hall of Fame, a pavillion of Hawaiian royal lineage, and a kids' science exhibit (probably temporary) called "Grossology," which we got a kick out of.


On Saturday we planned to check out before noon, go to the airport, check in our luggage and go back to Waikiki for last-minute souvenier shopping. I had called US Airways and they assured us we could check in any time on the day of departure. So we get there at noon, and find out (after being directed back and forth across the terminals) that the US Airways terminal doesn't open until 8 PM. Of course there is no more airport luggage storage ("post-9/11" and all), and we hadn't thought it necessary to use the hotel's. So we were stuck with three heavy suitcases outside the airport for the whole day, and airport food is such a ripoff. The weather was perfect, though, and we got a lot of reading done, so it wasn't a total waste. It was also good we got there early because we discovered that our flight - scheduled for 10:55 PM - was delayed til 1:30 AM, possibly later (due to maintenance, same as the first leg of our flight going there). Anyway I was on the phone with US Airways' horrible customer service people - in the Philippines, of course - and while they wouldn't compensate us for being wrong about the checkin time (lying about frequent-flyer mile rules and probably lying about first class being full), they did move us to the earlier 10:30 PM flight, which was on time.

Long story short...Honolulu to Phoenix to Washington D.C. to Boston...basically two days in airports or airplanes, and we got back to Boston. Home sweet home. Of course they had to lose one of my suitcases somewhere - another point for US Airways - so I'm hoping they'll find it and deliver it tomorrow. After a week of essentially perfect weather, the weather back home will take some getting used to again, (and I'll surely lose my tan before the summer). Tomorrow classes start again, with a giant pile of reading and work that I mostly neglected on vacation awaits me, but I feel quite refreshed.



Check out the full photo album here.

Hawaii, pt. 2

(Continued from here, full trip log here, photo album here.)

On Monday, we went across the street to the Hilton's beach to swim and read. We took some photos with disposable underwater cameras (which I'll develop soon in Boston). Then we went to dinner at Duke's Canoe Club, a restaurant-bar highly recommended in our guidebooks. Named for and decorated with memorabilia of Hawaiian Olympic athlete and surfing pioneer Duke Kahanamoku, the place was a little too loud for conversation, but the food was great and was followed with a live music duo.

On Tuesday, we rented a Jeep Wrangler and drove up the H1 freeway to the town of Haleiwa on Oahu's North Shore. There we went to the Coffee Gallery for some freshly roasted Hawaiian-grown coffee and brunch. Then we drove to the beach and boarded a boat with a cage on back, which took us a few miles out into shark-infested waters. We put on snorkels, the cage was lowered and let off the boat, bloody fish bait was thrown into the water, and we climbed into the cage to swim with the sharks. There were dozens of them all around, big Galapagos sharks and smaller reef sharks. Four people went in the cage at a time, for 20 minutes or so, and the sharks mostly ignored us, except when one snapped its head in at the bottom, hit the bars and snapped it back out. (Lots of underwater photos and a video with the sharks coming soon.)

Despite much sunscreen before and after swimming, we got sunburned on the boat back to shore. We drove back to the shopping plaza in the center of Haleiwa (which, despite being the "capital" of the North Shore, seemed to be comprised of two streets), and had lunch at a Mexican place called Cholo's. Chickens strolled around our outdoor table and inside the restaurant. We also visited some art galleries, including one with beautiful glass sculptures. Then we got back in the Wrangler and drove east along the shore to the Polynesian Cultural Center, which supposed to be a must-see attraction that can take all day to experience. The closing time listed in our guidebook was unclear, however, and the park had already closed, with only the [overpriced] dinner show still available. It was already getting dark, and we wanted to take the long route back to Honolulu (clockwise around the island instead of back down H1), so we started back. As it turned out, it got dark too early to see most of the way back, which included H3, a beautiful elevated highway and the most expensive highway per mile in the country.


Wednesday morning, before returning the car, we went to the flea market ("swap meet") at the Aloha Stadium in Honolulu. It had tent shops full of cheap Hawaiian shirts, souveniers, produce, etc. We returned the car with a few minutes to spare, and as we walked back to the hotel, we bumped into a breakfast joint with pancakes, eggs, and bacon for $2.99, not the greatest food in the world but definitely the cheapest meal of the week (except the hotel's "free" continental breakfasts). Continuing through Waikiki, we stopped at another tourist-trap flea market, where I was harassed by a Chinese stand keeper who spoke just enough English to try to force me to buy an overpriced Zippo lighter with a Hawaii/motorcycle design. (The tag said $65, I might have bought it for $10, I bargained it down to $30, said it was still too high and walked away, she grabbed my arm and wouldn't let me go...so I had Tristyn pulling me on one side telling me to walk away and this woman on the other...anyway the stall next to hers had a tag price of $25, so it's good I didn't buy it.)

We were soon picked up by a very fancy minibus, which took us to the outskirts of Hololulu Airport for a 45-minute helicopter tour of Oahu. Our pilot alternated between radioing various flight signals (many more than I expected) and narrating the tour. This was my first time on a helicopter, and I found it feeling much less stable than an airplane, as if it would drop out of the sky if the rotors stopped, unlike a plane which has natural lift. Helicopters are more conducive to slow, low-altitude sightseeing, however - especially with the 360° canopy - and it was a lot of fun. We covered much of the same ground from the air as we had already seen on the ground, including the H3 highway which we had missed the night before, and the USS Arizona memorial. We also flew over Sacred Falls, a beautiful waterfall and mountain pass that has been closed on the ground due to a lawsuit against the state for a hiking death there. Naturally I took many photos. (See the full album here.)


Back at the hotel, we set out on foot in search of a pizza place - pizza apparently being scarce in Hawaii - and reached the distant location only to find that it was closed for the mid-afternoon. So we walked back to Waikiki and had lunch at California Pizza Kitchen, which was probably better than the first place we were looking for anyway.

To be continued...

Hawaii, pt. 1

Tristyn and I are spending our spring break on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. We arrived late Friday night after 28 hours of traveling. Our hotel is on the western side of Waikiki (in Honolulu), near downtown. Yesterday, after a late start and a big brunch, we walked along the Waikiki beach, trying to find a "historic trail" mentioned in our guidebook that even the information desk had never heard of. We found the first of the bronze surf boards that mark the trail, but there was no indication of how to get to the next one. So we meandered around and found the Honolulu Zoo, and it being on our to-do list anyway, we spent the afternoon there. We got back in the evening and fell asleep for the night.

Today we set out early for Pearl Harbor to see the USS Arizona memorial. The audio tour goes through a museum, out by the water where the Pearl Harbor attack happened, then to a movie, and finally a shuttle boat to the memorial. The Arizona's ammunition stores took a direct hit and the huge destroyer sunk in nine minutes, with 1,177 sailors and marines aboard. Most of the ships damaged or sunk that day were (amazingly) repaired and returned to service in the Pacific war, but the Arizona and two others were unsalvageable, and the ship, buried in shallow waters with the hull visible only a few feet under the surface, remains a tomb for most of its crew. A few quarts of oil still seep out every day from the Arizona, an apt metaphor for the ship "weeping for its lost crew."

From Pearl Harbor, we took TheBus (that's what it's called) to Chinatown, where we followed another guided historical tour - this one with the directions thankfully written in the book - but it, too, was rather disappointing. After looping around the neighborhood, we took a bus back to the Ala Moana (ah-lah mo-ah-nah) shopping center, got lunch, and walked back to the hotel. We're resting now and will probably head to the beach to swim and watch the sunset.

The history of Hawaii is fascinating: in a nutshell, missionaries came in the early 19th century to replace the traditional culture with puritanical Christianity, in the process banning hula dancing and creating the Hawaiian alphabet of 12 Latin letters (ah, progress...); American cotton and fruit growers moved in and increased their clout over time until they were able to call in U.S. Marines to support a coup, deposing the queen and installing Sanford Dole (of pineapple fame) as governor in 1898; the islands were annexed, the navy (having earlier realized its strategic potential) increased its presence; the Japanese attacked; martial law; statehood in 1959. (One interesting anecdote: the Japanese and German populations were both detained during WW2, according to our guidebook; that's the only case of German [civilian] internment in the US during the war as far as I know.)

Some general observations. Honolulu is a big sprawling city, (called "Los Angeles West" by critics), so it has the charms of a tropical paradise as well as the drawbacks of an industrial tourist trap. It is the most isolated populated land mass in the world (or something like that), but its consumer goods, cars and industries are just like anywhere in the U.S., a testament, I suppose, to maritime transportation and the "flatness" of the world (oh how I hate that cliché). I did notice some Asian-model cars, however, and the population's ethnic/racial makeup is a real mishmash. As a strategic outpost it certainly makes sense, and outpost is probably a good way to think of Hawaii (from America's perspective), albeit not undeveloped like frontier outposts of old. Place and street names are mostly in Hawaiian; aloha (hello/goodbye) and mahalo (thank you) are used instead of the English. Tourism, a major industry here, is heavily dependent on air travel, and consequently dropped in the early-90s and post-9/11 recessions, but is now close to peak levels. The weather is perfect - 70s-80s now and most of the year, according to the guidebook - the humidity level is pleasant, the air is clear, the people are friendly.

I'm putting some photos here; the full trip album can be found here.



Update: see the full Hawaii trip log here, and the full trip album here.

Last few days in Israel

The other day, my sisters and I went into Tel Aviv, to the Diaspora Museum on the Tel Aviv University campus and the Azrieli Towers mall.

Interesting architecture on the TAU campus

The "Column of Light" in the Diaspora Museum

Model of the Elkins Park, PA synagogue designed by Frank Lloyd Wright

Village model in the museum

Azrieli Towers

Very cool split-level cafe

Flying home

Jetstream from a passing plane:

Beggars

Begging seems to be a respectable profession in Israel. Last night four beggars showed up at the door in the evening. My mother asks them for a letter from the town rabbi certifying that their need is genuine - how that is verified, I have no idea - and then she (and everyone else in the neighborhood, presumably) gives the beggar (called shnurer from the Yiddish) a few shekels. A few hours of such labor each night comes out to quite a lucrative income.
On Ben Yehuda Street the other day, sitting with my laptop at an outdoor table, a woman came up to me and started whining about her husband with cancer, her kids with something else...I asked why she came to me - because of the laptop? - and she got angry.
My friend has a different tactic for beggars complaining about their kids - he asks them why they had to have so many kids.
Sitting in the Coffee Bean right now, a kid, maybe 14, walked in a few minutes ago and started waving his hand up and down, cupped for money, in front of an employee that was sitting down to eat. He brushed the kid off, so the kid went to a patron at the next table - at which point the employee took the kid by the back of the shirt and guided him firmly out the door. But the fact that a kid is able, seemingly with no shame, to walk around the center of town and beg for money, says a lot, I think.
Unemployment is at a record low in Israel these days, so there's no reason why these people (the adults at least) can't get jobs. It's more about social norms than economic hardship, apparently.

Bookstores and Bakeries

Brunch this morning was a mozzarella-tomato-olive oil sandwich at Aroma in the Jerusalem central bus station, where I met a friend. That and their lox sandwich used to be my favorites. They also have wifi - definitely new since my last visit - and a flat HDTV on the wall that was playing music videos, not the same as the music playing on the speakers. The black and white photographs on the back wall have always been there. On the floor above that is a bakery I used to frequent on the way to and from buses; I got one of everything sweet, eating a cream-filled pastry and saving the rest for later. On the floor above that is Cafe Net, which used to be my favorite shop in the station, before wifi. From there to Ben Yehuda again, to look for books, but they're very expensive for some reason ($30+ for new, domestically published paperbacks), so I didn't get all the ones I wanted. I did get a little cookbook with a recipe for falafel, however, and a bilingual collection of Yehuda Amichai poems. Someone recommended Amos Oz's new book, A Tale of Love and Darkness, but I'll just get it from the library.
Then a slice of pizza at the timeless Big Apple Pizza, and finally a mocha at the Coffee Bean, a cafe on Jaffa St with its own wifi, where I sit now. A few tables away, a man stands next to his laptop and coffee saying the afternoon prayers.

(Back at home, I see that Obama is leading in the Iowa caucuses, with Clinton in 3rd. It's all about the momentum...)

Cafes

Tmol Shilshom

Jerusalem is full of amazing cafes. One thing that's easy to find here is a fantastic cup of coffee. (And while I'll drink most coffees, I am picky with what I consider excellent coffee.) I'm at Cafe Hillel now in the German Colony neighborhood of Jerusalem. A little while ago I was at a cafe downtown called Tmol Shilshom ("the day before yesterday"), where a neighbor from my old block was celebrating his annual birthday custom: sitting in a restaurant for twelve hours, inviting all his friends to stop by whenever they wish, to talk, eat, drink coffee, play guitar, shoot the breeze. The walls are old Jerusalem stone, with books scattered on shelves, excellent coffee and food.

Cafe Hillel

Pizza Sababa, a favorite hangout in high school

Jerusalem

I arrived in Israel's Ben Gurion Airport on Saturday night, and by now I'm mostly recovered from the combined jet lag and Paris hiking fatigue. I sit at the moment in Ben Yehuda Street, the cobblestoned shopping plaza in the center of Jerusalem. I am connected to Unwire Jerusalem, the city's free public Wifi network. The smell of falafel is making me very hungry, but I'm waiting for my next stop to eat.
Last night I went bowling with my sisters, followed by a humus plate for dinner, billiards and ice cream. A good way to celebrate New Years even if I was in bed at midnight.
The ride into Jerusalem followed a route I took almost every day for the last two years of high school. Bus from Beit Shemesh (where my family lives) to the Jerusalem central bus station; through the airport-like security into the station, where everything is as I remember it except one burger shop that used to be falafel; out of the station, onto a city bus to the center of town. Everything along the route was exactly the same. At the security line one guy tried to get through the soldiers-only line, then tried to cut his way into the main line right ahead of me; I told him politely that there was a line and blocked his way. Israelis will always be Israelis.

On the last bus, I looked from the window across the aisle for a moment, and sitting there is a good friend from high school! We have since lost touch but we recognized each other immediately. What a small world.

Reading the Jerusalem Post in the mornings is an interesting experience. The bus security guards that operated for years since the 2nd Intifada, trying to stop suicide bombers from boarding buses, shut down operations this week, their work no longer deemed necessary. The walls separating Palestinians from Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza seem to have stopped suicide bombings, and the conflict is back to a "low-intensity" mode, with soldiers taking the brunt of the sporadic violence (the exception being the southern towns bordering Gaza, where frequent rockets and mortars continue). The front page on Sunday carried photos of two off-duty soldiers who had come under fire in the West Bank while hiking; they had their rifles with them (as is common for hiking there) and engaged the attackers; they killed one of the four attackers and wounded another (if I remember correctly) and were then fatally wounded themselves. Also in the paper were reports of Egypt lashing out diplomatically for Israel's handing to some Congressmen videos showing Egyptian troops aiding weapons smuggling into Gaza, which I had heard nothing about in the US.

The family dog, Fudgie, recognized me as soon as I arrived, and has been sleeping in my room every night, the result being that my clothes are now covered in fur. She's still spoiled as always, but cute.

I think I will get a falafel after all. But first I'll change some more dollars to shekels. The exchange rate - 4.7 when I left but now 3.3 - is another reminder of the declining dollar. And the rising shekel: today's paper reported a 5-point-something GDP increase over last year, not too shabby.

Paris

I arrived around 7 AM this morning in Charles de Gaulle Airport on the outskirts of Paris. The overnight Air France flight from Boston was pleasant despite an infant crying the whole way and the sparse leg room, and I slept for an hour or two. The food was excellent - dinner included kouskous with shrimp, ravioli and white wine - and the passenger next to me, en route to visit family on the Ivory Coast, helped me with some French pronunciation and Paris itinerary planning. I had bought a mini Paris guide at Logan, the kind with the pen, compass, fold-out maps and travel guide. (The compass, it turned out, always pointed towards the bottom of the book, no matter which way the book was turned, but navigating according to the Seine River made it unnecessary.) I had also bought some euros before the flight, at the disheartening rate of €0.6 to $1.

The construction I had heard about at Charles de Gaulle has apparently ended, and the airport is very impressive. The architecture is ultra-modern; steel and glass structures, super-functional, aesthetically charming. Low-intensity green light illuminated the arrival terminal, running parallel to the departure terminals visible through the glass. Several trams, moving walkways and hallways later, I had passed through passport control in 15 seconds and entered the airport train station. (My baggage was checked through to Tel Aviv; I'll find out soon if that actually happened.) I purchased a Paris Visite pass for €18 - good for the RER (suburban) train between the airport and central Paris as well as the inner-city Metro - and boarded the train to St. Michel. The mostly empty train clappety-clapped along for half an hour. Despite being 7:40 AM, it was still pitch black outside. I had twelve hours until takeoff for Tel Aviv, leaving nine hours to explore, and a lot I wanted to see.

From the St. Michel stop I walked to Notre Dame. I planned to watch the sunrise there, but it was still dark when I arrived, and there was no one in the courtyard, so I walked around the neighborhood, the shops just starting to wake up, and bought a couissant and coffee for breakfast. I didn't know how to say "and," so cafe and couissant, s'il vous plait (followed by the merci I uttered dozens of times over the course of the day) had to suffice. I forgot (and didn't know how) to ask for milk and sugar in the coffee, but travel is about acquiring new tastes, so it was delicious. By that point it was getting lighter out - though with the overcast skies there wasn't really a sunrise - so I walked back along the Seine to Notre Dame, which by this point had a bustling courtyard, open doors and a lit Christmas tree. My first thought as I walked towards the entrance was that the building wasn't as big as I'd imagined it. But as soon as I entered, I realized the Gothic design, focused more on the grandeur of the interior than of the facade, masked its size from the outside. It was huge. (Look at the people in the photo for scale.) Walking around the building, past the larger-than-life statue of a victorious Charlemagne in the courtyard, I discovered that the enormous chapel is only one wing of the building. The notorious (freakish) gargoyles adorn an adjoining structure, and the rear facade is of an entirely different style than the front.

From reading the guidebook and with my interest in the subject, I had decided to focus this brief marathon tour of Paris on the architecture. I took an architectural history course two years ago, and had to memorize dozens of Parisian monuments for its exams. I have subsequently forgotten most of the dates and terms, of course, but it's always nice to see what I was learning about. So after Notre Dame - an architectural wonder by any measure - the logical next sight was the Pantheon, named and modeled after the original Pantheon in Rome. It was not a far walk, but I had to ask for directions a few times: ou la Pantheon, s'il vous plait? followed by responses I couldn't understand - but instructions for right or left turns were usually accompanied by hand motions, so I figured it out. The facade seems to copy the original building, but the dome is Renaissance. I couldn't find the entrance, however, and by this point it had started to rain, just hard enough to require the umbrella I had in my backpack, so I walked to the nearest Metro station.

Next stop: the Rodin museum. Not architectural, but ever since working in an office building several years back with a full-size replica of The Thinker in the lobby, I've admired Rodin's work. A museum also seemed a good way to get out of the rain. They had a large collection, including the originals of The Thinker, The Kiss and the Gates of Hell series, and some beautiful pieces I had never seen.

From there I boarded another train to the Eiffel Tower. According to my guidebook, it was built with 10,000 tons of iron (not sure if that's imperial or metric) and two and a half million rivets. The intricacy of the design exceeded my expectations. It was raining hard, and standing in the center of the base looking up, the water seemed to levitate under the iron as it spun around and fell. I wanted to get a ticket to the top, but the lines were too long and I had limited time, so I passed. Walking back to the metro, I discovered the city's free public bathrooms, outhouses with electric doors planted on the sidewalks. Made me think of the time in Manhattan's Chinatown that I had to walk for blocks to find a bathroom.

My next stop was supposed to be the Champs Elysees, but the otherwise easily navigable train system stumped me on that leg, and I ended up on a suburban train out of the city. Returning and finding the right way, I arrived at the Arc de Triomphe at the western end. Among the many smaller monuments around the huge square was one of Charles de Gaulle, whose role as leader of the French Resistance in World War Two I recently studied in a class. I walked down the Champs Elysees for a while, then hopped on the Metro for a shortcut. From the Clemenceau station it was a few more blocks to the eastern end of the Champs, the Place de la Concorde. The famous obelisk is there, with its hieroglyphic carvings and gold inscriptions of what appears to be advancing military technologies. Also at Concorde is a ferris wheel, which for €8 (everything seems expensive converted to dollars) gave me an amazing view of the whole city. It was probably forty degrees on the ground, though, and barely ten feet off the ground, the wind on the ferris wheel dropped the temperature a good 10 degrees. Disembarking from the ferris wheel, I bought a chocolate crepe for a lunchtime snack and walked across the gardens to the Louvre. The complex, once the palace of the French monarchy, is massive, with monuments, triumphal arches and gardens everywhere. The old and new blend in Paris, and weird post-modern art pieces were scattered around as well.

Now approaching the time I had to start heading back to the airport, I made one last stop at the Pompidou Centre, another architectural fascination. The design flips the form-function synthesis of modern architecture on it head, with the function not merely determining the form, but being the form. The steel frame, air ducts, walkways, elevators - everything that does not serve as usable space inside the building - is exposed on the outside. Though I wouldn't want ever building designed that way, I found it charming. On the back it looks like a cross between an Erector set and Discovery Zone. In the front courtyard, the line to get in went around the block, though, so I sufficed with looking through the glass wall of the ground floor into what appeared to be an architectural firm's exhibition, with models of design concepts throughout the large open space.

Back on the Metro to Gare du Nord, to catch the RER to the airport for my 6:40pm flight to Tel Aviv. A musician playing what looked like a violin with a trumpet attached got onboard and played a few songs. I already had my boarding pass, so I walked straight through to the gate, the same or a similar one as I had seen from the other direction. The terminal contained dozens of Playstation 3 demo stations, seats with laptop plugs, an illuminated dome playing New Age music offering massage services, colorful abstract shapes along the sides, shops and a children's play area. I've heard a lot of bad things about the Charles de Gaulle airport, but my impression was, this is how every airport should be designed.

Before I end, a word on transportation. The value of a good public transportation system is obviously tremendous, and it's something we in the U.S., loving our cars as we do, could use a lot more of. The Paris system, including the Metro, the RER and buses, doesn't eliminate traffic jams - my guidebook cautioned visitors against renting cars - but it does make it very convenient to get around without a car. I imagine energy consumption per passenger is much lower on a train than in a car, for what that's worth. I had expected driving to be on the left side as in England, but it was on the right. The Metro trains run on rubber wheels, so the metal screeching noise of the NYC or Boston subways is mostly gone. The city was filled with motorcycles and scooters, including many by Peugeot, another brand I don't see in Boston. Also Smart Cars, which are adorable. (I would not like to be in one in a collision with a truck, of course, but for inner-city driving and fuel economy it can't be beat.)

Traveling is great. It makes me realize that we in the U.S. take ourselves much too seriously. And really folks, Freedom Fries? The French were right ab