Libations & Explorations

(Absinthe in Avignon) French Drinking Culture As my good friends will tell you, I enjoy a good drink!  Other than that time in Rotterdam which all parties involved agreed to never speak of again; I rarely drink to any serious level of intoxication. Just enough to relax and enjoy myself. I also genuinely enjoy the taste of certain alcohols (and I only consume drinks I like the taste of).  You will never see me having beer (aka, cat piss). The past two weeks of living in France has shown me how shockingly puritan America is when it comes to alcohol.  Yes, the drinking age is 18 in France (21 in America), and yes you can buy hard liquor in just about any shop you can think of (NOT happening in Pennsylvania); but it goes much deeper than that. In the mornings, in France, you will see people at their local cafes having an espresso or two to start the day.  You will also see people having a glass of wine or a beer. Indeed, even the local indoor market in Avignon has a bar ...

A Politically Incorrect Review of Marseilles Over the years, I had heard that the French seaside city of Marseilles was know to be a bit ‘dodgy’.  Much of this comes from the zeitgeist, such as the film “The French Connection” which was based on a real heroin smuggling operation that ran from the 1930s through the 70s.  Unione Corse, the Corsican mafia that makes the Italian mob look like a bunch of cupcakes, ran copious amount of heroin from Southeast Asia to the United States and Canada via the port city of Marseilles.   Are these characterizations of Marseilles being a “Gotham City” of Europe valid in 2024? Well, like all stereotypes, there is an ounce (or two) of truth in them… I arrived in Marseilles via train from Avignon.  Full disclosure, Avignon is a very clean and quiet city (they have four homeless people and all of them are quite charming in their way); so that certainly influenced my opinion of Marseilles.  When I arrived, the train station was pack...

  I’m going to be ill… “OMG, look honey! They have New York hats, let’s get some so our friends back home will know we were in Fraaaaaaance…”, said the American tourist. Bloody hell, where do I even start? This utter tragedy happened at 10.32am, Central European Time, at a gift shop in Avignon, France.  I had gone in there to buy a cute bag I had seen for my groceries as I had left mine at home.  Now I wish I had just paid the few for a plastic bag at the Carrefour… To describe the perpetrators of this hate-crime against intellectual robustness, I think of the ‘Great White Shark’; massive beasts of the ocean that consume everything edible in sight.  I guarantee they both bitched about how small the plane seat was on the flight over… I know I shouldn’t let incidences like this annoy me; but, dear Lord how can you move past hearing something like this?  These people had children, so this idiocy has already been passed to the next generation.  Sacrebleu! I pro...

Avignon, France My first full day in France was a Sunday.  I had arrived in Avignon the previous evening via the SCNF “Train a Grande Vitesse” (high speed train) from Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.  The journey took three hours and was on-time quite pleasant (the French state-owned railways are not known for their punctuality). What really made me fall in love with French trains, however, was that there was a carriage for First Class that served wine… (I had booked a ‘Billet de Premiere Classe’ aka a First Class Ticket). The Bar-Car Sundays are sacred to the French.  To them, it is a day for only one thing: vegetating.  Work is to be avoided at all cost. Knowing this, I expected Avignon to be completely shut down on my first day.  However, this wasn’t the case.  True, most shops, all government buildings, and businesses were closed. But, the Carrefour was open (a French grocery store chain) as were a few restaurants and cafes.  Mostly, the establi...

Two, clearly lost, tourists in the Medina It’s amazing how different a city looks at night versus during the day. When we had entered the restaurant Marrakech, the labyrinth of passageways knows as the Medina were bathed in the light of the early evening African sun. But now it was night. The shopkeepers had closed their stalls, put away their wares, and left nothing but the moonlight to lead our way.  It was as if we had left one city and gone to another over the course of diner.  Naturally, Doina, Svetlana, and I did what one does in these civilized times: fired up our cellphones.  However, other than providing a small amount of light in the dark alleyways, these devices are largely useless.  Other than getting you more lost than you were already, they let every local know that you are an ignorant tourist ripe for the picking! It’s a maze… We walked aimlessly, but always believing we knew where we were, for about 15 minutes.  We came to an intersection of four...

To the more seasoned traveler, the late Anthony Bourdain is a hero. He inspired a whole generation of us to pack our bags, get on a plane, and not eat at the hotel. When we are researching our trips to far off and exotic locations, we imagine we will be eating street food with the locals...reality tends to be a bit different. Most of us don't have a camera crew, bodyguards, and medical professionals to look after us when things go tits-up abroad.  I for one spent literally, not figuratively, 24 hours in the lavatory of my hotel room in Ho Chi Minh City after I ate some dodgy fish. Stories of overseas dining gone wrong are far from uncommon; but as Anthony himself said, "Good food and good eating are about risk. Every once in a while an oyster, for instance, will make you sick to your stomach. Does this mean you should stop eating oysters? No way".  Fortunately for Doina, Svetlana, and I; the risk didn't bite us in Morocco. For our first night in Casablanca, Doina had...