Pics from Metz

When I'm not singing, sleeping or eating, I'm a professional tourist, trying to take in the most I can about a city in a day or two tops.

This city, Metz, was traded back and forth - well more like stolen and poached back and forth, between France and Germany several times. So some of the architecture is a little schizophrenic and varied back and forth from the multiple influences. There are ruins of an old fortress/gate to the city called Porte des Allemands (Gate of the Germans.) The first two pictures below are of that gate.

This photo is taken on the Moselle River, in old town Metz.

Below is a closeup shot of some of the ghastly, gothic gargoyles and such on the front of the St. Etienne Cathedral. I was quite pleased to see some differentiation between cathedrals and churches finally. After you've seen one white stone church, you've seen them all, sort of. But this church is made of some different, richer colored stone. And in Strasbourg, I believe, the church was made of a variegated pink stone - even cooler. All the cities are starting to run together, so it's hard for me to tell w/o looking at photo titles. My photo naming conventions and general photo hygiene in general is spectactular, partially due to my former life as a photo captioning asst or whatever at Discovery Channel, and partially due to my anal nature (which is probably how I ended up doing photo captioning in the first place.)

Temple Neuf

Okay, I'll see you soon - 2 weeks! Until then, smooches...

Rouen and Strasbourg

Here are more pictures of Rouen. A lot of these northern cities have serious Flemish and/or German influences in the food, language and architecture.

Once we left Rouen, we traveled straight to the venue and did a show, so we only got to spend about 2 hours in Strasbourg the next day before leaving for Metz, but here are photos of what I got to see:

Strasbourg

Lucky, lucky

I've had a couple of really good days here. It gets rough sometimes, but I've been quite pleased to be here. We left Lille and are now in Rouen. By the time you read this, I'll most likely be back in Paris again for a petite respite before we head to Strasbourg.

Rouen feels like a village. It's the place where they burned Joan of Arc at the stake. For some reason, the building they built to commemorate this and I guess to honor her looks TOTALLY out of place. Here it is:



Not very french looking. My friend kept complaining about how modern it was. I keep forgetting what city we are in or what day of the week it is. It starts to run together. It's quite amusing to watch a group of adults discuss what day they THINK it is for 3 minutes, dead serious. We were standing in front of a french store that was closed in the middle of the day and we had to run through our list of why-the-french- don't- want- to- work- right- now excuses.

1) It's Sunday (sort of legit, but it's been so long in the US I've forgotten about Sundays off)
2) It's Monday and I already had to work on Saturday
3) It's Monday and it's a pharmacy before 3pm
4) It's a restaurant and it's after 2pm, but before 7pm
5) It's the weekend of Easter
6) The owner has a hangnail....

Okay, just joking about the hangnail, but there's lots of closures. And when we first saw a store closed we thought it was Sunday and then realized that it was Thursday and that individual store proprietor was closed for no predictable reason.

I try to figure out why I seem to have so little time here and it dawns on me that eating at restaurants every day for 2 meals takes a LOT of time, as does doing laundry and mundane tasks that you can't do easily without a car or a house. So, I get less done, but I've sort of come to expect less. A good day is one where I can call my husband, read and answer emails, update my blog, paint my nails, eat and get a decent amount of sleep. Anything above and beyond is just gravy.

Alright, more later.

Brussels to Lille

Brussels, Belgium photos:

Me in Brussels at midnight - this is all I got to see of it

We're in Lille now. It's a cute city - 4th largest in France. Small, when you hear those stats. Anyhow, it's fairly cute. They have a lot of creperies here. I haven't been very inspired with the photos here. I don't know if all the cities are starting to look alike, if I'm burned out or what, but after Brussels, I just sort of stopped taking 100 photos of the same thing.

What's happened to my art! :) Anyhow, we're in Lille. Back to toilets in the closet again. We got spoiled in Brussels - it was a one-off and we had the BEST hotel. Housekeeping in France is relentless! Yesterday I got 1 phone call, one question in the hallway and a knock on the door followed by a sliding of the door key while I was blow-drying my hair and doing naked leg lifts in the bathroom. Why do they want into our rooms so bad? We never use the mini-bar! I have a do not disturb sign on the door and I asked the lady outside why they bother to have the door hangers if they are going to double check 3 times. One of our bandmates suggested that he figre out when the maid comes and then he could perform a lascivious act, naked, at her exact arrival. That'd traumatize her enough to stay away. At our last hotel in Paris, this little women knocked on your door and when you opened it, she bulldozed in like a hungry stray and marched over to the window and opened the curtains. All the while uttering something about having to open your window. So I'm thinking there's a trick lock or something, and she grabs the curtain and opens it, as if I couldn't do that myself. All this with the curt tenacity of a German war nurse. I thought it odd but forgot about it until at lunch our bandleader said that he told the front desk that he never wanted to see "that woman" for the rest of his stay here. They are deep here with the hospitality, even if you don't want it. So funny.

Here's what I could muster for Lille:

Paris Versaille Pics

Pictures from Versailles

Inside the Versaille palace.

The site of our infamous stuck-in-a-rowboat-on-a-river-with-a-deadline adventure!

So Paris was cool. We stayed in a good hotel this time. The difference between hotels in the US and France are as follows:

US - many outlets
France - 1 outlet, none of which is in the bathroom

US - bed has a fitted sheet, flat sheet and then a quilt or bedspread
France - bed has a fitted sheet and then a quilt. No middle man here.

US - toilet and sink, reunited in 1 room
France - toilet in a closet, sink in another room w/tub

US - shower is permanent fixture w/a full door or curtain
France - shower is handheld, door is usually some 1/4 length deflector at the head of the tub (which equals water flooding your floor 98% of the time)

US - do not disturb means, don't enter, don't think about it
France - do not disturb means knock on the door and wake me up to ask if I'm really sure that I don't want my room done, ask me if I want anything, sometimes it means break in while I'm naked and try to have a conversation with me, nude, about why you're in my room - in another language, knock and don't wait for a response and just break in to check to see if I've bought any $10 potato chips from the vending fridge, etc.


This hotel was nice and we didn't have to endure much nonsense at all. There was actually a gym inside, maybe as many as 4 plugs spread around the room, etc. It was very nice. All I did in Paris was Versailles and just life administration and rest. I didn't do my normal running around like a tourist w/their head cut off act. We'll be back again and I don't want to wear Paris out so that when Mark comes, I'm all jaded and bored with it!

Alright, I've got to go eat. I slept in today for once - I'm on picture strike. And food in France is VERY regulated. You must eat lunch between 12 and 2, or else you can't eat again until 7:30. Everything closes. Imagine our chagrin on travel days where we're in a bus until AFTER lunch, arrive in a new city and we're screwed. So usually, we've started stopping in truck stops and having a little in between snack.

Let me run and eat! I'll write again soon - the internet is slightly less expensive in this hotel than some...

Return to Paris

We went back to Paris for a pitstop before heading to Belgium.

We stayed in a neighborhood called Le Marais. Paris has become so familiar that it feels like Washington, DC to me.

This time, I finally made it back to Versailles. Can't post pics because something about this internet in this hotel prohibits any type of upload behavior. Anyhow, it was an adventure. Went on a rowboat w/another singer, not really thinking about the fact that we don't really know how to row a boat, nor have I ever really rowed a boat now that I think about it. It was very Lucy and Ethel in the water. And she was dressed like a supermodel in a boat! Funny. I like Marie Antoinette's place and the adjoining properties better than the main house which is a little bit museum like at this point.

I'll have to update this more later...

More Lyon Traboule Photos

Lyon is a really neat little town. Here are some pictures I took mostly of the traboules. Old town Lyon is full of cobbled streets and cute shops. I had the best crepes I've had in France so far. Most of the crepes are just fast food junk and a lot of stands don't bother to cook them from batter anymore, so you get a reheated crepe with just one or two fillings. But at a restaurants called Le Bananas in Lyon, I had sit-down worthy, buckwheat crepes with Bechamel sauce, creme fraiche, cheese, ham, onion and mushrooms that were to die for! Since then I've learned
that those are usually called Crepes Breton or Galettes and are harder to find in Paris, but worth the energy. Hopefully I'll find some before we leave Paris tomorrow. We're here for a 2 and a half day layover, so it's been a blur. I think I have to waste today with laundry! Talk to you soon.