Tomorrow will be the last full day of our transatlantic crossing and I’m a little sad. I could use a few more days before returning to the real world. Mary and I have done this sailing once before, 11 years ago, and we loved it. As I mentioned earlier, we had low expectations for this voyage, but it has far exceeded those expectations, for many reasons.

With a few exceptions the food has been very good. We don’t eat in the restaurant every night, but when we do it is really nice to be waited on and choose anything we want off the menu, without worrying about the cost.

The dress code on this ship is Smart Casual most nights and then there are 2 very dressy Gala nights. The dinners on the Gala nights have more extravagant menus. We went to the first one, which was a Red and Black theme, because they had chateaubriande on the menu and I do love chateaubriande.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we both packed very lightly for this trip. For the QM2 portion of our vacation I brought one nice top, one dress with a coverup, one black skirt, and some nice brown pants. That’s it. Mary brought two nice shirts, some nice black pants, and two scarves. We usually can take turns wearing outfits so we don’t look the same every night, but honestly, I don’t really care. As long as I look decent, I’m fine. We both looked very nice for the Gala nights, but neither of us were in red and black, and we definitely weren’t in formalwear. But we were allowed in the restaurant and I didn’t see anyone give us the stink eye. (There’s a fair amount of stinkeye on the QM2. We’ve gotten it for various reasons this voyage, and we really don’t care since giving someone the stinkeye is only a sign of poor breeding. :))

Tonight is the second Gala night, Roaring Twenties themed, and we will again look nice but not like the Roaring Twenties. Tonight’s menu has two of my other favorite cruise foods – Beef Wellington and Baked Alaska – both of which are hard to impossible to find on land. After dinner, I will go to the showroom for the second concert by Anthony Inglis and the National Symphony Orchestra. Mary will go back to the room and do laundry as the last concert (on Tuesday) was enough for her.

I was excited that this cruise had the National Symphony Orchestra onboard. Anthony Inglis has done a number of talks, which I haven’t gone to, and the musicians have participated in some trivia games that sounded good but I didn’t go. There are three concerts in total – Tuesday’s was an All American Evening featuring Rhapsody in Blue, Scott Joplin, Rogers and Hammerstein and some others I’ve forgotten.

We got to the Royal Court Theater around 7:45 for the 8:15 performance. I tend to avoid people as much as I can – a lot of them are coughing – and spotted some empty seats at the top of the balcony. We made our way up there and the young woman who was all alone in the top row moved over to the end of the row. We put a seat in between us and the woman said she sits up there because she gets claustrophobic with all the people below. I said, “That’s exactly why we’re here.” She added that the theater gets very hot.

At about 8:05, a young man came and asked if the seat was free between the young woman and Mary. The young woman looked at Mary and asked, “Is that seat free?” beseechingly, I think. She so wanted Mary to say no, but Mary couldn’t lie so the young man sat there. I was worried he was going to try to make conversation with our introvert friend, but he left her (and us) alone. At about 8:10 a man and his wife came and sat next to us, which was disappointing, but not unexpected. Then, right at 8:15 another man came and I think he squeezed in between two couples. The announcer asked people not to save seats and the late man clapped very loudly.

The concert began and the man next to me moved closer and closer until eventually he was partly in my seat and right up against me. I tried to move a little closer to Mary, but that only seemed an invitation for the man to take more of my seat. It was hot, very hot. I had a hot flash and could feel sweat dripping all over my body. It didn’t help that I was snuggled up against this man on one side and Mary on the other. I was very annoyed with him but tried to concentrate on the concert, which I really did enjoy until the last two pieces, which he hummed along with. I do believe the man in my lap was being squished by the man who came late, but I still despised him.The crowd and the heat are why Mary is going to skip it tonight, but I’m just hoping I can find a better seating strategy.

There are all sorts of activities on the ship, and we have done exactly two – the concert on Tuesday and trivia on Wednesday because we happened to be in the room when it started. Mostly we have been lying in our warm snuggy bed in our our bathrobes, changing into other clothes when it is time to go eat, then returning to our bed and bathrobes.

I’ve been feeling a little bad that I don’t want to do anything but lie in bed, not even go out to the balcony and look at the ocean, but Mary keeps pointing out that the whole point of this crossing was to relax and regain some energy before getting back to work. We have walked some around the promenade deck. 3 laps equal a mile, and I did about 3.5 laps this morning. My Garmin watch is very confused. It thinks I did 7 miles in 25 minutes.

We’ve been having breakfast every morning in a room called the Corinthia Lounge, where they have just a few items, but one of them is Greek yogurt and fresh fruit, and it is divine. The first couple of mornings we had the place to ourselves, but it has been discovered and yesterday morning we had to leave because we had a couple who were both coughing on one side of us and a woman about a foot away from us on the other side who spent an extended amount of time blowing her nose. I was out of there and we found a different place to sit where there weren’t that many people.

Most of the time the ship feels very uncrowded, other than meal times in the buffet. There were huge crowds leaving the theater on Tuesday night and it took forever to get an elevator back to our room, but I think tonight I will walk.

The biggest problem with the cruise has been that Mary and I both packed for hot August weather and not for a September cruise in the middle of the ocean. Mary had to buy a QM2 sweatshirt to keep her warm and I have been thankful for my Paris hoodie. But I have no pajama pants and very cold legs at night. At least the room is a little less cold now. We had it very cold in the beginning so Mary wouldn’t get seasick.

We have a tv across from our bed that shows the view from the front of the boat and we spend a lot of time watching the ocean on tv. There is also afternoon tea, with scones and cream, and I’m going to head there now I think, for a little fortification before our Gala dinner.

The original plan for the dragonboat festival was to have 500 meter races on Friday and 200 meter races on Saturday, with Sunday being a potential makeup day. Since Friday’s races had to be canceled, we did race on Sunday, but instead of doing 500s (which is what we mostly trained for the past year) we did 1000 meter races, which involved a turn. Fortunately, we had raced 1500 meters in Victoria so we were somewhat prepared. Also, it turned out, no one really seemed to care about the races on Sunday.

We didn’t have to be at the race site until noon on Sunday, which was lovely. It meant Mary and I could get our regular Aix les Bains breakfast with fixings from 3 different businesses. It also meant I could just lie in bed and read awhile.

The festival provided buses to transport us to the race site, but they always left way earlier than we needed to be there – I believe it was 10 am on Sunday. At 11:30 a couple teammates and I took an Uber to the race site. As we were entering the festival area a woman behind us asked if we needed any extra paddlers because so many people on her team had gone home already, they couldn’t fill a boat. I was surprised, because both the festival and our coach made it very clear we were not to leave Aix les Bains until Monday.

The Athlete’s village – what they called the area where every team had a tent and chairs – was the least crowded I’d seen it. A lot of teams had apparently not counted Sunday into their plans. We were at our tent in plenty of time, and told to come back at 12:45 for a team picture. In the meantime I had jerseys to trade. This is a big deal at these international festivals. Most people buy extra race jerseys to trade. I bought one extra race jersey and also brought my last year’s jersey, which I didn’t really like, and two other Pink Phoenix shirts that were duplicates. (As I was writing this I went to look at my trades and only saw 3, which is confusing because I could have sworn I traded 4.)

A large number of our team in France were either rookies this year or last year – I’m the latter. We had never traded jerseys or pins before and did not have the finesse and know how that the more experienced paddlers had. I still had pins to trade, but by Sunday it seemed like everyone had traded away their pins.

The pros only traded for pins they liked, but we rookies and near-rookies didn’t know how to actually do that, since people would thrust their pins at us and we felt it was impolite to look at a pin and say we didn’t want it. It was the same for the shirts. The pros told us, “Don’t get pressured into taking a jersey you don’t want.” There was a team from Florence, Italy whose jersey I coveted. It was white and said Firenze in pink along the side. I had gone to their tent on Saturday and asked if they had any to trade and I think they said, “Come back tomorrow.” It was a lot of gesturing. I used to know a little Italian, but once I started focusing on French, both my Italian and Spanish deserted me, though I did remember “Grazie” and “Ciao”. People loved it when I attempted to speak their language.

There was also a tent I went to on Saturday that was a composite team from all over France. A number of them really wanted my jersey, but theirs were too small for me. One woman, however, said that she would bring an X-Large on Sunday and we could trade then. I headed over to that tent first thing on Sunday, and no one was there. Then I headed to the Florence tent, which was completely empty. I spent the rest of the morning wandering around trying to find a shirt I liked to trade for. I usually had a teammate with me – we tended to do this in pairs – and even when we didn’t trade shirts, we spent time talking to people on the other teams. It was really great.

The problem for me was that I needed a size 2X and most of the women wore smaller sizes, so eventually I was just trying to find anyone who had an extra large. Plenty of people also came to our tent and wanted to trade, some of them my size, but I told them I couldn’t trade my race jersey because I was saving it for the French composite team, and the visitors to our tent all wanted our race jersey, not the other ones I was hawking.

I went back to the composite tent numerous times and no one was there. Finally a teammate told me to just trade it to someone else. I preferred to trade my jersey to a non-American country, and I also was avoiding red states (my own silent protest), though I would have totally given up my scruples for a shirt from a team called Missabittatitti. Their jerseys were hot items.

In the end, I got three jerseys I’m very happy with – from Italy, Argentina, and Germany – see photos below.

I believe our race was the second to last one so I had plenty of time to wander around and meet people and also just hang out in our tent, which is one of my favorite parts of racing. It kind of reminds me of being at track meets in high school, which also involved a lot of waiting around for races. It’s just a really pleasant communal experience. You can talk to people or you can put a hat over your head and fall asleep, but in the tent is where I’ve really gotten to know my teammates.

I had noticed earlier that no one was paying any attention to the 1000 meter races that were going on all day. The atmosphere felt so different from the day before – not at all tense – kind of like a garage sale in the last hour of the day. When it finally was time for us to race, I suggested we try to break 5 minutes, which was quite unrealistic – only the top 4 teams accomplished that. We ended up nowhere near 5 minutes and I can’t tell you exactly why. I think we got off course somehow – there was a point where it seemed like some men were yelling at us to stop, but we kept going. There were also numerous times when our tiller called “Hold the boat!” which means stop paddling and put your paddle straight down into the water to stop the boat. Sometimes she yelled “Hold the boat” for only one side of the boat. One time it seemed like maybe we were about to capsize – we were tilted way to one side – and Merle’s calls got us balanced again. Our final time was 7:17.49, way at the back of the pack. I was looking forward to watching the race, to see what actually happened, but the YouTube video ends right beforehand.

Our coach pointed out that at least we weren’t disqualified. A lot of teams were, including the Florence Dragon Lady teams whose jersey I coveted. I don’t think many of us were upset about the outcome. We had fun and did our best and did a fabulous job of following Merle’s orders.

When we got back to the dock and walked back up to the tents, we were greeted by our Oregon team lined up in two lines to form a corridor. At the very end was Mary, which was a big surprise to me, and it seems I yelled out, “I found my wife!”, which Mary took a movie of. (There was a lot of me not having any idea where Mary was over the weekend. I can also say that she didn’t have the wonderful experience I had, but I will leave it to her to write about it.) As we got to the end of the line, we joined the corridor and high-fived our teammates. There were also some French spectators lined up who high-fived us. I was loving it and also already getting sad that it was over and not wanting to say goodbye to my teammates, even though I would see them in a couple of weeks.

We went back to our tents and got our belongings – the place was pretty deserted at this point. Some people went back to their hotels and some of us stuck around. The first order on my agenda was to get a soft-serve ice cream cone. Several of my teammates had had them over the weekend, but because I couldn’t eat sugar until after the final race, I was very much coveting one. A bunch of our teammates were hanging out in an outdoor bar and restaurant just outside of the Athlete’s Village. Mary and I joined them there and had our ice cream and then we went to the lake and joined several of my teammates in the water.

We all went our separate ways the next day. We had a WhatsApp group for the Pink Phoenix France group, and in the past week and a half people have been posting pictures from their travels and writing about what an amazing time it was. When the YouTube videos came available on the website, people began to comment on them.

I forgot to mention that we had heard from one of our teammates back in Portland, that our Portland 56 team was chastised by the announcer of our 200 Final for waving at the drone prior to our race. He said we weren’t focused. After we watched the video, first one person on WhatsApp, then another, then a third, all said they had waved – and why not? We can have fun AND win races.

Pink Patrol Bochum from Germany. I traded with Kerstin.

Written Tuesday,September 8

Today is our third full day on the Queen Mary 2. We have been having a wonderful time doing nothing and barely talking to each other or anyone else. This morning I discovered that the live feeds from the dragonboat festival are posted on YouTube and I spent a couple of hours watching parts of it.

I haven’t written much about it because we’ve been moving from place to place or I’ve been tired, but watching the videos brought it all back. I think I last left you on our unexpected Friday off. The next day was 200 meter sprints. The first races were the preliminary heats. Our team (Portland 56) is particularly good at fast starts and we did really well in the sprint races at a dragonboat festival in Victoria earlier in the summer. I was definitely looking forward to the 200 races. It’s long enough away now that unfortunately I don’t remember all the details, but there was a lot of hurry up and waiting – at one point one of my teammates said, “We should practice race marshalling where we stand around in the hot sun for an hour and then move a few feet and stand there for an hour and then go back to where we originally were.”

Eventually, though, we were in our boat paddling out to the start. Every time I was on that lake and had a chance to look around me, I breathed in the moment. I was in France, in a boat with my teammates whom I love very much, in a gorgeous lake, surrounded by alps.

The start of the race was fast, and I think we were all much more relaxed than during our practice, but right at the start I slid towards the middle of the boat, which was disconcerting. It took me a few strokes to get my bearings and the next thing I knew, we were done. Our time was 1:00.56 (a little less than one minute, 1 second)

Afterwards, our coach said we could have been stronger in the finish, but that we finished respectably, not one of the fastest times of the morning, but definitely not in the back of the pack. We came in 4th in our heat (out of 6).

Normally in a race, near the end the caller yells, “Finish it now!” I hadn’t heard that and was actually surprised when we abruptly stopped paddling. I mentioned afterwards that I didn’t hear “finish it now” and our amazing caller, Shana, said, ‘Really! I called it.” It was surprising because I wasn’t that far back in the boat.

I asked one of my teammates, “Did Shana bang the drum?” And she said yes. I said, “I don’t think I hear anything when I’m racing.” My teammate remarked that that was good – that meant I was working hard and concentrating, but I thought maybe it wasn’t good if I am not hearing the commands during the race.

We learned that they were going to skip the semifinals and go straight to the finals. There were 26 final heats and the heats were based on time. The 6 slowest teams were in heat 1 and the 6 fastest (including our other crew, Pink Phoenix Oregon) were in heat 25. We were in heat 14, which meant our first race time had been faster than 78 other teams.

Again, we had a lot of hurry up and waiting and during that time I started saying to my teammates, “56 or better!” Our official team number was 56 and I wanted to finish in 56 seconds or less. Actually I wanted to finish in 55 seconds or less (match the time of Pink Phoenix Oregon) but my teammates seemed to prefer 56 or better.

As we lined up in the tent waiting to go to the boats, teams took turns chanting and singing. We have a team member who is really great at leading chants, but she was on the other crew, so me and another teammate did our best. Really, though, we couldn’t hold a candle to the teams from outside the U.S., who had really long songs that they sang very loudly. It was so fun listening to everyone and chanting our own once in a while.

Once we got into the boat, the people around me kept saying, “56 or better.” I also had a goal to not get so lost in my concentration that I don’t hear commands. We paddled out to the start line and had to wait there a long time because in the previous race one of the boats had capsized and it was taking awhile to get everyone on that boat onto a big raft and then bail out the boat.

Here is a link to the YouTube video of the Final 200 races.

https://youtu.be/zkNYA1Pr_ZU

You can start at the 1:48:00 mark to watch the aftermath of the capsize and us waiting for our heat to start, or you can start at 2:02:00 to see our race. What’s really notable is how absolutely gorgeous the surroundings are.

This time I didn’t slide at the start and I focused on the beat of the drum. The race felt amazing. It felt like we were all in sync, and this time I heard Shana call, “Finish it Now,” and put everything I had into the finish. We were in lane 6, the farthest left lane. When we finished, I looked to my right and didn’t see any boats. “Did we win?” I asked, and someone said, “Yes!” I couldn’t believe it. I’m not used to winning races. It turned out we did win the race with a time of 57.91. That time was faster than most of the teams in many of the heats that followed ours – i.e. teams that had ranked higher than us based on the preliminary races. In the end, we finished 16th out of 156 teams and our other team, Pink Phoenix Oregon, finished 6th overall. We were so happy and proud of ourselves.

When we got back to the dock and were heading back to the tents, we were each handed a flower and an official placed a medal around our necks. Then we walked through a corridor made up of our Oregon crew who had lined up on both sides and high-fived us.

The whole weekend was quite hot. My hair was a mess because I was constantly pouring water over my head or wetting it with lake water. On Thursday when we did the parade of nations, our boat passed people in the swimming area, and it looked to me like that was definitely the best place to watch the races. So on Saturday I brought my swimsuit and after our 200 race, a couple of my teammates and I went to the swimming area. Ultimately it ended up being just me and Christie because Kaci went to go get ice cream and we lost her.

When we first arrived in Aix les Bains, we all received festival swag bags, which included a shirt commemorating the festival. We had each specified what size we wanted, but it seems they used men’s sizing instead of women’s, so most folks were figuratively swimming in their shirts. The cut was weird and the material kind of heavy and I heard lots of complaints (including my own) about the shirts. We were told that we had to wear the shirts for the closing ceremonies, so Christie and I wore the shirts over our swimsuits. (Later, when I saw the video I saw how great it was to see so many people all wearing the same color.)

The water was amazing. I think we were out there for at least an hour and a half. I had left my glasses on shore, so I could see a bunch of blurry boats, but wasn’t able to actually see the Oregon crews race, but Christie did and we were kind of cheering, but they were so far away they wouldn’t have been able to hear us. They finished fourth in their heat, but it was the fastest heat of the day. They did really well.

Oregon was in the 2nd to last heat and after the last heat, the flower ceremony began. During our season, Pink Phoenix competes in about 10 festivals, some in Portland, some in the Pacific Northwest, and others farther afield. Some of these festivals have a special race just for breast cancer survivors or for all cancer survivors. These races are usually followed by a flower ceremony, where the boats line up next to each other, everyone is given a flower, and then we throw the flowers in the water in honor of people we have lost. These ceremonies are beautiful and very moving.

All the teams had been asked to line up on the beach for the flower ceremony, and I was so glad I was in the water, because it was a very crowded beach. Ultimately several teams waded out into the water and stood there right next to the beach. Everyone had their flower.

Before the festival, all teams were asked to pick one person to participate in the Sandy Smith Global Race. Sandy Smith is someone who was instrumental in creating the international breast cancer paddler community. I think there were six boats, made up of people from all different teams and countries. Since Pink Phoenix brought 2 teams to the festival, we got to have two paddlers in the Global race, and our Board chose our caller, Shana and our tiller, Merle, both wonderful human beings.

We watched the boats paddle out to the start line. Meri Gibson, the President of the IBCPC, explained that this festival was not about competition, but about community and fellowship, and that the Sandy Smith was not a race, but that all the boats would cross the finish line in unison. I think that would have been beautiful, but shortly before the boats took off Meri said that she had just heard that they would be racing, and race they did! Then, slowly, they all circled back to line up at the beach. Christie and I stood at the very edge of the swimming area and looked for our teammates.

Once all the boats were lined up, the ceremony began. There was beautiful music, most of it live, though I was too blind and too far out in the water to realize that. All the paddlers in the boats, and then everyone on the beach and in the water, waved their flowers in the air. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe what it feels like to be a part of this – it fills me up with joy and with sadness and I love these ceremonies very much. Eventually we all threw our flowers into the water and watched them float away. While we threw our flowers, French musicians sang a song written especially for the festival. I was thinking about the people I have lost when the man next to me in the water grabbed my hand and said we should all hold hands while we were thinking of the people we love, so we did, about 8 or 10 of us and swayed together to the music. I just tried to fully experience the moment – it was amazing is all I can say.

After the flower ceremony there were speeches by French dignitaries and a lot of people began to flow away from the beach back to the tents area. Christie and I eventually got out of the water. There was a big concert on Thursday night at the race site that I didn’t go to, and the people who did go said it was so much fun. So I wanted to stay on Saturday for the concert, but I was tired and I had heard that the transportation from the race site back to the hotels was not great. Plus I hadn’t seen Mary all day, so I went back to the hotel.

This morning I watched the Flower Ceremony on YouTube and saw how much I missed, including the fact that in addition to the Sandy Smith boats, there were 4 or 6 boats of metastatic cancer survivors – that is, people living actively with cancer – lined up for the flower ceremony. I ended up watching the entire ceremony. I found it incredibly moving and beautiful – the music, the surroundings, the 4500 women waving flowers – and I think someone with no interest in dragon racing might actually enjoy it. So the YouTube video is here:

https://youtu.be/bFufqDghZuc

At the 34:30 mark you can see Christie and I and the other people holding hands and swaying further back in the water.

Written Sunday September 6th

We had a 2 pm checkout at our Southampton hotel, and were supposed to check in at the cruise terminal at 2 pm. My first order of business in the morning was to print out our luggage tags and boarding passes, which I had been too tired to deal with the night before. But when I went to check in online, I got a message saying. “This voyage has already sailed,” or something ridiculously alarming like that. I had a momentary panic where I thought I had the date wrong, but I saw that I didn’t and called Cunard. They assured me it was fine and we could get boarding passes and luggage tags at the Cruise Terminal. She also said that the later we got on, the less crowded it would be.

We spent the morning searching for de-ionised water for our CPAP machines. It is apparently very hard to find purified water in the UK, and the de-ionized water is not with the drinking water. It is used for car batteries and irons and is often in the automotive section.

I asked AI where I could find it and it suggested a superstore that was about a 17 minute walk. It also told me how to get there on the bus and said the buses ran every seven minutes. Neither of us felt like walking, so we went to the bus stop and learned that the buses run every 30 minutes and we had just missed the most recent bus. As we stood there trying to decide what to do, a different bus pulled up. I asked the driver if he went to Asda and he said no. I thanked him and Mary and I went back to conferring. I was about to order an Uber when the bus driver said, “Come on. Just get on.” He explained that he could get us closer to Asda and didn’t let us pay. He dropped us off at a big mall, which was only a 5 minute walk from Asda. Possibly the first nice municipal bus driver I have ever encountered, and what a total mensch!

We decided to try a few stores in the mall, with no success, and eventually found the water at Asda. Back at the hotel, we had an hour or so of leisure and then we ate leftover lasagna and bread and salad for lunch.

At 2 pm we checked out and got an Uber to the cruise terminal. The driver drove past the turnoff for the Queen Elizabeth 2 terminal, where we were supposed to be. I asked, “Are you taking us to the Queen Elizabeth terminal?”

He said, “I’m taking you where you requested,” and pointed at the sign for the Ocean terminal.

I said, “We requested the Queen Elizabeth terminal,”

He said, “No you didn’t.”

I said, “Yes, I did,” pulled up the Uber app on my phone, showed him that it clearly said Queen Elizabeth terminal, and he responded by saying I was wrong and showing me his phone, which wasn’t even turned on. He made a big production of saying that even though we were wrong he would take us where he wanted to go, with a little muttering about how he was going beyond what he was supposed to. As we neared the Queen Elizabeth terminal, he began sucking up to us, going on about how all that mattered was that we have a wonderful vacation. He couldn’t admit that he was wrong but he was working hard to salvage his tip, which made me dislike him even more.

When Mary and I first started cruising, many many years ago, we read that the earlier you get on the ship the better. Then you can get the dining reservations you want, hit the library before all the good books are gone, have a nice lunch, etc. etc. We have always followed that advice and usually had to wait centuries to get on the ship, often in a hot room with no food or water. Then, once we get on the ship, our room isn’t ready and we have to find somewhere to sit with our carryon luggage or lug it around through the buffet.

This time I embraced the late embarkation time. At 2:20 or so, when we got there, there were no lines, we got on the ship immediately, and our stateroom was ready. In the past, we’ve always had to attend a muster drill where everyone crowds at their muster station (where we would gather in case of an emergency) stands around for awhile, and then there is a ship wide announcement about what to do in the event of an emergency, which I can never hear because people around me are talking.

The QM2 has changed that process. Now, all we had to do was go to the muster station where they scanned our room keys to document that we had been there, and then watch an informational video that was playing on the stateroom tv. I admit I haven’t watched it yet, but Mary has, and I get the gist of it. Grab your life vest, put on flat shoes, bring your important medications and go to the muster station.

We had requested early dining, and were waitlisted. When we got to our room, we discovered that we have open dining. I went down to the restaurant to figure out how that works. The maitre’d asked what time we wanted to eat and began throwing out times – 6? 5:45? 6:15? 6:30? I chose 6:30 and said the most important thing is that we wanted a table for two. He said, “No problem. See you at 6:30.”

I also went to the library to pick out a novel and a travel guide to Singapore, which is where the next IBCD… festival will be in 2030.

One of the things I love about cruise ship staterooms is that they are engineering marvels. There is so much storage space and it is all beautifully organized. I would say that every hotel we stayed at on this trip, possibly with the exception of Hotel Balzac, had major design flaws, so it was a complete joy to unpack everything, which we hadn’t done since Aix les Bains. Now everything is in its place and the room is not a mess, which I can’t say for just about everywhere else we have stayed on this trip.

After unpacking, we stood on the balcony and watched the water, the land, and the birds as we sailed away from Southampton. At our appointed hour we went to dinner and were led to a lovely table for 2 with a view of the water. I was so grateful that we were by ourselves. I find making conversation with strangers very tiring, and the dinner also takes longer if there are more people at the table.

I watched a table for four in front of me. It was two couples, one younger and one older. The older woman was talking non-stop, particularly to the young man who was seated next to her. He was politely nodding and unsuccessfully attempting to face forward and talk with his wife/partner. He looked very uncomfortable and I felt bad for him. The talking woman’s husband spent most of the meal with his head in his hands. The young woman began to look more and more annoyed. Eventually I noticed that it wasn’t a table for four, but two tables for two with about 12 inches between them. I began to have even more pity/empathy for the young couple. By the time we left, the young woman looked like she might like to stab someone with a fork. Later I told Mary about them and Mary said, ‘I’ll bet that young couple won’t be sitting there again!”

I read a lot about the Queen Mary 2 earlier this summer and one thing I read consistently was that she has gone downhill – that the food isn’t good, or maybe that it is hit or miss, that the staterooms are in bad shape, and other various complaints. So I have had very low expectations for this trip. It’s a way to get home from Europe without having to spend hours in a cramped economy airplane seat. There will be food. There will be the ocean. And there will be nothing to do every day, so we can just read, and relax – without thinking we should be exploring a city, or trying to figure out where to go for our meals.

The last time we were on this ship, our waiter seemed to have hurt feelings if we didn’t order something from every category on the menu, and on most cruises I do. But both of us have a goal to get into better habits during this week, since we have been living mostly on bread and cheese. Last night the dinner menu seemed to have fewer options than I remembered, but there were plenty of things that sounded good. I chose cauliflower pie for my appetizer and a vegetarian Indian curry for my main dish. Thankfully, the waiter didn’t tell me I had to order a salad and a dessert.

The cauliflower pie was delicious! Perhaps the best thing I’ve eaten on this entire trip. It was also beautifully plated, but I didn’t bring my camera to dinner so I couldn’t commemorate my fabulous appetizer. The curry was equally delicious. It came with black rice, which I love, and a small bit of naan. I kept exclaiming about how delicious my meal was. Neither of us ordered dessert – definitely not our usual pattern.

We left the dining room and the poor young couple still being conversationally dominated by the older woman. We went to the buffet because Mary wanted to bring some bread back to the room in case she gets seasick. There were many lovely looking desserts, but I chose a fresh fruit salad to take back to the room. There was one fruit in there I have never seen before, and kiwi, berries, and many types of melon. It was delicious when I ate it right before I went to bed.

When our room steward came to do evening turndown, he brought us two soft roomy bathrobes. We both slept extremely well and I sprung awake at 7:30, which was really 6:30 because we gain an hour every night for the first five nights. I showered and then Mary and I went to the buffet so I could fill my huge 32 oz water bottle with ice and cold water and put my electrolyte mix in it.

About the electrolytes: I have always found them disgusting and never wanted to drink them, though I made myself do it on dragonboat race days. A few months ago, both my naturopath and my coach told me I should be drinking electrolytes every day. I found two brands that are tolerable and every day I drink a packet with 32 ounces of water. Since then, my energy has improved immensely, and when I drink them, my appetite decreases. So they are an important part of my day now, and it was so great to be able to fill my bottle with water and good ice (like Sonic ice, if you know what that is). For much of the trip I’ve been drinking warm electrolyte water, which leaves a little bit to be desired.

Now it is 9:18 am, I’ve been up for three hours and am still not really hungry, but we should probably go get some breakfast soon.

On Thursday we took a couple trains to get from Lyon to London. It was one of those unfun travel days where a lot of things seem to go wrong. We were tired and grumpy and both of us, though we loved France, were glad to be leaving because it is hard work trying to communicate in one’s non-Native language. It was great at first and at about two weeks, I was over it.

I booked us a room at the Holiday Inn Express Southwark in London, because it is five minutes away from the Tate Modern Museum, which currently has an Ana Mendieta exhibit that I wanted to see. The plan was to go to the exhibit Friday morning and then, at our leisure get a train to Southampton, where we would spend one night before boarding the Queen Mary 2 and sailing home.

One of the things that went wrong on Thursday is that my reading glasses were no longer with me when we arrived in London. This was really bad because I have astigmatism and also a strong correction so I can’t use OTC readers. And, my plan for the Queen Mary 2 was to read, write, and do crossword puzzles, all of which would strain my eyes if I attempted to do them with my regular glasses.

I spent two hours crying and trying to find someone who could replace my glasses and eventually was successful. It wasn’t going to be cheap – 300 pounds for the lenses plus the cost of the frames, which started at 300 pounds. I made an appointment to go to the optician at 11:30 the next morning, pick out a frame, and then wait for them to make my glasses.

All this stress made me more tired than I already was and Mary said she didn’t want to go to the Tate the next day and didn’t think I should try to either, given that I had to go get my glasses. I figured she was right and halfway gave up on my plan.

The next morning, though, I woke up very early and decided to go to the Tate when it opened at 10, spend an hour there, and then get an Uber to the opticians. I got to the Tate at about 9:50. There were 5 or 6 people standing in line in front of a door that said to use such and such entrance instead. I went to that entrance and was the only person there for a few minutes and then a huge line began to form behind me. I noticed a sign that said the line was for people with bags that needed to be checked and that all others could walk in. It wasn’t open yet, but I went and stood next to the line, again in the very front. No one joined me.

When the museum opened, I was the first person in the door. The Tate Modern is free to the public, but the special exhibits aren’t. I went to the counter, bought a ticket to Ana Mendieta, and found the gallery. I was the only visitor there. For at least 30 minutes, it was me and a bunch of guards.

I discovered Ana Mendieta many years ago in Las Vegas. At that time the Bellagio had a very small art museum – maybe it still does. We went there to see a particular David Hockney painting. I don’t remember if we chose to do a guided tour or just fell in with one, but we went through the museum with a young, very knowledgeable art student. In my memory, the Ana Mendieta was a photograph of the artist lying naked in a stream bed, but I’m really not sure what it was, just that I was very taken by it. I asked the docent about it and she told us that Mendieta had died in 1985. She supposedly “fell” out of her NYC apartment window, but everyone believed that her husband, a sculptor named Carl Andre, pushed her.

This fact is one that the curators of the current exhibit don’t mention – specifically because they don’t want Mendieta’s death to overshadow her work or be part of people’s interpretations of her work. So why do I share it with you? I don’t know – for me it makes her work more poignant. Even before I knew how Mendieta died, I had a visceral response to the one or two photographs I saw in Las Vegas.

A lot of her work is self photographs, where she is naked and in communion with the natural world. She also did sculptures by burning wood, arranging sand. One of her videos is of her pouring cow blood all over her naked body, rolling in feathers, and then standing up.

I have no idea why I am so drawn to her work, but it felt breathtaking being in that gallery all by myself and standing in front of her art. I even felt a little teary. Here is a link to the New York Times article I read that prompted our hotel reservation near the Tate:

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/arts/design/ana-mendieta-tate-modern.html?searchResultPosition=1

I only got to stay at the Tate for 45 minutes or so but I am so glad I was able to salvage that part of the trip. From the Tate I got an Uber to Hodds Barnes Dickins opticians. They were in a neighborhood with tons of restaurants and stores. I had to ring a bell to get in, as they keep their door locked. Since the neighborhood did not seem at all unsafe, I thought maybe this was a sign of their poshness, I realize now it’s probably because their lab is downstairs and they may not always be in the upper part of the building. And they have a lot of very expensive frames.

I didn’t even look at the frames on the main level. They were way out of my price range, according to the optician. He led me down some narrow stairs to a windowless room where they kept the plebeian frames. He told me there were a few that were 250 pounds. I asked to see only those and when we found one that fit me I said, “Let’s do it.” I didn’t really care what they looked like, but they’re actually kind of cute. We went upstairs, I paid the 250 pounds, and he said they’d be ready in about an hour. I really enjoyed my hour wandering around the neighborhood. Eventually I went to a poke bowl restaurant and got a delicious poke bowl with grilled shrimp (no raw fish) and lots of other yummy things I can’t remember. I asked Google Maps if there was a park nearby. There was one about 3 minutes away, where I found a bench and sat with all the pigeons and people on their lunch hours.

The park was called Bloomsbury Square Gardens and I realized I was in Bloomsbury, famous for Virginia Woolf, but also where I lived for a month on a college overseas trip to England decades ago. I have very fond memories of that time and I loved that Bloomsbury is where I ended up.

When I picked up my glasses, the optician said I had paid in full, so I guess I misunderstood the pricing. I ended up only paying 300 pounds, which is still more than I’ve ever spent on a pair of glasses. (Costco is my go-to). We had a 2 pm check out at the Holiday Inn Express and I managed to get back there by 1:30. We got a train to Southampton and checked into our hotel there, which had gotten very good reviews. The room layout was great and there was a loft that we took turns going up into, but the hallways smelled like insecticide and the room smelled like mold, and we were happy to only be there for one night.

In the morning, we walked down to one of the cruise terminals and then wandered around the city a little bit. Back in the 14th century, Southampton had town walls. Some still stand and we walked along a few, which are right next to modern buildings. Back at the hotel we had leftover lasagna which I had gotten from the bar the night before and then were on our way to the Queen Mary.

My new glasses

Mary was disoncerted by the fact that my posts are out of order, so I was going to get all caught up and then post them in order, but that may take a long time, so I’m just going to post as I write them. I wrote this one on Sunday, September 6:

A lot of time has passed since my last blog post. It’s all been sort of whirlwind and I was too tired to write, so I’m dependent on my poor memory here.

I had picked the Warwick Reine Astrid because it got good reviews and the room had a kitchen, which I thought we would appreciate after having been without a refrigerator for two weeks. I wouldn’t stay there again. The service at the front desk and in the restaurant was excellent, but the room wasn’t clean, the hallways smelled bad, and the pillows were these strange big lumpy things that felt a little like sleeping on a rock. The bed was on wheels and moved around. I opened the freezer once, saw hair in there, and decided not to open it again. The first night, I threw my shorts down on the floor and the next morning they were covered in dust. So, kind of gross. But it was extremely quiet (as was every hotel we stayed in this trip), and had nice big windows that let in the sun.

On our first full day, after I had recharged my phone, we went to Les Halles de Lyon Paul Bocuse, which is a huge food hall with all sorts of specialized vendors. We had read and seen on YouTube that this was a must do. All the YouTube videos we saw showed a very crowded place, but that’s because they were filmed in the morning. At 4 pm, half the stalls were closed and the place was mostly empty. There were multiple fromageries, patisserie/boulangeries, and charcuteries. However, we were a little underwhelmed by the place. Mary wonders whether it is a tourist trap or we were just there at the wrong time. I think it was the latter, plus our moods. We bought three different cheeses, which were wrapped up in beautiful little packages, a loaf of bread, some raspberries, a pate in pastry slice for Mary, and I can’t remember what else. Then we continued my weird manic search for ice cream (glacé in French). I found a place that got good reviews so we took the bus there. It was closed, or no longer in business or something. I asked Google Maps if there was any other ice cream nearby and it took us to an area with lots of alley-like streets filled with restaurants, brasseries, bouchons, and people sitting outside eating and smoking.

At the ice cream place, as I was looking at the flavors, a waiter insisted that we sit at a table that he led us to outside. One of the ironies of France is that I love eating outdoors and there is so much outdoor dining, but it is accompanied by constant smoking, which I didn’t enjoy at all. So we sat outside, me masked up, and wondered why we weren’t allowed to look at the flavors. Eventually I used Google Translate to ask if I could look at the flavors, and the waiter said, “Of course,” even though he seemed a bit annoyed by the request.

Eventually we ordered and ate very ordinary, honestly kind of disappointing ice cream. We took a different route back to the main street and passed at least two Glacé shops that looked much better than the one we had just eaten at. Mary said we could have more ice cream if we wanted, but I was full and knew that even if it was better ice cream, it wouldn’t be enjoyable. Plus what was this weird thing where I kept looking for the perfect ice cream? Especially since I might have already had it on the last day of the dragonboat festival.

Back at the hotel we talked about what we would do the next day, our last full day in Lyon. I particularly wanted to go to the Museum of Miniatures, and Mary wanted to go to the ancient theater, which is a Roman ruin, and to the Cathedrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Lyon, which is right next to the Museum of Miniatures. The plan was for me to go to my museum, while Mary would take the funicular up to the Basilica of Notre Dame of Fourvière, walk down to the Ruins from there, and then take the funicular back down to the Cathedrale.

Grand plans, but even as I was going to sleep I thought I was too tired to go to a museum and it would feel probably like a lot of the sightseeing we had done on this vacation where we had a very short stay in a city, tried to do some of “the things”, and I ended up tired and cranky.

In the morning I had no desire to go anywhere or do anything, so I lay around doing crossword puzzles and idly surfing the web with a bad internet connection that kept fading away and returning. After lunch, we decided to go to the Parc de la Tête d’Or, which was a block or so away from our hotel. I read that there was a lake, and a zoo, and botanical gardens. The park was quite grand with huge, tall gates, and we also passed some grand buildings on our way there. They looked like they were formally the residences of rich people and had been converted to apartments. When we got inside the park we immediately saw the lake, which was beautiful. There was a place where you could rent a pedal boat or an electric boat, or a pedicab to bicycle yourself and passengers through the park.

I could not imagine pedaling a boat but definitely wanted to get out on that lake so we rented the electric boat, at the price of 30 euros for 30 minutes. Mary let me drive to start, which was not difficult, since the boat traveled at the rate of 1/8 of a mile an hour. Mary was very afraid of my driving, which I think was just fine, especially since if we were going to crash into anything it would take at least 3 minutes to get to the thing we were going to crash into – plenty of time to right the boat.

We drove around the edges of the lake. The park has paths and little places to sit all around the lake, and at one point there was someone playing a piano with a few people gathered to listen. We stopped the boat for a few minutes there. It felt very magical and I will attempt to attach a video Mary made.

After our 30 minutes, we walked towards the zoo and, on the way there, passed a little cafe with seating next to the lake. Mary needed some caffeine and I was thirsty so we sat there and had a coke and a fancy water with ice. It was wonderfully serene.

We continued our walk, and suddenly there were three or four giraffes in front of us, very close. They were in a wide open space with barriers but they chose to get very close to the people. I don’t think I’ve ever been so near a giraffe before and I really enjoyed their graceful physiques. They move very slowly, kind of like our boat, and were fun to watch. The zoo was free and we wandered through, enjoying,turtles, lemurs, a zebra, flamingos, and other animals I don’t remember.

We also passed quite a few places to buy ice cream, as well as a little amusement park for kids. One of the games involved choosing a rubber duck and getting a prize based on whatever is written on the bottom of the ducky. I remember how much I loved that carnival game when I was younger.

After the zoo, which did not have a ton of animals, but seemed to have a lot of space for them to roam in, we went back the way we came and stopped to buy ice cream – vanilla/strawberry soft-serve swirl, just like we had in Aix les Bains. We found a bench to sit on and watched the people walking by. It seemed to me that everyone spoke French and that this was more of a local park than a tourist attraction.

On our walk back out of the park, we passed lots of families with young children, some kids playing futbal, and also a surprising number of teenagers, gathered in circles on the grass, smoking. I particularly enjoyed the teenagers for some reason. It was a lovely way to spend a few hours. We had a very good dinner at the Hotel Bar, and then packed up so we would be ready to catch an early train to Lille in the morning.

I apologize for writing these out of order, but I need to write the most recent first, before I forget it. The last 2 days have been a bit trying, but I’m still happy. The dragonboat festival ended on Sunday – more about that later- and yesterday we had a train reservation to Lyon from Aix Les Bains at 12:48 pm. In the morning we went and got our breakfast from our three favorite shops and then ate in the park, where Mary spent a lot of time last week. It was very pleasant. I really didn’t get to explore much of Aix-les-Bains, and I definitely want to go back there again. Mary also fell in love with the town, after a rough start.

Edit from Mary: no rough start from Aix-Les-Bains itself – it was love from the get go! It was the dragon boat tournament that was rough at times.

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel and packed. I had the great idea that I wouldn’t pack as carefully as I did to get here. I would just put stuff in the suitcase. That went as well as you might expect. I couldn’t close the suitcase, had to take my toiletry bag out, and had to wear my Uniqlo hoodie around my waist, even though it was hot out. Mary gave me a bag to carry my toiletry bag in, and I tried to carry it using the same hand I was pulling my backpack with, but it kept flipping to one side or the other, and the paper handles were definitely going to break before I walked even a few steps. Mary said, “OK. Just give it to me,” and carried it for me the whole way to Lyon. At one point she said that I talked her into carrying it. I protested, saying I never asked her to carry it. She said, “Well you did by being so completely incompetent trying to carry it and your other stuff.” I replied, “That’s not talking you into it. The incompetency is just me.”

Anyway, competent me was sure she had booked a direct train to Lyon from Aix, but when we got there it said we had to change trains in a town called Culoz. I figured out last night that I had booked a direct train but it had gotten changed. Our train to Culoz was very delayed. A young French woman (possibly girl) had made the mistake of sitting down next to me, and I asked her if she was also going to Lyon, and if we would miss our connection. She said yes, and I asked her how we would know what train to get on, and she said they would make an announcement. I told her we would follow her and she smiled, but kinda not a real smile.

When our train finally came and then we got off in Culoz, we were just outside on a platform. There was no big train station, and It didn’t seem like it would be hard to figure out the next train. My new “amie” waited for us to get off the train and told me that we would have to ask someone what train we would catch and on which platform. All this was in broken English and broken French. Mary planted me with our bags and went off in search of a bathroom, then came back and reported there wasn’t one. I then went to try to figure out where we needed to be to catch the right train. I was on the first platform, looking at the arrivals and departures board, but not knowing which was which, when some Canadian dragon boaters we had met at the Aix-les-Bans station, shouted from the middle platform, “We’re supposed to be here.”

I looked over at my French friend, who was also perusing the board, and she said, “We don’t know yet where we’re supposed to be. We have to wait,” and then wandered away. The Canadians seemed very sure of themselves and the French girl seemed a bit discombobulated. Now there was a French man looking at the board and I asked him which was arrivals and which was departures. I asked him twice just to make sure, because it did show that our train was on the middle platform and should be leaving in a few minutes.

I can tell you we spent about an hour and a half standing outside in the sun, hungry and needing to pee and I spent a lot of time going up the stairs and down the stairs from one platform to another. At some point my “amie” showed me her phone app, which said that the train would be an hour late.” She also said something about her father and it was going to get her to Lyon too late. At this point I began to think she was younger than the 21 or so I had estimated.

I went into the tiny station and asked where the nearest bathroom was. He said it was a 10 minute walk, at the city center. I figured I had time to walk there, find a bathroom, and find some food. Mary wanted to stay with the bags, so I approached the Canadians and told them my plan. I said I would get them whatever they wanted, unless some of them wanted to walk with me. (There were four of them.) Two of them decided they would, so we walked over to the elevator to get to the walkway above the tracks. When we got there my “amie” was there and she told me something I didn’t understand, so then she typed into my Google Translate that her app said the train was an hour late, but the board said it should be coming in a few minutes, and she didn’t know which was accurate.

The Canadians had moved on so I ran to catch them to keep them from going to the store, but they said they were sure the train was going to be late and pointed out that if you looked long enough at the board it would say that the train was delayed. I went back to tell my “amie,” because I was beginning to think that i knew more than her, and also because I could see she was distressed about getting to Lyon too late. I typed into Google Translate that the board said it was delayed. She didn’t believe me, so I showed her and then her whole face fell. I said, ‘Je suis desolee” and went back to Mary who said she didn’t love the idea of me walking but she wouldn’t stop me.

I began to walk very quickly towards the center of town and then looked at my watch, saw it was 2:30 and everything would be closed. So I headed back, did a little reconnaissance, found an abandoned train where I didn’t think I could be seen, and squatted and peed. When I told Mary about my success, she declined to try it out herself.

I went back into the station to buy the only bottle of water in the vending machine. My “amie” was there counting her coins and, in my limited French, I tried to offer to buy her something, but she said no. At this point I decided I should really leave her alone. By now i thought she was probably about 15 years old, had been taught not to talk to strangers and had this weird American following her around.

The Canadians who had gone to the town center returned and told me they found a bathroom and 2 croissants, but basically it was a bust. I said, “You’re welcome for me coming up with this wonderful idea and then not doing it myself.” (Actually I apologized for leading them astray.)

Finally, the train came. It was very crowded and we had to lug our luggage through a few cars, but eventually we found seats near each other. In Lyon, we got a taxi to our hotel, the Warwick Reine Astrid Lyon. This hotel is a step down from the Grand Hotel du Parc, but it is the biggest room we have had so far in France, and has a full kitchen, which I love because we have not been able to refrigerate anything the whole time in Aix-les-Bains. We were exhausted and hungry. We found a crappy grocery store and I bought a crappy baguette and a package of tiny little cheese squares with herbs on top. They were very yummy. They had some fancy ice cream bars in the lobby of the hotel, so we each had one of those for dessert. I keep thinking coco is chocolate and then realizing it is coconut and getting very excited . My coconut bar was tres delicieux.

This morning I had two goals: Get rid of the life vest I have been schlepping all over France, and go to the Diptyque store and buy the amazing lotion that they had at the Hotel Balzac. AI and Apple Maps told me where a Mailboxes Etc. store is. AI said the store would pack the vest up for me and mail it, and also told me how to not have to pay ridiculous American tariffs – by stating that it was my personal item that I brought here from the U.S. I mapped out the bus route to get there, and was very proud of myself and happy riding the bus and knowing when I was going to get off. I got off at the right stop and there was no Mailboxes Etc. I wandered around quite a while and found the street address, but it was not a Mailboxes Etc. It didn’t even look like a public building. Finally I went into a pharmacy to ask, and the clerk told me the store wasn’t there anymore. Not to be deterred, I found a second Mailboxes Etc. and took the bus there. It took me a while of wandering around after I got off the bus but eventually I found it. The man in the store spoke almost no English and I speak very limited French, but we managed to communicate clearly and he boxed it up and gave me a receipt and a UPS tracking number, and an email address to use if I have questions. All for the sum of 110 euros, which I was happy to pay to get rid of that thing.

By now, my iPhone battery was down to 20%. It decided to degenerate badly as soon as it realized it was in a foreign country. I didn’t think I could get to the Diptyque store via public transportation and maps and then back to the hotel without running out of battery. I also had a full bladder but no Euros and had neglected to bring my ATM card. Magically the next building I walked past was a gorgeous municipal building, perhaps the town hall for the particular arondissement I was in. I walked inside, saw a sign for toilettes pointing upwards, walked up a grand staircase with a statue of a woman on the landing and found unattended (meaning I didn’t have to pay or tip) toilettes. Next I found a boulangerie and bought a quiche, which I ate outside on a park bench, and then I ordered an Uber to take me to Diptyque.

Now I really love this Diptyque lotion. It goes on so smoothly and has a wonderful smell, and Mary enjoys the smell on me, which is unusual, because sometimes perfumed things are too strong for her. I was very excited about getting this Diptyque lotion. The Uber driver dropped me off not exactly at the Diptyque store, so I spent about ten minutes wandering around searching for it, but finally I found it and stopped inside. I showed the employee a picture of the lotion from Hotel Balzac, and he said, ‘Oh, you are too late. Yesterday was the last day.” It took a while for me to fully understand, but basically they stopped carrying that lotion on August 31st and no Diptyque store in the world is allowed to sell that lotion after yesterday. I asked if they would bring it back and he said no. He showed me a thicker cream that was not the same – it felt greasy, not light. I asked him if they had any light lotions and he said no. Now I had 3% battery and no choice but to take an Uber back to the hotel sans lotion. My phone is now charging (as is my iPad. Both were pugged in all night to non-working USB ports.) I’m tempted to spend all day tomorrow searching for an Apple Store and trying to get a new battery, but it will be our final full day in Lyon.

I really don’t mind doing errands, because I get to mingle with French people and practice my French. I just wish I hadn’t had to spend so much money on Ubers to get to a store one day too late to get my new favorite lotion.

I will continue this later and tell you about the races in Aix-les-Bains, but I think now Mary and I might attempt a visit to Les Halles de Lyon du Paul Bocuse.

Each team was assigned a day and hour to practice, and ours was Wednesday. It was our first time riding the festival bus,which was stiflingly hot, and our first time seeing the festival grounds, which was so exciting. There are tents for every team, with enough chairs in the tent for every paddler. Some teams walked around visiting other teams, asking if they wanted to trade pins – most teams have pins that they bring to races and trade – or trade race jerseys. Yesterday a teammate and I went looking for the African teams to see if they wanted to trade pins, but we never got there because we would pass other tents and start talking with whoever was there about where they are from and where we are from. I bought 10 pins to trade. I’ve traded 2 and then I gave one away to a woman who really liked our pin but didn’t have one to trade. I have to not do that anymore, because my teammates have some beautiful pins that I covet. This is funny, because the whole pin trading thing didn’t really make much sense to me prior to coming here and now I’m totally into it.

We have two boats competing here, Team Oregon and Team Portland. I’m on Team Portland and we got out on the lake first. The lake is so beautiful. The water is so much clearer than the Willamette where we practice, and also warmer. I had figured since we were in the alps it would be colder, but it’s the perfect temperature. There is a swimming area that is pretty close to the racecourse, with tons of locals playing in the water, and I plan to be in the water to watch Team Oregon race tomorrow.

The boats are brand new boats bought specially for this festival. They’re very different than the boats we practice in. I like that they are roomier than our boats, and there is more room for my feet, but they were very tippy. A few of us thought we were going to capsize at the dock before we even got moving. We paddled out to the start of the race course and did a practice 500 meter race. It felt very difficult and we didn’t seem to be in sync either. We returned to the dock, where two paddlers got out and another got in (there are 22 paddlers on our team and only 20 spots in the boat) and we paddled back to the start. I was dreading doing another 500 meter race because we had barely warmed up and because I hadn’t paddled in a week and a half, but the second time we just practiced our start and then paddled at a reasonable pace back to the dock. This time I got off, along with a teammate. One of the officials asked us how the boat felt and we said, “very tippy.” She looked worried and said, “Oh, that’s what we’re hearing from everyone today,”

We told the coaches who were on the dock that the boats felt tippy. They said we were very tense and we needed to relax – that our tension was fighting the boat. I said I was afraid I was going to fall out and our head coach said, “You’re not going to fall out of the boat. You KNOW that.”

Because I didn’t feel like we had enough practice in the boats, I was really glad I got to paddle again yesterday. I think I was more relaxed and I decided if I fell out of the boat, at least I was doing what I was told. Our tiller said the water felt so much better than the day before and I think most of us found the paddling much easier.

That was Wednesday. Tuesday quite a few of us took a bus tour to a winery for a wine tasting. I didn’t drink any wine because I need to avoid any sugar before a race – I find it very energy zapping. Mary ended up not drinking any wine either because she got carsick on the drive to the winery. I had pictured us gathering outside at a vineyard, but we all piled into one room and the owner or former owner of the winery speechified for the entire time we were there. He spoke in French and had a translator. I later remarked to a teammate that he liked to talk. She nodded and said, “If he had been able to speak English, he probably never would have stopped talking.”

A lot of what he said was interesting. He made it very clear he is not happy with the current U.S. government. The tariffs mean they can’t export wine to the U.S. anymore, which is a huge part of their business. In addition to that, climate change and the recent heat waves are not good for the grapes. There is also some rule or law that wineries in France, or wineries in France who want a certain designation, can’t irrigate the crops, and that is making things very difficult.

In addition to the wine, there was a beautiful food spread – bread, local cheeses and charcuterie, mini quiches, and the pate in pastry delicacy which I was afraid of when Mary and I bought it a a charcuterie, but which was pretty tasty at the winery.

One of my teammates gave Mary a Dramamine, which helped Mary’s nausea. At one point I went outside to go to the bathroom and then decided to stay out there. I didn’t know where Mary was – not in the tasting room, and if she was in the bathroom she never came back – but I didn’t worry about it. When it was time to go, I found her around the corner sitting at table holding court with a bunch of my teammates, which made me smile because she can generally be kind of quiet and socially anxious around new people, but the Dramamine did the trick. (Mary says she wasn’t holding court. She was talking when I showed up but was mostly just sitting there, but, she acknowledged, my impression makes for a good story.)

The next day I thanked my teammate for the Dramamine and told her about Mary’s newfound sociability, and my teammate laughed and said, “I said it was Dramamine, but maybe it wasn’t. . .” She is the same person who suggested, when I was drinking water from a wine glass, that I tell everyone I was drinking tequila.

The wine tasting wasn’t what I expected but it was a nice scenic drive and I really enjoyed the charcuterie and the company.

It is now 9:25 pm on Friday and I need to be up bright and early so I will end this for now. I can’t believe we’ve been away from home for 10 days already. It feels like the time is flying by. My life always feels like that.

Today, Friday, was supposed to be the first day of racing, but it was canceled due to thunderstorms and lightning. I was actually glad to have a day off, because yesterday’s opening ceremonies were kind of exhausting.

Mary and I have just returned from dinner at Pizza Cosy, where we also ate on Monday night. We started out walking with some other teammates to a kebab restaurant, but when we got into the restaurant, the server started barking at us, basically telling us what to order and assuming we all wanted the same thing, and I couldn’t deal with that. So, at Pizza Cosy we had a nice pizza and salad, and the servers actually listened when we spoke.

This morning began with us going out to get our breakfast fixins, which were: croissants and a baguette from the boulangerie, pate and a Greek salad for Mary from the charcuterie, the most amazing melt in your mouth raspberries from the produce store, and fromage blanc from the grocery store. It is a lovely breakfast and this is the third day in a row we’ve done it. Tomorrow, though, I will have breakfast at the hotel, because I need to be a the bus stop to catch the bus to the festival at 7:45 am, and the store that sells the fromage blanc doesn’t open until 8.

Someone asked me what I did today and I said I went for a swim at the hotel spa. It is a tiny pool, but I did laps around and around for a short time and then sat in the whirlpool with some teammates. But after that? Basically nothing, which is what I needed.

So yesterday, we had to be at the festival site at 1 pm to get ready for the opening ceremonies. They have a bus to take us to the site, but the hours are kinda crazy – I think yesterday it left at 11:30 am, and it’s a 15 minute ride. I heard later that there was only one person from our team on that bus, and I heard from Mary that the city bus, which she took to the festival site, was packed with dragonboaters, much to the annoyance of the Aix-les-Bains residents who were just trying to get through their daily routine.

For the opening ceremonies, there were three different ways we could participate. Most people would be walking in the Parade of Nations. This was probably at least 4000 people grouped by Nation and then team promenading along the shore of the lake. There were also 16 dragonboats that did a water parade. Our team leaders put us in the lottery to do the parade and we got one of the 16 spots. Our team captains drew names out of a hat for who would get to be in that boat, and my name was drawn, which I was very excited about. The third option was to apply to be part of the dragon dance. One or our teammates did that and had a total blast.

Dragonboat races involve a lot of hurry up and wait. We need to be ready immediately when the officials are ready for us, but they’re not always ready for us immediately. Yesterday was a ton of that. We assembled around 2 pm, and waited about 45 minutes before we were called to the staging area. During that time we could be called any time, and of course, during that time many of us needed more water in our bottles (it was hot and extremely humid in preparation for today’s storms) or our bladders began to speak to us. It was nerve-wracking waiting in line for the bathroom, hoping our team wouldn’t be called while we were gone.

While we were waiting to get called to the boats, the land parade started, or at least everyone thought it had started (in fact they were just walking to the beginning of the parade.), All the teams began to walk past, gathered by country, with the youngest survivor from each country (a dubious honor, I think) carrying the flag. Every team had different outfits, some of them quite extravagant, and they all sang or chanted. It was amazing and surreal.

When we finally got into our boat, officials directed our tiller (sometimes in French – it was not always easy for her to understand what she was supposed to be doing) and eventually we became part of a circling procession of 16 boats, each with a different country’s flag. (Ours was Denmark.) We had to stop a lot to get into the procession, and this was wonderful because we could just look around at the magnificent lake and mountains. Eventually we could look to our left and see a bunch of boats joining the procession and look forward and see all the boats ahead of us. It was really something.

Next, we pulled in at the shore, all lined up next to each other. We sat there for at least an hour and half, maybe longer, while a bunch of men and maybe 2 women made speech after speech after speech after speech. We thought it would never end. It was SO hot and humid. Fortunately, festival volunteers waded out to the boats with big boxes of water and periodically filled our water bottles.

At one point one of the speakers said, “I want you to look around at all the people around you,” and someone in the next boat over said, “We have been!” which made my bench mate, who was particularly over it, laugh.

I know at big events like this the dignitaries have to make speeches, but it just seemed so ironic to me that these men were making 4500 breast cancer survivors wilt in the heat. I thought at least we had it better than the walkers, who must really be suffering – at least we could pour water over our heads. But this afternoon at the spa I talked with a friend who was in the land procession. She said the walk was very long and very hot, but that they passed places to eat. They were supposed to stay with their teams but there were many stops that lasted a LONG time, so at one point she just ran over and stood in line for ice cream and came back with a huge cone, which did the trick.

She also said the walkers did not have to stay in procession for the speeches. Many of them walked right into the lake to cool off and later they found some shade and watched the ceremony on a Jumbotron. They were very worried about us, though, stuck on the boats. Even though only dignitaries were allowed in front of our boats, a few intrepid teammates came anyway, and one of them passed us a box of McVitie’s, which was very much appreciated as we were all starving.

By the time we got out of the boats it was probably 5:45 or so. The festival was providing dinner to all of us and there was going to be a concert afterwards. But dinner wasn’t until 7, and I couldn’t bear the thought of standing in line with 4449 other people waiting to get my meal. So I walked back to the hotel with a teammate and her husband. It was about a 25 or 30 minute walk, but the city buses were crammed with people and we weren’t sure we’d even be able to get on one. Back at the hotel I took a heavenly shower and then Mary had dessert and I had dinner at the bar.

The train ride to Aix-les-Bains was about 2.5 hours, and other than the fact that it was very hot, it was a lovely ride. As we were boarding the train, I spotted a paddler from the Vancouver, WA team and said hi. She and her husband ended up sitting right across from us, and there were three other dragon boaters (from Australia and Canada I believe) in the seats behind us. I thought I had reserved us window seats facing each other, but when we got to our seats there were two French women in the window seats. I’m not sure how it started, but we began to chat, me in my limited French, and the younger woman in French and English. She translated for her mother (I think it was her mother) and that way we all had a conversation. I was so delighted to be speaking with French people and managing it.

I did study French in the year leading up to this trip, but at one point it began to look like Mary might not be able to come and I got demoralized and quit. I only took it back up a month or so ago, and was worried I wouldn’t be able to converse. In fact, I’ve done great, and am so proud of myself every time I am able to communicate fully in French.

The younger woman asked where we were going and I said we were going to Aix-les-Bains for the dragon boat festival. They weren’t sure what a dragon boat is, so I showed them a picture.

I explained that there will be 40 different countries and 4500 paddlers. They wanted to know where we are from, and couldn’t quite place Oregon geographically, so I pulled up a map on my phone and also showed them a photo of Mt. Hood because one of them had asked if we had mountains. They also occasionally pointed out what we were looking at. It was so delightful.

At one point I left the car to go sit in the vestibule, which was marginally cooler. There was a little bench seat, next to the bathroom. A little later, the older woman came to use the bathroom and pointed to the bathroom to ask if I was waiting. I shook my head and said, “Je suis trop chaud,” which I believe means I am too hot. She nodded and said, “Oui! Oui!”

The stop before Aix-les-Bains is Chambery, and I believe Aix-les-Bains is 15 minutes or so later. The train started up again after Chambery and then began to go back in the direction we had come. All the dragonboaters around us began to voice their concerns. I was wondering too if something bad was happening. Eventually I asked my new French amie. She and her mother both laughed and explained that Aix-les-Bains was a branch off of the route and we were indeed going in the right direction. There was still a lot of consternation among the paddlers, so I loudly announced, “We are not going in the wrong direction.” My new Vancouver paddler friend said, “We aren’t?” and I said, “no.” Then Mary added, “She says C’est normal,” indicating my new friend. Then everyone, including the two French ladies, began to laugh.

When we got to Aix, I said to our seat mates, ,” Enchantee, Bon voyage et Au Revoir.” She seemed amused by this. I’m sure I was not putting everything together correctly. She wished us luck in our races and I said, “Come watch,” because earlier she had said they might. I was very happy about our 2.5 hours together.

From the train station it was a very short walk to our lovely hotel. I have to get ready now for our first practice on Lac Bourget, but I hope to have time to write more later.