#ldtravel

[larissaduliar]

Sittin on the #ironthrone be like!😜 in the mood for #GoTSeason6 😍 #gameofthrones #igkl #majestichotel #majestichotelkl #instamood #instaplace #instatravel #LDtravel

[tobintobin-blog]

3 Rooms in Paris: Meeting Jane

I said goodnight to Alissón at the Abbesses metro. She turned her head to force my kiss onto her cheek, and I was sure I would never see her again. I started the walk home, half smiling with a quiet mind, half buried in my thoughts, only partially able to look up, to enjoy, to see Paris, after a rainy night, near midnight in Montmartre.

I passed the café where we had been only a few minutes before, Le Nazir, and it had mostly emptied out. The homeless man sat out-front on the street, with a napkin stuffed with the cheese and meat I had left for him on my plate, enjoying his meal. The waiter seemed to have already forgotten my face as I told him “bonne soirée." Homeward, then, to the empty house on Rue Eugène Carriere, to sleep early, to try again in the morning, that was my plan. Perhaps I would finally sleep a good eight hours, would finally wake up without a phone in my hand, do the meditation, get back on track, get the writing started.

I walked by a bar, painted all red on the outside, lit up with tiny lights like a Christmas tree, with a dozen patrons smoking on the patio. I stopped and looked in from the street, having a feeling about this place I couldn’t really describe, but a feeling that had me stop nonetheless. Then I saw her. She wore a giant-brimmed hat, made of dark green felt, and her blonde hair tumbled out from all sides. She appeared to be alone. I walked in.

The bar man was holding up the chalk board menu for her, and she was trying to order, but she was very drunk, and her French was incomprehensible, full of English swears, and the accent of a woman who learned French in Paris, late in her life and only after arriving. 

“Regarde, man,” she said, pulling out the last “e” of the first word as if it was its own, sweet syllable, just as they all do here in France.

“Fuck, donnez moi le camembert. Yah. Ça. Je veut ça.”

The bar man shook his head in astonishment, as if he’d been dealing with her for hours, appealing to his co-worker, a young woman, with his incredulous look. He put away the chalk board and walked away, to the kitchen. A bald, unshaven man walked past the blonde with the green hat, holding a beer, with an unlit cigarette between his lips. He was in his thirties and attractive, and for a moment I thought he was her man, for she placed her hand on his chest and started to speak.

“Alors, va fumer ta cigarette. Then you can come sit with me, and talk, oui?” she said to him. The man nodded his head. 

“Sure sweetheart,” he said in his broken English, “I go smoke, and I’ll be back.”

He was just a stranger to her. I took the empty barstool next to her. The bar tender, a buff man wearing jeans and a black t shirt, returned from the kitchen and I ordered a demi pint.

She wore a white v-neck shirt, revealing most of her chest, leather pants, tight, and four-inch stilettos. Her lips were bright red with lipstick. She was very beautiful and I was happy to be seated next to her, to be seeing her.

She called over the female waitress – a mousy woman who spoke too quietly to hear – and asked her if she could stay on her couch. It was clear the woman was frightened, and they didn’t know each other. Next she begged the bar man for a good place to crash, a safe place. He appeared interested and told her, “of course, why not?” The next second, she raised her clenched fist and shook it in the air toward his face.

“I just want a fucking couch, you know, a goddamned couch in this city, and if you fucking touch me I will kill you,” she said.

“Hey,” I said. But she didn’t seem to notice, continuing her warning to the bar man. 

“I swear, I will fucking murder you if you do something funny. Gimme another whiskey  soda.”

“Hey, look,” I said.

The bar man shook his head and turned around to prepare the drink.

“Who the fuck can you trust in this city?” she shouted into the empty air above her head. Her voice was raspy, feminine, small. I was staring intently, my body turned on the stool facing her, not two feet away, and she wasn’t looking back.

 “Hey,” I placed my hand on her back, the small concave above her ass. “Hey. I have a couch.”

I finished my beer with my hand there, feeling the sweat beneath her shirt, and I shouted over to the barman, in French, “Same as her, whiskey. No soda.”

She stopped shouting and she turned to look at me now for the first time and I looked her in the eyes.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked, removing my hand.

“That’s about the goddamned stupidest fucking thing you can ask me, you know?

“I mean,” she continued, turning away from me to face the bar again, “men always want to know that shit, ‘what’s wrong?’ To figure it all out. Have all the answers. But you never ask a woman what is wrong. Women want to be asked ‘how are you’?”

“You’re right. I’m sorry. Well, how are you?

“Just take my advice and never ask a woman what the hell is wrong with her.”

“Fine. You are right. I am sorry. I don’t know why I said it that way. So how are you? You’re upset, I can see that.”

She took her whiskey and she held up her glass, so I held up mine and we drank together, and she put down her glass and she turned again on the bar stool to face me, and look me in the eyes.

“And who the fuck are you? French man?”

“No. Canadian. You?”

“I’ve lived here for five years,” she held up her hand to illustrate the years with her fingers, “Five. But before that I was in Seattle, before that, New York. Canadian. Don’t tell me… what part?”

“Toronto. English part.”

“Thank fucking god. Thank god you’re not some French Canadian.”

“No. Not at all. Do I sound like one?”

“I can’t stand them.”

“Me neither.”

She finished her whiskey, and so did I, and I told the bar man, “two more, the same.”

“So what do you do here?” she asked me.

“I live here, now. I’m a writer,” I said confidently, and maybe it felt true this time. It at least felt good to say.

“But what do you do?”

“That’s all I do,” I said.

“So you’re one of those lucky guys who just get to write all –“

“I worked for everything I have.”

She moved her legs and her purse fell off her lap to the floor. I picked it up, and inside was a book of poems by E.E. Cummings, folded corners on several pages, marked up with pen, I saw as I flipped through it, before placing it back in.

“What do you do, then?”

“I write. I model. Mostly, I’m married. Five years.” 

And she held up her hand, showing five fingers again.

“Five years with that abusive fucking prick. And now here I am.”

She swiveled her stool to face the bar man, who had tremendous muscles, and he was listening to her, while drying a clean glass. She wasn’t talking to me anymore.

 “Can you believe my husband abused me? Can you fucking believe that?” she said.

The bar man looked concerned.

“He abused you? That’s not right” he said in a lousy French accent, dropping the “h”. 

“You better not fucking touch me.”

“I told you, my couch, no touching.”

I was losing this one, I thought. 

“Look,” I tell her. “You’re coming with me tonight. That French man is going to try something with you.”

She seemed to hear me. She turned to face me.

“You live around here?”

“Just up the street. Five minutes.”

“Describe it to me.”

“Two rooms, a kitchen, a full bathroom…”

“So a studio…”

“No, a nice place, a huge apartment.”

“What floor?”

“The second floor.”

Her eyes rolled

“But it’s just a house, it’s the top floor of a house.”

“And you,” she pointed at the bar man, “what floor are you on?” 

He became shy, he didn’t understand,

“Look,” I said, “it’s a beautiful place. Huge. Top floor of a little house.”

“You have any wine? You go buy a bottle of wine and come back, then we’ll go.”

“No. I won’t do that. But there’s a counter full of booze, all kinds.”

“Why didn’t you just say so from the start?”

Her food came and she started to eat. 

“You hungry man?” 

“No,” I said, “but I hate eating alone so I’ll join you.”

She tore off a piece of bread for me, and I held it in my hand as she cut off a piece of oozing cheese and placed it on the bread for me, “bon app,” I told her, and we ate. I ordered another two whiskeys.  After eating I took out my electronic cigarette, and she asked if it was legal to smoke inside, and I told her with that thing, yes, but that I also had real cigarettes in my jacket pocket if she needed. 

“No. Gimme that.”

So I handed her the e-pipe and she smoked, and she looked amused, like a child with a play truck, and she handed it back to me. 

“You better not fucking kill me,” she said. 

“Look at me. You’ve got a lot better chance with me than that big oaf over there.”

Her phone rang. She answered it.

“Hullloh…. You don’t want to know where I am. Someplace you really don’t want to have any idea about. . . . Don’t worry. I can take care of myself… I can take care of myself, just like I did before you, just like I’ll do now… What am I thinking? I’m thinking how the fuck you couldn’t give me the key to my apartment tonight. I’m thinking now I got to find a fucking couch because I couldn’t get into my own goddamn apartment. … Look, I’m gonna go… I’ll take care of myself.”

She put her gold-cased iPhone back into her purse. She asked the bar man for a piece of paper. She wrote out a few lines on it, which I couldn’t see.  She called over the bar man, she said “Écoute,” pulling out the last “e” sound again, “Écoute. If this guy over here kills me tonight you tell the cops this is me, OK?”

The bar man looked confused.

“So you’re going with him?”

“Écoute, if he kills me, you tell the cops this is me.”

“You understand, if you die I will have no way of knowing right?”

It made perfect sense, but she wanted him to take her number regardless.

Then we walked out, we walked up Rue Lepic, down Tourlaques, and we didn’t speak much, if at all, for most the way. She held my arm. It had been raining and water ran down the black stone streets, little puddles reflected the street lights, and the air was cold. She with her big green hat, and me with my rain coat, we walked as if we’d walked like that for years, in total comfort and with no need to say anything. I realized getting to the apartment I had no idea what to call her.

“So, what is your name?”

“Jane,” she said. “Jane fucking Birkin.”

(See all chapters)

[tobintobin-blog]

Love Drive: Now on Filler Magazine

If you are new here, this is going to be a great intro to what my blog will bring you. If we're old friends, stick around. There's something I want you to know.

I’m happy to announce that the kind and patient editors at Filler Magazine have decided to add my blog to their roster. I’m incredibly humbled they are taking a chance on a little blog all about love and life. On top of that, I'm blushing to be in the good company of the likes of Gracie Carroll, one of the best goddamned fashion bloggers on the planet.

Filler is a quarterly "fashion magazine for culture junkies", with a bagillion more readers than I get a month. It’s the perfect combo of beauty, wit and style which I can never hope to live up to – but I hope will fit nicely with my modern take on the travel-slash-life-slash-gonzo blog genre I’ve been working on so hard over here. 

So, What the Hell is Love Drive? 

My blog, Love Drive, is a mash up of travel stories that don’t feel like travel stories, short fiction and experiments on living a great life. I write often, posting love and adventure stories from my travels, as well as talking about my current project, a love story between a great writer and his young wife in Paris, which I think you will like, too. Love Drive is on Tumblr and Twitter. I also send out a regular newsletter, which is the best way to follow along. And now it’s over at Filler!

This blog started a few months ago, after a difficult, and dark life-changing event. More of slow, long, blind falling apart than an event, really. I won’t get too detailed – to spare the innocent – but it involves losing the love of my life. And it involves picking up the pieces to start living my life the way I really should have been doing all along.

So, after leaving behind my old life in Canada, I am here in Paris, writing every day, searching every day, getting into trouble . . . sometimes. It still sucks, sometimes, and it’s still hard. And in a few months, I could just as easily be back in Canada, minding the Starbucks pumps and frothing away my failed attempt at happiness. Which is why you’ll have to read on to find out how it all goes for me.

Best of Love Drive (So far...)

So, let's forget about the explanations. Here's some of the stuff I've done already I think you would have liked.

Escape from Paris: Picture this. You’re about to embark on the most important road trip of your life. But as you pick up your rental car, you realize it’s got a manual transmission. And you definitely don’t drive stick. What the hell do you do? (Read it now)

The Count of Lamarck: A different kind of travel story about the hip Paris neighborhood of Montmartre, and what dark, vampiric secrets lie beneath.  (Read it now)

On Dragons and Submarines: An ode to a cute little VW camper van, and the impact he had on the two lovers in my film. Also, an ode to my own beautiful little baby. (Read now) 

The Police and Princesses of Avignon: Running from cops and wooing beauty queens in the ancient walled city. Trademark Tobin adventure and love story, with guns. (Read now)

If you want to say hi or get to know me, I'm here! And here. And email me at tobydalrymple AT gmail - you know the rest.

Thanks Filler and thanks to you for reading!

[tobintobin-blog]

The Princesses and Police of Avignon

Maurico walked with a limp. That’s the second thing you notice about the man from Corsica. The first thing you notice is a pink scar dividing his eye in half. The third is his black teeth, and last, when he gets to know you well enough, the gun he carries, loaded, in the front of his jeans.

Turns out Maurico runs with a limp, too, and not very fast, which is the only reason I’m here, in the beautiful Provence in the South of France, enjoying paella and sun, instead of being locked up in some dark hole in Avignon.

Let me start from the beginning.

My third day on the road I sent out a dispatch – it was about how I was leaving the autoroute, so soon, after taking her lessons to heart. But minutes after posting my farewell, I had a fit of nostalgia. “But I can’t leave her,” I thought. “No not yet. There’s too much writing left to be done. Too much solitude left to enjoy. No. I can’t. And I won’t.” I thought of yet another week, beneath those stars, another week in that rumbling, 700-kilometre long snake, and I knew it was in my best interests to carry on, instead of abandon ship. 

So I was going to stay on the A7 and camp all the way to Marseille. Civilization be damned. I was staying in Parklingland. But the Autoroute – easily offended, and full of vengeance, like any beautiful woman – had different plans. I should have never doubted her, for as soon as I did, she conspired to prove to me just how precious she is, just how much I’d miss her.

It all started as I got back onto the highway. After a complicated scene at full speed, where a truck drove in front of me, blocking my view, I was tricked into taking the exit to Avignon, instead of the straight ahead path to Marseille. Immediately I knew what was going on. I laughed, shaking my head. The autoroute was out to prove a point. “Leave me?” she seemed to say. “I leave you!”

Then everything started to go the way it went. When I got to Avignon, I was immediately  pulled over by two angry policemen for entering the sacred walled city going in the wrong direction. I tried to Canadian my way out of the ordeal – but they wouldn’t hear anything of it. They directed me to go park down one small alley, since I was blocking traffic, then to come back and “chat” (certainly an Avignon code for bribe.) But as soon as I pulled down this dark path, Sofia wouldn’t let me stop. She knew, she must have known, something was wrong with those policemen. I tried to reverse into a parking spot, but she rumbled, and wouldn’t cooperate. Then, a large truck pulled up behind me, and as I was struggling for the hundredth time with a stalled engine, the truck started to honk maniacally, and tap my bumper. I had no choice then but to flee from the police, and it’s not as if I even could have turned around and found them again if I wanted to. Avignon is plate of spaghetti when it comes to road planning – everything one direction, everything curved. I was hopelessly lost, and returning to the cops was simply not possible.

Finally I found a hotel, with hidden parking, and a nice clerk. Had my first real shower in days, saw my first real bed, and powered up all my resources. Pure luxury. But I wasn’t going to pass up the chance to see this city at night, so I went out on an expedition. First stop was the picturesque front steps to the Pope’s old castle, where a place of worship has evolved into a place of making out, McDonalds and teenagers getting wasted on cheap rum and cigarettes. I actually had a pretty good time with those kids, tell you the truth, but things got boring after the fifth drink, and I couldn’t stand all the couples kissing on the steps, so clearly in love and enjoying themselves, so I had to keep moving. 

I was directed by my new friends to a huge outdoor patio, with hundreds of young and attractive people drinking pastis and beer, under the moonlight and white stone walls of the ancient city. Strolling around, I wanted new friends, but every table, again, was full of lovers, and I had no desire to intrude.

Then, my patient readers, I saw them. I saw the two princesses of Avignon, as if light had been sucked down from heaven to illuminate their table. Their names, Geraldine and – damned humour of the gods – Julietta. But I would soon find out that my charm and forthcomingness had no effect in this place. I was Superman with a necktie of kryptonite. 

“Bonjour madammeoiselles,” I said, walking up to the table, hands politely crossed behind my back. “My name is Tobin. A writer from Canada. Here writing a book about love. I would like to buy you both a drink, perhaps a beer or pastis, to talk with you, and see, hopefully, how it is you beautiful creatures love in Avignon.”

“Monsieur,” said the blonde haired Geraldine, pointing at me with her finger nails the length of pencils. “We do not take kindly to writers here. 

“And besides,” jumped in the Moroccan-blooded Julietta – hair longer than shower curtains, blacker than oil. “We only accept champagne of the highest quality. You can take your beers to those bums hanging out in the Pope’s square.”

They laughed together, as they shoed me away. But no matter. I was relieved I had tried at least, and walked on my way, giving the ladies a curt bow and flourish of the hands. I went inside the bar to use the WC and plot my next step. And as I was washing my hands, there in the mirror, I saw that behind me was a wallet. Not my wallet. But someone else’s.

Inside there's 180 euros. I take the cash, and put the rest back where I found it.  This was my salvo, this was the universe saying sorry for all the crap it put me through, I foolishly thought. Then I walked straight to the bar man.

“Monsieur,” I say, slapping down the wad on the bar in one momentous gesture. “Champagne!”

So I got to know Geraldine and Julietta quite well. They told me about the men they were sucking dry, their words not mine, and about all the broken lovers they’d left in their wakes since 13 years old (they were only 20).  They were like vampires relishing their deadly deeds, and, despite their uncontrollable beauty, I found myself quickly regretting the decision to sit with them. When Julietta told me about the family doctor she had just caused to be divorced, I had had enough. I stood up, clinging what was left of my champagne, spat on the ground, and walked away. Who needs them, thought I.

This was when I met Maurico. I was hungry. I found a good looking Falafel place and sat down. Maurico was there smoking. The scar on his left eye glistened in the moonlight. He smiled at me with his black teeth, stood up, came and sat beside me. “Drinking that all to yourself, monsieur,” he said, already having his hand held out. How could I say no. So I pass him the bottle. The food comes and I eat, and we finish the bottle, and pleased, Maurico orders us a few beers and we get to talking. I ask him about love, too,  but he has nothing to say but jokes, about twins he had dated, about his wife’s girth, and so on. But no matter, soon we are friendly enough, and Maurico lights a hash joint, and then he is letting me hold his hand gun. It feels too heavy, and I don’t like it, so I hand it back to him.

Well, he says, let’s go to a party.

I tell him it’s late, that I have to be on the road in the morning. But he ignores me. “Let’s go to a party," he says, that scarred eye piercing into my heart. I don’t think he was asking me at all.

So we stroll through all the twisting streets of Avignon, where you can’t see ten feet ahead without the path being completely bent from sight, with all the fountains spewing water out of angel mouths, and street dogs scurrying like rats, everywhere. Maurico and I take it slow, because he walks with a terrible hobble  -- a motorcycle accident in Corse, he tells me, while he was "preparing for war." I thought nothing of the comment at the time and kept moving. We cross one bend, entering a small courtyard, with a monument in the middle, and there they are. The same two policemen as before, headed right for us.

“Jesus,” I said. “Let me walk behind you.”

“Are you crazy?” he said. “Keep walking.”

So we pass the officers and I do my best to keep my face in the shadows.

“Bon soiree,” the officers say.

“Bon soiree,” I say, in my worst French accent. Stupid fool, I think, why did I do that?”

The cops stopped walking. I wasn't looking back, but their footsteps had stopped. Then they called to us: “Hey, les gars, come over here a second.”

Maurico and I look at each other. He puts his hand where his gun is. I shake my head, no. We turn around. The cops say: “Ah there’s out little friend.”

I’m wondering what the hells going to happen next – but I don’t have much time. Maurico, spooked by this sudden interest of the police, had made up my next move for me. He places his hand on my chest, looks me in the eye, winks the scarred one, then shouts: “Run!”

So we bolt down one alley. We are running and the police are yelling and telling us to stop. But there is no stopping. How could I stop? But Maurico, he’s slowly falling behind me. He can’t run at all with that damn limp. And just as we’re about to turn down another twisting passage way, Maurico falls. I don’t look back. All I hear is his shouting: “Vive le Corse!” and then gun fire. Pow pow pow.

I make my way, hours later, and with much difficulty back to my hotel. I sit on the desk, computer charged for the first time in days, and rush out a stupid little story. In the morning I will wake up, and the train will rumble through the tiny little room where I sleep, and I will not have time to think of Maurico, or the police, as I get back into Sofia, and back on the road. Returning, once again, to the Autoroute A7, on the way, again, to Marseille. Stopping at the first rest stop, to get coffee, to take a siesta, to listen to the highway moans. It was good to be home.

[tobintobin-blog]

For the key, there is no problem. There is always a second key somewhere in Paris.

A letter from a friend inadvertently turns into a haiku.

[tobintobin-blog]

About why I'm doing this

It’s time to finally tell you what this adventure is all about. I thought this confession would come later, that I would tease it out, like a kiss on the back of the neck, with the little hairs touching the lips. But the words are coming to me, troubling me in this empty cottage, and who am I to disregard the passion of some force that I can never understand?

It started a few moments ago. I had sent out that photo, in which I again referred to the highway in France as that “dark highway”. It wasn’t the first time I approached the highway with a feeling of trepidation. Earlier, I think, I had spoken of it as a “cold” place. We have seen the Cosmonaut, floating in space alone – and he is facing the darkness, too. And that is the picture I have of me, on the autoroute, searching in space for what he has lost back home. In any case, I’ve been carrying the idea of this voyage with me with as much fear as excitement. I will be alone. I will face it.

What is surprising to me is how different this feeling is from what the authors, the lovers at the heart of this story, felt when they hatched their plans to hit the road. It was four years before they ever started their trip. They were headed back home after a month-long battle with “demons”, some darkness they never refer to by name, but which we know now refers to their illnesses, which would one day be their end. They drove north from Serre, from their dear friends’ magical house, with the crocodile dog (a house I am visiting, by the way) and they started to make the game up in their heads. They saw all the rest stops along the way and they said: what the hell! Let’s do it. No, in fact it was firmer than that. They said: we must do this! They knew from the beginning the highway would reveal something to them, if they approached it that way – as a game, a way to turn things on their head. They maybe didn’t know what was coming, but they sure as hell were excited. Like children planning to run away – but what to pack? 

“Cold”, “dark”? I don’t think they saw it that way. Maybe a bit daunted by the uglier looking rest stops, as Carol counted them on the way home (66, I think). But the feeling was of adventure. They were Magellan, they were Columbus, they were the wool-hatted Cousteau.

So what the hell is this about for me? I, too, have been wrestling with demons. Maybe I don’t need to name them either. But let’s say, four months ago, the ceiling of the planet was torn away and everything whirlwinded away from me. The only thing that could rescue me ended being a few empty nights, searching for Osita, for Carol, because I felt there was a story there. 

What can I say? Since all the pieces have started to line up, and the story itself is becoming miraculous (it always was, I just had to look at it a bit more), it’s not as if I’m hunched over solemn every day. I do feel a bit like a child. I do feel the lightness of finally doing what I should be doing – of fighting those goddamn demons. Don’t get the impression that I’m hating this.

But that highway. That monster waiting for me in the cold, black night of a lonely France, of a Paris without a lover, a history of regret trailing with me all the way there. What pain it is to think of me there on the road. So, readers, I need to tell you, this cruise is a pilgrimage, an atonement. I am going alone, and I too am hoping the highway will reveal something to me. I too am looking for the cosmoroute beneath the autoroute – but I suspect it might be very different, and very difficult. I suspect it will be very lonely. I suspect my adventure will not at all be like that of Julio and Carol, of the two typewriters on the highway, playing with dogs and children, enjoying a feast of life, a final, courageous battle with their demons. A happiness despite all the pain. I am daunted by the idea that I will just fold and hate every second of it. 

I realize, getting to the end of this, that I’m being a bit foolish; of course they saw what I saw. Of course they felt uneasy. Doesn’t every adventurer? What did Columbus think, or the submariner Cousteau? Wasn’t it always fear that made their adventure seem worthy? The currency that reveals there’s something behind it? Maybe they knew, as I do, that you must fear something, and do something fearful, in order to find that other taste. That zest. In order to really smile in all that is bucolic, in all that is in that bag of cherries, in all that is in the white wine, and the games, and photos, and playfulness. Is it not? What would this even mean if it was easy?

I’m worried I’ve left you more confused than when we started. Let’s just say, there is a dark road somewhere, thousands of miles away from me, and it is my only purpose now to cross it. I am driven by pain, and I see it only in pitch and shadow hues – but in that darkness, I feel happy, because I know I will destroy my fears in the process. I know there will be a birth. And with that, I feel proud, and excited. 

I’m sure that’s not all, but that’s all for now.