a unique perspective on this crazy world

Archive for November, 2012

who is “that girl?” ;)

I am really dating myself with this reference but since I have put my age into the public record, no secrets will be revealed 🙂  A few weeks ago I stumbled by accident on TV reruns of “That Girl”.  It had a fairly short run – but obviously long enough to be in syndication 🙂

http://www.tv.com/shows/that-girl-1966/

“That Girl” never had the power or cultural prominence of “Mary Tyler Moore” but they both informed my childhood view of women – and reinforced the idea that women could be strong and independent that I was so lucky to have as my childhood motif courtesy of my crazy, think-outside-the box family 🙂

“That Girl” was a little extra special for me because the actress featured was named “Marlo”.  Obviously my great uncle Elmo must have been a secret fan of the show because he never got that my name ended in an “a”, not an “o”.  But “Marla” was a strange Martian name in the small towns of my childhood and “Marlo” was so much closer than all the other “M” names I got called because I was shy and soft spoken so I was grateful 🙂

No doubt Zooey Deschanel is referencing “That Girl” in “The New Girl”.  Almost nothing in the 21st century is as “new” as advertised – it’s most often just an update.

Shockingly to me, this is my 100th post!  So I thought it should be personal and introspective.  I am not Marlo – or Zooey – but I like to think I have updated my own version of “That Girl.”

The show was a cheesy trifle so I suspect my version of “That Girl” is a little deeper than the producers of the 60s would have been envisioning


I think I am better at the “that” part than the “girl” part.  In my family, there were only two offspring.  Whether nature, nurture or divine intervention, I was happy to be the substitute son while my sister revelled in everything girlie.

paris early days

She embraced pink, skirts, jewelry
 I refused to wear pink on principle.  I drove my mother to the edge of madness by wearing the same pair of brown sweatpants during high school so many times they started to disintegrate.  Finally, at age 31, when the man I wanted to be perfect enough to marry proved to be a bit more challenging, I finally succumbed to my mother’s pressure to pierce my ears
  I think it was my first girlie moment – changing my appearance to mark frustration with a relationship milestone


The years go by
 and all of us grow up
 even if it takes a while
 so I am scribbling this wearing a skirt, fuschia tights and special edition 007 Swarovski earrings cool enough to get a thumbs up from the gorgeous Parisian hostess at the restaurant.

It took over three decades but I eventually figured the “that” part of “that girl” was the most interesting part.  A four-letter word with all kinds of meaning attached.

I only saw one re-run but I think the concept is “That Girl” is memorable.  She is not lost in the crowd.  So, if you aspire to be “That Girl” you are going to have to be interesting


I’m not sure I have totally achieved that goal yet.  But I am making progress!

As part of my spectacular 50th year (only a few months left), I relived my Hermes experience.  In the strange loop that is my life, my first Hermes visit happened when I ran off to Paris for the first time on my own just as I about to embark on a surreal love affair that would result in my European marriage.

In those days I had a regular job – or the kind of irregular permanent job that meant I worked at least 60 hours a week every week so taking vacation time was practically impossible and my best hope was over the Christmas holidays.  I had just met the German guy and we were trading emails
 back in the old days when we had to write them at work on our lunch break
 but it made the communication more exciting.  He had just bought an apartment and, being a practical German engineer, wasn’t ready for me to descend on the exact dates I could convince my boss to sign off on.  So I went to Paris first.

Paris in January with a strong umbrella and a good sense of humour when the umbrella just ended up in knots in the wind.  Don’t go to Paris in January!  But it was the only chance I had.  And the Australian had made me take the metro all the time while we sat underground and he dissed Paris the entire time so I knew I had to take the city back on my own terms


I live in a city where it is famous for rain so I will always have fond memories of walking the streets of Paris in the rain with my broken umbrella
   No Aussie jackass to spoil my love of the city of light and a budding romance a few days away in Deutschland.  It could have been a film 😉

And in the photo montage, no doubt I would have been buying my first Hermes scarf.  When I was traveling with the Aussie dude on my very first trip to Paris, I was traveling on $50 a day and there wasn’t really money for postcards
  so it was a promise to myself
 someday
 I would return to Paris and buy a real Hermes scarf
 at the shop on Faubourg St Honore.

The first experience was just OK.  I was easily intimidated by the sales associate and walked away with something
 but the true satisfaction  that should have come from such an expensive purchase had always eluded me
 so, in the end, my second Hermes scarf not only marked my 50th year but also bookended my European marriage – and highlighted how far I had come in the past 15 years.

This time I was confident and in charge of the sales associate, rather than vice versa, and walked away with a gorgeous scarf that should end up bequeathed in my will.

I’m not sure if I am “that girl”, “the new girl” or simply “this girl”.  But, what is clear to me is the journey I have already undertaken and the confidence the “current girl” has.

It is the confidence of age and experience, worn lightly, making an Hermes scarf seem heavy by comparison.

This trip was practical.  I wasn’t a tourist.  There was no requirement for stories or adventures.  And – compared to most of my travels – it was pretty low-key.  But, in an effort to stay awake and combat jet lag on Friday night, I wandered into one of those bar-lounge-bistro-etc type places that only exist in France and was rewarded with more than just a 3 euro glass of great Cote du Rhone.

They had seemed determined I should sit
 so ended up at a table almost in the lap of the guy strumming guitar and singing the kind of French chansons you would normally hear on the soundtrack of a film festival selection at Cannes.

I was happy to just listen but he kept smiling at me
 in that come hither way that Latin guys have that is deadly
 and he was a shaggy haired piece of French manhood with a great voice and a seductive delivery


I gathered the table next to me was composed of his close friends, who spoke almost no English.  I really need to work on my language skills!   It was all not very clear
 but it seemed I might be being set up with one of their friends who spoke English
 Chanteur guy seemed sad I was leaving
 and there may have been an interesting story there if I had stayed but sometimes you have to be the girl who knows what she really needs is some sleep!

Don’t worry
 it doesn’t happen very often 🙂  My goal is to make my real life surpass all the treacly TV episodes and prove that real people are cooler than anyone on TV – fiction or reality TV fact


Stay tuned! 😉

 

 

 

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artsy stuff, life philosophy, travel stories

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let them eat cake! :)

I am typing this from the land of Marie Antoinette!  Sometimes one’s life really exceeds one’s expectations.  I am back in Paris – for the SECOND time in a single year.  The stuff of dreams in my childhood.

Back when I was climbing trees and hiding in wheat fields I ferociously hoped my adult life would be more dramatic and interesting.  But none of those prairie girl dreams could have ever prepared me for the astonishing reality it would become.

I will have to finish this after my late night Thursday shopping romp at Galeries Lafayette… but I am drinking free champagne as I type… apparently joining I Prefer is a great idea.  I highly recommend it!  And thus far, the Hotel Original Paris has exceeded my expectations.  I definitely recommend it.  Especially if you are traveling by train, as I was.  A few steps from the mĂ©tro at Bastille.  From Gare L’Est or Gare du Nord, a piece of cake 🙂

http://www.hoteloriginalparis.com/

And, since we did reference cake, I guess I should provide the explanation…

It is one of those stories that did not have the happy ending I anticipated… but, maybe more importantly, really taught me about the complexities of life and how to embrace it and enjoy it.  As I think Joni Mitchell said, very poignantly, I’ve looked at love from both sides now.”

I think she said “life” but this story is about “love”… in all its complexity and messiness…

How we all take our weaknesses – and our strengths – and combine them with others into a mischung that is at all junctures part success and part failure but always human and engaging.

Yes, a bit philosophical… blame the free champagne the hotel supplied.  You gotta love it when someone knocks after check-in and you hesitantly open the door and he has an ice bucket and a small bottle of Lanson RosĂ©.  This is serious champagne!  Absolutely delicious 🙂

But the champagne is only a small part of the equation.  It is mostly fueled

my days in Deutschland

by the days I recently spent in Stuttgart.

Unless you are into Mercedes or Porsche, Stuttgart is likely not at the top of your list for a tourist destination.  But it is an industrial metropolis and part of the great Deutsch economic machinery.  Most people come to Stuttgart for work… but I was there for something more complicated.

The entire story is a bit too long and complicated for a blog post so we will cut to the chase and just say that the Germans are wonderfully hospitable and some German guy named Wolfgang wanted to repay my hospitality in Vancouver so I ended up on the Ammersee in Bavaria where I was reacquainted with the cute guy I had admired from afar at a company event earlier in the week… and – unlike normal people – I ended up marrying him and moving to Germany.

It’s a long and complicated story that may find its way into the blog at a later date.  But the purpose of my recent trip to Germany was to finalize our divorce.

There are not a lot of great divorce stories out there.  But not that many

it all started on a beach in Antigua…

people marry German engineers 😉

So very few people are trying to follow a conversation in a foreign language while joking with the lawyer just prior to going into a court room to get divorced.  It was ridiculously bureaucratic and very German.  Some lady named Doris is going to officially receive my divorce decree so it can be mailed to Canada without going through some complicated, expensive process.  The system isn’t designed for you to have it sent to your ex so he can pass it on to you…

The lawyer was highly entertaining.  Once we had finished in the court, he shook each of our hands and said, “you are free!”  And then we had to decide what to do.  We had already wandered the streets as I took photos of some of the cute German buildings before our court hearing.  So we had our plan set.

We went for cake!  If you have never been to Germany (or Austria) for cake, you should really put it on your bucket list.  It was one of my favourite parts of living in Germany.  Hot chocolate (a wonderful bitter version completely different to its North American cousin) and Eierlikor cream cake.  Like egg nog in a solid form.  Delicious.

It wasn’t really a celebration.  Just us hanging out and doing things that we knew worked.  Later that evening I took him for dinner at Olivo.  I am pretty sure the chef has at least one Michelin star.  It was one of those meals that will definitely make my top ten list.  Technically six courses… but with two pre-courses (the first with six separate little bites) and then a petit four course AND a truffle course.  We emerged feeling like the foie gras duck that had been part of our meal.

http://www.steigenberger.com/Stuttgart/restaurants/

And now I am in Paris.  With no regrets.  We both agreed a few months ago as we were working through the details that we would both do it all again – even knowing how it would turn out.

I’m not sure I’m made for marriage.  But getting married – and moving to a foreign country where I spoke possibly five words of the local language – added many wonderful dimensions to my life.  And completely changed its direction in countless ways.

It is impossible to know what would have happened had I not said “yes.”  But I know my life would have been a lot less inspired… and I would not have learned about kaffee und kuchen.  I didn’t get married for the cake… but there was a lot of sugar and cream in the whole adventure… literal and figurative…

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life philosophy, travel stories

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my love affair with airports…

At some point I may actually finish my thoughts on my last trip to London but I have been working every minute to get to this point so no time for fun stuff like writing.  I am sitting in Terminal B of Frankfurt airport as I write this.  It’s almost 11am in Germany, 2am for me and I got more or less zero sleep on the ugly flight over.  No crush on Lufthansa.  Not quite sure why I couldn’t choose my seat ahead or why they changed it to the worst seat on the plane I think, amidst crying babies with not even a seat pocket to call my own.

But now I am here… in one of the many airports I know like a second home.  This one is likely the most special one for me.  A lot of interesting events in my life have transpired as I transited through Frankfurt airport.  I’ve never even been to Frankfurt.  But this airport…  I knew we would be landing in Terminal B and I would have to transfer to A.  I noted the really cool boutique where I once bought a pair of shoes now has an accessories shop as well.  Apparently I am not the only one who shops at the airport 🙂

I think some people find airports stressful… or boring… I do enjoy the final destination more but I am rarely grumpy in an airport.  And love just watching the action while I wait for my flight… airports are never dull.  Why I have a soft spot for the film Love Actually.  Four Weddings and a Funeral in my top ten but it was what Richard Curtis said about airports that really resonated with me… especially about airports and love stories…

I don’t make it a policy to date long distance… it just seems to happen… so I definitely know about airports and love stories… it’s one of those tales that is the reason I am in Frankfurt this time but that story will be told a bit later when its storyline has been satisfied.  Right now I am thinking of other airports and other stories…

The very first airport I ever entered was in Winnipeg.  And I was flying to Ottawa.  On my own.  I was a teenager and it was my first flight ever.  It was exciting and scary all at the same time.  Luckily for me, they were both super easy airports.  No one brandishing a gun at me who didn’t speak English very well.

plane landing serengeti

That was in Kilimanjaro.  Last year.  The point at which I thought airports were a piece of cake and if you dropped me off at one, all I had to do was follow the signs to get from the domestic terminal to the international terminal.

And had I been in Dar-es-Salaam it likely would have worked that way.  But Kili is a small airport, international only because of all the tourists flocking in to climb Kilimanjaro or see the Serengeti.  The tour company had offered to take care of me but I knew that would not be happening for free and I thought it would be dead easy…

Not so much… getting dropped off was easy and it was clear I was in the domestic “terminal”… but there were no signs for the international terminal where I was supposed to be going to catch my flight to Amsterdam.  And I had hours to kill…

I asked at least five different people, following the directions I got without any success… which is how I decided to walk around the building to the other side.  But that’s when the guy pulled the gun on me so I didn’t push it and went back to try for a sixth time.

And finally – success!  I DID need to walk around to the other side of the building – but I had to go THROUGH the building via an unmarked maze rather than follow the perimeter.  There was no lounge or duty free shop and they didn’t open the small, non-air-conditioned holding area until about an hour before the flight.  So I ended up on a cultural adventure.  There  were two open air spots outside to hang out and wait.  I had a packed lunch from my luxury tour company so I ate that and ordered a local beer.

The price came down each time I ordered another as I became a “local” instead of a tourist and I observed people coming and going.  It was fascinating.  It became obvious why I had confused everyone trying to find the international terminal.  Little white girls did not just wander around the airport on their own…  All the white people came and went in packs, wearing their shiny new safari gear, led by their local guide, until he had placed them safely on the plane.  More interesting were the local people who showed up, dressed for a special excursion, sipping Coca Cola out of vintage glass bottles and talking on their mobile phones.

Hanging out at the airport isn’t always such a fascinating cultural experience and many of my best memories are tied together with the early stages of grand passions.

My new NYC investment banker boyfriend driving my car to the airport on his first visit to Vancouver.  We were so wrapped up in our passionate good-bye I forgot he had my car keys!  So, just as he was about to go through security, I yelled, “you have my keys!”  In those moments in life you are oblivious to the greater world but obviously some people had been watching because, as he handed me my keys, the guy at the gate said, “you’re going to have to kiss her again now.”  And we obliged 😉

Equally memorable was my sprint through Frankfurt airport almost ten years ago.  It was the kind of passionate affair you know can only really last in a bubble and isn’t a realistic view of romance unless you think you are a vampire 🙂  But it’s really worth feeling like that at least once or twice in your life.

It was another long distance thing so he could only meet me in Vancouver for a few days after my business trip to Germany so getting on the plane seemed critical.  First he called me long distance from North America to make sure I didn’t miss my wake-up call… when we got to Frankfurt the plane was late and it looked likely I would miss my flight… but if I ran at high speed through the airport I just might make it.  And I did.  And seeing him smiling and sweeping me off my feet at the final destination made the airport marathon totally worth it.

I totally appreciate that I have watched too many films.  I treasure a dramatic arrival or departure.  I spend most of my time in airports alone watching the human condition.  But being one of the stories to watch.  Anyone can have a moment worthy of the cinema.  I think some of it is the magic of climbing into a giant bird and flying vast kilometers in a way that until about 100 years ago seemed as impossible as a man on the moon.

Sure it’s cool to send your mother in North America a text to tell her you have arrived safely in Tanzania.  But it lacks all the drama and romance of your actual arrival and departure from Kilimanjaro International Airport.  Armchair traveling will never compare to hearing the wheels roll up or down and the plane glide into the air or clunk onto the ground.  And then navigating your way through the maze of people and services that will take you from the plane through the airport into the real world.  And, if you’re lucky, someone will be waiting at one end to scoop you up and kiss you just like they do in the movies.  Keep it dramatic – but not gross… and you will be the envy of the other passengers 🙂

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