Still despising pigeons:

Good day and good day and good day from Roma, Italia--the land of ancient architecture, oozing cheese, drop-dead disgusting champagne, and (apparently?!) palm trees. Ohhhh, my. What a web of complication we encountered upon kissing Paris goodbye. We count ourselves lucky...or blessed, rather, to even have slipped out of the debauchery of streets astrike. We reunited with a fresh-faced Meg in the Geneva train station, only to inform her that our only way out of this place (that avoided the inevitable French stop-over) was to turn around and catch a train straight back to Zurich, the exact city she had departed from mere hours ago. Murder. Madge took the potentially-crushing news like a warrior, and only laughed at our agonized eyes and consolation offering of cigarettes. And so. Instead of weaving ourselves to Spain/the south of France/Italy, we have twisted la route around. As it looks right now, we will spend our last string of days soaking up pure relaxation in the glitteringly affordable land of the Spanish. However, if I have learned any lesson repeatedly and, at times, crushingly on this trip...it is to plan tentatively but not in solidarity. Circumstances change on a moment-to-moment basis, and the by-far best attitude to take on is one of lightness and spontenaity. So I am channeling that. Besides, we are hardly fretting, as our magician of a travel agent will be able to make whatever we need happen, leaving us none the poorer. Winnipeg livin in two weeks still glows like something radiantly cherished in our hearts and heads.
In the spirit of movement and living in the present moment, though, here are a few words on the city of Rome. It is no word of a lie that the gelati here is of the life-changing sort. By the light of day, everything here is coated in warmth and loveliness, yet as soon as the sun dips down, the city cools to the point of inducing shivers. It is a curious climate. A good portion of all life stemming fom the soil is still lustrously green and growing, while the streets are also littered with burnished autumn leaves. Palm trees blossom upwards into the sky, alongside others that have long since turned skeletal, shedding their leaves for winter. It is a strange and entrancing sight. Wandering through the Colleseum the other day felt out-of-body...there was this discernable yet indescribable glaze of wonder draped over the place, and the people within it. I felt very young and incredibly naive in such an age-old, legendary place. Locking eyes on the Pantheon by night was quite the rush to the senses as well...us three all a little light-headed from the evenings copious amounts of red wine. The icing on the cake that night was the fresh, long-stemmed red roses we were gifted by our server at a bebe outdoor wine bar...we sipped our liquid deliciousness, and he stood there and laughed at us. Hectic English-speaking girls, clad in our token 'dress-up' outfits, talking five trillion miles a minute. I imagine we were quite a funny sight.
Other than the fact that our hostel is a shrine to elderly women everywhere (bless their hearts), a bit weird, our temporary life here is a delight. We are all swimming in relief at the fact that the Italian langugage slides off our backs like water off a fish's...the men here are AGGRESSIVE, and it is probably for the best that we remain blissfully ignorant of the content of their hollered words. Today we are dipping over to Naples for some serious street-wandering and exploration...the intention is to not get killed; Naples is notorious for its loco insano traffic. I am actually happy to embark on this blink-and-it's-over train journey, knowing there is no possibility for it to reach the twelve, thirteen, fourteen hour span. Au contraire, I am looking forward to this opportunity to curl up with book and thoughts, catching glimpses of the Italian countryside as it flies past.
It is so strange to think that two weeks from today, we will be on a plane bound for home. I am ready--ready to embrace these remaining fourteen days with renewed fierceness, and ready as well for home. My bed and bath are going to be receiving some serious face time once my feet are light on Winnipeg ground again.
I am off to catch a train. I hope you are all better, better, better than well.
Yours,
Rebecca L.

We hear the leaves fall to the ground...

One and all,
This strike of the French sort continues to lay its fingers on us again and again, just when we start to think we have escaped its clutches. Long long story short, Magpie/Kit/myself are perched in Rome, instead of Barcelona, a la moment. A torrent of details to follow...
Hearts and embraces,
Rab

And you know that she's half crazy, but that's why you want to be there:

Current status: sipping red from the bottle while slavedriving over laundry, all avec my belle fleur, Kathleen Mackenzie Dange. We are missing our lovely sister Meg...she is nesting in Zurich while Kit and I are dragging our haggard selves around a freezing Geneva. Tomorrow, a joyous reunion of three in the Geneva train station, equally frosty in temperature. This time tomorrow we will be together foreverrrr and Barcelona-bound. The sole intention for Spain is to treat our broken bodies with as much soothing and luxurious rest as humanly possible. Massages have been mentally scheduled for this city since day one of our travel extravaganza. I am holding my breath. My shoulders are frailer, my feet more repulsive and my legs more bruised and battered than in all of self-history...backpack scars, etc. Nevertheless, there is a smile curving over my lips. Movement and newness is good, good, intoxicatingly good. Steaming hot showers are even better...in the dead of last night, Katie and I crawled into our Genevian (Genevan? Geneveuse?!) hostel like smashed insects, barely discernable as ourselves. We both fled for the showers like wild-eyed women, dirt/sweat/tear-streaked after a bleary fourteen, fifteen hours a la train. Haggard Harriet and Haggard Hannah we were...but that scorching water streaming over my body revived me to the point of a blossoming contentedness...praise the Lord and the stars and the galaxies and all that is sacred. Delving into yesterday's debaucherous events un petit peu...it is no farfetched fairy tale that the French love their strikes. How beautifully convenient that they should decide to declare one just as us sparrows were poised to take wing from Paris. Chaotic. Kit and I cursed fully and scandalously for 2-3 minutes' time, and then drew the deepest breaths and forged forwards like wide-eyed soldiers, not really knowing what the hell we were doing. The result? Dawn to pitch-dark midnight running from train to train, city to city, country to country, cab to cab, language to language. In a matter of a single day, we streamed, whirlwind-style, Paris to Salzburg to Bern to Basel to the Geneva we had been weeping for all the while. All in the time frame of this, I ate a drop-dead disgusting sandwich, finished my (incredible) book, ran my iPod dry and engaged in copious amounts of thought. We laid eyes on our first snowfall while leaping onto a train in Basel...and my heart fluttered, bird-style, in sudden and paralyzing longing for home.
Anyways and anyhow, we made it here and have been thoroughlly laying lower than low today. The Swiss alps are stunning. Everything is sickeningly expensive. Oh and we saw swans, closer than ever before, on the edges a shatteringly windy lake. Buying Parisian Vogue is a complete rip. And I had the loveliest conversation with my maman this afternoon. That is it and that is all.
Embrace one another for me, all of you.
Rebecca L.B.

Breathe out, it's fall...

Our sketchy jewel of a Parisian apartment has one particularly charming feature: slim to no heat. Here is what I wore to bed last night...
2 pair socks (one woolen)
1 pair leggings
2 tank tops
1 long-sleeved shirt
1 hoodie
1 knit sweater
2 scarves
1 coat

YEEP.
I am off to indulge in my morning espresso and almond croissant.
You are loved and missed, friends.

"You'll never be a vegetable; even artichokes have hearts..."

I am feigning typical French life in a rented-for-the-week apartment in Montmarte, Paris...the very district of the city where my beloved "Amelie" was filmed. The Two Windmills Cafe itself was hit up HARD by us ladies late this afternoon, after a physically-gruelling pilgrimage through the most gargantuan cemetary of my life. All our sweat, tears and whispered curses were worth it, however...as soon as I as standing at the grave edges of Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde, I was soaring. Well worth the screaming sensation in my legs, when all is said and done. To dip back to 'The Two Windmills' or, more appropriately-christened here in the land of the French, 'Cafe des 2 Moulins', the place is more humble and grunge than I had expected, and as a result, I love it far more fiercely. I sipped vin chaud (hot red wine with cinnamon and a scalded wedge of orange swimming within) for the first time, and revelled in the sacred quirkiness of my surroundings. Smoke clouded the air, The Velvet Underground snaked through the space, and a small dog wandered at our toes. Sheer brilliance, oui?! I, for one, was in my height of personal glory. I plan to slide back through those doors, solo, avec journal, pen and book sometime in the next few days, and drink it all in a little more deeply...

Fuuuck, it is good to be here; one thousand goods. I am counting my blessings more vividly every day, and they are a rich many. Us prairie nymphs have our moments of tears and trembling, but somehow, we continue to find ourselves dissolved in laughter at the end of any and every travesty we have encountered thus far. Take the other day, for example. After a hectic and disheartening half-day of dragging our thousand-pound backpacks from metro line to metro line in attempt to find our hostel for Paris: Part Deux, we were the most haggard editions of ourselves yet. Mon dieu...how does one quite sum up a complex sensation of disenchantenment, exhaustion, directionlessness, defeated spirits, trepidation and physical defeatedness all in one simplistic breath? Our entire bodies were sweat-streaked, our backs breaking, and our words clipped. (Sidenote--Damn that backpack directly to the gates of hell...eternally grateful as I am to its owner for the brilliant loan, it is currently the bane of my bodily existence. Excuse my rawness of language, but once I am home, I never want to lay eyes or touch on it again. HA.) Once behind the closed doors of our new abode, all three of us flocked towards various methods of solace. I swaddled myself in three pajmenas and collapsed on my trife bottom bunk in immediate sleep, Dangerfield healed her spirits tap-tapping away on our own (for now) personal computer, and Madge attacked the kitchen with a scouring pad, cleaning gloves and the savage energy of ten armies. So is illustrated our wildly varying methods of soothing broken spirits and licking personal wounds.
In other noteworthy happenings...
1. Sunday afternoon found us attending mass at Notre Dame Cathedral...shivers shivers shivers all around...I have never heard voices quite like I did that day, meshed with melancholy organ and bathed in the glow of five million flickering candles. There are no words...all I knew in those moments is that my entire sense of time and space slipped away, and all I was aware of was the pulsating energy in that amazing space. Needless to say, I have not felt that utterly worshipful in, perhaps, ever.
2. At the risk of coming across as a starry-eyed teen queen, here is a tiny sketch of an experience I had on the street just the other day...I was traipsing through the Latin Quarter, apple in hand, when the most absolutely stunning babe man caught my eye...so of course I snapped my head to get a fuller glimpse, and as I was gazing in worshipfulness (of an entirely different sort than the church service variety), I continued walking at breakneck pace, and proceeded to smash headlong into a very disapproving midde-aged Parisian woman. To say the least, she was unimpressed and glared me down in fiery fashion. In our throes of laughter after this encounter, I lost my imaginary-boyfriend in the crowd...Domage domage.

In closing...
To dispel any unspoken doubts from potentially skeptical (but dear, sweet) readers, IT IS ACTUALLY cheaper to drink wine than water here. I rest my case. The French know best.

We are having a quietly luxurious night in, full of journals, candles, Earl Gray and some soft Neil Young. Said indulgences are calling; I am going, going, gone.
Love etc.,
rlb

Aglow and aglitter...

Hello and hello and hello,
Paris is frigid a la moment...the brilliant sunlight streaking across the sky is deceiving beyond measure, because upon stepping foot outside, all is polar ice. Swaddled in a plethora of scarves, toques, mittens and pajmenas, we continue to stomp the streets with energy and (hopefully) grace. Morale is not to be toyed with; it is ever and only up, up, blazingly up. The other night we tossed deliciously-cheap wine down our throats, sans glasses and straight out of the bottle, while gazing up at the Eiffel Tower, all afire with a shitstorm of dancing lights. It was gaudy beyond measure, but somehow still left us screeching with pleasure and wonder. Ohhhhhh, Paris je t'aime.
In other noteworthy happenings...
Yesterday, we were serenaded by a sweet, albeit hectic traveling band ON THE METRO. Considering the slender size of metro compartments, this is moderately crazy in terms of sights to lay eyes on. A few stops into our luxuriously long ride, three musicians leapt into the train, and launched straight into a ridiculously animated rendition some quirky French tune. Mental. Every born-and-bred Parisian, on their respective ways to the office or the market, either ignored this spectacle entirely, or looked disdainfully on. Our trio, however, met shining eyes across the narrow space. We were enchanted; others were irked. Our lips curved in smile; others closed their eyes in pointed indifference slash annoyance. It was an interesting moment. All at once, I felt a stark sense of belonging and affinity, but also of alien-esque separation. I was inside and outside of the experience all in one soft, slow series of breaths. It brought forth a reflective head space within me...the contrast of myself revelling in this haggardly charming music, while locals paid negative zero attention.
Okay. This computer continues to gobble up my precious Euros...so bittersweet...so I shall be taking wing before it robs me of my last pennies and leaves me in starvation tonight. Stay happy, stay well.
Rebecca

Don't ask, don't tell--a note on Paris de la melancholy.

Lovers and lovelies alike,
Hello hello from the dwindling light of my first day of fullness in Paris. It has been fittingly epic; layers upon layers of wide-eyed discovery. We blazed our way through the French metro system like we'd been born and bred for the ordeal...peeking our faces from the darkened underground only to be greeted by le Tour D'Eiffel spiraling gracefully into the sun-streaked sky. It was a moment of immense wonder...I felt the world pause around me for a string of moments--children ceased to wail, heels snapping the pavement were silent, and all my senses were aware of was my own shriek of delight and amazement. Sheer brilliance, yes. Our very own collective six feet took us up, up, onwards and upwards flight after flight after hundreds of flights. Elevators are for the weak of spirit, oui!? Height-sensitive moi took a soldier-esque attitude on, and refused to let a lingering fear of being sans feet-on-solid-ground taint the experience for me. Gazing out over the far-reaching city, I felt like a bird or a ghost...weightless and drenched in life and lighter, lighter, lighter than I have in a very long time. It was both humbling and moving. The rest of our day unraveled in an effortless flow...we stumbled unwittingly on the Arc de Triomph, sipped coffee and watched the world slip by from the windows of a miniscule cafe, and indulged in an extensive photoshoot in front of Louis Vuitton (YEEP!)
I am content. Paris has haunted my dreams of both the day and night variety for as long as I can even remember, and so it is quite the glittering blessing to be living that long lusted-after experience out in flesh and blood. I am grateful beyond measure, and brimming with renewal and a trembling anticipation for the next nine days. Expect an overflow of words from these lips in said coming fragment of time...
Okay. I am off to nap in the manner of a cat before a night that promises to revolve around dirt-cheap wine, stunningly dark eyes and our fair share of street-wandering.
Until soon,
R.L.B

Oh, and...
a jewel from the book I finished recently:
"Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store for you. This is merely the beginning."
--Oscar Wilde, 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.