Here are some of my Chicago notes for my Moleskin…. because this was about moving a college student, our trip included a lot of practical stuff that you will want to skip… stuff like renting a car and driving out to Bolling-something-or-other to purchase a bed at the local IKEA. Or spending a day at the nearest Target. Not the downtown Target with gorgeously ornate, iron-work doors that are probably on all the architectural tours the city is famous for, but the one nearest the University of Chicago, in the southern part of the city where people get shot. And killed. I’d say skip that part.

If you do rent a car, which is not a horrible idea for a day or two, because there is a lot to see beyond downtown, and if you decide to visit, say, a certain university campus in South Chicago, take Lakefront Boulevard. I know that it is marked as a highway, and that may be intimidating, especially to someone with jetlag, who has not driven for months and who thinks taking Martin Luther King Drive to the campus looks much less daunting. This is a BAD idea. Things may go your way. You may not notice that your shiny bright rental car sticks out like a diamond in a coal mine, but after 5 days of taking this alternative route, I read in the papers that someone was car jacked, shot and killed. Again, I’d skip that part.

Now for the good stuff. The University Campus. It is gorgeous, has a cathedral (that is not really a cathedral, but looks like one), two museums, the most gorgeous modern library I have ever seen, a house you can visit that was built by Frank Lloyd Wright and a print-perfumed, labyrinthine independent book store I would have liked to pack into my suitcase and bring home with me. And if you get hungry, some of the best bbq in the Midwest can be found at Ribs ‘n’ Bibs on Dorchester and 53rd. I’ve been told that this is where a certain President Obama heads when he is home for the holidays.

This visit fell on Father’s Day, so my Dad hopped on a plane and came to join us, claiming, “I haven’t spent Father’s Day with my daughter in over a decade.” Ouch! Its one of the downsides to moving abroad, geography can force you to disappoint those you love. Since he’d come so far, and this meant so much to him, we took Dad/Grandpa to that sunless, parallel Swedish universe known as IKEA for the day. Aren’t we adorable? It actually was a lovely day, because of the company, but E and I felt honor bound to make up for it the next day. Only the next day was IKEA delivery day, so poor grandpa was stuck with us, waiting in a flat that had been lived in by 5 college boys for the last three years. He was so charmed that he insisted on cleaning the bathroom (did I mention 5 boys, 3 years?).

At the grocery store that afternoon, there was a mix-up at the checkout counter and I ended up a few customers between E and my Dad. As I stood, there E waved me over, saying, “Come on, Grandpa took care of it.” The lady in line behind me, exclaimed, “Woah you’re lucky to have a Dad like that!” Lady, I thought, you’ve got no idea. Simply no idea.

We made it up to good ol’ Dad by taking him to the Chicago Art Institute. It was fam-tabulous! We got to see American Gothic, and spent way to long taking pictures of ourselves looking like the two yankees in Grant Wood’s masterpiece. We paid homage to Vincent Van Gogh’s yellow bedroom, the third version of a painting that is also in Amsterdam and Paris. And we had a delicious lunch with a stunning view at Terzo Piano, the museum’s restaurant.

As lovely as the museum was, Dad loves somethings more than he loves art. Dad loves deli food. He probably knows every decent deli between SF and NYC, so he was chomping at the bagel to try Eleven City Diner. It was excellent, and not just because our table was overflowing with all the American food I can’t get in Paris, Grandpa was thrilled with his lox, and we were all thrilled to be together discovering the everyone’s kind of town…

Restaurants – Ribs ‘n’ Bibs, Terzo Piano, Eleven City Diner

Must Sees – University of Chicago campus, Target on State St (seriously!), Chicago Art Institute

I am back from what may very well be the most under-rated city in the United States and I am already looking forward to our next trip. What makes Chicago so great? Like Paris, it is a gorgeous city. We were ooh-ing and aah-ing at the turn of nearly every corner. There is the lake, the river and the stunning architecture with streets wide enough to actually appreciate what is going on up above.

There is science, history and industry and even more profoundly, industry that has played a major role in the making of America. There are two major university attracting some of the brightest minds in the country and important monuments, like the desk where Jake and Elwood made their deposit in the Blues Brothers. There is an amazing art scene, with major works by names like Calder, Picasso and Kapoor literally crowding the sidewalks.

We were walking along one day and saw a colorful monumental sculpture nestled near an office building entrance. “That looks like an Agam.” my Dad pondered. And it was. Just standing there nonchalantly on the street. There there is the Crowd Fountain in Millennium park. A work of art that provides an interactive place for water play.

Millennium Park also hosts outdoor concerts and a movie night. We had the opportunity to see the film Chicago under the stars, in the city of Chicago, projected at the Pritzker Pavillion, designed by Frank Gerhy. WOW.

If you’re less cultural and more sporty, there is kayaking in the river (the little dots in the water in the photo to the right of this column. I swear, they’re there) and several beaches for swimming in the lake. The lake front is also a great place for your morning run. It is not just Frank Sinatra’s Kind of Town, but a city with something for everyone.

Go Blackhawks.

Maastricht, of course, is more than just an Art Fair. Its an industrial city and university town at the tip of Holland, just a few miles from the both the Germany and Belgium border. When driving from France, you know you’ve arrived when the amber toned lamp posts that are the backbone of the Belgium highway system, suddenly disappear.

There are 11 museums and several churches to visit in Maastricht, but we were a bit too burned out on art to even consider more. What I did want to see was the Selexyz bookstore. Built inside a Dominican church, with metal frame catwalks creating see-thru floors below the stone vaults, it is often considered one of the coolest bookstores in the world. I wish I could agree, but there was a freak snow storm on our last day, so we had to rush home to avoid getting stuck in the snow!

This trip had been my Christmas present to Mr French, and the fact that I had organised everything down to the most minute last detail, up to and including a serious dusting of snow to ensure that it would be feeling a lot like Christmas, well he was in awe!

We stayed near the train station. Originally I was concerned that it may be a seedier neighborhood than we were used to, but there were not alot of options left, almost everything fully booked when I called shortly before Christmas. Seeing an Hermes boutique as we drove up “our” street made me laugh at my worries, but I was particularly intrigued by the tart displays at the all too tempting Patisserie Royale.

We stayed at the Beaumont Hotel, a very basic design hotel that had shuttles to the show. I stumbled across the hotel when looking for a fantastic dinner to book. Their restaurant is one of the best in town, with carefully sourced, fresh organic ingredients. I had a truffle risotto, grilled turbot and a divine lemon tart with champagne sorbet. It looked so good at the table next to us, that I asked the waiter to put one aside for me before we’d even ordered our meal!

Having a good restaurant coincidentally meant an exceptional hotel breakfast. I don’t normally go in for hotel breakfasts, but that snow storm kept us from heading out the door in search of a café. How exceptional was the breakfast? They had farm fresh yogurt with an entire selection of nuts, seeds and meusli to add to it. There were country jams and a man serving eggs to order. Even Mr French commented on the delicious honey and there was no doubt that the orange juice was freshly squeezed because they had a machine, letting you throw the whole oranges in yourself as they were sliced and pressed directly into your glass.

They also had Hagelslag. When I was a student in Paris a Dutch classmate heard I was going to Amsterdam and told me I absolutely HAD to get Hagelslag. I was thrilled to try a local specialty and when I learned that it involved chocolate, I made it a point to discover this local delicacy. Hagelslag, it turns out, is Dutch for Chocolate Jimmies and the Dutch use them rather liberally on their warm, buttered morning toast, smearing them as they melt into the nooks and crannies. Yum!

And that was all we saw of Maastricht; a pastry shop, a restaurant and a breakfast bar. Who you calling a little piggy? Me?

Just to keep with the theme of our weekend, as soon as we left Holland Mr French went into “quest” mode. He was on the look out for a Baraque à Frites. The Belgians are famous in France for their French Fry stands (love the irony, non?) and Mr French was bent on trying a few with one of their “disgusting” (his exact word) sauces.  The first stand had wonderfully large, bight yellow sign of a cone of fries waving us over. Unfortunately, in true Belgian fashion, the sign came about 15 meters AFTER the off ramp for the stand! The second stand, we missed as we were in a heated debate about the spending of those million dollars that we don’t have and the third time was the charm!

les frites belges avec sauces dégeulasse !

Last week, while posting about food and fun in London, I was actually in the French Alps skiing. I spent the first few days up there complaining to friends, family and anyone who would listen via Facebook or Twitter, until a good friend sent me text reminding me that week in the Alps is not exactly a punishment.

The reason I was complaining is because I had a sick teen (check out the video here) AND I am terrified of skiing. I was never a confident skier, but four years ago I had a little incident while taking lessons at Val Thorens. It had been the fourth day of a beginner class and a young, cheerful girl skied up, introducing herself as our substitute for the weather worn, cowboy grandfather we’d been with all week. The first few hills were a dream. The sky was clear, the snow perfect. We were doing so well she felt inspired to take our group of beginners into an extreme sports snow park. She led us to the top of the slope that had a series of four bumps, one after the other. She explained that we needed to keep our knees bent and loose to absorb our landings, and she was off. I was perhaps the fifth or sixth person in line. While petrified, I trusted our instructor to know our skill level. One bump, two bumps, I was doing fine. As I rose into the air on the fourth bump I saw that there were another dozen bumps to go. Bumps that I hadn’t seen from the top and that I was not prepared for. My body went rigid, I took flight and I landed on my head.

I don’t know what happened next. I was unconscious. I know that they took me down the mountain and that someone very carefully removed my garments over my head, without cutting anything and folded it all neatly into a bag that I received several days later. I had an MRI and at some point they called Mr French.

His phone rang just as he skied up to our rental apartment for lunch. He plugged Em and her BFF into a DVD of The OC (the anacronym generation) and rushed down to find a still unconscious me and hear the debate over sending me to the hi-tech hospital in Grenoble via helicopter or to the adequate local hospital via ambulance. It was decided that there would be no need for surgery, so I was sent down the winding roads of the mountain, Mr French in the front seat of the ambulance as I violently gained consciousness, projectile vomiting up all over myself and the EMT.

I spent a week in that hospital. Mr French had to drive back to Paris, my place in the passenger side vacant. It was another month before I was able to climb up the stairs to my bedroom in our Paris flat.

For this trip, my friend had a point about all my complaining so I shut up and things did get better. A good time was had by all.

Well, almost all. Since the accident, I now get a private instructor. On our first day skiing, my instructor was not having such a good time, totally frustrated with my snail’s pace on the slopes and how often I’d revert to the snow plow. He got so annoyed that he made a sarcastic comment or four, loosing his head. Almost literally. Just metres from the end of our last run, he went somersaulting violently through the air, his skis flying in two different directions and landing flat on his back, where he stayed for a good five minutes before getting up, claiming he was alright. 10 metres further down the slope, he wasn’t looking so good. The color had left his face, his body started to sway and he stopped an instant before passing out. Other instructors noticed his distress and came to help out, skiing him down the slope as he passed out one more time before getting to the medical clinic.

I was ready to stop skiing right then and there. The director of the ski school called to tell us that the instructor would be fine in a week or so and that he’d found us a substitute. I told him that I wasn’t sure that would be necessary and he told me to stop being silly.

“It was a collection of unfortunate events. He was trying to avoid a class of skiers, so he went off the run. And, well that slalom pole should not have been hidden in the snow like that. That is what sent him flying. It was just bad luck. It could have happened just as easily on a sidewalk.”

Really? Just as easily on a sidewalk? I spend a lot of timing hoofing it on streets of Paris and I don’t recall ever having seen someone go flying spontaneously through the air. Slalom poles buried deep into the cement and asphalt of a city street are as rare as yeti sightings at the beach.

Despite the director’s obvious lack of anything resembling logic, I did get back up on my skis and spent the rest of the trip wondering what the heck is wrong with me and why I insist on skiing. I’ll get back to you if I ever figure it out!!!

The moral of this story is do NOT going skiing in the Alps, or anywhere else on earth, without a helmet. Like they say at Nike, Just Do It!!!

To a girl from California it sounds so exotic and intriguingly “In Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, but to the French skiing the French Alps, is kind of like Chinese food in China; just skiing. And there are a few things they take for granted that those from abroad should know.

First of all, you have to consider the where. Mr French is convinced that the 3 Vallées is the best skiing area in France, because it includes Val Thorens, the highest ski station in the country which means great snow. Others love the über chic towns of Courcheval and Méribel, which attract the James Bond crowd; European jetsetters, Arab sheiks and Russian oligarchs.

To give an idea of how close one village is to the next; several chairlifts in the town of Menuires will take you to the top of mountains with slopes that lead you down to Val Thorens or Méribel. The entire excursion, including the lift lines, the ride up and the trip down, including the time for the serious spill you may possibly take, even if your skis are in snow plow, takes less 40 minutes.

Then you need to consider the when. The Minister of Education has divided the country into three zones, each zone getting two weeks of holiday one week from another, so that anywhere from 1/3  – 2/3 of the country may be on ski holidays at once, which means the holiday period lasts an entire month. To find out the exact dates for all of the holidays visit the Minister’s site.

Another important detail is that the majority of holiday rentals and reservations in France run from Saturday to Saturday. Wanting to arrive on a Monday can pose something of a challenge when looking for lodgings.

Which is how we discovered the Chalet Hotel Kaya in Menuires. It was over the Christmas holidays and we wanted a short break without missing New Years in Paris. A quick Google searched turned up Le Kaya. A very chic, design hotel perched discreetly at the top of the village, directly on the slopes with a restaurant, a bar, a pool, a spa and a scrumptious tea time.

Which is another point about French holidays, the who will be hosting you. Hotels like the Kaya offer what is called “demi-pension”, is a meal plan that includes breakfast, dinner, and in the case of Le Kaya, that delicious tea that is served like a dangling carrot, keeping you going down those last runs as the chair lifts close and ski schools end. Demi pension is great if you’re traveling with your family, particularly kids, and do not want to have to think about who is eating where each meal. It gives you the freedom to have lunch on the slopes (or at the beach, or exploring whatever region you may be visiting).

But for a girl who likes to explore her surroundings, it can feel somewhat restrictive, so when its just us gr’ups we opt out and treat ourselves to a gourmet dinner at the hotel’s excellent restaurant, Le K for a night or two during our stay.
How to get around is somewhat limited. We’ve driven once, but because everyone leaves and arrives on a Saturday, the traffic jams can be horrendous. Then there is the minor detail of being in Alps with the intent to ski, which can mean severe weather and nasty road conditions. We now take the TGV to Moutiers. From there we can either take a bus up to Menuires, or hire a cab. Either way, its best to reserve in advance and for the bus they require that it be done at least 7 days prior to travel.

L'Après Ski is key, and a bit ironic as we drink Monocos!

As you get off the ski lift on runs like Mont de la Chambre you’ll have a spectacular view of Mont Blanc. You’ll also notice a lot of folks wearing red ski suits with the letters ESF on the back. That’s the Ecole de Ski de France and the red clad sportsmen (and women) are ski instructors. France is very organized when it comes to sports. Kids are rarely thrown on to the slopes and expected to ski. They are put into ski school where they earn their “Flakes” (this is true for swimming, horse back riding, surfing and tennis, among others, having an official rating is really important in France), or Flocon. These classes continue until the kids are ready to compete professionally, not because the parents think Jr is destined for the Olympics, but because ski school is built in baby sitting, giving Mom and Dad time to themselves on the slopes (or in the spa).

This week, we’d wake early and enjoy the buffet breakfast at Le Kaya before sending the girls off to ski school, starting our days with whole grain breads, fresh juices, yogurts and spice marinated fruits before hitting the slopes. After a couple of hours, we’d be hungry again, and start looking out for one of the many restaurants on the slopes that offer outstanding food, particularly those serving local specialties like raclette, fondue or tartiflette (more on these later in the week). In Val Thorens there is the Michelin starred Loxalys and this past week we stopped twice at La Ferme Riberty, enjoying the lively crowd, as well as their tartiflette, an omelette that was generously studded with girolle mushrooms and house made berry pie from their wooden deck.

After lunch there would be more skiing this time with my ski instructor, then eventually that lovely tea time I keep mentioning, followed by a few laps in the pool and a well earned hammam before it was time to eat, yet again. The chef at Le K provides a light, healthy cuisine, with lots of regional ingredients and plenty of heirloom vegetables. Every meal was a treat, which we’d savour before sinking into the comfy couches in front of the fireplace at the bar.

Important details
WHO Kaya Chalet Hotel
WHEN Minsitre de l’Education
WHERE Loxalys, La Ferme Riberty, Le K
HOW SNCF,the Bus
WHAT ESF (I strongly recommend the instructor Laurent Rivière)

WHY??? Don’t ask me!!! Skiing is an insane sport and I really have no idea why anyone goes to all the trouble, except, well it is drop dead gorgeous up there and 7 days of skiing has sent my metabolism into over-drive, allowing me to eat anything and everything that comes across my path, virtually guilt-free!!!!