Marseilles

After clearing out of Italy yesterday, I made my way to Nice and had the most amazing lunch at an old diner sort of place. Chez Palmyre has been on Rue Droite since 1926 and from the look of it, the same lady has been cooking there the whole time. Sardine beignets! Now I am in the big gritty port city of Marseilles, staying at the apartment of a friend here on sabbatical. The place is ridiculously vast and old. It looks like the place in the Bertollini film Beautiful Ones where the kids try to break th record for running through the Louvre the fastest. I am ready to get back to the country this afternoon, heading up into Provence wine country. Au revoir.

Post script: The film is The Dreamers and it is by Bertolucci. Merde!

Italy

Okay so Iàm Italy, so far so good. I started out in Alba, which was way the heck out in the middle ofr nowhere, three trains to get there AND the sister city is Medford, Oregon. Yeah, okay, sister city, who cares. Alba cares! Deeply! In all seriousness, they renamed part of the town Medford. Alba does not look like Medford though. It looks like a red brick and tile duchy in the middle of vast acres of grapevines. I did enjoy the barbaresco and dolcetto d'alba. In fact, I probably had one of the best meals of my life there (fresh pasta w spring veg, rabbit, amazing dessert, all very affordable) at a place called Osteria Di Sognatori. WHOA. and then, this morning, it was on to the Cinque Terre. I'm staying in Vernazza (pictured above) which turns out is a pit of German tourists with Alpine walking sticks. But it was sort of cool to get off the train and talk to a guy named Egi (pronounced Edgy) who rented me a cheap room off the main street in town. I was checking in and paid for about 7 minutes after getting off the train in this tiny little town. I'm going hiking now and am going to try not to get clobbered by Alpine walking sticks.

Last Day of the Sky Car

This is the view from my office window. As you can imagine, it was more awesome before they started building next door. But I have to admit that it is entertaining watching the workers build it everyday and to see the crane move around and all the busy hard-hatted high rise action.

Slowly but surely they are installing the windows and tomorrow they will probably put them on the 16th floor across from me. Even after the steel skeleton went up and the concrete floors were pumped in, I could still see the sky car ever so distantly through the space between the floors. The sky car is the tram that goes up the hill between the waterfront Oregon Health Sciences place and their facility way up the hill. When I get back from my trip, all the windows will be up.

Goodbye little tram. Nice knowing you, what, with my AD/HD and endless capacity for distraction by things like distant sky cars.

Two Bits of News

1. Apparently Harrison Ford is in Portland filming a movie and is being sighted here and there. I like him because his face is sort of smooshy and even though he hasn't picked a good script since Mosquito Coast.

2. I read that last year Portland was flooded with over a million dollars in shiny dollar coins. The U.S. treasury department is trying to get people to think dollar coins are cool or something. Along with Grand Rapids, Charlotte, and Austin as the pilot cities, Portland is supposed to be an early adopter sort of innovative place where it will catch fire. I have been here for months since these coins apparently hit circulation, and I think I've only seen one and that was last week. Also, if they want Portland people to think it is cool, then they should reconsider having Andrew Jackson on all the coins. I think they would do a lot better by minting the image of Keith Carradine from his Kung Fu days or maybe Paul Bunyan.

The new and improved face of the right

Those halcyon days...

I spent the morning high. I'm not proud. It seems that going to the dentist makes me edgy and my very conscientious dental provider does not want me to bite his hand or rip the arm rests off his chair. And so now going to the dentist is accompanied by a light dose of prescribed halcyon. I also brought my ipod and listened to St. Etienne the whole time they were working on me. Recommended.

This week is all about a mad dash to get ahead of schedule so that I can go on my long anticipated European adventure and so i am working long hours and just not being my typical gal-about-town self. Tonight I creeped back from the office after 9pm and am settling down with the final episodes of the John Adams bio pic that has Paul Giamatti in it. It has been suggested that this interest makes me an old man. So be it.


St. Etienne - Teenage Winter


St. Etienne - Sylvie


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May Day!

Yesterday was May Day here in Portland and it was unusually lovely out. It seems that this weekend kicks off the season of endless waterfront festivals and happenings on Pioneer Square. I was wandering around downtown afterwork and saw way more cops on horseback and bicycle than protesters, but everyone seemed to be in a good mood. There there was no cracking of skulls by fascist pigs or rioting by godless commies. Reggae on a big PA! Black clad young people holding hammer and sickle flags!

Later that night there were fireworks on the waterfront (unrelated to the commies)and so it appears that summer has begun.