So the plan was to have no plan. Now I guess I understand why some people might have a plan, but we didn't.... We left for the airport and everything was fine...we left with plenty of time , but when we got there with our two huge bags, and two live animals in each seperate crates to check in, we found that the line had not moved for an hour. After finally getting to the front of the line they wouldn't take our bags because they were overweight. So we weighed both bags, opened them, in front of everyone by the way (alongside like four other people who were doing the same thing....) and repacked them adding to one bag the excess of he other!! They let us slide with like two and three pounds each over. Now looking back I should have known that it was going to happen to us, because there was this poor guy, unpacking and repacking for like 30 minutes until they figured it out. I was complaining about him, and look- the same thing happened to me. Karma is a bitch.
The flight was fine. Any flight that I arrive safely at my destination is fine. The fish was inedible, but the free champagne and individual bottles of cabernet and chardonnay made up for it. The dogs traveled very well, so we decided to give Pigalle a reward (Pigalle is one of the whippets, which is a dog) by running the chariot into a pot hole and him rolling 360 in his crate! I asked my mom what the hell what was going on and we went to get the rental car from Alamo for like 30 minutes, and when we got to the car we realized that they had not given us the one that we wanted so she had to go back and try and negotiate another one. Meanwhile it was raining for five minutes, sun for five minutes, the dogs were stressed out and I was thirsty and was dying to get to a cafe to start my 12 food consumption days! My mom was having her own drama with the rental car queen bee who actual turned out to be a royal bitch. They didn't have any other cars to give us so we made it work just until we could get to the apartment in Paris. Well we definitely got side tracked on the way to le Boulevard Des Malsherbes....we took the long way, let's just put it that way and when we finally got there...we actually got yelled at by a lady walking out of the big metal gate just to tell us that we couldn't park there. We were obviously not parked, just unloading our bags. I thought my mom was going to jump her. We dropped off our stuff, met up with my aunt Nejma and ate lunch. I had salade oceane, my aunt had octopus salad and my mom had some salad with chavignol. Anchovies, peppers and olives for the table. We walked around, visited les fleurs, some old friends, took care of the dogs and took the car to Rambouillet. Did I mention that we had three pastries before we left?
Driving on a road that is unfamiliar to you, is already stressful but when your aunt tells you the wrong number of the road...it becomes a serious matter, especially when you just got off the plane, had a fight with the rental car agency and almost ended up 30 kilometers out of the way. We were driving and driving, and driving and I started to get a bad feeling like we had passed it. We were on our way to Mantes- in rush hour traffic. Tom Tom was not our friend at that moment. The relationship between Tom Tom and us has evolved since we first met the other day. I have learned to count on him, and might even trust him now, but we have had our ups and downs. A12 is not the same as a13. Well obviously, to some people it is. We slept well that night and got up early to get on the train to Montparnasse. We ate right away of course then took the metro to St Clichy where we walked up to Montmartre, walked around, got my portrait painted (which I have lost since) and had wine, moules frites de Bretagne, salade et soupe a l'oignon. I had passed this fabulous ice cream parlor on the way to the artists so we stopped and I forced myself to eat a two scoops cone. How could I limit myself to just one scoop even if I did feel like throwing up by that point?! We took a walk past le Sacre C'oeur , le Moulin Rouge (where my cousin Jerome works) around the galleries of St. Germain , but had to hurry to get back to Rambouillet for dinner with Marie-Evelyne and Jean-Claude. We were tired and almost feel asleep on the plane. We were also freezing. From the moment that we got to France, we had been freezing our asses off. My mom warned me of the weather, but I was in such a hot NY mode that I arrived with 50 pounds of tank tops. I was wearing jeans, sneakers, and two sweaters. I am glad that it was a comfortable outfit because I would be wearing it more than once over the next couple of days!!It definitely was not 20 degrees, but more like 13. To calculate C to Farenheit you multiply by 9- divide by 5, then add 32. Figure it out people.
Our family reunion went well. No dramas in the morning of which is pretty amazing. We headed off to Sylvain's house to meet up with everyone. Guess what we did? Eat. Drink. Eat. Drink. On marche, on mange. On mange, on marche. LOL. Inside joke.
Just realized that I might have to change the title to 6 countries in 5 days because we just stopped at the public telephone to call the lady we need information from for our house in Denmark- and I called the operator and someone told my mom we were in Germany. I though we were in Holland. Hopefully we will be able to get into our house. We have no idea where the keys are or where the house is. I can't wait to go to Sweden though. Ill give you guys the update later. By the way, my mom just discovered that we were on the Audobon and no speed limit! We were doing 180 kilometers/hr which you would think make us make great time, but in Germany you spend half the time flying down the road, and the other half of the time in bumper to bumper traffic, so it evens out. We decided that they are doing construction from the beginning to the end!
Back to the reunion....a lot of people showed up. Nejma and Albino, Sylvain, Annie, Perceval, Amandine, Aurriane, Izold, Loic, Theo, Nicholas, Gordon, Nadia, Yvonne, Jean-Yves, Alain, my mom and me. We are going to stay with Nadia and Gordon on Sunday night to visit their new house and also Jerome works at Le Moulin Rouge, so we are going to have dinner and a show there before we leave. The hook up! We ate fromage a la raquelette, charcuterie, pomme de terres et des legumes du jardin. My mom and I gorged ourselves with homemade aoli and mayonaise. So good. That is something I wish I could bring back to NY. My cousins had each made a cake, and we celebrated all of our birthdays that had just passed spanning from mine at 27 years to Yvonne at almost 90! Wow. Three generations. We stayed all day and got to talk to my brother Sylvain through Skype, and I was bummed out because Moe didn't answer, but we had a great day. Surprisingly Tom Tom behaved that night and got us back to Rambouillet from Le Village without any problems. By the way Le Village is made up of one church, three houses (thats how it seems to a city girl like me) and a butcher, flower shop and bakery. What else do you really need except good food and nice flowers? If you saw the size of my suitcase you could probably answer that question for me....A LOT!
We didn't go to bed until after midnight, which is early for me...but I was exhausted and pretty drunk by that point. Slept terribly and my mom too, well only four hours or so and we got up at 6 am to start driving. First stop was Amsterdam. We thought we had hotel reservations in a cool hotel called Varija but when we got there it was pretty dumpy and they wouldn't take both of the dogs....we were so pissed. We had just traveled like 6 hours in the car to arrive in center of amsterdam...just to realize that we couldn't approach the hotel with the car. We drove around in a circle on the Prince Hendergrat for like two hours before finally giving up after going to le cafe versailles 9 times , one of which for directions! Behind the St. Nickolas church we finally found the Indian run hotel with restaurant. Not sure the last time someone actually ate there, but we cancelled our reservation and I was ready to cry. I was finally in Amsterdam and now we couldn't even stay? We had just driven from Paris and all I wanted was a drink, a smoke, of both kinds, some food and a nice bath. Tom Tom had let me down, my mom and I were screaming at each other, and her at everything and everyone.....
While all this drama was happenning, Pigalle and Markus were very comfortable in the back seat.
We found a hotel (thanks to my uncle)11 km outside of the center city that would take the dogs no problem, and had a bar and jacuzzi....so we packed everything back up in the parking garage.....my mom is not very good at finding her way out of underground spaces and I am not a very good navigator especailly when Tom Tom doesn't behave. The name of the town was Zwanzenburg, and our hotel, Hotel Zwanzenburg. Tired, mad, hungry and thirsty I made my way to the hotel bar, and after two double vodkas, Amstel for my mom- things were looking up. We had a nice room, patio door to a smoking area and a place to park the car for free. I made friends with the two guys from the hotel and found out that he too had two dogs, Bobby and Milo. They were super nice and it was so good to take a jacuzzi bath and put on new clothes....again , long sleeves and jeans. Isn't it fucking summer? When I left NY, I was wearing tank tops and shorts and had just came back from the beach. WTF?
We arrived at Funny People, the coffee shop that we picked to go to around 6 30. I bought 5 grams of stuff...I took a picture of the menu. The names are...I love it.....white widow at 9Euro/gram and northern lights, orange bud, cristal skunk and skunk at 7 euros per gram. I bought one of each and smoked some white widow before we left. The guys there were so nice, like everyone in Amsterdam I found. I am going back there. I would live there. I loved it. We took a boat cruise through all the canals of amsterdamn. Our boat was moving really slow and it was nice...white table cloth, but you know I always critique restaurants. I can't help it. Working in the number one restaurant in Manhattan has changed my perspective of fine dining. For 70 euro per person, which is about 90 dollars- the same price as the pri-fixe menu at Marea, we got to enjoy the scenery and the tranquil store fronts and boat houses of the Netherlanders. Unfortunately the food was pretty bad. The poor chef, who was also our host had a little problem with the kitchen on board, and we had to stop at one of the many docks to get a new heating plate for all the dishes. There was about 20 people on the boat. I am not sure what the amuse bouche was....but it was a fish product of some sort, maybe a crab cake- trying to identify the product from the creamy sauce that was on top of it. The first course was two different soups, served side by side. One was a creamy onion something or other, and the other was a roasted red pepper frothy substance that was warm at the bottom but cold at the top. I wasn't sure whether it was gazpacho that had been warmed by accident, or roasted red pepper puree that had not been heated up enough. Whatever it was- it didn't work. The main course was red mullet (the other choice was veal medallion) and for those of you who know my mom and I you know for sure that we chose the fish. Anywayz, I didn't find the fish terrible, but my mom hated it. What I found terrible was the amount of oil on the vegetables (julienne of courgettes) and puree de pommes de terres. The dessert was equally as dissapointing which left me with no choice but to open the box of chocolates Jean -Yves had brought my mom from Munich before I went to bed. After the five glasses of wine and champagne on the boat, I am not sure how many I ate...but its probably bettter that way.
A good nights rest is always good..especially in a bed with big fluffy pillows and blanket. We slept very well and we took the road again this morning around 11. Went to the local cafe for some coffees and goodies and discovered this sweet biscuit thing, that was DELICIOUS. I think it was filled with pate d'amande, and that s why my mom and I liked it so much. The local supermarket in Zwanzenburg is beautiful. Fresh products and very clean. The streets are all flat, and everyone is on a bike. Oh, I forgot the bikes. So how Americans might park their cars at train stations and then take mass transit, the people of the city of Amsterdam do the same thing with their bikes. There are thousands of bikes everywhere, and they do rule the streets. Since there are no hills or inclines, bike life is pretty good in Amsterdam. Some of them, not even locked to any posts or gates. Unbelievable. That bike would have been gone before it was even five minutes in NYC. We are savages.
Staring at the Tom Tom right now, we have 446 km left before we get to Herning. We'll stay there tonight and hopefully make plans for Kopenhagen tomorrow and Sweden Thursday, and then the World Show on Friday with Markus and Pigalle. Hopefully my mom can keep her cool from now until then. I have had enough drama so far...now time to relax. First thing I want to do is go to the gym and to the pool. My face feels swollen from all the cheese...but I just can't stop. The cheese in Holland is to die for...and after all the samples that my mom ate, we still bought some for the car, some for later...and maybe I have some more...
After 7 hours of driving......we arrived in the town of Herning and found the house with no problem..thanks to Tom Tom. The house is about 1 km from anyone else and it is completely agricultural. There are rolling hills of farmland everywhere, and I keep seeing these little trumpet flowers like the ones at the Pines that I love so much. These flowers the deers don't eat because they don't like the taste. I am going to stop on my way back and take a close up picture of it so I can find out exactly what kind it is. After meeting our housemates, four of them, two couples and their 6 dogs! Poodles of two sizes and a breed of dog we didn't recognize and were too tired to question. The house is serene , divided into two seperate buildings, two bedrooms with three beds in each in the one building, in a huge game room with pool table, dart board, two seperate lounge areas with tv/dvd and windows throughout. There is a nice green view of the farmland. When I told my boyfriend, I can't wait to get out of the city for a little while...well this place is definitely that...far far far away. Things are never easy for my mom and I....the paper that we had from the house didn't even have an address on it. We didn't have anything written down because everything is on the computer and we didn't realize that we wouldn't have WIFI at the house when we arrived. I though wej were going to have a nervous breakdown both of us when we found out that there was no wifi. Somehow we had reset the phone so that it was now asking us for a code pin to make calls so we had to stop on the road and pay 15 euro just to call nejma....nobody speaks french here so its good the operator spoke English. My mom was so stressed that we had arrived too late to go to the little village because everything closes in Bornig at 5 30!!! The other village called Herning which is the biggest town within a long time...not sure exactly......everything closes at 8 00! We ended up eating candy...and egg sandwhiches from 711! I couldn't believe that we ended up at American chain after traveling 6000 kilometers. What we could find everywhere was bon bons- they love their candies those crazy Danes. I did end up drinking my bottle of Tunisian red that I bought at the KaufStop for 6,40 Euro which I am glad I had because there was nothing at the house. Pretty disgusting, but did the trick. At that point, I wasn't drinking for the taste people. Also, the woman who my mom got the hook up from for the house neglected to let us know that we had to bring our own towels and sheets! Thank God we had two small little towels in the back that we had planned to use for the dogs. Let's just say we had to use those towels for everything! We finally got to relax, and we went into the hot tub and we laughed our asses off at all the bullshit that had happenned to us that day. One of the housemates had to come check if we were ok because he heard so much noise! Deux pastilles avant...deux pastilles apres. How about, turn the heat up??? LOL.
The next day we took off to Copenhagen. We left at 9 am and we lost some time on the road , which is normally about a 4 hour drive from where we were in Herning. Of course, we wanted to buy something and we decided to trust Tom Tom to bring us to a shopping center. Well, he did. Picture the most horrible, worst selection of products in a pretty ghetto neighborhood. Half the center was under construction, while the other half, should have been burnt down. We didn't find anything we needed, so we got back in the car on the way to Copenhagen not knowing what to expect. Tom Tom found the hotel with no problem, once again redeeming himself for the previous fuck up. The Norlandia Star Hotel seemed like a palace to me since it had towels and sheets on the bed! Like any big city, the room was very small, and very expensive but worth it. Im not sure if my mom thinks so, but here is what happened. So after we checked in, we asked the guy at the front desk (by the way , everyone in Copenhagen speaks perfect English) where to park the car and how to get there. My mom drops me off with the bags and she goes off with the dogs and the car to park it. One hour later she comes back- completely frustrated. She had so much difficulty parking the car- I thought she was going to blow. Of course, we needed to call Michael, the dog breeder in Toreboda, Sweden to arrange our trip to visit him the following Saturday. The only problem was that we forgot the number in the car!!!!! I couldn't believe it. She was so frustrated with the whole parking situation, and all I wanted to do was start having some fun in the city that I decided to go back to the garage. I was so pissed off though, I didn't even have the address...only the name: Centrum Parking.
Come to find out, every Parking Garage is called Centrum Parking. The one that I was looking for was next to the Scandic hotel, however there are three different Scandic hotels. So I had to ask for directions like three times. Then when I finally found it...I needed the ticket to get in. I thought I was going to have a breakdown. Someone let me in and I got the damn paper. Ok...getting back to the hotel was also an issue. I tried to go back the way I came, but since I had gotten lost like 9 times on the way there, I decided to use my Tom Tom which I was carrying in my bag. So here I am, walking down the street, with the damn navigation in my hand- I probably looked like a freak- but I didn't care. I was hungry , thirsty and just wanted to have fun!!! So since Tom Tom thought I was a car, he took me all around, when I could have just walked down this one little street and been at the hotel, but that would have been too easy for me. It took me like 30 minutes to get back. We got the phone number! Finally. My mom called Sweden and I got dressed to go out. We went to this outdoor plaza called Tivoli. It is a really cool place with a lake, and little restaurants all around it. There are little shops to buy bullshit souvenirs and candies....candies everywhere. I told you earlier that the Danes love their bon bons, but now that I have tasted a lot of them, I have decided that they are not very good. The cuisine in Denmark in general is pretty lacking. The menu of the restaurnat we ate at was boring. My mom had carpaccio which was really good and I had a fish which was excellent. It was a zander fish- local. I will have to translate that into English. It's not that the food was bad, I was just expecting some more selection of traditional Danish dishes that I could try. Anyway, I had half a bottle of rose and a beer or two- the Danish are famous for their beer...Carlsberg and Trubo- both pretty good. The night was going great. I bought a few little souvenirs and after we walked around a little bit and we went back to the hotel. By this time it was about midnight, my mom went to bed, and I went out. It wasn't five minutes until I met a group of people standing outside and asked them for some advice on where I should go. They knew of this cool place not that far from the hotel, so they walked me over there. It was a tiny little bar, the bartender the owner, and the patrons all regulars. From there I moved on to this club called Verpa which stayed open until 4. From there, we went ( we being a group of about 8 people I had made friends with) to an all night karaoke bar. I laughed my ass off to hear these people singing all these American songs. I sang my Bohemian Rhapsody (not my choice by the way) and drank some Fishermans shots. Not sure exactly what was in them, but they were very dark in color, and kind of sweet in taste. At that point, I didn't really care. We went to this outdoor courtyard where there were still some parties going on. I didn't realize what time it was , or how long it had been because there is only one hour of darkness in Denmark, and even that one hour, it is not dark..it looks like it does in NYC at dusk. That kind of grayish dark, but definitely still light. It is amazing. I love it. My mom hates it. We went to bed at midnight one night, and got up at 6 am, and the light looks exactly the same...its weird, but I could get used to it. When my mom woke up at 4 and realized I still wasn't back at the hotel, she went to the Amsterdam Police!!! She said when she got there they were closed! Only in Denmark is the police station closed! So she rang the little emergency bell and an officer came down to get her. She said at least he was very handsome, because he didn't take her seriously. I am sure that she screamed at them, and she told them that I had been kidnapped probably. He asked her how old I was, and when she told him 27- they laughed and told her there was a lot going on in Copenhagen at night. What really freaked her out though, was as soon as she left the hotel to look for me, she saw an open suitcase with all of the belongings sprawled out on the sidewalk. She thought that someone had kidnapped me, but she still took the suitcase. Hey, it was brand new.
My mom left me in Copenhagen in the morning. I checked out of the hotel later on my own. I ended up taking a train into Sweden, while my mom drove the 4 hours back to Herning. I did some sight seeing and took the train back to Herning around 8 30 that evening. We had been reunited. What's next?
The reason for us staying in Herning was the World Show. We had my mom's two whippets entered, Pigalle and Markus. Unfortunately, she didn't understand the entry process completely, so instead of having them entered in two different classes, that we could have used one handler for, we had to have two different handlers because the dogs were competing against each other. Not only was it stressful for my mom to find handlers, which were changing every 5 minutes up until 10 minutes before the dogs had to be in the ring, but they had to be judged against each other. The turnout however was positive. We needed a little lift, and we got it. My mom was so happy when Markus first placed second over 28 dogs in his class, then won Reserve World Show over about 50 whippets. She couldn't stop crying! People were approaching her left and right wanting to know if he was available for breeding, or showing, or whatever! We had a very nice girl from Holland show him, and they fell in love with him right away as well. The handler that was originally supposed to handle him was what we call a Super- Swede. My boyfriend is a Super-Swede as well!!! He couldn't show the dog due to a conflict of interest which is understandable considering he travels all over the world, from Russia to Rome to Amsterdam to NYC to handle different breeds. He was very nice and introduced my mom to a breeder/handler team of Russian women from Moscow who were very interested in Pigalle as a show dog. My mom will keep in touch with them, but for now Pigalle will stay in France with Vincent, which is the handler who showed him on Friday. He will show here through Novemeber, try and pick up as many international titles as possible, and then go back to NYC when my mom comes to pick him up in Amsterdam in November.
That was the happy part of the story. The whippets were the first dogs to show in Ring number 33. We planned on leaving at 7 30, to give us plenty of time to park, find the ring, check in, buy a folding crate, find some chairs, get the programs and find the handlers! Well, while my mom was putting her stuff in the car, she also put the car keys in her purse, and set her purse on the front seat so she wouldn't forget it. She had also just put Markus inside the car because we were busy getting the last things together and we couldn't keep a good eye on him. It wasn't five minutes before my mom came into the room and told me that the car keys had been locked in the car. We were running out of time, and the dog was running out of air, so my mom picked up a big rock and smashed the back windshield. Glass went everywhere. She climbed in through the hatchback, unlocked the door, we cleaned up the glass quickly and sped off. The other housemates didn't say a word, but when my mom starts to turn into bionic woman like that, it is a good idea to just steer clear and let her do what she is going to do, because there won't be anything you can do to stop her at the time. It all happened so fast I think I was still in shock when we got the arena for the show. My mom finally found her crate that we had been trying to buy since the Carrefour the Sunday before- we set up camp at the side of the ring and got ready to root for out dogs. Mind you, the whippets didn't go on until 11 am, but it took a full two hours to organize these crazy handlers jumping from ring to ring.
After again starving all day, we ate some sausage french fries meal which seemed to be the popular dish at the show, and we headed to the supermarket. We needed to find something to repair the back window temporarily, and we had to hurry. Everything closes at 6 pm here. I mean everything. Even gas stations. Don't run out of gas in Herning or Borning- you will be stuck there until 10 am the next morning. We had to think like McGuyver and we had to do it quick. I thought we could use maybe a clear shower curtain that was thick enough to act as a shield for the back window. The only shower curtains I could find were patterned, and I didn't want to draw any more attention to us than need be, considering we were missing a major component of the vehicle- so I ended up in a paint store, not sure how we ended up parked right in front of one, but I looked at the time, and we still needed to buy some groceries for dinner so I ran into the store and I asked the poor guy in a panic “Where is the plastic for the floor...where is the plastic for the floor?” The guy took me over right away to show me, and jokingly told me “ I've never seen anyone in such a rush to paint something before.....” I laughed and explained the situation, told him I had no time to waste, ran out of the paint store (again- not sure how we ended up there- random) and across the street to the supermarket.
I wouldn't even call it a supermarket. They love kurry in Denmark. Kurry and potatoes. For the second night in a row we had potato salad, smoked salmon some saucisson and cheese. We ate with all the other housemates who weren't showing their mini poodles until the next day. Vincent had already showed his fox terrier and was planning to leave the next day as us to get back to his grooming shop in the outskirts of Paris. We are planning to drop off Pigalle on Tuesday before we go to the airport.. By the time we looked at the clock it was almost midnight- but the light outside makes you think it is 7pm. Not such a great night sleep, but we better get it together for out 1200 kilometer trip back to Paris tomorrow!!!
It is a good thing that we have had a support system in France via mobile phone this whole time. Between Nejma, Nadia and Sylvain we have made and cancelled hotel reservations, questioned numerous organizations regarding a variety of different topics and managed to make it over 2500 kilometers total- not without problems, but we are still in one piece and we have a good story to tell!
It is about 2 30 pm on Saturday now. We are more than 8 hours into our voyage through Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium then France to my mom's cousins house. We were supposed to go to Sweden today to visit Michael, but we couldn't do it, because just in case we didn't have enough drama , we misplaced the paperwork for the flying papers for the dogs. Since Pigalle is staying here, we only need to get one health certificate, which we can and will do on Monday at a local vet in Bussy Saint-Georges, but this discouraged us from making the 9 hour trip more north to three hours outside of Gothenborg. I'm bummed out because I wanted to spend more time in Sweden, but happy at the same time, because I still haven't eaten enough in France, and am looking forward to sitting by the pool, relaxing and getting out of this car!!!
Just passed the Belgium/France border and customs agents were there searching someone's baggage, but they didn't stop us! Even without windows in the back. We are unstoppable baby!
