I Fall in Love in Nice

On the eve of summer

I fall in love in Nice

with a man I’ll never know.

C’est tragique!, I say

A la Henri 2, yet I survive.

In that hour I live a year

lusting after a cheerful singer

who entertains us all

before the Irish pub

On the eve of summer.

A rectangle bulges from

His blue jeans pocket.

A black shirt matches the hair

That curls around sweet cheeks.

I love to sing, he says without saying

As he sings, he smiles.

When he waves his hands,

We wave along.

 

“Celebration,” they sing.

“Good times all the time.”

The crowd cheers and sways

Buoyed by the wonder

Of a day in Nice.

I do the same, yet I’ve come

To a higher plane, an ecstasy

I didn’t expect

On this simple Saturday night

On the eve of summer.

 The crowd swells and shrinks

Yet I remain constant waiting

To see him smile and sing.

He smiles the song of life

As his passion rallies the crowd.

The guitarist frowns to himself,

Exhausted from his efforts.

But on the eve of summer,

The singer stays focused.

He must show us the way

As he leads us into the summer

Of our wildest dreams.

 When the band stops playing

I seize my chance to rush him.

When I compliment his music,

He’s forced to listen.

“Très belle!” I insist. “Magnifique!”

“The name of your group?”

It takes me three times to understand

The Soul Band, Le Band du Soul.

This I should have guessed.

Whether he likes it or not,

I reach for his hand,

A soft warm hand,

And I shake it.

In three brief seconds

I gather the energy I can

All the emotion he can spare

For an unexpected love

In the middle of the street

In the Vieille Ville of Nice

On a fine brilliant night

On the eve of summer.

Strategic Relative Placement

 It’s true that you can’t choose your relatives. Neither can you choose where they live. But once they’ve made that choice, you can try your best to make use of their locations.

This is why I’m flying to Zürich tomorrow. My brother has been living there for the past decade or so. While I can’t claim that he has chosen to live in Zürich because I approve, I capitalize on his decision nearly every summer.

 

Sailboats at Rest on Lake Zuerich

 What’s the best thing about having a sibling who lives in Europe? I’ve always got an excuse to go there. “Oh, I must check up on my brother,” I tell people. He doesn’t really need checking up on. He wouldn’t listen to advice if I offered it to him. But even people who don’t like to travel have to admit that I have a good reason for heading to Switzerland. Any good sister might have to do the same.

Not only do I have an excuse to go to Europe, but I have a free place to stay. And since Switzerland is such a long way from Arizona, I can even be demanding. I can say, “Hey, my friend and I are coming and we’re going to crash at your apartment. That’s all right, isn’t it?”

What can he say? If I’m the one traveling nearly 6,000 miles, then I get to be just a little bit bossy. He can’t say, “Oh, well, let me think about whether I’ll have other guests staying that week.” Even though my parents and some of his friends have gone to visit, I’ve got them all beat in sheer number of trips I’ve made to his city. 

 

Come on in!

As it turns out, I really like Zürich. There are many reasons for this. It’s not a tourist town, so the actual tourists can go around unnoticed. It sits on a beautiful lake; people spend their summers promenading around it. Once mid-summer hits, people swim in the lake. It’s shallow enough that it warms up enough for some of the braver swimmers. That number, of course, includes me. What could better than having a lake at your disposal on a hot summer’s day?

Ready for a river plunge

Zürich also has a river. Behind the train station, there’s an area where bathers go to enjoy this additional water source. They jump in from a bridge and then float all the way down to where the river peters out into nothing. On the hottest days, the area is so crowded you can hardly find a place to put your towel. It’s one of the best places in town: cheerful, happy, vibrant.

But the other incredible thing about having a brother who lives in Switzerland is the fact that he’s so central. That goes back to my first point. Not only do I always have an excuse to go to Switzerland to check up on my little brother, but from his house, it’s easy to go to so many other places. If I want to go to Paris, I merely offer my excuse as such:

"Where are you going this summer?"

"To Switzerland to check up on my brother."

"And after that?"

"I think I’ll go to Paris for a week. After all, it’s close by."

“Close by?” Actually it’s a trip of several hours, but in Europe, several hours can take you from coast to coast of a single country or from one country to another. From Zürich, virtually everything I want to see in Europe is easily accessible whether I go by train or plane or even car.

Lake Zuerich at Sunset

Have siblings that are on the job market? Figure out where you’d most like them to live so that it’s the most convenient for you. Then try to get them to apply to as many jobs in that area as possible. You might not be able to affect their decisions, but if those siblings are not sure what they really want to do anyway, it’s only fair to nudge them in the right direction. Your direction, that is!

Afternoon at The Grand Budapest Hotel

Even though we might like to travel all summer long, we don’t always have the time or opportunity to do so. In that case I offer a great way to travel this summer by going as far as your local theatre where you might still be able to catch The Grand Budapest Hotel. (Since the movie came out in late March, it should be out in DVD soon.)

Warning: May contain spoilers.

When I went to see the film, all I knew was that it had gotten good reviews, that a hotel was part of the setting, and that it included some oddball characters. As is often the case, I was quite glad I didn’t know any more than that, for each scene offered an unexpected surprise. It included a welcome cast of actors, many of whom are quite well known. It featured Ralph Fiennes as Gustave M., but when I walked into the theatre, I didn’t even know that much. I had such a busy spring I didn’t even notice the film’s promotion!

I loved many features of this film. It was clever. It was surprising. It was funny. It was one of those movies that makes me think: I wish I’d been clever enough to write this script. But from the travel point of view, the film is luscious because it offers so many fabulous settings starting with a mountainous European country that was “formerly known as Zubrowska.” (This is not to be confused with Zubrowka, which is an herb-flavored vodka.)

The hotel is a fabulous vacation setting. From its brilliant terrace, the hotel commands a view of wondrous mountains on three sides. It’s in such a beautifully isolated spot that people use a funicular to reach the entrance. The inside of the hotel is another wonder. It has a lobby that calls for high life and thermal baths to soothe the roughest customer, lush rooms to please the pickiest millionaire, and grand staircases that carry you farther into the scene and into the imagination.

To my surprise, however, much of the film takes place outside the hotel. The characters get themselves into such scrapes that they have to visit many other settings. They have to take long train rides, brave border crossings, and improvise transportation methods. One character even hides in a huge museum complete with sarcophagi. All these spaces look wonderful on a large screen: the lonely cities, the silent houses, the long, narrow lanes leading into mysterious ways of the heart and mind.

The international cast doubles this travel setting by presenting a smorgasbord of both Eastern and Western nationalities, lovely accents, and multiple languages. When Gustave H. is at his lowest point, he even calls on concierges from famous hotels in other parts of Europe; within moments we travel from Italy to France to England and back to Eastern Europe again.

By the time I left the theatre, I felt I’d been on a trip of the finest sort. I’d seen looming mountains topped with snow and gone over dangerous bridges. I’d enjoyed all varieties of both interior and exterior spaces. I’d gone back and forth between so many settings that I found the interior of the hotel strangely comforting even when it was the site of violent outbursts.

In short The Grand Budapest Hotel is a perfect remedy for an afternoon in which you might rather be somewhere far away. Wes Anderson’s film has the power to take you to places you’d never dreamed of, but most of them (not the jail!) are places you’d really like to go. This summer I’ll be doing some European traveling myself, but if a rainy day curtails my activities, I’ll head straight to the theatre, eager to enjoy this fine film all over again.


Note: If you'd rather travel via novels, my latest murder mystery, Island Casualty, takes place in Greece. My latest romance, Thai Twist, takes place in Thailand. http://www.drransdellnovels.com

Summer Travel Advice

For some lucky students, graduation is around the corner. For me it's almost that good too--it's summer vacation! The question is: where's the best place to travel to? I would usually answer that with "Any place!" I enjoy living in Tucson, but when I have free time, my vagabond feet yearn for uncharted territory. The problem is this: we don't have unlimited time or resources, so how can we decide where to travel to?

Dun Laoghaire, Ireland

For some of my friends, vacation means lying on the beach. There are lots of good places for this. There are plenty of good beaches in Florida, the Caribbean, the East Coast, the West Coast, Hawaii, France, Italy, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Ireland, and Greece--and those are only the ones I know about!

What are your own beach suggestions?

I'm partial to Greece because the scenery is so striking. Many of the beaches are rocky. The blue waters are deep and clear (although sometimes they come complete with jellyfish). One of the many advantages to "beaching" around Greece is that you can base yourself in one town on one island and explore different beaches every day. Instead of moving around a lot, you can appreciate all the beauty that you can imagine. There's a wonderful pleasure in getting up in the morning and having no goal more strenuous than heading to the beach!

Phuket, Thailand

In ISLAND CASUALTY, my new Andy Veracruz mystery that will be published next month, Andy goes to Greece for that reason--to have a chance to relax. He wants to visit Rachel as well, so he's hoping to have some flirty fun, but what he really needs to do is simply sit on the beach and have peaceful ocean swims. As you might guess, things won't work out so well for him, but his intentions are good!

In the book, the island Andy visits is called Amiros, but while I was composing, I had Kalymnos, a small island in the Dodecanese, in the back of my mind. He erroneously thinks he's going to an island paradise.

What would be your own favorite paradise?

South Coast, Sri Lanka

Half the Fun Is Getting There—As Long as It Includes Japanese Toys!

Half the fun really can be getting there. It helps to be flying instead of driving long hours. It also helps if you pass through the San Francisco International Airport. They’re just finishing up a wonderful exhibit on Japanese Toys from Kokeshi to Kaiju put on by the San Francisco Museum.

Who knew that toys could be quite so much fun? Because I was simply trying to kill time between flights on my way to Left Coast Crime, the big West Coast annual mystery conference, I happened to walk through Terminal 3 instead of taking the tram. I was completely delighted by the display of all kinds of Japanese toys.

The exhibit had old-style toys that were built during the Meiji period. It had wind-up toys and battery-operated toys and toys modeled off German and U.S. versions.

The most fabulous ones stemmed from Japanese TV, movies, and manga. There were Godzillas and speedmobiles, Ultramen, robots, and superpowers.

 

I had a big revelation. The little toy that Japanese friends had given us was not a cat, as I had supposed, but a dog! At least now I know what’s on my dresser.

 

One of the most surprising displays? A big pink and white dress made of Hello Kitties.

I went through the exhibit several times, taking pictures, taking everything in. Then I started people-watching. At first I had assumed the exhibit was for kids, but adults were stopped dead in their tracks at nearly every display. They were scrambling to find their cameras. They were taking pictures of the displays and posters and taking pictures of themselves with those displays. I had to really fight to get a picture with the Hello Kitty dress, for example!

At first I was puzzled as to why there were so many adults happily snapping pictures. Then I finally got it. It wasn’t that they were bored and trying to waste some time between flights. They were enjoying the rare opportunity to look creativity in the face and say, I love you.

That’s an important moment indeed.

Photos by D.R. Ransdell
For more on my mystery writing, please see http://www.drransdellnovels.com
 

What Happened to Spontaneity?

Technology has its price. One is spontaneity.

It used to be that if you arrived in a European city such as Florence by noon, you could find a hotel for the night. But with the help of on-line booking, people book weeks and even months in advance. If you don’t do the same, you wind up staying in an inconvenient, expensive hotel that’s far from where you want to be.

In other words, you have to join the crowd. In many ways, this is a big shame. How can I guess right now how many nights I really want to spend in Nice? I can’t. But I have to make a decision anyway.

Phuket, photo by D.R. Ransdell

I suppose in some ways this new system is useful. It forces me to think about things ahead of time. I have to plan my summer trip in April instead of as I go along. But I can think of plenty of times when it was great to be able to change my mind at the last minute. A prime example is when we were on the island of Phuket in Thailand. 

Patong Beach, photo by D.R. Ransdell

We’d gone on a day trip to Phang-nga when it started raining. And raining some more. The tour guide nonchalantly explained that the monsoons had started, and we could expect rainy days for the next weeks.

Phang-nga, photo by D.R. Ransdell

My friend and I immediately booked tickets to fly to Koh Samui, which is on the dry eastern side of the county. Our final days in the country were lovely. But what if we’d had reservations on Phuket that we couldn’t change? We would have been stuck in the monsoon playing cards in our room.

Perhaps we should have been more aware of the monsoon season! But no matter how much you plan, there are always things you just don’t count on.

Koh Samui, photo by D.R. Ransdell

When it comes to fiction, though, it’s no fun to have characters plan their trips ahead of time. Travel snafus make for great fiction! Hence in my novel THAI TWIST, the Campanello sisters combat the monsoon the “easy” way by making plans to go somewhere else. This is why I love fiction. You can be sure to make everything work out.

What about your own travel spontaneity? Has technology made traveling easier or better for you? How far in advance to you plan your trips? How often do you wish you could change your mind?

I’d write more, but I have to book hotel rooms for Paris before everyone else beats me out. I’ll be there at the end of June. In today’s world of on-line reservations, that’s just around the corner.

Happy traveler with a nice place to stay!

For details on THAI TWIST, please visit http://www-dr-ransdell.com