The Wheelchair Pusher Chronicles: The Final Chapter

Welcome Home Lobster at BarBrix

LAX started off so well

Our Suite on AirFrance

The illuminated signs in a plane you to be about smoking, now computers

We left the Sheraton, which is conveniently located inside Terminal 2 at Charles de Gaulle Airport. We were met by our wheelchair pusher, who led us up and down a series of elevators until we finally reached the People Mover train and were transported to the Air France terminal. As requested, he took us directly to the gate.

It was a smooth process. Air France 1, Iberia 0 in the Mobility Assistance Challenge. I’m sure the actual assistance is provided by many of the same airport people, but somehow Air France managed to make it work.

After our 11-hour flight to Los Angeles, there was no exiting through a service door into one of those strange vehicles that lifts itself up to the airplane. Like normal people—albeit exhausted normal people—we walked off the plane and were almost immediately met by wheelchair pushers, one of whom pushed Cathy up the boarding ramp.

At this point, I need to interrupt our journey for some politically correct woke research.

While writing the paragraphs above, I suddenly had a moment of deep concern. Had I inadvertently offended the dedicated wheelchair pushers of the world by calling them “wheelchair pushers”?

True to my nature, I consulted AI.

The consensus: “wheelchair pusher” isn’t offensive, but it is considered informal. In the industry, the more professional title is something like Passenger Assistance Agent or Passenger Assistance Attendant.

So I will continue to use “wheelchair pusher” without guilt. In fact, I think it is a far more accurate job description.

I do feel sorry for the college graduate who responds to an ad for a Passenger Assistance Agent, imagining a desk job answering travelers’ questions, only to show up for his first day and discover that he will spend eight hours pushing people down very long airport hallways.

“Wheelchair pusher” may lack corporate elegance, but at least you know what you’re signing up for.

Back to our beleaguered college graduate, who has now discovered that his impressive-sounding job as a Passenger Assistance Agent actually means he is a wheelchair pusher. At LAX, he was about to discover something even worse: he was already being automated out of his new career.

He pushed Cathy up the boarding ramp, where we were met by a golf cart. The wheelchair pusher stopped pushing, Cathy and I climbed aboard, and the machine took over. We were driven toward immigration, which at LAX is approximately halfway to Sacramento. We were very glad we didn’t have to walk it.

And soon LAX will have its long-delayed new People Mover, which is supposed to make getting around the airport easier. I personally predict it will be a disaster. LAX has spent decades perfecting the art of making something as simple as getting from an airplane to the curb extraordinarily complicated. I see no reason to believe they are going to suddenly lose that talent.

Perhaps our college graduate shouldn’t give up on his wheelchair-pushing career quite yet.

Air France had pulled through. Now it was LAX’s turn to shine.

At immigration, Cathy got off the golf cart and was transferred back into a wheelchair. We were taken to a waiting area with about 30 other people who also needed assistance.

And we waited.

And waited.

This is where the humor of all these different methods of transporting Cathy around airports stopped being particularly funny to Cathy. She can walk, but long distances and prolonged standing are difficult. That is why we request mobility assistance in the first place. What became so frustrating for her throughout this trip was never knowing what was supposed to happen next. Do we walk? Do we wait? Is somebody coming? Did they forget us? Are we supposed to stay on the plane or get off? Each airport seemed to have a different system, and apparently passengers were expected to somehow know what it was.

At LAX we watched as one person after another was collected by a wheelchair pusher and taken through immigration. Cathy sat there with no idea when her turn would come. Meanwhile, our luggage was somewhere on a giant carousel, circling endlessly and available to anyone who happened to like our suitcases.

At LAX, as at most airports, nobody checks luggage tags. You see a bag you like, apparently you can just take it.

Eventually I got nervous enough that I left Cathy in the holding area and went in search of our luggage. That made the situation even more frustrating for her. Now, after an 11-hour flight, she was sitting in a wheelchair in an airport waiting area without me, surrounded by strangers, with no idea when someone was going to come for her.

I found our luggage, rescued it from the carousel, and waited at baggage claim while Cathy continued waiting for the next available Wheelchair Pusher.

Eventually one appeared, retrieved her, got her through immigration, reunited us at baggage claim, and wheeled us out to the curb, where our Uber arrived quickly and took us home.

It worked. Eventually. But that really summarizes the problem with airport mobility assistance: it is designed to get you from Point A to Point B, and eventually it usually does. What it doesn’t seem particularly concerned about is how stressful the experience can be for the person sitting in the wheelchair wondering what happens next.

We think airports should offer private wheelchair pushers. We would gladly pay for one, tip generously, and know that someone would stay with us from the airplane all the way through immigration, baggage claim and out to the curb. For Cathy, just knowing that one person was responsible for getting her all the way through the process would eliminate most of the frustration.

And who knows? With decent pay and good tips, it might turn out to be a pretty good profession for that college graduate who answered the ad for a Passenger Assistance Agent and discovered too late what the job actually was.

After Paris, Madrid, Iberia, Air France, strange vehicles, service doors, golf carts, wheelchairs and more airport assistance than we ever imagined we would need, we were finally home.

And Cathy was probably happier about that than anyone.

Planes, Wheelchairs and a Possible Kidnapping

Beef Tartar

This was the day when travel became so difficult that we made a few vows:

1. Never fly Iberia again.
2. Whenever possible, fly directly to our final destination.
3. Avoid the incompetence of Charles de Gaulle Airport.

There are probably a four and five, but I’m still too tired to remember them.

It started with our departure from Madrid for Paris. After checking in, the agent told us we could either go directly to the gate or use the Business Class Lounge. If we went to the lounge, she said, the wheelchair people would meet Cathy there and take her to the gate.

The lounge was close, so we walked over. When we arrived, there was a long line. There was no way Cathy could stand there waiting, so when someone walked out, we simply walked in.

A hostess immediately freaked out and told us we had to go to the end of the line. I explained that Cathy couldn’t stand that long and needed to sit down. The woman was completely indifferent. Cathy reminded her she will be older one day, and have issues. Finally, another hostess with empathy took charge, admitted us and found Cathy a seat.

What was frustrating wasn’t the line. Lines happen. It was that another human being could look at someone who was obviously having difficulty standing and simply not care.

Eventually we boarded our Iberia flight to Paris.

The plan was simple. We would fly into CDG, be met by mobility assistance, collect our luggage and be transported to the Sheraton, which is conveniently located inside Terminal 2, where Air France departs for Los Angeles.

Simple plans and Charles de Gaulle Airport apparently do not mix.

On the plane we weren’t sure how the wheelchair assistance would work. Would someone meet us outside the airplane door, or would we exit through the service door and use one of those special vehicles that raises itself to the level of the plane?

The flight attendant told us not to worry. She didn’t know yet either, but once our gate was assigned she would tell us.

It turned out to be the special vehicle. We exited through the service door, were lowered to the ground and driven directly to baggage claim. Our luggage was already waiting for us.

We were amazed.

We had our luggage. We had an assistant. We were ready to be transported to the Sheraton.

Then it all went to hell.

They took us to a special Mobility Assistance room, where we were told to wait for a vehicle that would drive us to the hotel.

I actually liked the guy who had been helping us and had already decided to give him a €20 tip.

After about 30 minutes of sitting there, I asked what the delay was.

“Another 20 minutes.”

At that point, I decided €10 would be sufficient.

Cathy was wondering whether we could simply take a taxi, so she asked the hostess. The hostess suddenly seemed unable to understand English.

Then our assistant disappeared—with his wheelchair—and never returned.

Since there was now nobody left to tip, I was able to reduce the amount from €10 to zero. Had he stayed around long enough, I probably would have asked him for money.

Finally the hostess announced, “Five minutes.”

And, amazingly, five minutes later a driver appeared.

90 minutes after landing we climbed into his rickety dented van, assuming we were finally headed to the Sheraton.

CDG is enormous. It makes LAX seem intimate. The driver drove and drove and drove.

Then Cathy spotted the Sheraton.

We drove right past it.

Meanwhile, our driver was on the phone having an animated conversation with a woman. He stayed on the phone almost the entire time.

I figured there were three possibilities:

1. He was lost.
2. He was having a fight with his girlfriend.
3. His girlfriend was telling him what she planned to do to him when he got home, and he became so excited he forgot he was driving two Americans to the Sheraton.

Cathy had a different theory.

Later she told me she had become convinced he was a rogue driver who was preparing to kidnap us. She was actually trying to figure out how to jump out of the moving van.

Interestingly, she never shared this plan with me.

I would have joined her.

Eventually, however, our kidnapper—or possibly just the world’s most distracted airport driver—delivered us safely to the Sheraton.

By then Cathy had had it with everything related to travel and was completely stressed out. Dinner at the hotel and a bottle of wine helped. I did order Steak Tartar and we both declared it excellent, but that didn't compensate even with an excellent wine for the horrors of this flight from Madrid.

Tomorrow we find out whether Charles de Gaulle can perform one final trick and actually get us onto an airplane.

Travel is wonderful. We love experiencing other countries, other cultures, great museums and, of course, great food. But travel can also be difficult, and as you get older it gets harder.

My advice: do as much of it as you possibly can while you’re young. 

Interestingly, we have never experienced anything remotely like the difficulties we had on this trip when we vacation in Mexico City. It’s a relatively short flight from Los Angeles, and once we arrive, the service and hospitality are extraordinary.

There may be a lesson in there somewhere.

Tomorrow, if all goes according to plan, Air France will fly us home.

At this point, “according to plan” is a phrase I use very cautiously.

From Hearts in Art to Hearts in the Street

Excellent Rice and Seafood

Salmorejo de Pimientos

Back wall with shelves of Cheese Wheels

CPR would have saved the God

She needed an EKG

Edvard Munch and Cathy

Sometimes you just need to go with the flow.

After a leisurely morning, we went to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. This is a major world-class museum built around the collection of Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza and his wife, Carmen, better known as Tita.
The source of the Baron’s wealth is complicated by World War II. His wife’s enormous wealth is simpler to explain: she was a former Miss Spain, married a very rich man, and he showered her with money and art.

The Baron didn’t exactly give his collection to Spain. Spain bought the core collection for about $350 million. Tita’s collection is still hers, and Spain pays millions of dollars a year to display it. The rich really are different from you and me.

Enough with the history of this vast collection, including the parts of the family history we will leave for another day.
What interested us was how different the museum is from LACMA. It is organized traditionally and chronologically, almost as if all art were Western and began sometime around 1500. Cathy and I have very little interest in religious art or portraits of rich people, so we moved rather quickly through about 400 years of art. Or, more accurately, I pushed her rather quickly through 400 years of art until we reached Impressionism and modern art. LACMA to us is revolutionary in how it juxtaposes all art into themes, not chronologically, it is much more imaginative.

What was special for us was a small exhibition of reimagined paintings, all related to cardiovascular health. It was clever, contemporary and political. The artist used digital techniques to take familiar paintings and reimagine them around current cardiovascular treatments and issues. It was surprisingly powerful.

Leaving the museum, we Ubered over to one of Madrid’s premier cheese stores, Quesería Cultivo. They have an enormous variety of cheeses, including many they make themselves. I don’t think I have ever seen that many wheels of cheese stacked on shelves in Los Angeles. Naturally, we bought several samples of cheese to bring home.

A word about Uber in Madrid: it sucks.

You request a car and Uber tells you how long it will take to arrive. Fine. You select it, and then the arrival time starts changing. And changing. And changing. Eventually you are standing on a Madrid street with no idea when, or perhaps whether, your car will actually arrive. We found it incredibly frustrating.

We returned to the hotel to find a bagel sandwich made with ham and cheese waiting for us in our room — a somewhat strange cross-cultural sandwich — so we opened a bottle of Champagne and nibbled on the ham and cheese. Then we started to  pack.

Tomorrow we leave our unexpected visit to Madrid and return to Paris. We fly into Charles de Gaulle, spend the night at the Sheraton that is actually inside Terminal 2, and the following day fly home to Los Angeles.This all assumes no volcanoes or other unexpected events.

For our final night in Madrid, we had reservations for a flamenco dinner show. On our previous visits to Madrid we always include a Flamenco dinner and show. I know it sounds touristy but it is really fun. After some confusion, we realized it wasn’t the place we had been on previous visits. We had accidentally booked a different venue.

But sometimes it is better to be lucky than smart.
The place was quite close to our hotel. We felt as though we had won the lottery — or at least finally gotten a little travel luck. Short taxi ride. Dinner. Flamenco. Short taxi ride back to the hotel.

Wrong.

The taxi — notice we did not take an Uber — headed toward the nearby venue and almost immediately ran into streets closed by protesters. Police were everywhere blocking traffic. Apparently, all of this was because an 85-year-old woman had been evicted from her home.

It seemed to us like a righteous protest, so we sat there while our taxi driver valiantly tried to navigate around protesters, police and completely snarled traffic. Finally we said, forget it, return us to the hotel. We thru away the flamenco tickets and ate at the hotel.

And that turned out to be just fine. We had a wonderful dinner on the hotel balcony, serenaded from the streets below by protesters singing “The People United Will Never Be Defeated” in Spanish.

We didn’t need a translation. We knew the words.

We’ll find out on November 3rd, when we’re back home, if the words are true this time.

A Front Row Seat to Guernica

Quinta da Muradella from Galacia

Pistou of my dreams

Squid cut like Pasta with Green Beans

Peeled Tomatoes, Salt Olive Oil: Perfection

Picasso's ode to war: Guernica 

Anti-Nazi Poster

Help yourself to the Art Work

Blue Candy

We started the day slowly, which is how a vacation at our age should be. We decided to do one thing in depth — two if you consider dinner.

Our one thing was the Reina Sofía Museum. Much like Museum Island in Berlin, Madrid has multiple world-class museums located near each other. Madrid is a museum city.

Cathy is quite capable of walking, just not for long distances. We went for a 1½-mile walk in Paris without a problem. It is actually standing in one place that can be more annoying.

Several years ago, at the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico, I noticed they had a supply of wheelchairs available for visitors. Ever since, I ask at every museum, and they all seem to have them.

There are multiple advantages. For Cathy, no pain and no constantly looking for a bench to rest on. For me, exercise driving the wheelchair. For both of us, it slows us down, and we spend more time actually looking at the art.

There is another unexpected advantage. I have always noticed that the written descriptions of the art are mounted too low on the wall, requiring me to bend over to read them. From a wheelchair they are at eye level. And perhaps best of all, people are wonderfully respectful of someone in a wheelchair. It is almost like having a passport to the front row when viewing a crowded work of art.

Think Guernica.

We would, of course, happily give up all these advantages if Cathy had a better back.

We had the very good fortune to see two extraordinary exhibits in depth, both dealing in different ways with resistance. I assume the curators planned it that way, because they flowed beautifully together, ultimately culminating in Picasso’s masterpiece, Guernica.

The first artist was completely new to us: Félix González-Torres, a Cuban-born American artist who was deeply involved in gay politics and political art.

One of his signature works consists of large piles of individually wrapped candies installed directly on the gallery floor. Visitors are invited to take one and eat it. The artwork slowly disappears, while the museum continually replenishes it — a cycle involving love, generosity, consumption, loss and the fading of the human body.

His own commentary about his work — conveniently mounted at Cathy’s eye level — was profound and moving.

I also never knew the name John Heartfield, although his work was immediately recognizable. His magazine covers and posters were fiercely political, particularly his attacks on Hitler and the Nazis.

One famous 1934 work plays on Bismarck’s phrase “Blood and Iron,” using executioner’s axes arranged to form a swastika. It was political art without subtlety and without apology.

We could use more like him today.

And finally, Guernica, the ultimate anti-war art.

Thanks to Cathy, we had a front-row view of Picasso’s masterpiece.

It is home in Spain, where it belongs.

After all that resistance, fascism, war and human suffering, it was time for dinner.

Angelita is just a few blocks from our hotel. It was a warm Madrid evening, perfect for a stroll. We have eaten at Angelita several times, and every visit has been excellent.

Each time, we build our dinner around the Tomato Pistou. If you can imagine multiple tomatoes somehow reduced down to their very essence, you are beginning to approach this dish. It is sublime.

This time we decided on the tasting menu, and course after course of wonderful food arrived. 

Angelita has an overwhelming wine list, and when faced with an overwhelming wine list, we often put ourselves in the hands of the sommelier. We describe what we like — in this case white, dry and Spanish, of course — and give him a price range.

He returned with three bottles. We chose Quinta da Muradella “Verdello Antiguo,” an exceptional white wine from Galicia.

After a great meal and a wonderful bottle of wine, we happily walked back through the warm Madrid night to The Principal Hotel, our Madrid home.

From Massage Table to Tapas Table

White Tuna on bed of Caramelized Onions and Peppers

Spanish Vegetable Rice

Gazpacho

The Tapas Counter

Its Finally Restored

After our travel adventures yesterday, which did at least culminate in a great meal at Roostiq, it was time to settle in and relax. Relaxation to us means massage, so we knew that would be on the day’s agenda.

After a few stops for grooming, we headed up to the hotel’s rooftop spa for a 90-minute massage. Cathy and I agreed it was exceptional. We asked for a relaxation massage, and that is exactly what we got. We emerged thoroughly relaxed and convinced we had made excellent use of 90 minutes. We returned to our room and prepared for the next strenuous activity of the day: drinking wine on the hotel balcony.

The balcony overlooks the finally completed Metrópolis Madrid Hotel across the street. Over the years we have stayed at The Principal, we’ve watched the restoration slowly progress, so I’m glad to see it finally finished. Metrópolis is marketing itself as super-exclusive, and I doubt it will be frequented by our kind of people, but Jaimie insists that we scout it out. Maybe a drink tomorrow—if they let us in—is in order. I’ll try to dress appropriately.

For dinner we made reservations at one of our favorite Madrid restaurants, Celso y Manolo, a wonderful neighborhood take on a tapas bar. It is a very short hike from our hotel, which after a 90-minute massage was about as much exercise as we were prepared to undertake.

As far as I could tell, we were the only non-locals in the restaurant. The food is terrific and the dishes are seasonal. Look at those tomatoes! They serve them with four different Spanish olive oils, which seems excessive until you taste them and realize four might not be enough.

The gazpacho was perfect. We wiped the bowl clean with our bread. Not a drop was going to waste. The highlight for us, though, was the rice dish, loaded with vegetables. We kept trying to figure out how they managed to give it such a deep, dark color and intense flavor. I don’t want to get obsessive about the food—although longtime readers know that ship sailed years ago—but the white tuna sat atop the most delicious caramelized onions.

Madrid is a city for food lovers. In fact, we are now inspired to try some Spanish cooking when we get home. Cathy is a great cook and I serve as her sous chef, so between her expert execution and my chopping and following orders, I think we have a pretty good chance of bringing a little Madrid back to our kitchen.

Tomorrow, some culture. Madrid has some of the greatest museums in the world, and we intend to take advantage of them. We can’t spend the entire trip eating. Or at least we probably shouldn’t.

Madrid: Wheelchairs, Martinis and the Great Five-Euro Crisis

Best Cheese Cake Ever

Birthday Girl

A decent Martini

2 Slices of perfect Tomato

Confit of Artichoke

Mushrooms if you know to ask for them

Piquillo Peppers

This has been quite a day.

After checking out of the hotel, we headed to the airport. Ours was an inter-EU flight, and the terminal was bare bones. No club room. No anything.

Cathy had requested wheelchair assistance, and it was different from anything we had previously experienced. They wheeled her, with me tagging along, to a very unusual-looking vehicle. It drove out to the plane and parked on the opposite side from the stairs. Then the entire cabin of the vehicle rose into the air until it was level with the service door of the plane. The door opened and we simply walked onto the plane. No stairs. No struggle. We thought it was quite ingenious.
When we landed in Madrid, things didn’t work quite as smoothly.

We assumed—incorrectly—that wheelchair pushers would be waiting when we exited the plane. Cathy would plop into a wheelchair and off we would go to collect our luggage.

Wrong.

We walked down a very long ramp looking for wheelchair pushers. None. We kept walking. Still none. By now this was becoming quite a hike.

I happened to look back through the windows and saw one of those strange vehicles approaching our plane. It suddenly dawned on me: we never should have gotten off the plane. Of course, nobody had bothered to tell us that.
So we walked all the way back and boarded the plane again, just so we could get off the plane again—this time through the service door.

The vehicle lowered us to ground level, where we were transferred to yet another vehicle. This one seemed to drive endlessly through tunnels underneath the Madrid airport. I began to wonder if we were actually being driven to downtown Madrid. Eventually we emerged somewhere near baggage claim.

I’m skipping parts. Trust me, you’re welcome.

By the time we finally collected our luggage, escaped the airport and found our driver, we were exhausted.
We arrived at The Principal Hotel, where we have stayed many times. At reception they asked for all our details. I explained that they should already have them.
“They changed computer systems and lost all their customer history.”

Wonderful, we were chopped liver.

This was beginning to be not quite the Madrid arrival I had envisioned.

They showed us to our suite. Unfortunately, it had two single beds. It was Cathy’s birthday, and I was not going to let her sleep alone on her birthday.
I called downstairs. “You need to move us. We want one large bed.”

They called back and explained there were no other suites available. But not to worry. Go out to dinner, they said, and while you are gone we will replace the two beds with one king-size bed.

Really?

When we returned, there it was: one large bed. How in the hell they did that I have no idea, but as far as I was concerned the hotel had redeemed itself. And just to make sure we forgave them, they had also left a bottle of Champagne and a birthday cake for Cathy.

All was forgiven.

There was still the Martini test. I have been through Martini hell in Spain trying to get someone to make me a dry gin Martini. Nevertheless, I decided to risk it. I am happy to report they produced a perfectly decent Martini.

Then came the Great Five-Euro Crisis. I only had €10, €20, €50 and €100 notes, but I wanted some €5 notes for tips. I asked the front desk for change. They didn’t have any.
So I devised what I thought was a brilliant plan. Rather than charge my Martini and Cathy’s wine to the room, I would pay the waiter with a €50 note. Voilà! Smaller bills as change. The waiter took my €50 and disappeared.

And stayed disappeared.

We had dinner reservations. Cathy was hungry. Other people at the bar were looking around wondering where the waiter had gone because they wanted another drink. Apparently my attempt to manufacture €5 notes had brought the entire bar operation to a halt. My clever plan was not playing particularly well with Cathy. Finally, I gave up. I told the receptionist we had dinner reservations and had to leave. She explained that the waiter was still trying to find change and promised they would leave it in our room. When we returned from dinner, there was my change, waiting for me on our dresser.

More kudos to the hotel. But I still don’t understand why it is so damn difficult to get a €5 note.

Dinner was at Roostiq. If Roostiq were in Los Angeles, we would be regulars. They have their own farm and raise their own pigs and vegetables. They bake their own bread, which has one of the greatest crusts ever created. We have eaten there several times before, and this visit was every bit as good. God, I wish they were in LA.

I won’t list everything we ate because it was a lot, but there were incredible artichokes—and who would have thought we would get excited about artichokes, although we had eaten them here before—tomatoes from their farm, chicken, Iberian pork, mushrooms that weren’t even on the menu but that I asked them to prepare anyway, and what I consider the best cheesecake ever. I hope you get the idea Roostiq is a must if you are ever in Madrid.

And one final observation: the entire bill, including a bottle of one of our favorite wines, was about half of what we had been paying for dinner in Paris.

We love Paris, but Madrid is making a very strong case for itself as a dining destination.

How a Volcano and a Mispronunciation Sent Us to Madrid

Sometimes plans get completely upset. The question is how you deal with them.

Last night, after our very unsatisfactory dinner at L’Ami Louis, we did our final packing, set out the clothes we would wear on the plane to Sicily, and went to bed.

I woke up this morning and read an email from our airline. Our flight had been cancelled and we had been rebooked for tomorrow. Mt. Etna had blown its top and the airport was closed.

Not a great message to wake up to.

The airline had rebooked us for the next day, but who knew what the volcano was going to be doing then? Apparently Mt. Etna does not consult airline schedules. Tomorrow’s flight could just as easily be cancelled again. Update: the flight we were rebooked on the next day was also cancelled. Our intuition was right!

At the other end of Sicily is Palermo far away from Mt.Edna. We checked flights there, but nothing was available. Then another thought dawned on us: What if we did manage to get to Sicily and then couldn’t get off the island in time to fly back to Paris for our flight home to Los Angeles?

Suddenly Sicily was beginning to sound less like a vacation and more like a hostage situation.

In the back of her mind, Cathy had always said that if we couldn’t make it to Sicily, we would go to Aix-en-Provence. We had been there before and it is charming. So we began a frantic search to figure out how to get there, where to stay, and, most importantly, where to eat. The internet hummed with our research.

We finally narrowed the hotels down to two. One was Villa Gallici Hôtel & Spa - Relais & Châteaux.

I kept calling it “Galicia.”

Cathy corrected me: “Galicia is in Spain.”
A bell immediately went off in my head. Spain!

Why were we putting ourselves through all the stress of inventing an entirely new substitute vacation in Aix-en-Provence when there was a city in Spain we already knew and loved? “Let’s go to Madrid.”

Bingo.

Much less stress. We know Madrid. We love Madrid. We know where we like to stay, what we like to do, and — most important — where we like to eat.

So tomorrow we fly to Madrid, all because I couldn’t pronounce the name of a hotel in Aix-en-Provence correctly.
The stress level immediately dropped. We got our flights, secured an extra night in Paris — never exactly a punishment — and tomorrow we head for Spain.

I know we will have some cancellation issues to deal with at the hotels in Sicily, but a volcano seems like a pretty good excuse.

Tonight, for our unexpected bonus night in Paris, we went to one of our friend Jaimie's favorite brasseries, La Rotonde. We had a classic French dinner: oysters, snails, Dover sole, a great bottle of wine, and a wonderful dessert. The restaurant looks like a movie set — mirrors, red velvet, brass, and even a mirrored ceiling.

After a day that began with a volcano blowing up our vacation, it was a pretty damn good way to end it.

And tomorrow: Madrid, Spain not Aix-en-Provence, France.
All because I said “Galicia” instead of “Gallici.”