Archive for paris

Tour d’Eiffel

Posted in Fiction, Travel with tags , , on August 30, 2012 by David McInerny

The Eiffel tower rose into a warm hazy sky of gunmetal gray.  The structure itself was at the same time mechanically businesslike yet still endowed with a grace that emanated from its curves that extend from the four massive bases before it becomes unified and thrusts phallic-like into the haze.  Make no bones about it – it is large.  It dominates that entire section of Paris, a colossal contrast to the 19th century brick buildings and stone streets that run perpendicular from the quadrangle that the Eiffel Tower is anchored within.  Photographers like us quickly learned that they would need to back a thousand yards away if they wanted to capture the entire edifice in the frame.  As we came upon the nearest base, containing one of four ticket windows, sets of stairs and elevators, we slowed to merge with the gathering crowd which united with the large crowd already in line.  I sighed as quietly as I could.  Truthfully, I would have been more than satisfied to ponder the marvels of the Eiffel Tower from a distance, as part of the Parisian skyline, leaving the treasures of the summit to a future visit, if ever.  It simply struck me as time consuming, hot, crowded, and a waste of money.  Such a notion was inconceivable to the three kids, though, so I knew better than to try to dissuade them from the crowds and peddlers, let alone the cost required to get a family of five lofted into the bowels of this beast of French eclecticism.  So we got ourselves in line, bottles of water priced like champagne shoved in our faces as the buzz –clink of the toy birds dived bombed around us.  Soon, we realized a decision would need to be made.  Would we climb the old fashioned way or take the unsettling 45-degree elevator?  My wife made a bold move, and I applauded her for it.  Under no circumstances, she declared, would she be making for the top.  Bully for you dear, I encouraged silently, if not a little cowardly.  One of our sons agreed, that he would not want to go up all the way, but at least to the first main level.  The other two still had the idea of the tippy-top in their heads, so we concluded that we would take the stairs to the first level, and gauge the situation from that height.

My wife and older son stayed on the first main level, having watched the ground slowly recede below them through the open stairs and deciding that enough was enough.  They chose to reward their efforts with strawberry ice cream cones and a tour of the restaurant and post office.  I would have been quite satisfied to join them, but we still had two that wanted to go higher.  The stairs accommodated those going up and down, and some, whether climbers or descenders, chose the inside part of the open stairwell in order to grasp some psychological sense of greater safety.  It made for some interesting traffic jams, though.  This time the height slowed my two down as well, but they bravely persevered to the next level that, though a much tighter space than the level below, still provided a 360-degree walk-around.  The climb to the top was jettisoned as my son and daughter both decided that the panorama here was sufficient for picture taking.  I had to admit that the view of the Seine and museum row was magnificent, as was the brilliant whiteness of the Sacre Cour.  We lingered a bit to gain our composure for the trip back down, but the thought of ice cream steeled us for the return journey.

In making our way to the Arc du Triomphe, we stumbled across the Shangri La of high end, boutique shopping.  One look in my fair bride’s eyes and I saw that she was longing for that Parisian purchase which would make her friends’ eyes grow wide with awe.  The string of stores along the Rue Montaigne would make even the most Rodeo Drive -hardened shopper grow a little weak in the knees. There, displayed before us, were shops represented by every luxury designer under the sun.  In fact it was along Rodeo Drive in L.A. that I had seen this look from my wife before, and it had gone unsatisfied.  The kids trotted along ahead of me thinking of lunch, as my wife lingered behind me, wistfully dreaming of Fendi.  I needed to make a decision fast and, as we turned onto the Champs Elysees and quickly came upon the Louis Vitton store, so I rounded up the kids and told them that we were going to let Mom wander in this store a bit, and then we would eat lunch.  With a smattering of moaning from our youngest, and a luxurious sigh from the adult feminine one, we entered the Paris hub of all that is LV.

I have since learned that counterfeit bags are a particular problem for these designer firms, and I instantly saw why.  Ridiculously thinking that I would chuckle as we spent twice, dare I say three times the price of a department store purse for a Louis Vitton equivalent, I was as stunned as the bovines who gave their all to make these branded masterpieces when I saw the prices.  The smallest coin purses required an investment that would have been a solid down payment for a luxury automobile.  The sales people, mostly men in suits that would not have been out of place in the solemn boardrooms of elite Wall Street financial institutions, merely nodded as we entered, giving us free reign to stare at the merchandise in wonder, or horror, depending on one’s outlook.  The goods were displayed like the treasures of an Egyptian pharaoh, under glass with spot lighting to accentuate each item’s individual accoutrements.  Price tags, large enough to accommodate the requisite number of zeros, were unabashedly displayed next to each item.  I was baffled.  I saw these bags commonly on the arms of women all over America and Europe.  How could people afford these, I asked my salivating bride.  Many, if not most of them are not real, was her quick response.  How as one to tell?  There are ways, she murmured, not to be dissuaded from the real McCoy.  Nor would I want to try.  I must confess to my relief, however, that she knew well before walking into the boutique, as I never could have anticipated, that only the budget of the privileged few could withstand the spontaneous purchase of a Louis Vitton purse.  She was patient to window shop that day, and give me the opportunity, upon our return to the States, to arrange for less eating for a month or two to accommodate the purchase of a modest bag from the LV website as a Christmas gift that year.

We were all beginning to flag, and our youngest was absolutely ravenous, so we turned onto the Champs Elysees in search of a quick lunch.  The wide, airy avenue is beautifully tree lined, and it provided cool respite from the heat of the Eiffel Tower.  There were adequate opportunities for dining, but I was fearful of the tourist’s nightmare – bad food pictured in photos at the door with mediocre service and prices set to empty the wallet of the unwary traveler.  On the other side of the spectrum, noticing the tables set outdoors with linen and well groomed waiters whisking in and out of the restaurant with cold beer and steaming plates, I knew this was no time for a top-notch meal for the mental scrapbook.  No, as the kids (and I) started to pant our way along, I knew that this was a time for basic food, hearty and fast.  We spied a simple shop with hamburgers, hotdogs, cold pop and (oh, how I love Europe) cold beer.  When Nancy discovered that the tables outside belonged to the shop, I knew I had a happy family.   Moments later the kids were diving into recognizable American food, notwithstanding the hot dog’s French origin, and the fries’ first name.  In fact, my wife and I were marveling over the deliciousness of the French fries, which were a meal in themselves.  We all people-watched for an hour as we munched and sipped our drinks.

 

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The 3rd Arrondissement

Posted in Fiction, Food, Travel with tags , , , , on August 23, 2012 by David McInerny

We stood in front of the outer door on Rue Charlot, staring at the keypad that triggered the lock.  When we rejoiced at the hefty tailwinds that brought our flight to Paris an hour early, speeding through the suburbs toward the city center in the oversized cab, I had forgotten that we were meeting the representative from the apartment rental website at a set time at the front door, and we were an hour early.  I had a healthy dose of panic.  We were all tired, having had little more than catnaps on the plane, but worse, we were loaded down with luggage that would make it impossible to trek around looking for a chair and something to drink.  Just then the electronic lock buzzed and someone came out of the main door, and we wasted no time pulling our belongings in from the street.  I suggested that I take the boys and look for some sustenance, but my wife knew as well as I did that finding an open café early in the morning on Saturday in Europe can be asking an awful lot.  Nonetheless I stepped back into the Rue Charlot as a woman approached the door and asked if I was Mr. McInerny.

“You are early!  I was coming to prepare for your arrival.  Please come up to the apartment.”  Michelle led us to the third floor, unlocked the door and gave us a tour of our home for the next week.  She had actually lived there for a period of time, she told us, and her pride in the place showed.  It was just big enough for us, and very welcoming, with each room bathed in yellows and browns.  There was a large combination living room and dining room with an adjoining bedroom separated by one of those trendy freestanding, wrought iron folding walls.  The real walls were hardwood, and the entire west end of the room, which faced the street, was a series of, what else, French windows extending from floor to ceiling.  The kitchen was typically European, meaning the size of a walk in closet, but every inch was efficiently occupied with every conceivable cooking appliance, some of which we couldn’t identify.  Opposite was the kitchen was a good-sized bathroom.  On one wall was a clothes washer the size of a coffee can, but Nancy and I knew that was a great advantage that hadn’t been listed on the website.  The main bedroom was at the end of the hallway, and was very large, with a queen bed, writing table, ample closet space, and two large windows.  The kids would sleep in the room off of the living room and the sofa, with the fighting of course being over who would sleep on the sofa.  They could have the TV and stereo, and Nancy and I would take the solitude of the courtyard.

As we moved luggage to the bedrooms, Michelle opened a bag she had brought and laid out sweet rolls and orange juice in the dining room table for the kids, and opened a bag of coffee and soon had its aroma wafting through the apartment.  What a great surprise!  She showed us a listing of phone numbers to reach her, as well as the keypad code and Metro maps.  She handed us the apartment key, wished us a great week as she closed the door, leaving Nancy and I beaming at each other to the sounds of the kids munching and slurping their breakfast.

Anyone who flies across the Atlantic is familiar with the advice that states that when you arrive, usually in the early morning local time (but the middle of the night for your body), you should continue to go through the new day without sleeping in order to acclimate your body to the new time zone as quickly as possible.  Guidebooks and well-meaning neighbors insist on this principle, particularly if the trip is only for a few days.  I certainly was forced to adhere to this maxim when traveling to Europe for work, not through any conviction on my part, but because I was typically whisked from the airport to a manufacturing plant for the day and continuing, if my host was especially cruel, with a nice, long dinner after the workday.  (I remember once finally climbing into bed in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, after being awake for over thirty-five hours, wondering how I had survived the ordeal.)  So after doing a bit of unpacking while Alex, the youngest, flipped through TV stations to find only the BBC news was in English, Nancy and I discussed the positive merits of trying to stay up for the balance of the day.  Duly noted, within the hour we were all snoozing peacefully in our beds, oblivious to the muted sounds of the metropolis outside.

Later in the afternoon we toddled, sleepy and somewhat dazed, out of the door to explore the Marais district.  On the steps was a teddy bear tied to the stair railing.  The kids had noticed him when we were bring our bags in and stopped to wonder at his presence.  He was worn, as if he had spent a few years being hugged by some Parisian tot, but he had an ominous look to him.  Sporting a bandana and an eye patch, he struck me as pirate-like, but the kids took to calling him Voodoo Teddy, and they greeted him as an old friend each time we came and went.  They thought he was cute, but it made Nancy and I wonder what kind of neighbors we had.

It was impossible for me to imagine Paris without assuming scenes of old women with flower carts, cobblestone streets and gothic church spires thrusting into the sky, and I was pleasantly surprised that those thoughts were not overly idyllic.  The Marais district, which is within the 3rd arrondisement of Paris, is on the north side of the Seine River, directly above the Cathedral of Notre Dame.  It is residential, but still within a short walk of the main sights along the river.  As we wandered toward the river for the treble purposes of waking up, finding a place to eat, and checking out the neighborhood, I noticed that the people we encountered on the street were … French.  The stores and shops were open, and I felt we had succeeded in finding an apartment that was where the locals were, because no self-respecting tourist ever wants to spend too much time feeling or acting like one.  Unlike the gold medal tourist sights where I knew we would hear a multitude of languages (only French from the vendors and salespeople), we had our own little French hidey-hole to come back to each day where we could be one of the people.  The narrow streets harbored antique shops, tiny shoe shops and art galleries, which I assumed made ours a somewhat upscale hidey-hole.

We also gleefully noticed that we would never be at a loss to find a place to eat near home.  Innumerable cafés, restaurants and brasseries lined most streets, and I wondered if the French ever eat at home.  I remember reading that there were ways of distinguishing between a café and its cousin the brasserie, but at the moment I didn’t care about semantics – everything looked inviting.  The cafés would seize every inch of sidewalk space for outside tables surrounded by flower boxes to provide a bit of privacy and a profusion of atmosphere.  Waiters, mostly male and looking very serious and professional, if not a bit intimidating, moved briskly in and out of the cafés with trays of sandwiches, seafood tidbits and glasses of chilled white wine.  There was general agreement among my troupe that sightseeing was to be immediately suspended in order to explore the gastronomic delights of Paris.

It must have been peak café time for Saturday, because every establishment was hopping and we nearly got to the river before we found a nice little square on the Rue Rivoli very near the Hotel D’Ville.  We found a place that had all the things parents traveling with their children need when having a bite.  The square allowed the boys to wander from the table and explore without the danger of traffic, and where we could keep an eye on them.  Also, the café’s menu was conveniently posted outside so that we could make sure everyone would be happy with a selection before we sat down (this we found was commonplace and saved us several times from getting settled at a table only to find that there was nothing to appeal to our youngest).  Finally, there was a restroom for the patrons, still not as common as one would expect in most parts of Europe, and a constant source of latent concern for traveling parents with youngsters.

I was looking forward to my first chance to spread my linguistic wings as we sat down and the menu was placed in front of me.  “Merci,” I murmured casually, and noticed to my chagrin the menu was in both English and French.  Undeterred, however, when our young waiter returned I ordered our meals in French, and was pleased that he responded in French, throwing in his own broken English when he guessed, correctly, that I was struggling.   In most cases, we were to find that the French were ready to speak English to us, but when we initiated with French, however choppy, they were happy to accommodate us with their native language.  So much unlike the legendary French waiters of yore we all hear about back home.  Regardless, I figured that I had taken the time to buy French discs and spent several weeks in the car working with them, and I was going to see how far I could take us in situations before I had to skulk back to English.  This attitude made the kids fearless also, and within days were responding and greeting locals in short, polysyllabic phrases.

The kids enjoyed wafer thin pizza and small glasses of cola while my wife and I snacked on avocado slices with shrimps and cold beer.  As we languished over our drinks, the boys played among the trees that were in a sea of cobblestone in the middle of the large square.  It was cloudy as we ate, but as we walked back to the apartment along a different path, with my daughter and wife pausing frequently to get a handle on the skirt and shoe fashions, the setting sun broke out of the clouds and provided grand illumination of the reds and ochres of the tapestries in the windows of the Marais antique shops.

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Bistro Boys

Posted in Family, Travel with tags , , , , on June 27, 2012 by David McInerny

A certain panic struck the women in the apartment as they realized that this was the final shopping day before leaving Paris.  We decided that it would be a boys’ club morning and, as the girls sped off to relieve shop owners of their souvenirs, we made our way just a few hundred yards from the apartment to the Picasso Museum.  After a bit of confusion in gaining entry – cash only, exact change, please – we entered what must be a converted mansion, situated as it is in the middle of the residential 3rd arrondisement.

How does one prepare two small boys for the absurd art of Picasso?  I must admit, I anticipated pulling them to the side to remind them not to snicker and point at the funny pictures.  Yet there is something classic about Picasso’s paintings, something in the fractured features and tortured torsos of his subjects that precludes ridicule.  They challenge the viewer to understand, and my sons were genuinely curious about the exhibit and the man that created the art.  We viewed virtually the entire exhibition, and bought a book on the museum to match the one I purchased after our odyssey at the Louvre.

After letting off a little steam at the park, we men made our way south across the Seine to find lunch.  Just before Notre Dame, we came across a low brick building that held a small bistro.  The entrance was around the corner on a side street.  A few patrons were watching the television over the bar as I looked up to make sure that my head would clear the ceiling, because it surely didn’t clear the doorframe.  A little waitress took us to the back room, which boasted a half dozen stout wooden tables, and we sat at a small one next to an open window that allowed us to watch people pass outside along the street.  This was far better than the television for pure entertainment value.

I spoke with the boys about Pablo Picasso and our week in Paris, and tried to pry their impressions from them as I sipped a beer and they some cola.  An Italian father and his youngsters took the table next to us as our lunch arrived.  I really didn’t pay much attention to them, for two reasons.  First, the people watching on the street kept my head turned in the other direction, and I was marveling at the quality of food, at very decent prices, at a small bistro in the middle of one of the top tourist areas on the planet.   Nonetheless, as we finished and were paying the waitress, the dad next to us told me in simple Italian that I had very well – behaved children.  “Grazie,” I responded with more than a little pride.  Sometimes it takes a stranger to remind us of the good around us.  The three kids had been marvelous, having endured long walks, Parisian heat, the prospect of a night over in the Louvre, and a whole host of unique foods.  Through it all they seemed to stay aware of the fact that this was a trip of a lifetime, and they were managing to enjoy the changes and, even more unbelievably, get along with each other (most of the time).

 

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Friends on the Road

Posted in Travel with tags , , , on June 19, 2012 by David McInerny

There are few experiences as sublime as traveling with close friends. Sharing a new place with people you love to be with in your home space is exhilarating to plan and execute. We’ve had the great fortune to do this twice in the last few years, with the same four-couple group. This group is also a dinner club that gets together to prepare world cuisines every few months. The fact that we became travel partners is the essence of spontaneity.

My wife and I were hosting a club dinner one winter evening, and over a French meal of daube provencal and pheasant terrine, my wife and I announced that we had picked a French theme because we had just booked a trip to Paris the following May. The rest of the evening passed with great food, a fair amount of wine, and discussion about the glories of travel.

The next day my wife got a call from one of the club wives, who asked what we would think if she and her husband joined us in Paris! After a lightning-quick conference, my wife and I said “of course”. By the end of the day their airfare was booked, and after making the announcement to the rest of the club, the other two couples booked their trips with us by the end of the following day. It was after we reserved a hotel on the Left Bank that the group turned our attention to who would watch all our teens, the school events we were missing, and addressing a week away from work. We all still agree that if we had attended to those details before booking the trip, the group trip would never have happened.

The week in France was better than anyone hoped. We all traveled well together, keeping the schedule loose and having fun no matter how the day came together. Our days properly centered around food, with occasional sight-seeing mixed in. The culmination of the week occurred at Le Reminet, a gorgeous bistro where we chose to have a classic French dinner. Our group of eight was given the “cave” downstairs, complete with stone walls, candlelight, and two dedicated waiters. We lingered several hours over the meal, and the memory of us toddling precariously down cobblestone streets back to our hotel, laughing over our wonderful evening, is one of the sweetest.

Recently, we embarked on a another trip, this time to Key West on an October week. Things didn’t go quite as well this time, starting with our connecting flight from Miami to Key West leaving early without us. We took a bus to the Keys (after a stop at a liquor store) and arrived at the hotel at 3am. Subsequently, we spent the entire trip having locals tell us they couldn’t remember it raining there so many consecutive days! We made the best of it though – the beer was just as cold, and the crustaceans just as sweet.

Incompetent airlines and stubborn tropical squalls won’t keep us from hitting the road together again, once the collective coffers get a little more full. In fact, we a have a cooking club dinner coming up soon. They can get very expensive.

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Paris Redux

Posted in Family, Travel with tags , on June 1, 2012 by David McInerny

I’m not quite sure how I developed my distaste, fear even, of public transportation, particularly of buses.  While I am not crazy about crowds, I know I can tolerate jostling humanity for a few minutes, or even hours.  I am certain that it is not snobbery, for I drove 72 miles to and from work in Chicago for twelve years, hoping for the day (which never came) that a train line would take me near to my office.  Nonetheless, I have this irrational dread of figuring out how to buy a ticket, getting on the wrong bus, going in the wrong direction, knowing full well I’m capable of successfully negotiating the process.  I have taken trains all over Europe, and still double and triple check every move I make until I’m deposited at my destination.  The worst though, are buses and, on this particular warm, sunny day, the very thought of the Parisian Metro petrified me.

Sure, I’ve heard from previous travelers to France about the simplicity and efficiency of the Paris Metro.  No matter, I still awoke and grasped for the map of the system in the back of our guide, already slightly dog-eared from much stressed perusal on the flight over.  Were I alone, I would not have hesitated to walk to the Eiffel Tower from the 3rd Arrondisement, but I had four sets of wearily limbs that had already done yeomen’s duty the last few days, and deserved to be mechanically transported to the Tour d’Eiffel.  I plodded from the bedroom to the living room, where the kids were making themselves a breakfast of Frosted Flakes and orange juice.  The small grocer across the street had everything we could possibly need for our little kitchen, from wine to American cereal, but he did not carry fresh milk.  I had taken a chance and bought aseptic milk, hoping the flavor had improved when I was introduced to it in Italy as a small kid.  Evidently it had, from the way our kids were munching and slurping their way through the cereal.  It’s funny how, deprived from commonplace foods for a few days, they dove into the Frosted Flakes as if it were some culinary essential they hadn’t encountered in years.  They were very excited about the prospect of the Eiffel Tower, as it was the one thing that they all associated with France prior to the trip.  We already had Eiffel Tower post cards we had written, and we had souvenir mini Eiffel Towers spread around the apartment.  So that, and the idea of an underground train ride, put a bounce in their step as were locked up and headed for the Metro station at the Hotel d’Ville.

I cheated.  I lost my nerve.  When I approached the counter and gazed into the eyes of the ticket clerk, an imposing young lady with a friendly smile, I jettisoned my self-imposed linguistic discipline and said, softly so the family wouldn’t overhear, “Do you speak English?”  Of course she did, and despite all of my misplaced anguish, quickly walked away with our Metro tickets as well as crystal clear directions for making the transfer at.  Soon the train whooshed up to the platform, and off we railed on our short trip to the Eiffel Tower.   When we climbed the steps back into the bright morning sun, and oriented ourselves, we climbed more steps.  There the skeletal erector set of which the French are so proud stood before us in all its glory.  My wife demanded pictures.  My children demanded an assault to the summit.  I noticed only the two scourges of travel – a massive crowd, and peddlers.  We were still hundreds of yards away from the ticket offices at each of the four bases, and we were already elbow to elbow with tourist (not to be confused with near-natives like ourselves), and besieged every few steps by men and boys hawking junk of every description.  They were everywhere.  I was convinced that they were bused in by the army load, and the closer we got to the tower the more peddlers per square foot there were.  The most prominent trinket being pushed upon us was a wind-up mechanical bird that flew a couple yards and clunked to the ground.  Naturally, the boys gazed at them, which whetted the industrious appetite of the intrepid, swarthy salesmen.  Somehow we managed to squeeze beyond them, pointing the boys toward our goal.

The tower rose into a warm hazy sky of gunmetal gray.  The structure itself was at the same time mechanically businesslike yet still endowed with a grace that emanated from its curves that extend from the four massive bases before it becomes unified and thrusts phallic-like into the haze.  Make no bones about it – it is large.  It dominates that entire section of Paris, and colossal contrast to the 19th century brick buildings and stone streets that run perpendicular from the quadrangle that the Eiffel Tower is anchored within.  Photographers like us quickly learned that they would need to back a thousand yards away if they wanted to capture the entire edifice in the frame.  As we came upon the nearest base, containing one of four ticket windows, set of stairs and elevator, we slowed to merge with the gathering crowd which united with the large crowd already in line.  I sighed as quietly as I could.  Truthfully, I would have been more than satisfied to ponder the marvels of the Eiffel Tower from a distance, as part of the Parisian skyline, leaving the treasures of the summit to a future visit, if ever.  It simply struck me as time consuming, hot, crowded, and a waste of money.  Such a notion was inconceivable to the three kids, though, so I knew better than to try to dissuade them from the crowds and peddlers, let alone the cost required to get a family of five lofted into the bowels of this beast of French eclecticism.  So we got ourselves in line, bottles of water priced like champagne shoved in our faces as the buzz–clink of the toy birds dived bombed around us.  Soon, we realized a decision would need to be made.  Would we climb the old fashioned way our take the unsettling 45-degree elevator?  My wife made a bold move, and I applauded her for it.  Under no circumstances, she declared, would she be making for the top.  Bully for you dear, I encouraged silently, if not a little cowardly.  One of our sons agreed that he would not want to go up all the way, but at least to the first main level.  The other two still had the ideal of the tippy-top in their heads, so we concluded that we would take the stairs to the first level, and gauge the situation from that height.

My wife and older son stayed on the first main level, having watched the ground slowly recede below them through the open stairs and deciding the enough was enough.  They chose to reward their efforts with strawberry ice cream cones and a tour of the restaurant and post office.  I would have been quite satisfied to join them, but we still had two that wanted to go higher.  The stairs accommodated those going up and down, and some, whether climbers or descenders, chose the inside part of the open stairwell in order to grasp some psychological sense of greater safety.  It made for some interesting traffic jams, though.  This time the height slowed my two down as well, but they bravely persevered to the next level that, though a much tighter space than the level below, still provided a 360-degree walk-around.  The climb to the top was jettisoned as my son and daughter both decided that the panorama here was sufficient for picture taking.  I had to admit that the view of the Seine and museum row was magnificent, as was the brilliant whiteness of the Sacre Cour.  We lingered a bit to gain our composure for the trip back down, but the thought of ice cream steeled us for the return journey.

After a rest underneath a tree to get out of the heat for a bit, and also to allow our stomachs to catch up with us now that we were on terra firma, we found a nice gentleman that agreed to take a family picture of us with the Eiffel Tower in the background, and he was as determined as we were to get the top of it in the background.  He would check the viewfinder and shake his head, and further away we would walk.  It became comical to the point of embarrassment as we moved for the third time, but he and my wife agreed in two languages that we had come this far, and we would get it right.  A half-mile later we heard the satisfying click-whir as our picture was taken, after which we thanked our friend and moved on to new adventures.

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