These are the true tales of the rail and the wing, seen from the vantage point of train stations, dressing rooms, airports and the not-so-glamorous back of a cab. Buckle up in the jump seat for this caffeine-fueled 15-day tour of Italy, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, France, England and Ireland. Don’t forget your passport.
April 27: Amsterdam To Paris
Arriving at Amsterdam Central Station, we discover that all international trains are being postponed today in observance of the King’s birthday. It’s the King’s way of giving back: cancelled trains and a holiday whose trappings are comparable to Saint Patrick’s Day in the U.S. Revelers wear bright orange attire, don paper crowns and proceed to drink themselves silly. We’re told at the station to take the local train to Schiphzl, where the airport is. From there we can hop on the international train to Brussels, where we’ll switch to another train going into Paris Gare du Nord.
Once on the train, I begin to nod off. A voice announces over the loudspeaker that we are to be on alert for thieves, to mind our bags and beware of pick-pockets. I’ve been the victim of an attempted pick-pocketing in Montmartre before. The artful dodger did his best to gain close proximity to me, pretending to be enamored of my sneakers, while attempting to nick my wallet. In some ways, it’s almost quaint or old timey, pick-pocketing. Not that I would be amused to fall prey to it, but it’s real Dickensian mischief. It’s kind of like mime, which they have in Paris, too. The two arts are probably in cahoots. Pickpockets try to steal your belongings while a mime robs you of the time spent watching it. But the machine-gun-toting soldiers at the train station are fixated on the kind of criminal who would seek to inflict mass harm. It’s a sad and sobering reflection of what the world has become in the 21st century: brutal, war-like and unpredictable.
We arrive in Paris. I need a place of refuge before I can think about singing. I’ve got time for a quick curry in the largely Indian neighborhood of La Chapelle, where my hotel is located. The shop windows are dressed with festive clothing, mannequins in bright saris. Orange lanterns hang from the balconies. There’s an Indian beauty salon that sells curio-like products such as snake oil. (At least they’re honest.) In the hotel, Spike and I squish into the world’s tiniest elevator, which proceeds to jiggle all the way up to sixth, where it drops a few inches just shy of the floor. It’s nothing fancy, but we are only here for a night.
I’m sharing the bill with a singer named Laura Gibson from Portland. Arriving for soundcheck, a guard asks to check our belongings before we enter the venue. That’s a first. I point to my name on the poster to impress upon him that I’m a performer, but, of course, he has a job to do. The show is going to be an early one, 8:30 p.m. Onstage, I refer to it as a “matinee,” an old French word meaning “way too early for a show.” I’m offstage in an hour and soon to be back in the tiny elevator jiggling toward the sixth floor.
Paris in a day.
