Fields of lavender, the buzz of cicadas, siestes from the summer heat, canoeing down the Gard river - all these are images from my month-long stay in Provence. And the laughter and chatter of French and American kids, ages 12-16, in a bilingual program called "Young Pilgrims in France/Jeunes Pèlerins en France."

As I see scenes from this year's Tour de France, the memories come back. Our summer camp, which had rich offerings in languages, culture, art, and recreation, was run by The American School in Switzerland, and housed in the dorm-style accommodations of the Prieuré du Christ Roi, in a town called Uzès. 

The Tour route for one July day ran right under the retaining wall separating the property from the street. I joined the camp counselors and kids waiting for the cyclists, but all I got to see were the endless promotional vehicles riding through. At least I got a nice tee-shirt and humongous fold-out map of the route for 1994. Then lunch was ready, and we adults did our best to get the kids to the table. Half-way through the meal, someone shouted "They're coming through." BOOM! Twenty-some kids leaped up at once and ran to the scene. Recognizing the futility of imposing discipline at this moment, we instructors got up slowly and ambled to the street. Ah, but it was all over. 

So if you want to see a leg of the race, just remember: blink and you miss it. The competitors speed by in a cluster. That's it. Unless, perhaps, you secure a spot on a long up-hill grade.

But this reality of the Tour shouldn't stop you from going there, getting a glimpse of the race, and - most importantly - enjoying the scenery all around.

Two of this week's legs went through areas I visited that summer of '94: Nîmes and the Pont du Gard. One of my fondest memories was canoeing down the Gard river, finishing up at the famous three-tiered Roman aqueduct, passing right through its shadow, then walking across the structure and looking down at the turquoise water and people swimming and boating in it.

And so I present a small slideshow sampling that summer's delights. Enjoy!

Also, there are only two days left of the tour. You can find out more at the official Tour de France site.

What befits a travel & music blog more than a song about flyin' to the moon. Enjoy this 50th anniversary tribute to the Apollo moon landing!

See ya next week for some pics from a Tour de France from years past...

After autumn 1989’s street-protest-driven rejection of East Bloc Communism, which I’d viewed euphorically on CNN, and a sublime, sunny graduation on the University of Virginia’s colonnade lined Lawn the following May, I spent the summer of 1990 studying ESL pedagogy at Georgetown. The idea now was to go to Eastern-Central Europe to teach English, a language quickly rising in demand after forty years of pupils being force-fed Russian.

I considered the Baltics, thanks to a UVA dean and Rīga native who’d encouraged me through my toughest times in college. With a mind to repaying her kindness by teaching English in her home country, I phoned the Latvian legation, the unofficial, émigré-run “embassy” of a nation still under Soviet rule. The gentleman who answered described Stalin’s cynical annexation of the Baltic States, a move never recognized by the West, and his nation’s desire for independence. But he advised against going there: “Things are too unstable.”

Romania and Bulgaria were out for the same reason. I called the Yugoslav embassy – they didn’t need English teachers, I was told, as they’d been learning plenty of English rather than Russian ever since Tito broke with Stalin. A stark, blotchy red and white Solidarity poster in my Georgetown linguistics professor’s office reminded me of the struggle of the Polish shipyard workers and, indirectly, of John Paul II’s motivating role. So I considered going there or to East Germany, which was about to merge with the West.

But I’d never thought about Czechoslovakia until that July 4, sitting cross-legged on a friend’s picnic blanket amidst the crowd of 400,000 who’d come to hear the symphony on the Washington Mall. As blackness swallowed the last purple of twilight and the final cymbal crash of Sousa’s “Washington Post March” faded, the emcee announced that we had just received a special call. Václav Havel, phoning by satellite from Prague. His gravelly voice came over the P.A. system.

“I would like to congratulate you on your nation’s birthday,” he said, haltingly, in his strong central European accent. “Your country was a beacon of hope to those of us suffering behind the Iron Curtain. And so, I am honored to address you tonight as president of a free Czechoslovakia.”

The crowd bellowed in response, clapping their hands above their heads in a display of good-natured American boisterousness.

“Oh. Well, thank you.” He sounded a bit embarrassed. “You have been an inspiration to oppressed peoples everywhere. And now it is my privilege to introduce the next song, the final movement of the New World Symphony, which my compatriot Antonín Dvořák composed while living in your wonderful country.”

After another spasm of cheering, the conductor raised his baton. The low strings played two notes a half-tone apart, like the “Jaws” music; slowly at first, then gaining tempo and volume. Violins joined in with piercing glissandos, building the tension towards an explosion of brass and tympani. The music was soon accompanied by the boom of fireworks, whose red, white and blue streams – equally valid as U.S. or Czechoslovak colors – illuminated the Washington Monument behind the orchestra.

The display of American-Czechoslovak friendship made up my mind for me.

The next morning, I called the Czechoslovak embassy and learned of Education for Democracy. I applied as soon as I got the paperwork. I got the news of my acceptance in August, after I’d already signed a short-term contract with a language school near DC’s Dupont Circle. So I had to put off the move until mid-October.

A mere two weeks after arriving, I got to see Havel from a distance of 50 feet in the Slovak provincial capital to which I’d been assigned. It felt like destiny.


I related my experience of that Havel speech in a post last October. There are pictures from the event (though the text is mostly about the history that was being commemorated).