I guess I'm just ambitious

I don’t mean to be ungrateful. I appreciate it. Every time. I really do. But I guess I’m just… I’m more ambitious than that.

It's not just us. The French
sure know how to make a
sheep pen look dangerous.

I’m not sure when we changed over. Was it September 11th? Was that when we stopped saying “happy travels” and retreated into the more fearful “travel safe”? Is that the day we let a finite event darken our ongoing reality?

Because I feel safer abroad than I do at home. Danger is in the mundane, the autopilot trip to the store among people with a thousand things on their minds (and a steering wheel in their hands). Wish me safe grocery shopping if you like, but in the streets of Paris? Safely safe me in safety. Alert to the details of the place I’m enjoying.

I am not scared of your televised danger,

This sign in the Vatican warns us
there are two kinds of walking.
I know which one looks more fun to me.

I am not scared of every stranger.

I am not scared, Sam I am...not.

Whereas in the US post office this morning a guy was ranting about “This is bullshit!” and “It’s like the fuckin’ DMV in here!” Granted my local post office is the slowest specimen this side of the Euphrates, but still, this was more hostility than I’d experienced in any of the supposedly dangerous lanes of international travel. And the guy was pushing a baby stroller. Good luck, kiddo. Because the danger is in quotidian malcontentment. Daesh ain’t got nearly that reach.

Border outpost on the German border.
Oh yes, we live in a terrifying age.

The worst danger I encountered was the septic stink of a fellow passenger. Which was potent. Whew. Somebody’s belly didn’t start off happy, and airline food didn’t help at all. That’s the danger I faced. No need to call the army. (Well, perhaps they could send a gas mask?)

I am grateful to every one of you who wished me safe travels. I am. Thank you. And I’m grateful that we live in the most peaceful time in human history. (Don’t believe me? Come on my tour and we’ll talk about the Counter-reformation.) A time so peaceful, so prosperous and fundamentally secure that property values around the world have gone through the roof, and hordes of people are crowding into the places that used to be reserved for the privileged few.

Kinda annoying, but better than the alternative.

So thank you, friend, family, acquaintance who wished me “safe travels” yesterday. I wish the same for you. And more. Much more. I guess I’m just ambitious like that.

Travel! It's terrifying!

The Secret to Europe

No photo of the boulangerie, but this was just down the street

The smell of fresh baked bread. Is there anything on earth so glorious as that smell on a Paris morning? It was Friday and the perfectly round fruit-topped tarts were glistening with sugar and the muffins with their floured plumpness were the first part of an equation whose answer was a comfortable chair, cup of tea, and a good book. But it was the freshly baked baguettes that drew me in.

The mademoiselle behind the counter was chatting with the dignified madame l’customer ahead of me, their words lilting about in that frolicsome French that seems always on the verge of a loving tut-tut.

When it was my turn I stepped forward, gave a friendly smile and nod, and said in my very best French “Un baguette si vous plait.” I was killing it. An integrated part of this morning in the boulangerie.

Except maybe not. The mademoiselle seemed annoyed by my presence. She wasn’t rude, but nor was she nice. She was curt and briskly businesslike with my bread, so different from the affectionate glow of moments before, and barely looked at me as she handed over the bag and greeted the next person in line with a friendly hello.

Maybe the old stereotypes were right. Maybe the French (or Parisians at least) really were still rude to foreigners. Maybe my inevitable accent was just not good enough for their demanding sensibilities. How terribly disappointing!

Good thing it wasn’t true. It took me some time to figure out. Countless more small interactions across the continent, but eventually I noticed the missing piece. And what a difference it made.

So when I watched three young Americans make the same mistake I had, ordering their sandwiches on the Rue Cler last time I was in Paris, and receiving the same terse Parisian response, I was ready to share what I’d learned.

That's my big mystical secret

“It helps a lot if you say hello first.” I told them (not bothering to say hello first because we’re Americans). “It took me awhile to notice it, since back home we smile and get straight to the point, but over here they really like it if you greet them before saying what you want.”

Being Americans, they were guarded about this stranger speaking to them, their defensive caution struggling against the desire to learn and enjoy their vacation.

“So if you just start with a quick ‘Bon jour madame’ in France, ‘Buon giorno signore’ in Italy, whatever, you usually get a much better reaction.” They kind of mumbled a response, still wondering when I’d demand their wallets, so I let them be and stepped up to the counter.

“Bon jour madame” I said to the mistress of sandwiches, who chirped back the answering greeting. “Un sandwich au jambon et fromage, si vous plait.” And we were best buddies by the time she passed across my lunch.

The Americanas were immersed in their guide book when I turned around, but perhaps somewhere down the road they’ll speak from experience when they whisper to someone “It helps if you greet them first.”

I'm going to miss the technology I can't wait to get rid of

That scrappy little car was dinged up, scratched, and nonspecifically battered into a character all its own before we ever picked it up at the Athens airport. But once I figured out where reverse was, I gunned that spunky little engine (4, maybe 4.5 horsepower?) and we were off into the tzatziki swirl of Greek traffic.

Mandalay knew the rhythm

Cars coming in from the right, I’m bobbing left to pass then cutting out of the way of the speedracer trying for Dubai by nightfall, and the motorcycles sort of croon among the fray with their gaspy trumpets of unsavory exhaust and swoopy leaning turns. It was a big ballet of steel frames and plastic bumpers, scored by combustion engines and pleasantly restrained bips of horn, costumed by sunlight glints on hoods and side mirrors, and riding on warm Mediterranean wind blowing in the window to dance your hair.

I do my best not to drive in other countries. Shucks, I do my best not to drive at home either. But driving in Greece? That was fun. When I get a good car around me, the pull and shift of wheels and gears, making my strategic way through the breakdown of cohesion you get when we fallible humans are given such power, I admit it, it’s damn fun.

I love driving, but who loves traffic?

I enjoy driving.

And I can’t wait for autonomous, self-driven cars to take it away.

Of course, I personally should get to keep my normal car, but the masses around me ought to sit back and let google get them where they’re going. It will work out better for all of us that way. Because if there’s one thing I know about automobiles, it’s that humans are not yet ready for that kind of responsibility. Give us another millennium of evolution maybe, but for now we just can’t be trusted with such momentum and concussive force.

Sit back and watch, boys. It's safer.

This is especially obvious to we cyclists. Google wouldn’t pull right in front of us, because google has exponentially more eyes to point at the bike lane, as well as in front and behind and around itself. We poor sad humans have a mere two sensors (sorta four if you count the ears, but those are busy listening to Adele). We just can’t handle three dimensional movement. There’s too much going on for our monkey gray matter. I saw we let the machines do it.

Will there be a loss of fun? Absolutely. But a reduction of tedious stress? Definitely. And a massive diminishing of danger? You betcha.

This Malaysian boy knew there's
plenty of fun to be had without car keys

It’s like the end of the Wild West. Sure, after about the turn of the century you couldn’t ride around shooting your gun at whatever you felt like anymore, and I’m sure those days were a whole lot of fun. Target practice in the orchard? Why not! Until suddenly there’s a subdivision built behind it. But I for one am glad we got rid of that. (For the most part. Dangit.)

Taking away our steering wheels will be the same. I’ll miss the days of piloting my machine through the fray, but man I won’t miss the jackwad in the BMW who nearly ran me off the road yesterday, or the scatter-brained parent too busy raising a brood to signal, or the young fella who learned to drive from video games and doesn’t appear to comprehend how unsustainable that is.

So please google, automate our Bay Area traffic. And if we ever feel the need to go roll those automobile dice again? Well, there’s always Greece.

Athens, the Acropolis, and the church
across from our hotel