Cairo, as seen from a Limousine Cab in the Dead of Night Driven by a Very Affable Gentleman Who All Things Considered Would Prefer Not to Slow Down at This Particular Time
Cairo, Egypt
Oh right. We DIDN’T stay in Milan. THAT’S what happened.
We went to Cairo.
I must’ve forgotten on account of the fact that it makes no sense.
So, We Opted Not to Go to Egypt
Milan, Italy
Because we are responsible, worldly-wise adults who know better than to traipse gamely into a nation with an at-best complicated relationship with America mere months after they toppled their own government, weeks after a fresh round of violent protests between the ruling military and the citizenry, and days after an election that showed every sign of being fervently argued in the streets.
We are GROWNUPS. Grownups who read THE ECONOMIST. Who have COLLEGE DEGREES and 401KS and YEARS OF EXPERIENCE NOT GETTING SHOT AT and are not possessed of the mad and profitless yearning of aimless youth to demonstrate their place in the world by blithely charging into places where they clearly don’t belong.
So we stuck around Milan and took in the sights and sounds of one of the most vibrant and gorgeous cities in all of Italy, the uncontested fashion capital of Europe.
Oh look, cable cars!
Here we Come to a Junction
Milan, Italy
A week after the Egyptian Elections, do we stay in Italy, in the safe bosom of the Eurozone and nice, stable western civilization?
Or do we use our onward tickets to Cairo?
Blah, Blah, Blah, I’ve Performed at La Scala
Milan, Italy
So we’re wandering around in central Milan, and we see these stationary bikes set up, and there are a bunch of models standing next to them, and a bunch of people STARING at the bikes but not INTERACTING with the bikes, quite possibly because they’re intimidated by some combination of getting on a stage, exercising in public, or interacting with models, so Jenifer and I, who do not have compunctions about ANY of these things, or indeed much general decorum across the board, go up and get on the bikes, unprompted, at which point it becomes clear that the bikes are connected to a generator, which Edison Electric is using to power the lights during performances at La Scala, perhaps the most important Opera Theater on the planet, and then a camera man comes by, and the models explain in broken English that they want to capture footage of us biking to show as part of a reel at the beginning of performances at the opera house, explaining how great Edison Electric is, and would we mind horribly, and of course no, we really wouldn’t mind any of that at all.
So, right. We appear regularly at La Scala.
But I don’t like to make a big thing out of it.
A Treachery of Perspective
Milan, Italy
Great architecture is the sort of place that, once visited, becomes a recurring setpiece in your dreams.
Logistics
Nice, France
I hate renting cars. The idea of getting saddled with this big, gigantic thing, which I now have to keep track of, keep maintained, worry about losing or breaking, and accept a practically-speaking unlimited amount of liability for, causes me ceaseless and unrelenting anxiety. It’s like paying for the privilege of puppysitting a 1200 pound dog with a massive appetite and a predisposition towards biting kids, whose owners need you to drop him off in a bad neighborhood between 2 and 2:45 in the afternoon.
And so, in Nice, where we were due to unsaddle ourselves from this dire obligation at the main train station, I was rather insistent that Avis assure me, in two languages and on three occasions, that we would absolutely, positively be able to get rid of this giant, hideous, mobile-personal-injury-lawsuit-factory at 12 noon, before our train was to depart for Milan. And yes, yes, yes, and also oui, they insisted, it would not be a problem at all. They would be out, true, and the door would be locked, true, because it was lunch, and if you are French you simply do not conduct business at lunch, but there is a key box, and it will not be a problem in the least.
Said keybox, apparently, had never encountered an electronic car key before, and did not care for it in the slightest.
Not pictured: violent, angry kicking.
I do not say “not resorted to.”
When You Reach a Certain Station in Life
Nice, France
You can’t be expected to pull curtains closed on your own, like a chump.
Terroir
Avignon, France
Avignon’s special approbation in the viticultural universe is its “remarkable terroir.”
Terroir, most generally, refers to the elements of the land that end up in the bottle, and more practically, refers to the degree to which the vineyards of the region go out of their way to leave the fate of a particular bottle up to the vagaries of the climate, soil, winds, and God. In Avignon, where the “terroir” is “remarkable,” there’s a sort of contest on to see which vineyard can provide the least irrigation to their plants, in the harshest rocky field of vines, and show the most flagrant disregard for whether the yeast that has naturally wafted onto the grapes in the due course of the season is at all well-suited to fermentation.
Our guide, a British ex-pat, speaks with a heaping spoonful of diplomacy, and just a pinch of soulful admiration, at the predictable outcome of all this, which is that the often profoundly expensive bottles of wine from the region are, from year to year, completely unpredictable. Each one is a lovingly preserved record of a hundred thousand tiny variables well outside the vintner’s control, and they couldn’t reproduce the results if they wanted to, which they never, ever want to do. It is complex, and true, and real on some level that a more scientifically managed wine is not, and whether it’s better than last year’s, or not as good as last year’s, or really, not very good at all, is besides the point. It is what it is, and when you drink it, you’re getting a sensation you can only have from that one vineyard, from that one grape, for that one year, a sensation deeply personal and guaranteed to be unique.
Jenifer tries very hard not to scoff. She asks a series of probing questions and considers what the ramifications of all this are, and concludes, really, if you’re going to spend five hundred dollars on a bottle of wine, you’ve got every right to expect to be the SAME wine you went to forty tastings to discover you liked three years ago, within a very narrow margin of error, and the vagaries of the wind can take a flying leap.
After all, why go through the process of all those tastings, all those trips down the wine aisles, all those leaps of faith on an unfamiliar label, if not to try and find that particular Pinot, or Merlot, or Chardonnay, that is your personal favorite? What are you looking for if you aren’t looking for a new insight into what you enjoy, if you aren’t trying to pry out a new secret about yourself? And what kind of cruel farce is it if, when you finally hunt down your Very Favorite Wine of All Time, the winemaker has no idea how it was made and no intention of ever making anything like it ever again?
It’s nice, I think, to find a taste that means something to you, a label you keep coming back to because you know it’s what you want. There’s a wisdom in that. But it’s sort of a false choice. Even if the wine stays the same forever, your tastes change. They change every time you find yourself holding your jacket shut tight and fighting against the wind. They change every time you get stuck out in a rainstorm with nothing but a t-shirt on. They change on sunny days in rocky fields when pollen floats through the air. You pick up all the subtle flavors and distinct aromas from the wide and wild world around you, all the stuff you touch and all the stuff that touches you, and year after year after year, despite your finest efforts, you’ve changed.
