Pack a Suitcase and an Old Guitar
by Peter Mayer

You might be the kind of person that spends months planning, maybe planning years ahead, to find the optimum time, the perfect alignment of the planets to have the ultimate celebration with your favorite people, places and things around you, a toast lifted up to life and wherever the heck it has brought us thus far. Or not. Planning is not my forte, and if you care to ask associates, parents, spouses, children, friends and yes band-mates, they will probably muster up some memory of a night in Memphis with 2 people in the crowd, or all night drives sleeping upright on a bouncing RV. I don’t think it’s so much that I dislike being organized, it can truly put you into some risky situations not to be; like the time I brought no water to Death valley and got lost in the dunes, owing my life to Amy Lee who brought compass, water, and food to last for a night or two. It makes things easier, where a little hard work up front can make for lower stress down the line. My problem is that it’s just too much fun finishing whatever you’re doing in the sandbox to have to go in for dinner. There’s that impossible dream that says, I think I can get one more verse of that song done, or that engine rebuilt before company comes over in two hours. No, I guess that I got that from my Dad. He was known for prancing around in his greasy underwear ½ hour before guests were due to arrive. As my progeny have picked up this talent as well, I’ve learned a little bit of what it feels like to have to be the one who thinks of feeding the cats or the dog before we walk out the door for three weeks.

This was the year for our family get away….. for all of you that are ready to turn the dial, fearing home movies are on the way, well, you might or might not be let down if you stick around. I embarked on a glorious vacation/suicidal mission of going on a family trip lasting more then 6 and a 1/2 days, which is the American Psychiatric Association’s definition of partial insanity. We went for 2 and 1/2 weeks - to Paris, London Ireland. The financial case for going was not good. A weak dollar had touring companies reeling. It didn’t make sense work-wise either. We had too much work to do and could never expect to …..yada yada yada. These are the reasons that we did not go the other three times we attempted this in the last 10 years. With a son ready to go to college, and a daughter lifting her wings, and an increasingly complicated yoke of a schedule chafing our shoulders day by day we simply had to go this year. And it was incredible. With the blow-ups and the meltdowns, it was one of the best things we’ve done….ever. I’m going to run a not-brief-enough-highlights reel by you if you care to listen, but after all has transpired here today on the page between us, I must tell you that the best moments we encountered were, 1) totally unplanned, and 2) things that can happen right where we stand, even if you reside outside of Ireland, England, and France.

An appropriate criticism here would be; “well I could have a good time too if I robbed a bank, quit working and went and did whatever I wanted to.” Probably true, but if any getaway is just an escape from, eventually you will be right back at some of the same challenges you left. About a week into the vacation we transitioned from our escape from, to the adventuring to our lives again. Tony Robbins was not present and the transition was about as graceful as cleaning the leaf muck out of last years gutters, but it culminated with what is a truly rare statement from a family member; “hey, we should do this more often. I mean, spend time together”. Having already exceeded the amount of words in the United States Constitution and ½ of the Harry Potter books, here are a few highlights of what actually happened across the pond.

Does The Moonlight Shine On Paris

We had just one day to pack up for Europe after I had spent a week as guitar/songwriting instructor at an incredible place in the Cascade Mountains called Holden Village. We threw a phrase book, enough clothes to theoretically last us 2 and ½ weeks without doing laundry, a guitar, ipods, camera, passports and various and sundry other items into a suitcase and tried to make sure all the pets would be alive and happy when we returned home. My work finishing the mixing on a song took up the better part of the day, but I was confident that my years of road travel made me a black belt at last minute prep and I confidently snapped my black computer bag shut and deemed it ready to go while a Tennessee driver’s license silently screamed inside ….EXPIRED. We ran up to the REI to get walking shoes and while I didn’t walk away with anything, the saleswoman happened to have spent a good amount of time in France. She quickly told us a few of the places we should not miss, saying, and you must go get Berthillon ice cream on the Isle Saint Louis, it is the best in the city. More about that later.

With enough frequent flyer miles on Southwest to get to Jupiter, it only made sense that we use some of these to cut down on travel costs. The only downside was that we had to take the 6:30 am flight to McArthur airport on Long Island, take the Ronkonkomo Station train to Jamaica Station, transition to the JFK Airport shuttle and then……wait for 2 hours for the Air Lingus gates to open. This would take us into Dublin, where we’d wait for 2 hours in a blissful jetlagged state to catch the next flight to Paris. All in all, everyone did really well, although by the time we got to Paris it was an out of body kind of tired we were experiencing. I’m embarrassed to say I speak very little French, but insisted on trying from time to time, much to the amusement (most of the time) of French people, and much to the horror of my kids. We tried to hail a cab, but the look of fear in the cabby’s eyes when he saw our Beverly Hillbilly sized load of luggage let us know it was going to take some persuasion to get some help. Thankfully there was an officer nearby who took pity on us, and with 4 suitcases, 5 carry-on’s, and a guitar across our laps we headed to our hotel. I had made sure that this was not a working vacation, so there were no gigs planned, but on my packing list, a guitar gets added before underwear and toiletries. It can soothe the soul of the traveling beast when the going gets rough, and even get you into some rough places as well. More on that later.

We planned this trip through an agency called Go-Today Travel. They’ve got a good thing going; they sell one week packages to popular destinations all over the world, so we put three together and made a trip. They include tried and trusted hotels, cheaper airfare, and extras if you choose to buy them. The hotels or B&B’s always include breakfast, so it takes care of one major meal a day, and the breakfasts were always exceptional! With the weak dollar and the severe financial depression a nice dinner can put you through, a breakfast you can count on can get the day off to a good start. We tried to be frugal, but after 3 days, I decided to put in an application at a few salt mines in the US rather than have a nervous breakdown reading the dessert menu.

Most of the wonderful stuff in Paris, and for that matter over the length of the trip, happened by accident. My family’s good at spontaneity, even when that means spontaneous combustion. We spent a lot of our time walking, which not only works a crescent or two off your body, but gives you a street sense of life that day that you simply cannot get in a cab. We stayed on the Rue Bertholet close to the Rue Mouffetard which is an ancient Roman sreet. It is a popular market area and a really cool vibe. It really gets going about 10pm. (See Map)

The buildings date back hundreds if not many hundreds of years, and there is not a street that doesn’t have some unique, historical element to it. Paris is beautiful, ancient, busy, and can be pricey, but every time I’ve experienced it, is has been a place of fascination. There is never an end to the history you run across at every corner. We had maps and tourist brochures, but many times just walked and chanced into great things. After a light lunch one day we were heading back to our hotel and walked past the Shoah Museum which is the Holocaust Museum in Paris. The security was very tight, and it wasn’t what you’d think of as a usual vacation stop, but we spent a few hours there unplanned, and really were moved by it. The Jardin Luxembourg or Luxembourg Gardens were an easy walk from our hotel. This was high tourist time in Paris and the streets were pretty full, especially around the tourist attractions,(June-July) but it’s obvious now to me why this particular time is high season…..Paris is stunning in early summer!. It was cool, 70º - 80º each day and everything in the gardens and on the streets was blooming (photo).

We walked to Notre Dame and spent an afternoon in one of the worlds premier cathedrals. (A little Notre Dame history.) We were heading out of Notre Dame, the jet lag hangover was still partly with us, crowds were starting to overwhelm us, and familial tensions were rising. There was some camera sabatoge going on (“why are my photos all coming out blurry?”) and we were hungry….it was time for an ancient peace making ritual that’s worked for cultures going back to early civilizations… ice cream! The shoe saleslady in Nashville had told us about the holy grail of the French sort, we were on a mission, we had a purpose again. The sun shone a little brighter and the hurdy gurdy man’s tunes lightened our steps over the bridge to Isle Saint-Louis. We saw a sign over a restaurant that read; “Berthillon.” Bingo, this must be it. We were seated, but the menu was pretty pricey, and we decided to get right to the point, skip the main course and go straight to the ice cream. I tried in my feeble French to explain this to the waiter, but in the only curt culture clash moment we experienced on the trip, he, in no uncertain terms, told us he did not speak English and we could take our sorry ice-cream eating American butts across the street where…….there was another sign saying Berthillon ice cream. “Oh well, we’ll do that instead” we said in a quick self help recovery moment. “Hey our French is getting pretty good, we understood every word of that gesticulating waiter’s hand.” We ordered our ice cream and with a freshly painted sugar buzz we headed down Rue Saint Louis with it’s shops and ……. "Hey look" said India, "it’s another Berthillon ice cream place." Well, as you probably guessed, Berthillon had this street sewn up. There were no less than 6 more ice cream shops all with a sign reading “Berthillon.” Berthillon was the brand, and everyone sold it. We finally came to the home location, closer to the end of the street that our shoe lady probably had meant for us, it had a line snaking out the front door 25 people deep.

Two or three days into our trip, we got our sea legs back and were happy to be foot loose and phone free, (a oversight that was frightening at times, but in the short term worth all the freedom it gave us) and enjoyed the Musée du Louvre, a spectacular architectural wonder that was a fortress, home to Louis the XIV, and since then after its transformation, to some of the greatest paintings, sculptures, and works of art in our world. (Yes we did see the Mona Lisa there. Her mood seems to have brightened a bit after all the attention she’s been getting. The room was crowded with photo snapping tourists.) The sculpture wing houses many works by Michelangelo. I found myself humming a few bars of “Michelangelo” the song, although the statue of David is not there but in Florence, Italy.

We met up with a French foreign exchange student that we had gotten to know through friends. She and her Mother took us out to Versailles for a day. The plan was to meet at the Notre Dame Metro stop at noon. The kids would take the train to Versailles, and the adults would sit comfortably in diesel choked traffic making our way out there. That would’ve been a great plan, except there were four Notre dame entrances. This is one instance where our lack of a cell phone took its toll on keeping in touch. We knew only the color and make of the car we were to meet, a white Citroen, which conveniently for us, turned out to be every 14^th or 15^th car of the 25,000 that passed us that day. Upon sighting one, we’d wave our hands and lean in to get a good gawk at the passengers at which time we got that “are you loony or just one of my long lost relatives” kind of look that seems to translate into any language.

Versailles, the unofficial capital of France under Louis the XIVwas worth every moment though, beautiful and grand beyond belief. We actually did not go in to take the tour, not wanting to wait in a long line, but spent several hours in one of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen.

We were, alas down to our last day in Paris. Although they did not come from this author, there were strong primal urges toward a shopping trip. Knowing we had only 18 hours or so to catch what cannot be seen in a year, much less a day, we all bartered and cut a deal; We took the metro to Montmartre, to see the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur and do some souvenir shopping. Our afternoon was set  aside for the Musée D’Orsay, the impressionist museum, which was one of the highlights of our trip. If you have a chance to go to Paris, do NOT miss this! Seeing works by Van Gogh, Monet, Degas, Renoir, and countless others in real life, outside of a magazine or art book is a life changing experience.

Our last evening in Paris is a night I’ll always remember. There were many reasons for this trip, to get alone time with family; with kids who are moving in ever widening circles; time to intentionally push a pause button on the carousel that includes our home address back in Nashville, get off and say, “Wow, this is a beautiful world, and a wonderful life,” and if you’ve happened to notice, we are riding on the same train in the midst of it. With all that’s messed up and troubling, and that direly needs our best efforts to change and make a difference in this world, I feel certain celebration must be a part of it. Celebration, never at the expense of others, but of what we’ve been given and where we are and what we mean to others.

We took the Metro to L’Avenue Restaurant. When I had been to Paris with Jimmy Buffett, spring a year ago, this restaurant was one of the band’s favorites. It’s in a trendy area close enough to the Eiffel Tower, but not really a tourist hangout. The food is fabulous and we didn’t even get thrown out of this place! It was unfortunately not my good French that did it, but the waiter’s perfect English, and we stayed clear of the ice cream. We had some fine wine, seafood and a wonderful mushroom penne not to mention a few crazy-rich French desserts. It was a wonderful meal, made more so by an apré walk in the cool night air that brought us across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. The landmark is lit up at night in soft light hues. When you stand beneath it, it’s more grand than you imagine from a distance and truly a beautiful site to see. We headed back to our hotel with some other wild eyed tourists, drunk on the city Paris, knowing there is always more to see, but the time comes to move on.

To see more photos visit my MySpace Page.

(To Be Continued In The Next Issue)

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