Surprises in Germany!

During my recent trip to Germany I spotted another one of those space invaders!



That makes three!!

This one was in Köln, along with this other interesting eyesore:

So, how was German camp?

Here's the latest escalation in my ongoing battle with the German language: I packed up my whole family to Germany to spend our vacation on three weeks of German camp!



In case you're asking "Wait, don't you already live in a German-speaking country? Why do you have to travel to have a German-language immersion?" -- allow me to review. The problem with Zürich is they speak a flavor of German that is impossible for foreigners to learn without first learning German German. And everybody in Zürich speaks English anyway. So -- while I speak kind-of OK German -- I haven't felt confident enough to inflict my terrible German on unsuspecting Swiss people. Instead we've saved this fun for the Germans!

On the down-side, the camp kind of reminded me of that song "Camp Grenada." Particularly the line where they sing "...and they say we'll have some fun if it stops raining." I'd packed mostly Summer clothing (being as it's July and everything), yet the first week was unexpectedly chilly. Then the second week was even chillier, with occasional rain. But it didn't really start raining in earnest until the third week.

Then (while I'm on the complainy part), there was the food. My husband was already leery about the food when I first suggested this trip. ("Three weeks?? You have no idea how terrible the food is in Germany!") I then recounted that conversation to my boss (who is Swiss). He asked me what part of Germany it's in, and when I said it's near Köln, he immediately said, "Oh, the food is really terrible there! Oh... I mean... It's not so bad..." Anyway, with that introduction, the food at camp exceeded our expectations. Tragically. Picture a cuisine that's already not much to write home about, then imagine how it might be prepared by a school cafeteria for kids.

That said, I don't want to complain too much about the food because overall the camp was great fun, and we got a ton of good German language practice and instruction. And by the third week of people complaining, the food improved considerably. Either that or we just got used to it. My husband was only subjected to the first two weeks of it because he had a conference to attend, lucky bastard.

On the positive side, it was fun for the kids to get to attend the same school as their parents! After they divided us into classes, I told Léo that I'm in the same class with Daddy, and Léo immediately said, "I hope you get to sit by Daddy!" So cute! Naturally, why would he imagine that the grown-up classes would be any different from the classes for kids? He also assumed we'd be needing scissors and a glue-stick for our class...

The action shot!!

Here I am, engrossed in my favorite vacation activity:


So, we'll take the 12:40 boat to Isola Madre, where we will wander around and enjoy the gardens for exactly one hour and twenty-five minutes, then catch the 14:20 boat to Stresa where the kids can play on the playground for fifty minutes before we catch the 15:40 boat to Santa Caterina del Sasso...

I'm not sure anyone else in the family enjoys lake boat rides as much as I do, but they did OK:


We sure are riding a lot of boats on this trip...

But we all got to enjoy a lot of gorgeous scenery. Here's Nico at Santa Caterina del Sasso (a three-building hermitage built into the side of a cliff):


just hanging out

and on Isola Madre:



Leo is a lot more reluctant to be photographed than Nico (unless he's playing "Angry Birds"), but my husband got one picture of both boys touring the botanical gardens:


Our imaginary universe is even more fun than all these gardens our parents keep taking us to!

Spring Break in Italy!

We just got back from lovely Lago Maggiore!! Now, I know we've already been to Lago Maggiore, but the way I see it, you can never have too much Lago Maggiore.

Some amusing stuff happened that I'll post about in the next couple of days. But for the moment I'm easing slowly back into the Internet. Since the trip was just four days chrono, I figured I'd make it just make it a relaxing vacation-from-Internet. (I love the Internet, but sometimes we take separate vacations.) I even got up at five on Easter Sunday to be sure to have time to finish my Sunday in Outer Blogness column and make a picnic lunch for my family to eat on the train. It wasn't necessary, BTW, we were ready a full hour before we needed to be -- but better safe than sorry!

Minnesota Trains!!

As everyone knows, a vacation is not complete without trying out the local public transportation!

Here in Minneapolis, there's now a light-rail line. (Yes, there's just one line, but from there you can transfer to buses and such.) So I decided to take my sons and my niece Emily on a little ride. My brother Ben and his family came along too.



My nieces were excited to ride the train, but by sons were pretty blase about it:


Oh, boy! We get to ride a tramway almost exactly like the one we ride every day back home in Switzerland.

My kids just wanted to go because they're interested in unusual coins, and Louise (my SiL) told them that the ticket machine gives dollar coins as change.



I also learned an important lesson that day: If you're wearing beige pants, don't put your black camera-case in your lap just before handing someone your camera to take a picture.


Yes, I am wearing pants in this picture.

The verdict: Better than nothing, but not quite the same level of convenience as the transportation in Zurich. ;)

Italy trip tips #4: graffiti!!

OK, this one isn't really a tip. I just wanted to highlight some amusing graffiti we saw. For example, this ordinary traffic sign in Florence was (for some unknown reason) transformed into a crucifix:



Also, what's up with these space invaders???



I saw this one right by the famous Spanish staircase in Rome, and I saw another one on my recent trip to Paris as well (though I don't remember exactly where it was).

Also -- this is a bit of a tangent, but -- I want to throw in a picture of my husband so you can see that he really was there with me:


My sweetie and Hercules battling a centaur

As usual he doesn't show up in that many photos because he tends to be on the other side of the camera. ;)

Italy trip tips #3: Souvenirs!!!

And I thought Lourdes was great for souvenirs -- with their unending supply of Catholic kitsch!!!

The thing about Lourdes, though, is that there's really no reason to go there unless you're Catholic (and/or happen to be visiting an aunt who's a nun, like we did). But with Rome? There are so many reasons to visit, many of which have nothing to do with Catholicism! (Catholicism and Christianity became important largely because of Rome, not the reverse...)



The hilarious result is that the souvenir stands have all of the Catholic devotional made-in-China souvenirs, with the secular-questionable-taste items displayed right beside them! One very popular item was boxer shorts with the genitals of Michelangelo's David printed onto them. And the souvenir shop across the street from our hotel had a whole selection of rosaries on one shelf, while the shelf just below it was cartoon figurines of gladiators and of the emperor giving the "thumbs down."

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera handy when I was at that shop. But maybe you can make out the pope plates in this one, featuring the current pope putting on his best trying-not-to-look-like-the-evil-emperor smile:

Italy trip tips #2: Beware of the dome!

Recall from tip #1 that we were wandering aimlessly around Italy, visiting anything interesting that we noticed in our path.

Well, in Florence, we noticed this rather remarkable dome:



On one entrance, there was a sign that said "Visit the dome." Sounds interesting, we thought.

Now -- this is perhaps silly of me -- but my initial assumption was that this was just an entrance to go into the cathedral "Il Duomo" and look up at the dome. Then, as we were buying our entrance tickets, I noticed a sign that said there were four-hundred-sixty-three stairs, hence the visit is "not appropriate for people with heart conditions." That warning went right past me. I don't have a heart condition, and I can climb four-hundred-sixty-three stairs without the slightest difficulty.

It wasn't until I'd passed the point of no return that it hit me that this wasn't quite the same as climbing four-hundred-sixty-three stairs in a modern stairwell.

The problem is that the path to the dome is a long, dark, narrow, cramped stone tunnel. There's a huge line of people in front of you and behind, and the corridor is so narrow that two people can't pass each other (except in a handful of isolated wider points). In particular, you can't turn around and go back out the way you came -- the only way out is to continue to press forward through the cramped tunnel, and who knows what's up ahead??

I normally think of myself as only mildly claustrophobic. (Of course I had a weirdly similar scare at that polygamist church service...) Even before I got to see the dome, I was already starting to get very, very nervous. If someone were to have a heart attack in the middle of the visit -- which I could totally see happening!! -- how could that person (and everyone else) be evacuated?

Then we stepped out onto the balcony of the dome:



It's actually quite amazing! It's apparently the largest purely-masonry dome in the world. Here's looking up:



And here's looking down:



This is why, naturally, you don't want someone freaking out, ruining the visit for all of the normal people.

The balcony along the inside of the dome is made of stone, but is encased in glass, and is still so narrow that it isn't possible to pass anyone. And it was rather unfortunate for the tourists ahead of me in line -- who wanted to stand there at leisure admiring the ceiling -- when I gently suggested that they please step away from the exit because I have to get out of here now.

I climbed down the earliest exit possible (there were only two choices), but my husband continued on up the second path to the visit to the outside terrace:



If it had been necessary to go up there, I'm sure I could have done it without a major incident. But I'm glad I didn't have to, and boy was I ever happy to be out of that towering dungeon and back on solid ground in the great out-of-doors!

Later we happened upon a museum of medieval torture devices. On that one, they were careful to post a warning that the visit wasn't recommended for people who are "very sensitive or claustrophobic." Of course, merely by reading that it's a display of medieval torture devices, I already know I don't want to see that.

But I appreciated the careful warning. ;)

Italy trip tips #1: Stuff we discovered by accident!

Remember how I said that one nice thing about a trip to Italy is that you can do it without any advance planning? And that -- from Zurich -- you can have the idea to go one morning, and then go hop on a train and be there that afternoon...?

Well, just because you can do it that way doesn't mean that's the optimal way to visit Italy...

For example (with just a little advance planning!) you can avoid going in August. In Florence and Rome, any site that was even remotely visit-worthy was packed to the brim with tourists!! (Milan wasn't quite so bad, but also didn't have quite as many sights to see.)

Fortunately, the locals (the few that weren't on vacation elsewhere) made the best of it, and were nothing but friendly and helpful. And, really, why should people in Florence hate tourists? That would be like Swiss people hating cows! In Rome, many of the Romans who didn't have standard tourism-industry jobs would dress up as gladiators to pose for photos with tourists. Basically, it was a little like visiting an Italy-themed amusement park, except that you can potentially get run over by the crazy drivers for real.

Our lack of planning also kept us from booking things we might otherwise have booked in advance. For example, here's the view from our hotel window:


See that round building in the background? That's the church where you can go see Da Vinci's "Last Supper". Or you could, if you'd made an advance reservation.

But here's a tip we discovered (by luck!) when visiting the Colosseum:

The Colosseum is a lot more popular to visit than the other ruins of the ancient city (the forum and the Palatine hill), but the same ticket gets you into the lot. So visit the forum first (and buy your ticket there) to avoid the lines.



The Colosseum is a bit easier on the tourist than the Forum is. It's a huge structure that's mostly still standing, and the upper floors have a large indoor section that's set up like a museum (with a lot of historical information). The rest of the ancient city center is an enormous field of intriguingly scattered chunks of marble:



I studied Latin all through High School and College, so naturally I had to go visit the Forum! But it's one of those sites where you might actually want to have a tour guide explaining what this or that piece of marble used to be.


Remains of the Temple of Vesta, perhaps...?

Also, it can get hot very quickly there -- another reason to avoid visiting in August!

Oh, and here's one more thing we stumbled on purely by accident -- Galileo's house! It's near the Palazzo Pitti.

At Einstein's house in Princeton, the residents not only have avoided putting up a plaque about it, they actually took the number off their house and put up a "private residence" sign (to ward off the tourists, I suppose). At Galileo's house in Florence, by contrast, they not only put up a plaque, but they painted Galileo's portrait in the top story:



So did he really live there? Who knows? But as they say in Italy, "Se non e vero, e ben trovato." :D

My sweetie knows me too well!!

He decided to get me a special surprise the other day, and here's what he brought home:

Yep, it's Transit Maps of the World: The world's first collection of every urban train map on Earth!! :D

Not only does it have the transit map of every city in the world with an urban train system (real or planned), but it also has historical maps of the oldest subway systems and how they evolved.

I was interested in the usual suspects (London, New York, Paris), but was even more intrigued by the historical maps of the subway system in Berlin, where pre-WWII lines crossed from West to East and back! For decades (before the wall came down) some mostly-west-side lines would pass through "ghost stations" in East Berlin where the subway train just wouldn't stop. Now the Berlin subway system is, of course, re-integrated. It actually makes me curious to visit Berlin -- especially now that my German is improving.

(Don't ask me to say anything in German yet, though -- my best sentence in high German is still "Ich möchte eine Fahrkarte nach Heidelberg, bitte" [I'd like a ticket to Heidelberg, please]. Not that I've ever been there. And my best sentence in Swiss German is the one that translates as "There are many frogs in Switzerland." I'd spell it out in Swiss German for you, but there's no standardized spelling. I'd prefer to be saying "There are many cows in Switzerland" -- to impress my Swiss-German friends -- but the word for frog is easier to pronounce. Anyway, both statements are true.)

So how did my sweetie guess that I'd be fascinated by all these transit maps? And that I'd sit down and read them all, just for fun? Maybe he got his clue when we were in Boston this past weekend and I was contemplating the subway map on the wall, to see how many lines they have and how they connect to each other, etc.


My kids explore Boston!

Of course, I guess he doesn't really have to be paying all that close of attention to have noticed my crazy fascination with urban transit. It was still thoughtful, though.

Here's one more picture to prove that we did come out and explore above ground in Boston. A little. ;^)


A cute bronze sculpture illustrating all of the local wildlife that you'd see in Boston, if only that nature stuff hadn't been paved over.

It's like living in a parallel universe, where the same laws of physics do not apply...

"So how's this year's culture shock?" you ask.

Recall from last year that the gigantism of everything here in the U.S. is no longer a shocker. And the fact that everyone is always speaking English, again, takes a little getting used to. (In particular, it took a few days to get over the urge to say "Greutzi" every time I approach a store clerk.) But the biggest surprise was that -- once I got back behind the wheel -- it was as though I'd never left.

Sort of.

One of the things you get used to when living downtown is not having big box stores. No Wall-Mart, no Super Target. When I first moved to downtown Bordeaux (France), all the time I'd be wondering "Where do I get X if there's no Target (or equivalent)?"

Over time, I discovered that if I really need X, I can find it. And I also discovered that a lot of the time I didn't need X very badly. Over time, you can actually train yourself to get used to not being able to purchase any conceivable object 24/7, 364 1/2 days a year.

Once I moved to Zürich, it was the same only double. The Swiss are all about quality over quantity, so it's even harder to find all that cheap crap from China (of any size, shape, color, shininess, sparklitude, and luminosity you can imagine!) than it is in France. Then -- since I live in a small apartment where it costs 2 francs (~= $2) to throw away one kitchen-sized bag of garbage -- the last thing I need is more junk!

That's why it surprised me how simple it was to just fall back into the mindset of "Oh, I'll just hop in the car and go pick some up at Target..." It is so alien to my normal life that it's like I'm living in some alternate universe where the normal laws of physics don't apply. Yet, it's a universe that I lived in for thirty years, so I know my way around...

I guess my real moment of culture shock came when buying some toys for my kids, and I was shocked by the enormity of the cardboard-and-plastic display case packaging the toys came in. And I was confusedly asking my parents "Do we just throw this away?"

And even though I can fit in here, this lifestyle still makes me nervous.

Why?

Mostly because of this:
(which I found here), and this:
(which I found here.)

And it's not just the cost of this lifestyle in (very, very finite) energy reserves. There's also the fact that if all this stuff came from China (and it's not clear what China is getting in return), one starts to suspect that the imbalance will at some point get equalized. Likely in a manner that won't be comfortable and convenient. Not to be a downer or anything...

But I guess that's another thing about coming back here: it makes me wax philosophical about human progress -- and how we need to make some, ASAP!

on vacation with more than I can chew...

I've been looking forward to this vacation all year -- two months with my family in Minnesota! Unfortunately, that means that everything I didn't have time to do this past year, I just put it on my "I'll do it on my vacation..." list. Then I cleverly signed on for a professional/research project that looks like it's going to be as much work as being in a start-up again. (Remember when I was so busy with work that I had to have Nico blog for me? That's about where I'm at now.)

Anyway, I'll give you the run-down on my plans in hopes that I'll have the opportunity of meeting some of my blogging friends during my stay in the U.S.:

First off, I'm spending July and August in the suburbs of Minneapolis. (Naturally, I'm hoping to see the Minnesota Atheists again.) Also, in late August, I'll be in Utah for the Sunstone Symposium, and I hope to meet some of you there! Then, for September, October, November, and December we'll be in New Jersey. After that, it's back to Switzerland.

I know, with a six-month stay in the U.S., I really ought to update the masthead of my blog. It's getting to be about time, that's for sure! Well, I'll put it on my to-do list. Somewhere.

Buongiorno dal Lago Maggiore!

I thought that the colors of a landscape in real life are supposed to be surprisingly vivid. But here, with the morning mist in the mountains against the pale blue of the lake, I've been surprised instead by how muted the colors are. More than anything, it reminds me of a travel poster sun-faded over the years in a shop window...

Back from vacation!

I'm back from my Christmas/New Year's vacation to France and Holland!


Here we are frolicking by the pyramid of the Louvre.



It turned out to be unexpectedly Internet-free, which is why I've hardly posted at all over the past two weeks. (If you're looking for something to read, you can see the latest edition of my weekly roundup Sunday in Outer Blogness or check out some cool carnivals: The Humanist Symposium, The Carnival of the Godless, and The Carnival of the Liberals.) Practically the only time I got to be on the Internet was on the train going back and forth between Paris and Belgium. (Free WiFi in the train! Just sayin' for any of you out there who doubted the awesomeness of train travel.)

Going for days on end without the Internet was kind of relaxing but a little disconcerting (I suppose that's a bad sign).



The good news is that I had plenty of time to read a new exmo-interest memoir (The Mormon Cult), which I'll be telling you about this week. Plus I had time to draw many of the illustrations for Orem High. Of course I still have to scan them all in and color them. Will I be done in time for my planned February 10th start date or will I have to move the date back? We'll see...

On vacation...

Here are a few updates on my current vacation status:

* I've been hanging out with my brother John (and Mike and Leandro -- if you've forgotten what they look like, see men in kilts), and I just learned that John has been added as a permablogger on the #1 Mormon blog By Common Consent. Shows how I'm paying attention! I wasn't even subscribed to that one, so I had no idea. I guess I'll be adding it to my sidebar and my RSS reader...

* I want to post some funny stories for you guys, but since I'm back in the land of books printed in English, I've been busy with something of a book orgy. I have now purchased a gigantic mountain of books to bring home, and at the same time I'm trying to read as many books as possible from my parents' library while I'm here (since those books aren't coming home to Switzerland with me). I just finished Carol Lynn Pearson's Good-bye, I Love You this morning. So while I'm occupied with reading, I'm just going to have to do the lazy blogger thing and send you over to my sister's blog again -- she's a good photographer and has been chronicling the whole family's adventures in real time.

* I'd like to have a Minnesota exmo blogger real-life get-together. I know of at least two here in Minnesota and one in Iowa who have expressed interest. Anyone who'd like to join in the fun, please email me at the usual address: chanson dot exmormon at gmail dot com.

Back to my book and deck chair -- see you!!! :D

More tales from the nude beach...

My post topless on the beach -- which I wrote nearly a year ago -- remains my #1 post, bringing in tons of hits from search engines every day.

I hadn't realized the subject of nude sunbathing was quite that interesting. At the time it was a post I tossed off practically as filler. But I'm starting to think that many of you out there in cyberspace have never been to a nude beach (or even a topless beach), and perhaps are curious. So in the interest of making sure my blog provides a valuable public service, today I'm going to try to remember more about the subject.

One question that comes up in a lot of search queries is about nude beaches for families. I personally didn't see many kids the few times I went to the nude beach in New Jersey, and the few I saw were very small. My impression is that bringing kids along for nudist activities is more a nude camping thing. I've never done that, but I've heard about it.

On the other hand, the beaches in France are full of kids, and partial nudity abounds. It's common for little kids to swim naked, and as I said in my earlier post, lots of the women go topless. I don't recall seeing that many moms going topless when they have kids with them, but I wasn't really looking out for that.

Another very common topic for search queries is people being shy about going topless on the beach for the first time. That seems like a pretty logical topic to wonder about since it must happen: A woman wants to go to the nude beach because all her friends are doing it, but she's shy about it. Really, that's kind of an erotic image. Unfortunately I don't have any anecdotes about that because I've never seen any obvious examples. All the people I've seen going nude or partially nude looked like they were either completely blasé about the whole thing or they were actually getting off on it. I know in my own case that was the whole draw: the thought of all these random strangers wanting to get a good look. So when the guy I was with would tell me about this or that guy taking an extra long look (apparently they wouldn't do it much when I was looking at them, but they were ignoring my companion), it was kind of amusing. For my inner anthropologist.

It's a good idea to go with a guy, though, because that way all of the random strangers keep their distance. Whenever we would get separated (if one of us would have to go get something) guys would come around and try to start a conversation with me. It's probably absurd of me to be annoyed by that, but I guess on some level I'd decided that the rules of the game should be "look, don't pester" and those guys were ruining it for everybody. Maybe other ladies feel differently, and in that case they're better off going to the nude beach with other women.

(Feminists will probably be annoyed that I'm taking it for granted that guys will assume that a group of women together are fair game for being hit on. But seriously, if you'd like to go hang out with a bunch of other women without having random guys hit on you, the straight area of the nude beach is the wrong choice.)

One funny thing that happened when I was at the nude beach was that I saw a guy get a citation for public urination. Apparently for some people the mere fact of being covered by pants is their primary inhibition from peeing -- not hygiene or social convention or stuff like that. As soon as the guy was done, a beach cop drove up in a beach buggy and chewed him out, pointing out the public toilets not far away.

That was the only time I've ever seen anyone get a ticket for public urination. I've certainly never seen anyone get in trouble for it here in France. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure it's even illegal here. After all, with all the dog crap in the streets, who's going to notice a little human urine here and there?

That's all I can think of for the moment. I wish I had more stories for you, but I didn't go that many times...

Surprises in Zurich

I didn't think I had too much of a pre-set notion of what Switzerland is like, but I've seen a few things here that have surprised me nonetheless:

1. Cigarette vending machines. I don't think I've seen one of those in more than twenty years. Youngsters reading this have probably never seen one. All I can say is "What the...?" Perhaps someone who knows more about Swiss culture than I do can explain to me some coherent reason for why they haven't joined the rest of the civilized world on this one.

2. People biking in traffic without helmets. Lots of 'em. It seems like none of the bikers here wear helmets. I'm not necessarily going to say "There ought to be a law..." on this one (unlike the cigarette vending machine question), but I would think people would care more about their own safety than that. Even though drivers here are much more disciplined about stopping for pedestrians here than in France, still it only takes one mistake.

Then on a more positive note, #3: the "Condomeria"



I don't think I've ever seen a store openly display such wares in the shop window. Even when I went on my pilgrimage to "Good Vibrations" in San Francisco, as I recall the shop windows were obscured -- customers had to enter to see what was for sale. (San Fransciscans please correct me if I'm wrong on that.)

For a second I thought it was appropriate that the condomeria faced a large French bookstore, but then it hit me that they don't have any shops like that one in Bordeaux (a city of comparable size). For all of the French disdain of prudishness, the many sex shops of Bordeaux have kind of an air of sleaziness: they're more of the "peep show" variety and don't give the impression that female customers would be welcome to enter even if they wanted to. For the ladies in France they have the lingerie shops instead. Maybe it's just me, but places like this condomeria make the whole business seem more wholesome and egalitarian.

Things that didn't surprise me?

Zurich is very green and very, very, very clean. :D

Greetings from sunny Switzerland!!!

Today I'm blogging you from the lovely city of Zurich.

I actually have some real blog entries planned for the near future, but since I'm on vacation/hiatus, you get nothing but vacation photos from me for the time being. Don't worry though -- I won't make you suffer through the usual stereotypical tourist photos of Switzerland (clocks, chocolates, piles of gold bars, yodelers, etc.)

Instead I have for you a shop window featuring really tall spike-heel shoes and boots:


This isn't exactly what I expected to see in Switzerland, but after about two seconds' reflection I thought "cool." ;^)

All about Lourdes!!!

A couple hundred years ago, a fourteen-year-old went to a secluded grotto to pray, and saw a divine personage appear. (This story seems weirdly familiar, doesn't it?) The divine personage was of course the Virgin Mary, and the fourteen-year-old was later canonized as Saint Bernadette.



Lourdes is one of the most popular religious pilgrimage sites in the world. According to Wikipedia, it has more hotels than any city in France besides Paris. The Catholic church has officially declared that the waters of Lourdes have the power to miraculously heal people, so Lourdes is the prime destination for every Catholic whose health requires a miracle.

Lourdes is a popular spot for healthy Catholics as well. I mentioned to a colleague that I was going to Lourdes, and he told me his story of visiting Lourdes when he was a kid, in Catechism. The healthy push the sick (in special wheelchairs of Lourdes) to the healing waters to bathe. An endless procession of the dreadfully ill marinate in the miraculous pool from morning until night. Then it's your turn to get in. "That you don't get sick from it -- that's the miracle!" he said.

I haven't participated in any of the religious aspects, but I've learned a lot about Lourdes by observation. One popular custom I've noticed is to buy candles and place them in one of these candle-boxes:


Those are just the little ones. If you need a heavy-duty prayer candle to help your miracle along, you can buy a 20 kilogram candle for only 150 euros!


If you look closely at the photos above, you can see the candle box says (in several languages) "This flame continues my prayer." So apparently you start praying, and lighting a candle holds the line open with God while you go off and do something else. I thought it was pretty hilarious when Mr. Deity called dinner blessings "spam", but the Catholics have gone one step farther -- they actually call up God and put Him on hold!!!

(The things God has to put up with -- it's a wonder Mormons aspire to take that job...)

I was a little taken aback when I saw there was a medical station (open 365 days a year) right on the plaza of the Basilica! But... what do you need doctors for when you have the miracle of Our Lady of Lourdes right there? Never mind, don't answer that...

The best thing about Lourdes however is the souvenirs!!! Downtown Lourdes is an endless collection of block after block of the kitschiest holy souvenirs you've ever laid eyes on!!! The Wikipedia article warns that some may be shocked by the crass commercialism, but shocking is really the wrong word here. I think the word they're looking for is "hilarious"!!! I don't care whether you're one of those grumpy atheists who's always lamenting the popularity of magical thinking or one of those prudish Christians who thinks that religious items should be respectful and dignified -- when you actually get here and see this stuff, you can't be shocked because you're too busy rolling around on the ground laughing!!!

Seriously, for this alone Lourdes is worth the trip.

Some of my Catholic friends have told me about playing games like competing over who can find the tackiest souvenir in all of Lourdes. I keep wanting to play that game (or the variant where you count how many different household items can be made in the shape of the Virgin Mary), but we almost never have any time for souvenir shopping since we go there to visit our aunt who is too old to walk all the way to town. I know I shouldn't be disappointed -- I should be thinking about aunty and not about my own selfish desire to take a million outrageously wacky photos to post to my blog. Still it would have been great fun if I'd had time to see if I could find myself a glow-in-the-dark rosary or a magic 8-ball Jesus or perhaps an authentic shroud of Turin replica lampshade.

As it was, all I got this time were a few photos I took through the window of the taxi on the way back to the train station:




The other thing I was curious to see was the wax museum. It boasts life-size wax statues of the entire Last Supper (DaVinci style) and of Pope John Paul II!!! I'm a little hesitant about that place though because it may cross that fine line between tacky and scary...

Oh well, maybe next year!