My Diary – An Entry From Pontoise

Ever since I left Montreal for Paris when I was just 19, I’ve been keeping a journal of all of my travels. It’s nothing more than a detailed account of what I get up to while I am away from Canada and doesn’t include a whole lot of introspection, but after 20 years of travelling from Europe to Korea, Central America, the Middle East, Russia, and so many other amazing places, there are now volumes of diaries sitting on my shelf. It can be fun, occasionally, to grab a diary on any given day and read about what I was up to however many years ago and wherever I might have been. It’s written in a wholly different tone than any of the travel stories that I like to tell, but it does, in its way, offer perhaps the most unfiltered version of what life is like for me while I travel. This one particular entry of France, bookending my brief return home to Canada, I think offers one of the clearer insights into a fraction of time of this great adventure.

Sept. 15, 2019

Life’s been a mess – a good mess, but a mess all the same. I’ve been so busy at so many things and it’s kept me from writing so that it’s hard to know where to begin and I’m sure I won’t be able to cover everything, but here goes:

My stay in Turin was agreeable but passed in a flash. It wasn’t as infested with tourists as are many stops in Europe at the end of August, as my Airbnb host pointed out, most of the locals leave and go on holiday. It meant that a lot of things were closed and my time there was spent taking as best care of myself as I could, planning out how to get to Paris, and staying on top of my work. My host in Turin didn’t stick around but we had a good chit chat the day that I arrived and she was kind enough to share with me some of her more unique local spirits. One was from the mountains of Piedmont and was sweet and made from juniper berries – almost like sweet gin – called “Genepy”. The other was a Sardinian specialty made from a mix of botanicals called “Mirto”.

From Turin, I took the bus to Lyon. It had been extraordinarily difficult trying to find affordable accommodation and I only managed to actually arrange something while I was on the bus. Internet proved to be a problem again, but I was safe and comfortable enough considering the place I was staying had a bit of a frat house feel to it. The host, Raphael, was a young guy but easy to communicate with and it meant that that second night I went out to supper with him and some of his friends for Chinese food. I covered an insane amount of ground with my only full day in Lyon, and Lyon is not an easy city to walk as many of the neighbourhoods worth visiting are built into the hills. There was a lot of sweating and sore feet by the end.

Affordable ways to get to Paris at this busy time of year were in short supply but I managed to not have to blow the bank by catching a TGV with a company called Ouigo. Considering the season I also found very comfortable and affordable accommodation in Paris in the Montparnasse area south of the Seine and close to the Jardin de Luxembourg. The moment I got to Paris it felt a bit like that first leg of my journey – the European leg – was over, and that I had “made it”. Still, there was barely a moment to catch my breath with so much work to be done and my flight just a few days away. Either way, I had made it to Paris with a couple of days to spare and PSG were playing that night. There were a lot of tickets available and considering it was PSG I found the 40 euro price to be very affordable. At my hotel, there was a couple from Uruguay who were also going to the game so we went all together and it felt like we made more friends along the way. It was a totally one-sided affair and unfortunately, all of the goals were scored in the second half at the far end of the pitch. I didn’t get back to my hotel until quite late and indulged in a kebab which I scarfed down and by the time I went to bed I was a bit of a broken shell. The whole journey after Ljubljana had been a bit of an ordeal that had really begun to take its toll. The continent was on fire with scorching temperatures, I was overburdened with work and most important of all, I had been to Paris before. Still, somehow on that last day, I found myself outside tracking down kouign-ammans and having lunch in the Marais before heading down to Shakespeare & Co. to buy Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature”. I had wanted to sit and read for a bit in the Jardin de Luxembourg, but it was too hot and I was too tired so I just passed through. There was a cinema near the hotel and it had air conditioning so I went and watched the latest Tarantino film – “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”. Somehow I still managed to work up a sweat.

Rob actually came with Mom to pick me up from the airport. I forgot to take any melatonin the first couple of nights being back and it made adjusting to the 9-hour time difference really difficult. Mom made herself useful at Rob and Naomi’s which meant I had the apartment all to myself those first few nights which was really nice.

The time I spent out in Kelowna went really well and Nevin and Kyla’s wedding was a gorgeous affair enjoyed by all who attended even if I, myself, was still not fully recovered from the effects of jet lag. I got in a couple of meals at Hillside and one at Quail’s Gate, but the food at the wedding was one of the best meals I’ve ever had. Everything from the mushroom risotto and the beet salad to the charcuterie plate, salmon darnes, and steak with chimichurri was all top-notch. I also got to have a short visit with Jarrett, and Rob and Naomi, without the kids around, were in top form which is always nice to see.

Over the ten or so days that I was in Vancouver, I spent most of my time at my desk trying to get all of my work back on track. There were visits to the bank, meetings with new sub-contractors, chats with Barb, and a shit ton of editing and I’m still not through it all, but there does appear to be some light at the end of the tunnel.

Mom ended up moving back into the apartment with me after a small dust-up (which turned into a big dust-up) between Rob and I when I had been invited to his place for a barbecue on the weekend. Sharing the small space with my mom was fine – handy in fact because, being in Vancouver, I started to get lazy about picking up after myself and mom was great about cleaning my messes. The new bag that I had ordered through Amazon had arrived before I did and it put me in the mood to be on the road again. I had a good kick about with the Westside lads but there wasn’t enough in Canada to keep me constantly or completely interested. In fact, instead of feeling like a return to “real life”, the whole visit to Canada felt like a break from my real life or like a really boring distraction. Sure, I could be completely lazy, and yeah I had some good meals – including a lively happy hour at Bodega on Main with my aunt and cousins Peter and Susan – but overall I was happy to get back on the road.

Yesterday was obviously a tough day starting with an impromptu consult at the airport. I had forgotten to get travel insurance and only realized when I was in line to board the plane which led to me quite literally pulling out my computer right there and taking care of it 10 minutes before I got on the plane. Flying west to east is obviously a lot quicker. One movie and a couple of TV episodes and suddenly I’m sprinting to my connection in Montreal. I managed to sleep for maybe an hour or two on the plane which made a huge difference. By the time we touched down, I had to be all systems go and needed to sustain it for the whole day. By now I know how to get from CDG to Paris but I had a few goals. Getting phone connectivity proved to be a bit tricky as all of the major phone companies are offering rather robust packages that are more than I need and quite expensive (starting at 40 euros). For only 10 euros I managed to solve my initial problem by buying a prepaid card from essentially a tobacconist. I had dedicated large portions of my days in Vancouver making sure that I read the whole Steven Pinker book because it’s so big that I didn’t want to be carrying it around with me, so I stopped again at Shakespeare & Co. to pick up a book. This also proved a bit tricky since, unlike with Better Angels where I was hunting down that specific book, my options this time were wide open. On a recommendation from one of the guys working at Shakespeare, I picked up a book called Imperium by Ryszard Kupucinski. It was now early afternoon and I was having trouble focusing. I sat for a bit by the fountain at the Jardin de Luxembourg before deciding it was time to seek comfort and safety. I hopped on the RER, but because of construction, I had to get off at Orsay and walk to Invalides which was tough because I was already struggling. I was falling asleep on the train out to Pontoise but managed to get my shit together and made it out to my accommodation which is itself a fair way outside of Pontoise. I set myself up well enough and went to procure provisions and filled myself up well enough on salad and baguette with cheese and salami. When the sun went down it was a struggle to stay awake but I made it until 9 pm where I went out cold and slept right through for 10 hours.

 I’ve made little effort today to go out and see as I am in recovery mode, but my brain is already playing the planning game and I’ve been working mostly while plotting where to go next. Flights from Brussels to Larnaca skyrocketed suddenly which alters my course a bit and, as of today, the new best course to Cyprus is via Budapest. I’m juggling a lot of options and loving it. I’m feeling pretty strong one day in and I hope that I could be right as rain as early as tomorrow.