Part II
(So how different is England?)
Toilets.
(They don’t have toilets?)
They have…different toilets.
(Different how? Like no seats?)
No…two separate flush buttons. I thought this was an airport thing. In people’s homes, in restaurants. It’s nationwide.
On our first day in England, we had one objective: Abbey Road.
We were surprised to find many tourists at the crosswalk made famous by the Beatles.
(It’s a crosswalk. Isn’t there traffic?)
Yes, lots of it. So, it took like 12 times for us to get the picture…but we did. Since I was a sophomore in high school holding the Beatles Abbey Road record, I had dreamed of this moment and we had just flown 3,465 miles to make it happen. It was happening.
(How does your family manage your determination?)
To quote my 16-year-old, “Nobody moves until Dad is happy with the picture.”
Where else did you go that first day?
Nowhere else.
(That’s it?)
Yup. Wanted to spend time with our hosts.
(Wait, did you work out?)
I haven’t missed a workout in over 550 days, so after feeding the kids dinner I ran a short 4-miler to Abbey Road and back.
(Then you went to sleep?)
Then we went out to eat.
(But, but, but your body…)
Needed to be reset to European time.
Day 2: “Tunneling to Paris.”
(You took a train?)
Not just a train. I grew up in White Plains, NY. My dad used to take me on the Metro North to the Museum of Natural History in NYC. This was more; it was between 2 countries. The hoops we had to jump through at the station made it like flying: passports, covid test proof, luggage scan, body scan.
(Two hours in a tunnel?)
Two-hour ride, 20 minutes in a tunnel.
(So, how was France?)
I had been warned that the French are rude. That they are obnoxious. That they are stuck up.
(Is any of it true?)
None of it, but it was challenging since I don’t speak French and none of the French seem to speak American.
(“American”?)
This became a problem fast.
My 16 year old needed the bathroom…but you have to pay to use the public toilets.
(Again with the toilets?)
Wait…there’s more.
(There’s more?)
There’s always more.
Since no one magically spoke English, there was no way to ascertain where to get these “magic toilet tokens.”
(5 minutes in France and you are already causing problems.)
But wait…there’s more.
(More?)
More.
I went to grab a cab.
“How much?” I asked the man on the curb.
“72 euro.”
“Hmmm? That sounds like a lot. Let me check the conversation rate…$1 to 1.08 Euro!”
(You walked?)
For 32 euros, I found a different taxi.
As soon as we checked into our hotel, my son used the “non token, two button Euro toilet.” Then we headed back out.
(To the Louvre?)
Nah, Eiffel Tower.
(But all the great works of art…)
…would bore my kids. I asked them in advance about their “Paris goals.” They wanted monuments, not Monets.
Once we had taken enough pictures in front of the world’s biggest erector set, it was back to the hotel to decide where to eat dinner. We kept hearing that there is an amazing falafel place, but…we can do that in Israel. We wanted authentic Kosher Parisian food.
We were riding in a cab that was speeding down a two-way street that seemed too narrow for one car. We could hear those distinctive French police sirens scream in the distance.
It felt like…
(…a James Bond Film?)
Quite right.
L’Aile ou la Cuisse was a tiny kosher French restaurant that time had tucked away in its pocket.
It was located on a narrow cobblestone side street with tall buildings on either side that blocked the sunlight from shining all the way down to the street. Small round tables and wicker chairs dotted the sidewalk. This could have been 1950s France or even 1920s France. The restaurant owner came outside and read the menu to us from a posterboard. There is something about hearing food mentioned in an authentic French accent that excites both the imagination and the palate. I wanted to order everything.
There I was, sitting outside, in Paris, drinking Bordeaux and eating foie gras.
(Chopped liver?)
Comparing chopped liver to foie gras is like comparing Schlitz to Champagne. All those James Bond films I had watched as a kid and now I, David Roher of Teaneck, NJ, was for one brief moment, living like James Bond.
(All that was missing was the martini.)
And the machine gun-wielding assassins.
After dinner there were 3 spots left to visit.
First the Bastille, the famous symbol of French monarchy that everyone learns but never really understands. The prison was torn down in 1789 and now all that is left is a monument to the king’s tyranny.
We went to the monument; I ran a 1-mile loop around it.
(Didn’t you have a belly full of French cuisine?)
It’s not like I was going swimming. Besides, I still had to train for the impending race.
1-miler done, I was ready to move onto the Arc de Triomphe…but my family was tired, so it was back to our hotel.
After the kids fell asleep my wife turned to me and said, “I never thought that I would see Paris; thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“The two places I always wanted to visit were France and Italy…”
“Googling…Ironman…Italy.”
By David Roher
