Back in the Saddle

I haven't written in months.

At first I thought it was from the old theory that there's no better way to rob the joy out of what you love doing than... doing it for a living. After all, I'm primarily a writer now, and I spend all day looking at words. Either my own half-formed ones, or those of others - trying to find inspiration. If I'm focused on spinning words into digestible (or, rather, marketable) fluff for the tech masses, I probably don't want to come home and stare at my notebook or blinking cursor.

But then I realized, no, that's not the case. I still spend plenty of time writing invective against right-wing blowhards and musing about music and food on various social media sites. And more and more often in French!

In fact, come to think of it, I've been writing plenty. Just not here. Because back in 2005, I set this up to write about my travels. And since moving to Paris a year ago, I haven't really been traveling. One year in a continent where different languages, cultures, and food and drink are within a couple of hours by train or plane... and I've only been to Italy and England. Oh, and Montpellier, which might as well be another country.

To be honest, it's been a bit frustrating. One of the draws of moving here was this ability to go in any direction and wind up practicing my Spanish or German or Dutch or... you get the picture. But the reality is, despite having a lot of expenses covered and some cash saved up, moving overseas has hit the pocketbook hard. We moved a good amount of stuff, but once we finally found an apartment, had to buy even more. Also, things are just generally more expensive here. Books. Clothes. Dinners out. Drinks. A show at a small club. Then there's the pesky fact that we're now a couple on a single income.

The quality of life is high in Paris. Unfortunately, so is the cost.

I have, however, found a way around it all. And it's not in any Europe-On-a-Shoestring or Paris-pas-Cher guidebook. Nope. It's about something you can't find on a bookshelf or any web site. It's called... mojo.

That's right, baby, I've got my mojo back. Those who've known me for a long time know that I'm a fucking winner. As in, I have this uncanny knack for winning contests. It's not skill. It's not timing. I just win stuff. And there is a lot of shit to win in Paris.

A few weeks ago, I got a call on my mobile while I was at work. "Is this Omid?" asked the woman's voice on the other end. "If you're free on the 17th of March, you've won two tickets for the Tina Turner concert at Bercy."

Now, I wouldn't be picked out of the crowd as a big Tina Turner fan. I know her catalogue, I respect her as an artist, and no self-respecting Child of the 80's would deny having bopped his/her feathered head to her music as a youngin'. And hell, I actually was interested when I saw the poster advertising the show... Until I saw the €136 pricetag on the tickets. That's PER ticket. Convert that to dollars, and we're talking Madonna or Barbra Streisand-like extortion.

But for free? Hell yes!

So there we were, a poor-ass, single-income couple of unsophisticated 'Merkins, sitting amongst Parisian celebrities in what must've been the VIP area, with the hoi polloi occasionally coming up to snap pictures of the stars I couldn't even begin to recognize. Ok, I think one guy hosts a TV show, and another one was a French rock star, but honestly, I simply haven't assimilated enough to know. Then Tina came out, shimmying around the stage and belting out hit after hit. Call me an old bastard, but I fully enjoyed it. The old songs; the costume changes; the Mad Max set; the ridiculous Goldeneye set; explosions; the intermission where, out by the bar and toilets, I saw the largest gathering of middle-aged gay men since my old co-worker's Tony Awards party. All just three metro stops away... and after the quick ride home, Alannah and I said to each other, "We've got to win more contests."

And so we did. Last week, Alannah got an email from the folks at the recently opened Forum des Images saying that she'd won an invitation to the "Toi & Moi" party. Come as a pair, dressed as your favorite movie couple, be photographed red carpet-style, blah, blah, win prizes, blah, blah, chocolates to snack on, blah, blah, open bar. Open bar? Why didn't they say that earlier?

And thus we went, dressed up as Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction. Not super creative, but I have long hair and John Travolta's paunch, and getting the necessary hair dye, fake pistol, and bola tie fit our miniscule budget.


Yes, I know they weren't a couple, but there was plenty of sexual tension, OK? Besides, a lot of other couples came as completely incongruent stuff - like Darth Vader and Catwoman. Or Wayne and Garth. (Last I checked, neither of those pairs were havin' relations...)

Through the course of the night, we consumed well over a bottle's worth of whiskey each. Which broke down Alannah's language barrier a bit, since she pretty much wound up talking to everyone, despite her minimal French. And making out with the hot bartender. (Girl bartender, that is.)

And she's not one to do that type of thing. [Mental note: Buy more whiskey.]

Alannah claims that the bartender was the aggressor, but the pics tell me otherwise. (Sorry, she hasn't posted them to Flickr yet.) While I wasn't up to quite the same shenanigans, my Vincent did find his Jules. And no, we did not play tonsil hockey.


We were well beyond crusty the day after. But I survived my day at work. And Alannah survived her evening of training for the organization she's volunteering with. I work. She volunteers, works on her French, and makes friends with all the local merchants so we're always in fresh produce and fish and meat. And together, we win.

This evening, after work, I swung by the Lazy Dog Gallery to pick up a new special-edition Swatch designed by rapper/artist Grems. Along with it, a nice print of his work for this project, as well as a couple of wristbands for the launch party/concert at La Scène Bastille. It'd be a bit gauche to discuss the retail value of this package, but let's just say I can not afford it. But that's ok, because I won it in a contest yesterday.

To celebrate our great luck (as if that's necessary), we stopped by our favorite wine bar for un verre ou deux... then brought home 10 litres of the stuff so we can have some with the fantastically fresh food Alannah had picked up at the local open-air markets earlier in the day.

We have no need to buy bottles of wine regularly anymore. We do it old school, filling up two 5L jugs of small-producer wine straight from the cask at the beginning of the month.

We've made friends with our next-door neighbor, everyone at the bar downstairs, and the guy who owns the boutique next door.

I've traded in taking the metro for riding the bus to/from work. It's a bit slower, but it's less crowded, more reliable, and I can get more reading done without the interruption of changing stations.

And I've just booked a pair of train tickets for a short break in Luxembourg.

I think it's safe to say I've found my groove.

Italy: Post Mortem

Post mortem. That's Latin for "after death," commonly used - as you probably know - as a term for a debriefing, whether after a disastrous medical procedure gone wrong or a business project. Which are, in the end, often one in the same.

The original Latin might be more appropriate for me, as I woke up sore and stiff this morning and really dreaded getting up. My body was battered and beaten, my feet barely able to stand the cold kitchen tile, my back starting to look like Quasimodo's.

But the sun was shining, the Parisian streets seemed cheery and welcoming, and my office surprisingly warm. One normally doesn't relish coming home to Paris in months ending with "-ember," but trust me, it felt like summer after putting up with this:


Granted, that's Milan which – I found out after consulting the Lonely Planet we picked up three days into the trip – is considered "the London of Italy" when it comes to weather.

I wouldn't rank this trip at the top of my travel experience. Not because of the weather, but because the extent of study I did before the trip was limited to booking trains and hotels. That and trying to learn basic Italian in 10 days. I normally study the hell out of a place and its language before I go, but I've been a little preoccupied with adjusting to a new job, new wife, new country - hell, a new life altogether - for months. If anything, I hoped not planning anything would make for a great escape, a willy-nilly adventure into the unknown.

It turned out to be part family gathering. Part necessary escape from Paris. Part honeymoon. (Alannah and I never had a proper honeymoon, so we now consider every trip a mini-honeymoon in perpetuity.) As such, this trip was appropriately manic, with highs and lows. The lows all came from the rigors of travel: Delayed trains, lost bags, inclement weather, getting lost... The highs all came from people, whether spending time with loved ones or laughing it up with strangers. Sightseeing just happens to be a little bonus on the side.

The ladies are still in Italy, currently soaking up the proverbial Tuscan sun, which I'm assuming is hiding out... I mean, beyond the fact that it's night time at this moment. So this rundown covers my five days.

In five days, I had four journeys by train spanning a total of 19 hours. All four were delayed. Three journeys by bus. Six journeys by metro. Countless hours walking. Many of those in pouring rain. Three of those rain-soaked hours while hopelessly lost. While in transit, I lost a Bialetti espresso maker, a wheel of peccorino alla zafferona cheese, a box of Baci, a package of Kinder happy hippos, and half a bag of rosmarina crackers. I have in my jacket pocket the soggy remains of: one two-day metro pass for Milan, two Portofino area bus tickets, what used to be my US passport (currently an unidentified hunk of blue with ink-smeared pages), and a stack of crumpled receipts. One of those receipts proves that I bought myself some cock in Milan, at 10€ a go...



When not cursing the weather or the lateness of trains, I enjoyed a full ball of mozarella di buffala (and then some), at least a kilo of cured meats, five varieties of pasta, four kinds of pizza, the most fantastic cheese ever (said peccorino from Peck), the most godawful cheese ever (a slice of white Kraft singles from one of my aunts' oddball supermarket runs), McDonald's espresso, kopi luwak, prawns straight of the Ligurian sea, McDonald's fried prawns, some strange riff on taco salad, a tako salad (that'd be Japanese for "octopus"), and enough hazelnut and chocolate in bar/pastry/gelato form to choke a horse or two. All with a side of mostly crappy, spongey, bread, with a notable exception at establishments that baked their own. On top of all that, add enough zucchini flowers to turn my tummy into its own garden, a steak big enough to ensure that I'll never be regular again, and enough cuts of veal to make PETA freaks get naked to protest me. (Which is my goal in life...) And the best street food? Roasted chestnuts.

I took exactly 888 photos with my camera. Alannah took 312. 310 of which are from her newfound favorite "from-the-ground" perspective, which I love.



Yes, we even disgust ourselves sometimes.


Along the way, we saw tens of thousands of hideously dressed Milanese. (Two of 'em shown here!) Upon returning to Paris last night, I was reminded of the Parisian flair for dressing subtly, yet so well that even the homely can look dead sexy. The four-stop metro ride home reminded me of that over and over. Inversely, in Milan, metro rides remind you that even the hottest Italian bombshell stacked like a brick house will look like a Jersey girl when dressed like one. Unfortunately, there's no escaping the eye-searingly bad mode of dress. Flipping on the hotel TV puts more of it on display, in the form of variety shows...


I never cared much for Italian wine because - like French wine - only a limited selection is imported to the US, and other than high-priced luxury choices, most of it is crap. Having access to a wide variety of the stuff gave me a far better appreciation for Italian wines, and now I won't be so quick to judge.

In fact, after just a short time there, I found that to be the case with much of Italy for me. As a land of passionate people that pour said passion into everything they do, just about everything falls into the love-it-or-hate-it category. There's no middle ground. So while it seems there were a lot of things I complained about while in Italy, there was plenty to really love.

Which is why I vow to go back. Not because I haven't yet gotten to see amazing works like David or the Pietà or the Last Supper - stuff I studied and drew inspiration from as a student and still long to see in the flesh (or marble or plaster, as it would be...). Not because I need to pick up another wheel of that crazy opulent cheese. It's because of the manic, bipolar, crazy duality of the place. It rains, but you want to splash through the piazza. Your train is late, but that gives you time for another espresso. There are pickpockets everywhere, but you can enjoy the fact that they will have the living shit beat out of them. The fashion is jarring, but the forward-thinking design means you can find the occasional unforgettable gem that nobody back home will ever have.

Most of all, it's just a beautiful place, with gorgeous scenery and welcoming people as varied as can be for such a relatively small mass of land.

Thinking back to the last five days, I can see what it is about the country that inspires so much amore. The wife and I will definitely have to have another mini-honeymoon there, perhaps when the weather is nicer.

But in the meantime, I'm happiest knowing that being there put such a smile on these people's faces:

Curses! Foiled Again...

I know I promised to be more mindful of my spending here, especially when it comes to food. Ok, that's my only expense right now, so it should be easy, right? Wrong!

After coming back from my blissfully cheap lunch at the cantine yesterday, I ran into one of our longtime Dutch customers who just happened to be visiting the office here.

"Hi! Omid! Hey, do you have any dinner plans?"

Uh oh.

Now I like this guy. We typically see each other once a year at our annual worldwide conference. He's a nice guy, we get along, and I enjoy his company. But dammit, going to dinner with someone who's come from far away usually means one thing: $$$. Or rather, €€€.

He stopped by my office after the work day was over and we set out to find a place to eat. Mind you, this is Clichy, where the options are as limited as the sophistication. We settled on one of the many dreadful Italian places in town, largely because it was a more affordable option.

Now here's something weird about Paris. Despite France's proximity to Italy, I've never since I first visited over five years ago been able to find a remotely decent Italian meal in this city. And the prospect of having something they do so poorly in a suburb where they do almost everything more poorly made me cringe.

Bitch and moan as I may, though, my pizza "Paysanne" was surprisingly good, relatively affordable (if you don't think about it in dollars), and the company was great. When you're living in a hotel for a week, it's always worth the price of admission to have a dining companion. All told - after ice cream and a .5 litre pitcher of house red - I spent more than I'd like to, but it certainly beat sitting on my bed, watching a dubbed version of CSI and munching on an apple.

The benefit of trying to stay cheap is that the half litre of wine knocked my ass out shortly after I got home, so I slept like a baby for the first time in what seems like eons. Now I see why winos sleep so well.

I Repeat, This Is NOT a Vacation

Sure, this trip has all the hallmarks of a vacation.

An all-expense paid trip to Paris, the luxury of WiFi, the feeling of pride when I successfully communicate in a foreign language...

But once again, it was nearly an 11-hour day in the office.

Sure, I got to take another leisurely lunch, this time finally going in for the kill on a plate of steak frites, washed down with a bottle of Badoit and some warm chocolate cake bathing in creme anglaise. And don't forget the obligatory coffee.

That may sound extravagant, but such fuel is a necessary evil. Meetings. Punctuated by a protracted product launch. More meetings.... get the picture? This is work, people! If you told me before this trip, "Have fun in Paris," and caught me rolling my eyes, surely now you can kind of sympathize.

I actually did make it out before 8:00 pm, in time to get to the pharmacy to pick up one of those wondrous only-in-Europe ointments for my mom. You know, the kind the FDA won't approve because it'd rip the bottom out of the market for the major players.

And that was about the highlight of my night. I got back to my hotel in time to put some mild fires out on the homefront, exchanging instant messages, shooting off emails, and updating servers like a madman. A product launch is a horrible time to be away from the desk. But things eventually calmed down, and my boss urged me via IM to try out the restaurant he'd recommended.

A Bonne Table. About 10-15 minutes' walk away, this place has anachronistic maritime decor - part old schooner, part ultralight yacht. I politely asked the lovely hostess/waitress/busser if it's ok to dine alone. My last trip having been to Japan, that's the norm. She looked at me like I was crazy for asking such a thing, but politely replied with, "Mais bien sur!" Or - "Of course we're willing to take your money, you poor bastard from a country whose economy is in recession, thus making any meal short of a kebab about equal to half a week's salary."

I sat down and made my selections, and the hostess recommended a delightfully smokey Saint-Véran. I sipped on it delicately as I ate my amuse-bouche of fried salted-cod potatoes, feeling extra self-conscious because I was dining solo. When you dine alone, it feels like everyone's eyes are on you. In fact, one of the other diners in the restaurant kept looking over at my table, wondering if my dining companion would ever show up. But who cares when you're eating little morsels of deep-fried fish-n-potato when they're being washed down with such an incredible wine? My appetizer sealed the deal, though - foie gras imbued with langoustine tails. It was a combo I'd never even imagined, and each forkful was made extra special with the variety of garnishes, each bringing out a different dimension of the fattened duck liver and mini-lobster tails before me.

I could hear my main course sizzling on the grill as - BZZZT BZZZT - my phone vibrated. It was the office. No matter. I'm in the middle of dinner. They can wait. BZZZT BZZZT. One new message. Whatever. BZZZT BZZZT. Incoming call - the office. I glanced up at the waitress and politely excused myself to the front vestibule.

"Hello. What's up?"

It was one of my coworkers.

"I think something's wrong with the installers."

"Umm, what? I'm in the middle of dinner here, but I'll be done soon. I can be back at the hotel pretty quickly."

*sound of the phone being handed off*

"Omid - we've got some customers screaming. Please get back to the hotel now!"

So much for my boss telling me to go to his favorite restaurant in this neck of the woods...

The waitress was kind enough to box up my dinner (amazing in a country where doggy bags are a sin punishable by flogging), and even put a plastic stopper in the remainder of my bottle of wine.

I felt so tacky. So gauche. So... American. I apologized for my sudden need to leave.

She apologized for my need to work.

So I've been back at my hotel, scrambling to see what's wrong, and things are calming down. In the meantime, I've eaten my dinner out of a box and drank my wine out of a tiny plastic cup. And the scary thing is - it's still really, really, amazingly good. The scallops are seared to perfection. The mashed artichoke hearts and fried artichoke leaves are like something from another planet. Planet Ecstasy. And I needed this wine now more than ever.

Somehow, despite consuming it out of plastic and skipping out on a proper dessert and coffee, I had a fantastic meal. One worthy of tonight's megadose of stress.

I need to get to bed now. I have to wake up at 6:00, catch a cab by 6:45, and be at the airport by 8:00. Luckily, there are no scheduled strikes. But traffic on the Périphérique can be a bitch, so I have to start at an ungodly hour.

Unfortunately, I may not be able to sleep. I just caught the story about Mike Huckabee wanting to put more God in the US Constitution. Hell no!!!! I'm gonna pray he can't do it. And yes, I realize the irony of that statement.

Thank you, good night, and God Bless... fancy French food.

Big in Japan

So there are a bunch of pre-conceived notions Westerners have about Japan, and I've bought into many of them.

First, the Japanese tend to be anal retentive and excessive about packaging. TRUE.

I've known this all my life, but also found that even in the stripped-down world of economy airfares, it still holds true. Each item in my ANA flight lunch, from the entree, to the side dish, to the soba noodles, to the damn sugar packets for my coffee had no less than two layers of packaging around them. Here's my mom expending massive energy just to get one of the packages open. (Movie on her screen: Ratatouille. Sweeeet.)



Corollary to the anal retentive and excessive packaging law: If you can put your logo on it, do it. TRUE.



It's so nice to have a real French Chardonnay mise en bouteille for ANA. If you consider tacky "nice." Oh well, at least there's... wait for it... REAL CUTLERY! In ECONOMY CLASS!



Anyway, back to my original train of thought... another pre-conceived notion of the Japanese: They are prone to go apeshit for photos while on vacation. TRUE.

The proof? I'm only half Japanese and I had both my SLR and my point-and-shoot out... and this is just during the flight! But hey, that's how I get cool shots of god knows what going on in southern Alaska.



On to the next stereotype... The Japanese like to have a group identity, and live for things that are exceedingly cute. TRUE.



If this picture of in-seat exercises just before landing doesn't prove it, I don't know what does.

And the final stereotype: The Japanese tend to be on the small side. TRUE.

Dude. I'm a half-breed and at 5'7" I feel HUGE. I tried out the foot rest on the plane for shits and giggles. It felt like it was made for dwarves. I let my seatbelt out all the way so I can still wriggle around in semi-comfort, but the thing was nearly taut on me while maxed out. The gentleman at the end of my row never had to get up for me to go to the bathroom. He'd just pull his knees in a bit, and it was as if no one was in his seat. Then there's the ANA ground crew once we landed. In their little uniforms, they looked like a bunch of well-coiffed Oompa Loompas ready to whisk our baggage over to the carousel.

And now, here I am in a departure lounge at Tokyo Narita airport, waiting for my flight to Osaka. While my mom is absolutely loving these chairs, I feel like I'm in one of those little kid desks from a 2nd grade classroom.

The Score: England vs. France

This isn't a post about the Rugby World Cup. In fact, as they're not in the same pool and playing in a mediocre fashion, they'll be lucky if they get to meet each other later on.

No, this is the traditional wrap-up post, being written as I eat a shitty Subway sandwich for dinner, sitting at work - the result of going on vacation just before a big midnight product launch. But for now, I get to take a few moments to recount some holiday bliss.

Food
Long known for boiled "meat and two veg," England has come a long way culinarily. London is one of the most international cities in the world, and now hosts some of the finest restaurants in the world. And while all the kebabs and Indian food and fusion cuisine have really elevated the status of food in Britain, all the competition has made even the stalwart pub meals become that much better. Whether it's chicken tikka masala, shawarma, or a full English breakfast in front of you, it's hard not to get a fresh, satisfying meal just about anywhere in the UK.

That said, a simple slab of cheese from the corner store, a pastry bought at the train station, or a coffee just about anywhere in France will make anyone lament even their finest food choices at home. While I enjoyed every meal in England and consumed it with gusto, not once did I curl my toes and roll my eyes back into my head as much as I did with any French meal. The fact that I'm putting a Subway sandwich into my digestive tract while a Parisian côte de boeuf is still lodged somewhere further along is probably insulting to the French people and their way of life. Because I think food is life there.

Points Awarded to: France


Drink
Winemaking may be sacred in France, and it'd be astonishing - perhaps even illegal - to get a poor house red for just a few euros, but even the biggest wine snob has to admit that we have a greater variety and range in California alone. Don't get me wrong - the Imperial sampling I had at Moët & Chandon was about the best sparkling wine I've ever had, and the Côtes du Provence I had with one dinner was a brilliant suggestion on the waiter's part.

But England... damn, bring on the beer! Just the fact that every pub has real ale on cask makes it worth a trip across the pond alone. And while a couple of my favorite beers are French (Kronenbourg 1664 and their Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs white... yes, that's a beer), very few French drinking experiences hold a candle to sitting in a warm pub and enjoying a few pints in good company.

Points Awarded to: England


Atmosphere
I found it damn near impossible to go anywhere of interest either in London or Paris that wasn't crawling with tourists. I still cringe at my mental soundbites of hideous American accents exclaiming, "We sure ain't in Kansas anymore!" or "Wow, that building's gotta be over a hundred years old!" (Try over 800, jackass.) But there's a reason people in shorts, sandals, and tube socks swarm all over Europe. It's because as Eddie Izzard says, it's where the history comes from. And it's all very breathtaking.

When you take into account that the cathedral you're staring at is from the 1100's, that the romantic bridge you're strolling across affords a brilliant view on either side of the river, or that the building before you is one of the great architectural marvels of the modern age, you can't begrudge anyone else for going to check it out. Even if it spoils your perfect little experience.

And for all these things - history, beauty, and architecture - both England and France are winners. And they both get demerits for the irksome number of irritating chavs, bothersome con artists, and general scumbags hanging around. But for the first time on a trip, I've factored in another variable: Romance. Being that this was my first big trip with a significant other, I found myself constantly thinking, "Wow, this place certainly is romantic." Most of the time in France.

Points awarded to: France


Getting Around
Laugh all you want about Socialism, but London and Paris have both benefited largely by having mayors of such persuasion. Since my last visit to either, both are criss-crossed by an impressive number of dedicated bike lanes, and as such, more bicyclists. This has eased congestion greatly in the metropolitan centers and has made it easy to get places while enjoying the great views on tap. And in smaller places - like Exeter and Epernay - biking is already commonplace and easy to do. Largely because the areas are so small to begin with. This alone makes Europe heaven for a regular cyclist as myself, whereas in California, we're persectued by the authorities. (See recent LAist stories about incidents in my former stomping grounds of Hollywood and Beverly Hills.

The metro systems in both capitals are also legendary. They get you around with ease, usually with little delay, and if you do it right (i.e. getting a transit card like the locals do), cheaply. Sure, both are prone to the occasional transit strike, but I'll take that over gridlock any day of the year. I'd have to say, though, that London has an edge because of its more straightforward metro layout and hilarious station names. (I'm talking to you, Cockfosters.)

Points awarded to: England - by a slight margin


Intangibles
Paris has this certain... I hate to say it... je ne sais quoi that envelops you everywhere you go. Despite longstanding rumors to the contrary, the people are friendly, every other corner looks charming, and as mentioned before, it's just f'ing romantic - as if frozen in time. London, even with all its history and pagaentry, is downright modern and dynamic. There's an energy about the city that spreads to the rest of the country (with beer prices dissipating as the radius grows) and it's infectious. Both are at the forefront of style and fashion, not unlike an American metropolis like New York, but have a crazy amount of history and tradition behind them that dusts anything on our side of the Atlantic.

And both England and France have played host to once-in-a-lifetime memories for me. Whether it was attending a culturally unique wedding ceremony, shouting along at a Rugby World Cup match, cycling through vineyards, or having an extravagant snack in the lap of luxury, I've had some amazingly memorable experiences in both countries on this trip alone - nevermind past sojourns to either.

Tie


Ok, call it a cop-out, but it's really hard to choose between these two great countries. Every time I start thinking, "Damn, France was really something," I remember something about England that was equally as cool. And although I'm partial to England, having lived there as a child and still consider it "home" in a way, there are things about it that irk me beyond belief. As the immigration officer at Heathrow said as she opened my passport to stamp it - "Been here a few times, have we?" But as much as I've done England to death, I still haven't done it all, and would just as eagerly book a flight there as I would to France.

Hell - I salivate at any opportunity to leave the country.

And although I've really enjoyed my years as a lone wolf traveler, and even the group trips, I'm looking forward to all the future opportunities with my true love.

Beer.

Er, I mean Alannah.

(Don't give me that look! She wouldn't be with me if she didn't love my jerkwad comments.)