"You are all a Lost Generation" - Gertrude Stein

(Morzine, France) - Much has happened since I last made an entry. I got back to Europe in one piece [albeit with a(nother) wicked cold]. Moved into a new apartment, which is a huge improvement over the last one (pictures soon), and attended the premier of Orfeo at the Geneva opera (story later).

Currently, I am sitting in a bar in the ski town of Morzine, taking refuge from the cold, sketching some notes for my blog entry, and waiting for my bus back to Geneve. I had joined up with my friend Andrew and a bunch of other expat Americans (living in Brussels, Paris, and Oxford) for a weekend of skiing in the Rhone Alps. Lots of Americans in Europe nowadays. They'd been up here for a few days before my arrival and just left a little while ago in their rental car to Geneva to grab their flight. Alas, there was no room in said car for me and I am getting back the same way I got up on Saturday morning - by bus. I really gotta get a car.

Up late the night before, my day started too early on Saturday. I crawled out of bed to make my 8:50 bus to Morzine-Avoriaz on the far side of Geneva. As usual I am late, and have much to do before I go and so I rush. Pack bag. Repack bag. Grab food. Mount bike and fly down hill.

First, I have to stop by my office to pick up my skis, which have been there ever since their arrival in CH 2 weeks prior to my own last Sept. Open the door. Check email. Panic. I have forgotten someting. This could be a disaster....What will I read on the bus? I had forgotten to pack reading material. I have to have something to read. Can't waste the 1.5 hours. I am rushed and I look through the pile of papers on my desk, next to desk, behind desk... can't find what I am looking for. Got to go. Got to go. I grab off my bookcase Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises". It had been sitting there looking at me since shortly after I got an email last Nov from my friend Will, who was educating me on the finer points of expating it in Europe. Will, who had spend about a year in St. Petersburg wrote:

WP: "You absolutely have to read Hemingway while you're there. Even if you've already read all his books, I think they will be different if you reread them now. I didn't have an appretiation for european asthetics or values until I read Hemingway while I was an ex-pat."

To which I responded: "Actually I am embarrased to say I have never read any Hemingway. Where would I start?"

To which WP responded: "Start with "The Sun Also Rises." It is usually titled "Fiesta" in europe. And it shows the mixed-up confused lives of expat Americans in France. It has some great characters, like the count who has been through three wars and seven revolutions and has arrow wounds, and declares "it is precisely because I have lived so much that now I can enjoy everything so very well." it has excellent telegram messages, an art in itself. It has smooth moments- smoothness is a very european value. Most Americans associate smooth with shady characters, and value work and feel ackward relaxing in a cafe.

I was in a cafe yesterday here in NY doing work and a couple from NJ sat down next to me and wondered out loud why so many people came here to do work, hang out or read the papers. They drank their coffee quickly, and tried to hang out for a few minutes before leaving. It's a different culture. When you're there, you need to have a favorite cafe, and go there when you're meeting people and also every morning to read the papers.

Local papers are best, but the Hearald Tribune or Le Monde will do. What makes a proper cafe, you ask? First, it should have clients of all ages. Second, a good selection of coffee. Alcohol should also be served. Cheap is good if you're like me. And I also like cafes that are well lit, spacious and not too loud. There are so many cafes in the US that think indirect lighting means it should be dim. Or they play music. I find those cafes distracting and hard to work in."

It goes on. This is classic Will. I then relayed above exchange with other friend Dave, who responded:

DMP: "I'm shocked and would have to say that I agree with you. You should be embarrassed. I completely agree with Will regarding the importance of Hemmingway to the ex-pat experience in Europe. Why didn't I think of that? My list would be slightly different in terms of the order though;

1. "A Moveable Fiest" A very quick and quality read. Much of this is in Paris. You need to get your foot in the door fast.

2. "The Sun Also Rises" Will does a good job here.

3. "A Farewell To Arms" Provocative! Griping! See other Ebert adjatives.

4. "For Whom the Bell Tolls" Not quite as directly applicable, but the best book ever written by Hemmingway. A must read at some point. Hemmingway is incredible, especially if you have some affection for Europe.

Get involved, Peter, it's all moving so quickly."

It also goes on. This is classic Dave. Shortly after the above exchanges, I decided to get 'involved' and bought the book.

Moving quickly out of my office, I jammed it in my bag. Raced across town. Made the bus (barely) and settled in back and started reading. The story follows a group of America and English expats in Paris after WWI and is about, among other things, their life in Europe and a trip they took to Pamplona. It is in fact a roman a clef about Hemingway himself and various characters he was surrounded with living amongst the Lost Generation in 1920's Paris. It is a good read, but actually quite light and I raced through the first 90 pages in the 1.5 hours it took us to wind our way through the foothills and then into the Alps themselves.

Ahhhh.... the skiing. The bus dumped me out at the foot of the teleferique for Avioriaz. I was supposed to call Andrew, but found that my cell wasn't working. Plan deux was to meet them where they were hooking up with a guide for off-piste skiing at 1:30. I skiied like a rockstar for 2.5 hours, pausing only to take a digger off one mogul run that knocked the wind out of me. Ooofff. At the 'point de recoinetre' (sp?) at the scheduled time, I found no sign of the group. Hmmm? I waited for 20 minutes and then took off to continue my great day of skiing.

I would only find them later at the hotel. After skiing all day and finding my way on a shuttle back down into Morzine, I had only a vague recollection of where we were staying. "Ours d'something" was the only thing I could dredge out of the recesses of my mind. I stopped by the Office de Tourism de Morzine and the lady there gave me some leads. There is a Ours d'Blanc in Morzine. This didn't sound quite right, but she insisted it was the only "Ours d'anything" in town. Still, I was nervous regarding it was the right spot as I walked across town with the sun going down and it getting real cold real quick. Luckily it WAS the place and although Andrew wasn't there, I met Gabe - his roommate - who let me know I had found them. Gabe is an American living and working in Brussels. He was known through a friend of Andrews who worked in the same company as a bunch of the others we were with.

Andrew eventually wandered in, wondering what happened to me and I explained about my cell phone yadda yadda. And found that they were at a different 'point de recoinetre' etc. We had a beer and then a nice dinner with the rest of the group he was traveling with. It was a good group of folks and is always interesting to get other Americans' perspective on living in Europe. Later in the evening, out at a bar with Andrew and Gabe, we got to talking about what it is like to live in a place where you are 'other' and what it means for your sense of self and how it changes your interactions and outlook.

I pointed out the interesting sense of community I have found among the Anglo speakers in Geneva. We all live in the city of 200,000 people, but inside of the larger community there is a bond between a smaller set. More or less we listen to the same English language radio station and will shop in the same English language book store. This is not to say that I don't seek out natives of CH and want to embrace the local culture, but when I meet a fellow native English speaker I have a point of reference with them already and it is easy to feel a bond as such to a person you have just met. It is a peculiar thing to leave a culture you are familiar with, and go to a place where you aren't, yet feel sometimes a closer bond to various people you meet because you are both 'other'. "So you're from Canada?" is a perfectly reasonable opener in such a circumstance.

In contrast, Gabe and Andrew both felt that the defining aspect of living abroad was the chance to redefine themselves on their own terms. They were now in a place where - at least when they arrived - they hardly knew anyone and the usual candle of friends, family or culture was not held up to them. Where they went to college, what they were like in high school, what their family life was like, none of this mattered much... and somehow the geographical break of the Atlantic made it matter even less then if they had simply picked up and moved to a different part of the US. I can see this perspective and I guess I have even felt that way. But I wondered is it real? Do people really reinvent themselves or do they just think they do?

Shortly after having this conversation and thinking on and off of it for sometime, I remembered a point apropos of it made to me by Hemingway himself. In one of the opening passages of "The Sun Also Rises", the Hemingway-like character is talking down his excitable comrade Robert Cohen who, addled on pernod and absinthe, is bemoaning that his life is going by so fast and he is not "really living it". Cohen is trying to convince Barnes (Hemingway) into a gonzo trip to S. America. Barnes senses the real issue and responds in kind, "Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that."

So is there anything to that? Can you, if you want to, get away from yourself. Part of people's romantic notions of travel and living abroad are the images they form of new people and new places. They have an idea in mind of what life is like for the people living there and what they might be like if they were one of the people who lived there. This sounds all very nice, but what most don't realize is that you don't become one of the people who live there. Unfortunately to those looking for reinvention, you go to such a place and are just you living somewhere else. You are still you. Which can be good. Or bad. Anyway...

... Back to skiing. Sunday we were up early and back to the slopes. Up from the Ardents to Porte de Soleil and then over the hill into Switzerland. A few runs off the steep couloirs on top, then some off piste-stuff (ducking under the rope doesn't getting you in jail here), then back over the hill into France. We hit a bunch of the deep snow on the back side that they had found with the guide the day before. This was nice, but deep and hard, and I spent a total of 20 minutes searching for skis that had come off in the deep snow. Andrew got his deep snow legs mojo going, which mostly meant that went he went down, he went down hard and got a faceful of snow. Still, I think the best runs of the day were down through the steep coulouirs off the top and under the rope. It is quite a feeling to have the snow that you kick off racing past you in a mini avalance as you shred down something like that (no actual danger though... don't worry Mom). It was a great day of skiing, but eventually over. We started early and were going to finish early, as I had to get my bus and the others had to get their flights.

My first time skiing out of N. America and simply put, it was a blast. From the 19 Euro ticket, to the challenging terrain, to the ample snow... it was a good time and in my biased frame of mind I think now it must be the best place to ski on the planet. If you want to sit on a sundeck and get a tan, go to Squaw Valley in March. If you want to freeze your ass off and ski bullet proof trails, go to Killington. But, if you want to ski from 8AM-5PM all day long - and ski so hard that your legs want to fall off and still never seen the same trail 2x, go to Avioraz. As the biggest ski network in Europe (and hence probably the world) the sheer scale of the place, stretching over two countries is simply mindboggling. It is easily 30k from one side to the other. I will be back for sure.

Heading home...

(Aspen, CO, USA) - I haven’t had much to say recently. Been in TX, then TN, and now CO. Too busy getting ready for my conference I guess. I also didn’t have much motivation to write, but the moment I looked out the window on my flight to Phoenix out of San Antonio and saw the red rocks of the desert I had the strong urge to update my blog. But then I was busy. Perhaps travel and motion are my muse.

I am sitting now in the lobby of the Bandar bin Sultan center at Aspen Meadows of the ‘Aspen Institute’, waiting for my shuttle that will take me to DIA a 4 hour drive away. Attendees at my conference have been staying here on the campus of this conference center for the last 5 days. The conference itself was held at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is a short walk towards the former old mining town and now posh playground for glitterati of the jet set scene.

My conference was great and perhaps more importantly it DUMPED snow. All that rain falling in LA made for some tremendous powder when it hit the Rockies. My talk went well. Of course, I got hassled just a little, but it is to be expected in this business. Strong reaction from the audience is vastly preferred over polite silence.

And now I sit in the lounge of the institute’s magnificent Bauhausean lobby building waiting for my ride and flipping through the winter issue of ‘Aspen Institute Magazine’ and watch the big shots walk by. I didn’t have a feeling of where I was staying until now.

From the magazine:

“The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international nonprofit dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership, the appreciation of timeless ideas and values, and open minded dialogue on ….”. You get the idea. Or maybe you don’t.

Things I didn’t know until just now:

-Hunter S. Thompson signed autographs at the bar behind me last summer.

-Madeline Albright has sat on the very couch I am sitting on now.

-A major donor to the Center is Bandar bin Sultan whose eponymously named lobby building center I am sitting in now. This is as far as I can tell the same guy featured prominently in Fahrenheit 911.

-Walter Issacson (former head of CNN) is CEO and President of the Institute. I read this as CNN hums on the plasma screen in the lounge. (The text banner scrolling across the screen’s bottom informs us that Georgia zoo officials plan to increase the protein content of the male zoo pandas before the upcoming mating season. This seems like a good idea.)

The magazine is choc full o’ luminaries who have had high level conferences or symposia here over the last year. They’ve had Thomas Friedman, Bush 41, Chuck Hagel, Hank Kissenger, and now a gaggle of underdressed physicists. Amazing. And all for the low price of $80 a night. Nice of them to have us. The concierge has just asked me if I am waiting for a shuttle or private limo to take me to Denver. See? I laugh and let him know. This is what I am talking about.

My shuttle is now due in 15 minutes and seeing my opening I walk across the lobby to check out from my room with Provence, the nice little French clerk at the front desk, cursing myself the whole way for not having cracked my French book in a month.

Me: Vous etes francais?

Her: Mais oui! Vous parlez francais?!

Me : Non. Je parle un petite peu. Je suis americain, mais J’habite Geneve.

Her : Your accent is veeeery good.

Me: oh…no…Where are you from?

Her: Cote d’Azure. In the south.

Me: I see. So, you’re Provence from Provence.

She flitters a laugh and I feel clever. Certainly I am the first to have thought of this. She is good. Very good. Only the best in Aspen. Despite knowing this I still feel clever.

I return to my couch and magazine. I show my colleague the picture of Madeline Albright. He moves from the couch to the chair. Amazing how wrapped up together all these 'walkers of the corridors of power' are. Pictures in the magazine show Thom Friedman (op-ed columnist for NYtimes.com and critic of the Bush administration) at the same conference as Bush 41. They probably laugh over drinks in a building funded by a Saudi prince and play golf with the Time Inc. CEO. It makes me cynical and jealous at the same time.

My ride arrives and I start my long trip back to CH. 4 hours to Denver, overnight in a hotel, flight to Newark, then to Geneva. I am anxious to get back.