An ideal day in Lyon

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Here’s an ideal travel day: Sleep in. Enjoy a pleasant breakfast in a French bistro. A friendly cabbie explains why Lyon has the world’s best cooking as he drives you to a silk shop. A charming clerk helps you make your silk purchases. Walk down the quaint narrow streets of the Presq’île district to catch the parade of a Renaissance festival. Ride a funicular up a hill. Enjoy spectacular views of the city and the snow-capped Alps beyond. Browse the historic Basilica de Fourvière. View ancient artifacts in the Gallo-Roman Museum. Wander through the ruins of a Roman amphitheater. Enjoy a glass of wine outdoors, with views of the Alps in the distance. Sniff your way through the food stalls of Les Halles and buy some macaroons for the relatives you’ll be visiting the next day. Get back to your hotel for a brief afternoon nap. Accompany some new friends to dinner for melt-in-your-mouth seafood with more fine wine. And write a blog post. That was the Saturday my traveling companion and I enjoyed.

My traveling companion and I enjoyed a fabulous day in Lyon, including a walk across the Rhòne.

The quaint streets of old Lyon are more fun to walk, I’m sure, than they are to drive.

Where people in Lyon go when they’re feeling les miserables?

We happened upon a parade that appeared to be part of a Renaissance festival, starting in Place Bellecour.

I was not quick enough to catch the flag twirlers when they tossed their flags in the air.

The most amazing part of the parade was these women on stilts.

A huge statue of Louis XIV dominates Place Bellecour.

 

My woeful ignorance of the French language kept me from reading what this garden honors, but I did appreciate les fleurs.

The basilica towers above Lyon.

Basilica de Fourvière

Inside the basilica

The basilica ceiling

Huge mosaics cover the basilica walls.

Views of Lyon and the distant Alps from the basilica are breathtaking. That round tower in the center is our hotel, the Radisson Blu.

My companion enjoys fish art. Apparently the Romans did, too. The Gallo-Roman Museum displayed antiquities more than two millennia old, from the Roman city of Lugdunum, on the site of present-day Lyon.

The Roman faces captivated me most in the museum. This was Emperor Caracalla.

Roman gods (and planets, for that matter) are well represented in the museum’s faces. Here’s Mercury.

And Neptune

And, of course, Jupiter

These were apparently a mother and daughter.

The Roman museum is built adjacent to the ruins of an amphitheatre. Some theatrical masks are among the artifacts that have been found.

Yeah, the masks are kinda creepy.

Even creepier were the funeral masks. This one’s a cyclops.

Another funeral mask

And another

I told you they were creepy.

This mask is sad, apparently from the funeral of a young girl.

This container is huge. With walls that thin, could it have held water. If not water, what would you use an urn that large for? It had no plaque to explain.

I wonder if Red Rocks will hold up as well in 2,000 years as the Amphitheatre of the Three Gauls. With the view of the city and the mountains, it reminded me somewhat of Red Rocks, which we visited in October.

Friends, Romans, countrymen …

 

Flavorful Lyon

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There is a feeling when you travel, that you must not waste time. Certainly, that can serve you well. There are sights in every city that shouldn’t be missed. But then again, sometimes we miss the flavor, the tenor, the actual heart of a city because all we see are the sights.

I’ve been lucky while in Lyon, France. We’ve put off most of our sight-seeing until my companion is finished with the three day conference he was invited to attend here. That has left me on my own to wander, not bothering with the main tourist attractions, knowing that we’ll get to them on the weekend. I’ve enjoyed just taking in the city.

My first morning here it took me nearly until noon to get myself together and shake off the jet lag. That’s much too late to watch the city’s top chefs making their purchases at Les Halles de Lyon, an indoor market of gourmet food shops. But Les Halles is easy walking distance from our hotel, so I strolled over anyway. I’m so glad I did.

Enticing offerings at the charcuterie

The place was bustling. Customers shopped with purpose, filling the large shopping bags on their arms with the best of the best. Unobtrusively as possible, I stalked one humpbacked dowager as she made her way from stall to stall, gathering ingredients. She picked new spring peas at green grocer and fresh tagliatelle from the homemade pasta booth. After a stern debate at the charcuterie, she added a lovely, thick slice of pancetta to her bag. I left her picking through bottles at the wine booth, jabbering at the seller, no doubt haggling for a good price.  Assuming she had eggs and lots of pepper at home already, my mouth watered at the thought of the carbonara she’d soon make.

Not surprisingly, I suddenly realized I was hungry. But ordering food in a country where you know nothing more than bonjour and merci can be tricky. Surrounded on every side by wonderful gourmet food, I had no idea how to ask for any of it. Grunting and pointing seemed so crass. A kiosk with posted pictures of sandwiches and salads was crowded with lunchtime business, and again I lurked off to the side, observing. The sandwiches looked marvelous, and every single diner had a small glass of wine by their plates.

My awesome croque madam

At last a barstool opened up, and I shyly snuck onto it, noticing as I did that the young man next to me had just been served what appeared to be a grilled cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top. When the very busy clerk stopped in front of me with a “Bonjour,” I pointed to the young man’s plate and said in English, “I’ll have that, please.” The clerk smiled with a, “Oui,” and bustled off. The young man turned to me and said in English, “It’s called “croque madam,” you know, because of the egg. It’s very good here.” We went on to have a pleasant conversation, him telling me the things I should be sure to see in Lyon, and asking if I’d seen the White House when I told him I was from the Washington, D.C. area.

When my food arrived it was even better than I anticipated. The wonderfully textured French bread was charred just enough along the grill marks to give a twinge of bitterness, pleasantly offsetting the rich egg and what could only be a Raclette cheese filling. Twice the waiter stopped, pointing to my plate and raising his shoulders in gallic question. I would nod, and say, “It’s very good.” He’d nod back. The third time he paused, I looked over at my dining companion, unsure how to reassure the waiter I really was pleased with my meal. They exchanged a few words, and then the young man leaned in to whisper, “He’s hoping you’ll say it’s awesome.” Turning to the waiter, I said in my best Midwestern twang, “This is just awesome.” The waiter grinned and pumped his fist in the air. We all had a good laugh and he brought me a small strawberry tart on the house.

Before I left on this trip, a young friend told me if all I did was sit in sidewalk cafes, sipping wine and watching people, it would be time well spent. He is wise beyond his years. Yesterday, I did just that, and found the people of Lyon friendly, happy, well-dressed and deliciously fed.

 

‘Shoulda stayed home’; Inner Skeptic Is Left Behind

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Every time I travel, especially if it’s a long trip, I hit a point where I’m overwhelmed. Maybe it’s the planning; reading guidebooks so jammed full of places to go and things to see that I just don’t know how I’ll chose what to do with my limited time. Maybe it’s leaving love ones behind; will they all be OK until I get back? Maybe it’s just in my blood. I had a great-grandmother who didn’t leave the farm for months at a time.

Whatever the reason, I always have a moment when I say the words, “I don’t want to go.”

This time it happened when my companion was leaving to run a few last minute errands. I was in our bedroom, staring at the pile of clothes heaped on the bed and I said, “There’s no way these are all going into my one suitcase, is there?” He looked at the stack and said, “Nope. I’ll be right back.” My reply? “I don’t want to go.” He grinned, gave me a kiss in passing and replied, “Yeah, you do.” You’re wrong, I thought. At that particular moment I really did want to forget the whole thing, order some cheap Asian food, and watch an old movie with my little dog on my lap.

But I also knew this trip was a hell of an opportunity. Three weeks in Europe. Who in their right mind turns down a chance to see France, Switzerland and Italy? Yes, I was overwhelmed, but ditch the whole plan? That would be worse than crazy. It would be crassly ungrateful. So I pushed my old lady, homebody instincts down, jamming them between my desires to see Michelangelo’s David and sample real Italian gelato. A few hours later I got on a plane.

“Shoulda stayed home.” The thought mocked me as we sat on the tarmac for an hour.“Shoulda stayed home,” it giggled as I picked at a freakishly bad airline meal. “Shoulda stayed home,” it murmured through my headset as I pulled an inadequate blanket around me, shivering from the cold air seeping in the bulkhead wall. Shoulda stayed home. I’ve heard  it every damn trip I’ve ever taken, even when I was a little girl just going to my grandparents house to stay the night. I was more than just physically tired. I was sick of my own whining inner thoughts.

Sunrise over the port wing of a Boeing 777

The Atlantic was behind us when I finally gave up on sleeping. Stiff and bleary eyed, I stretched and turned to the tiny portal over the wing to look out at the black night. There, just over the hump of giant jet engine, was the sunrise.

And suddenly I was jolted, not by resistance, but by excitement. For weeks, when I spoke with people about this trip, I’d say, “I’m very excited,” knowing I should be. But the little skeptic in me kept me oddly detached, holding onto the notion that perhaps I wouldn’t actually go. But finally, happily, as we rushed toward that thin stripe of pink breaking night sky, my heart began to hammer. I was going to see things I’ve only read about. I was going to wander unfamiliar cities, taste flavors I’ve never eaten before and drink things out of strange bottles with exotic names.
With that line of pink I finally let go, and home fell away.
It turns out my companion was right after all. I always really do want to go. Sometimes it just takes leaving to make me realize it.

Holiday greetings from Steve and Mimi

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Madeline Burke Buttry (granddaughter #2), born February 1, 2012

Holiday greetings to our friends and family! 2012 has been a year of important life events in our extended family – the joyous birth and baptism of our granddaughter Madeline and weddings of nieces Meg and Liz and nephew Jon and the heartbreaking death of our nephew Brandon.

On the professional front, the big news is the publication of (and lots of positive reviews for) Mimi’s novel, Gathering String. I had a busy professional year, but nothing that big. Heck, I didn’t even change jobs.

Madeline and Susie

Madeline appeared the day before the legendary groundhog, Feb. 1. We have been delighted to get four visits this year with Madeline and her sister Julia (below), who turned two in March. We visited their home in Edina, Minn., right after Madeline was born, then again in April for her baptism, then in July. And in October, we met in Colorado for Meg’s wedding (more on that shortly). Madeline is crawling, standing and starting to speak. Julia has an active imagination and loves to pretend. They will both get lots more attention from Granny and Gramps on a Christmas visit to Edina. Mike and Susie are both doing well, too, and don’t seem to mind that Granny and Gramps pretty much ignore them in favor of the cutest members of their family. Grandpaparazzi thoroughly documented each of our visits. Granny does a fair amount of shopping for her little girls. We shipped two boxes of gifts out to Edina for Christmas because we couldn’t fit them all in suitcases. Continue reading →

Remembering Brandon and Patrick and a special day when their futures looked boundless

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Brandon Buttry and Patrick Devlin at Starved Rock State Park in 2006

Today I’m remembering — fondly, but through tears — a special trip we took in 2006 to Starved Rock State Park in Illinois.

We chose that as the location for a family reunion, probably the biggest gathering my extended family has ever had. My younger brother Don came in from Iowa, joined by 13 of his 14 children. My brother Dan came in from the Detroit area. Sister Carol came from Vermont with her two children. Mom came up from the Kansas City area, the last long trip she took by car (Mom’s in a memory care unit now). Cousins that we hadn’t seen for decades came in from around the Midwest.

We had good-natured fun with roasts to note Don’s 50th birthday, coming up that fall, and a granddaughter put together some slides as an observance of Mom’s 80th birthday, which would be that December.

One of my favorite memories of that gathering was the bond between two of my nephews, Brandon Buttry and Patrick Devlin, both 13 that summer. They hung out together pretty much all weekend. When we hiked the rocks and canyons of the park, they scrambled together up the steepest inclines, exploring the park more aggressively than their younger siblings and cousins or their older siblings, uncles, aunts and parents. No one enjoyed the park more than Brandon and Patrick did. Few people enjoy life with the gusto that Brandon and Patrick did.

Dan and I, both Eagle Scouts, took Patrick and Brandon to the nearby Ottawa Scout Museum. Patrick was a Scout, determined to join his uncles as an Eagle. Brandon wasn’t in Scouts, but he tagged along because he and Patrick were pretty much inseparable that weekend. They are together time and again in my photos of the gathering.

And they will always be together in my heart — nephews we lost too young. Neither of those wonderful young men made it to their 20th birthdays. We lost Patrick to leukemia in 2009, a year after climbing mountains at Philmont Scout Ranch, but before he could finish his Eagle Scout project. We lost Brandon today, killed in action less than a week after earning his Combat Infantry Badge in Afghanistan.

I don’t have much more to say. It’s hard to write even this much. Just this: Cherish the special young people in your life. They have so much promise, but you never know how long you will have them.

From left, me, Patrick Devlin, Brandon Buttry and Dan Buttry at the Ottawa Scouting Museum.

Brandon and Patrick behind a waterfall at Starved Rock.

Brandon Buttry in May, graduating from basic training at Fort Benning, Ga., in May 2012.

Patrick Devlin in Scout uniform.

 

Visiting the Georgia mountains, I celebrate family past and present

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Sunrise from Bella Vista cabin, Helen, Ga.

I have lived in more than a dozen places around the country and abroad, none of them in the Appalachians. But each time I visit these mountains, especially in the South, I know I am getting close to my roots.

My father’s people came from the mountains of eastern Tennessee. The mountains around the Chattahoochee River in northwest Georgia are some 200 miles to the south, but somehow this feels like our family belongs here. And indeed we are here for a Buttry clan celebration, the wedding of my nephew, Jon Buttry, to the love of his life, Jamie Mayo. Dad was a country boy who grew up in Chenoa, Ill., but we knew the “can’t hardly” that occasionally snuck into his speech was a reminder of his family’s backwoods roots in Sneedville, Tenn. He went off to seminary in Chicago, got a master’s degree and saw the world as an Air Force chaplain. But he always was a country boy at heart.

Perhaps in the same way that my son Mike loved the Dukes of Hazzard when he was growing up in a Midwestern city, I feel drawn to these mountains I have only visited. (We did see signs for Dukes Creek on our drives this weekend, and would not have been surprised to see Bo and Luke — that was Dad’s name — shoot past us in the General Lee.) Continue reading →

Even though we’re not high rollers, we win on a visit to Vegas

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A lovely Chihuly in a lounge isn’t enough for the Bellagio …

To do things up in Vegas style, you need a full Chihuly ceiling.

Las Vegas did not build all this glitter in the desert based on the wagering of the likes of my companion and me.

We just spent five days in Vegas. I don’t think we bet $100 between the two of us.

We did take in a show. We ate and drank at Vegas prices. We spent a night in a penthouse suite. We took in the Vegas lights and sights, where even something as beautiful as Chihuly glass art must be done to excess.

But this was mostly a business and family visit to Vegas. I attended a conference, as lots of visitors do. But when my day at the career fair was over, instead of heading for the casino, I headed for the home of my son, Joe, and his wife, Kim. Continue reading →

Viva Las Vegas

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Our gift basket

I’ve never been much for Las Vegas. For an introvert like me, it’s all just too much. Too many people, too many of them drunk. Too many lights, too many fountains, and way too much ding, ding, ding from the slot machines. As I write this, I can look through the airport windows at the odd sight of the Luxor‘s pyramid and Sphinx. Just a block down from there are replicas of the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower. Crazy. The only word for it is crazy.

So I should have seen it coming when my middle son, Joe Buttry, decided to come live here. He and his wife, Kim Bagby, are both professionals in theatrical production. That means they do things like coordinate loading shows in and out of venues, hang, set and operate lights, and, well, many more things that I don’t really understand. Las Vegas is a gold mine of work for people in their profession. As Joe always likes to remind me, there are lots of people living normal lives, even in Sin City.

We’ve visited here before, and our time with the kids is always good. Like Joe says, we do normal things. We catch up with each other, play with Leeroy and Harry, the couple’s Yorkshire terriers, and, of course, because I am who I am, we cook up a storm. Sometimes it startles me at night, when I glance out the window on their stairway landing, to see the bright halo of light radiating from The Strip, having forgotten the manic, adult playground just a few miles away.

This past week my companion was here for a work event, right at Mandalay Bay, where our son has also been employed for the last few years. If you’ve never been there, Mandalay Bay is an enormous complex, including a hotel, casino, retail stores, restaurants, a convention center and an arena. For this visit, we spent most of the week at Joe and Kim’s home. But Friday was our 38th wedding anniversary, and Joe very thoughtfully arranged for us to have a penthouse suite at the Mandalay hotel. Kim also arranged complimentary tickets for the Cirque du Soleil show, O, at the Bellagio that night. Continue reading →

A visit to Switzerland, a simpler place and pace

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Lena and Johnny greet Grandma and Papa J

This is a guest post by Jim Head, a/k/a “Papa J,” our brother-in-law. At our invitation, he and his wife, Mary, are sharing a “2 Roads Diverged” view of their recent trip:

Just three weeks ago, my wife Mary and I were anticipating a long-awaited trip to Switzerland where we would visit our oldest daughter Kate, her husband Mark and two young children, Lena and Johnny.

It was unlike me to be packed three days before our date of departure, which suggests how ready I was to see this family and to slip away from the work-a-day in Des Moines where we live.

Years ago, Mary and I had always hoped we would travel overseas – we had our passports ready – but it wasn’t until Kate and her family moved there in 2010 that we had the incentive to make that happen.  This trip would be our third since their assignment began and possibly the last to this location before they return to the U.S.  It’s unlikely we will ever visit Switzerland again, so this visit had a slight melancholy feel about it. Continue reading →

Our daughters teach us to give and show us the world

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Jim, Kate and Mary in Switzerland

This is a guest post by Mary Head, Mimi’s sister. At our invitation, she and her husband, Jim, are sharing a “2 Roads Diverged” view of their recent trip:

Having children … the overwhelming role of parenthood. I must attempt to teach them everything I know, remembering example means so much more than words. Will I live the life of example? Will I be the person who reaches out to others and not the taker? Will I show them enough of myself and enough of the world to open their minds and broaden their horizons?

Oh, the irony of a mother’s worries. I am on a long flight home from Europe – returning from a two-week visit with our daughter and her family – reflecting, laughing and crying. My children are no longer children. Did I teach them all I knew? Not as much as they’ve taught me. Have I been the model of the giver? Not the givers they have been. Have I shown them enough of the world? Not compared to the world they have shown me. Have I broadened their horizons and opened their minds?  Not compared to the horizons they have opened to me. Continue reading →