Expensive coffee

 

Down along the beach near our apartment one can buy expensive coffees, or, as I prefer, cappuccinos. Some of these places are classic "pay for the location" places, and in the famous hotels, or at some of the rooftop bars across the road, there is an element of "pay for the fanciness" as well. An average cappuccino in this town runs about euro 4.50. We have found one of the cheapest, though still perfectly lovely beachside cafe/restaurants called "Blue Beach" that charges a mighty 5.70 for their cappuccino, a minor price gauge we have belatedly decided to embrace, as it is accompanied by the right to sit in cushy lounge furniture directly on the beach down below the Promenade Des Anglais. Some of these seemingly interchangeable beach restaurants can charge over ten euros for their cappuccino, and so too will a ritzy and extremely famous place across the street, like the Negresco, charge as much as that tenner and possibly more.

Going now regularly to "The Blue Beach" for 5.70 cappuccinos has caused me to reflect upon some of the expensive coffees we have encountered in our lifetime of coffee drinking adventures. They do actually come in two distinct versions. The first is, of course, as I have mentioned, the price of ambiance, space, location, and or style. Venice's most famous cafe, or most ritzy, had a cappuccino for 15 euros, albeit served seated on the square of St. Marks. And this is at least a 15 year outdated price, so by any measure of inflation was really more expensive even than that 15 seems. We could not bring ourselves to indulge in this Venetian experience finding it not that interesting for the cost, but, oddly, in desperate need of a bathroom we had cafes in the inside bar for something like a third the price. The coffee itself was unmemorable, but watching the bartender methodically open dozens and dozens of bottles of champagne in preparation for apertivo left a great impression upon me and made me quite well-versed at opening bottles of sparkling wine from that informative moment forward.

The other kind of expensive cappuccino is based off of quality and sometimes the rareness of the beans. These are actually far more rare since the best of the fifth wave, obsessively excellent coffee houses we have been to tend to be at the very top of what I would call the average city price without venturing into the "expensive" category of price. The best general cappuccinos we have had, like in Saint Minneapolis at Kopplins (RIP) or in Copenhagen were fastidious and not cheap, but not in this "other" category. However in a cutting edge restaurant bar in Saint Minneapolis we long, long ago tried a $7.00 cappuccino (adjusted to today's prices probably more like 10 to 12 dollars!). As I recall it used a special kind of aged beans and was... fine.

In Montpellier we found a cappuccino also for seven, though this in euros and not needing inflation adjustment as it was barely more than a month ago. This was the most expensive item coming off of a full menu of bean options, and, and, I don't know what to tell you. I would get it every single day. I would let it change my very concept of coffee.

Except when we want coffee on the beach, where I will accept that it is not all that great, and love it as much.

Hotel Du Centre

 

We sit at a cafe under the “Hotel Du Centre” on a pedestrianized side road off of the main street of the city, if it can really be said to have one, called Jean Médecin. A cool breeze blows, and the mild weather is actually even a tiny bit cool. I am all too aware that this is “it” for the city, for the season, and temperatures in the very high twenties to thirties, with blinding sun, will be back tomorrow and not relent for the next ten weeks.

When I say “temperatures in the high twenties,” I know I am being a bit provocative to my more Fahrenheit-conversant audience, but I have to learn eventually. For you, to ease your way, let us say mid-eighties will be the rule here for the summer, and I will soon commence to cower like Gollum, muttering about how the sun burns us and is cruel. 

Well, it is, but I’m sure it doesn’t mean it.

We have walked this street many dozens of times now but oddly never stopped or had a drink here, despite its sheer pleasantness. I suppose even with its awnings and umbrellas, its broad black-tiled road has always felt particularly vulnerable to the sun, and I guess we’ve never hit it on the right day until now.

Now it’s lovely. 

Perhaps the very best thing in this city, or maybe in France, is when you stop and sit, it feels as if that is what everyone is doing, and is the entire purpose of the place. 

And all those people still walking by? 

They are simply for your entertainment.

p.s.

I meant to take some pictures to illustrate the subject of today's post, but then I ended up just doing mock branding instead:

World Cup is under way!

 

Having devoted myself to the World Cup, and to keeping you informed about it, my big take away so far is... oh my god, this is going to be a lot of games.

I have managed to watch almost four games and one set of full highlights over the course of the first three days of the tournament, and here is what I haven't seen yet:

1. Any team who has a serious chance of winning the tournament.

2. Any famous player who would genuinely be considered one of the best in the world.

But I don't mind any of it. I am all in. And while I might have had some complaints about the less than sparkling quality of the soccer at first, all of the sudden the USA came on, and, of all teams they looked terrific. I have never in my entire life seen the US team look good. I hardly knew what to think. Do I root for them?

Sure, why not.

But I won't chant or anything.

You know, because of the fascism and everything.

I am currently writing this by slipping away from the Switzerland Qatar game, which seemed like a foregone conclusion in favor of the Swiss, and maybe it is, but Switzerland are so far unable to open up their small lead any wider. Maybe something weird could happen? I doubt it, but I'm up for it.

My main goal is to catch the midnight game between Brazil and Morocco, which will feature some brilliant players and two teams that are sort of considered outside contenders, but who everyone finds a bit difficult to predict just how far outside. Brazil is full of talent and have a great manager, but have been underachieving for so long now that no one knows how to really believe in them any more except by ancient habit. Morocco has been over achieving so much recently that it's oddly a bit hard to believe they can do it again. It's kind of a perfect early test and the first game I'd love to see. Alas that I will probably be compelled to sleep through it.

Maybe I'll catch the replay in the morning.

Don't tell me what happens.

Sometimes you're on one train, sometimes the other

 

I'll show you the pictures first for a change. 

They're really both the same scene, trying to get it right, two versions if you will:

I was thinking about how it is here in this city, living in a vacation wonderland. I remembered an old Woody Allen movie that made a tremendous impression on me: Stardust Memories. In one particularly magnificent scene, the main character is on a grim train, full of disconnected, strange people in a bleak and worn setting. He looks out the grimy window of his old train and sees into the train on the next track, going the other way. Richly lit and luxuriously appointed, this train is full of beautiful people, celebrating, partying, and drinking champagne.

My unfortunately Eeyorish disposition has always been prone to feeling like this, that somehow I am on the far worse train, but I think the feeling comes up a bit extra here. People are having a good time here! With the false richness of vacation they have entered into a starrier version of the world, and my city invites it. They have no obligations, plenty of money in their pockets, and no concerns for the future.

 There is so much made of how unhappy locals in popular European tourists towns are getting. They are increasingly displeased with tourists' loud, disrespectful, and drunken behavior, with the way that the proliferating airbnbs they stay in have blown up the local rents, and with how their foreign tastes erode the local true culture and cost of their city. And while I think there is real merit to their complaints (though even within that there is the usual misdirection of blame that should be levelled at the local rich, the ownership class, and their local government more than the tourists), I think there is also a certain amount of understandable jealousy: "Who are all these people coming to the city where I work, am sick, have plumbing problems, keep to a budget, etc, who get to do nothing here but have a good time!"

We're retired, as you know, and it is hard sometimes to separate out how much we are tourists here and how much we are simply everyday residents in this city. It comes and goes. I think even for people born here there can be a little of both sometimes.

Sometimes we are sipping champagne on the beautiful train and, sure, it can be wonderful.

But sometimes too, I'm just looking longingly into the light, on the way to the Carrefour Market, to get more toilet paper, and maybe a toilet plunger, if they have one.

World cup written ahead of time

The first game of the World Cup is over! And though I haven't seen it yet because it doesn't start for me for several minutes, I am aware of my obligations to keep you up to date on the World Cup regardless. And so it is. I am daring to give you the key points of this first match of the World Cup even though it hasn't happened yet!

Amazing!

But also accurate, maybe.

Actually, I am hoping that either:

A. I get super lucky and guess right.

or

B. You won't care enough to fact check, which, let's face it, this being the Internet, is more likely.

So, onto the key points of this exciting opening match featuring Mexico, playing at home, and South Africa, playing in Mexico.

If that counts as a guess I'm already one for one!

Here are your key points:

1. Mexico wins! Three to one.

2. Mexico's Gilbert Mora, a mere 17 years old and the youngest player at this World Cup, bags two assists!

3. Forty year old Guillermo Ochoa, also playing for Mexico, is taking part in his sixth World Cup. He is a goalie, and by "taking part" I mean "sitting on the bench" because he is old and they gave his job away. Which is a bit sad, because he would be the first player to play in six World Cups, pipping Messi and Ronaldo to it just a few days ahead. But he seems pretty happy to be there when the camera shows him.

4. Lyle Foster (who plays professionally in the U.S.) grabs the consolation goal for the South Africa team, giving them a slim ray of hope as they face slightly easier teams in their next two group games. It's not over yet!

Okay, you're up to date.

What's that?

The South Korea vs. Czechia game? 

Yes, that happened too! Or it's going to happen at four in the morning my time. 

How about you watch that one and tell me.

The hotel cafe

 

Sometimes I wish I knew what to say about this life.

Maybe it's just like regular life except fabulous vacation suddenly bursts out of it once or twice a day, like some massive flower bud you barely even knew was there, erupting into a brief and exotic bloom, and then falling away to a pile of petals in the wind.

We have started up an affection for hotel cafes for our afternoons. Here is today's:

Flowers and more flowers

 

I think all these flowers everywhere are making me sleepy. 

I think I might be in Oz.

Today we went all the way out to the Port to try a morning coffee in a well-regarded cafe there, but though pleasant, it was all a bit too hole-in-the-wall and far away. It is turning out that I am increasingly besotted with ambiance; calm pretty spaces, sprawling scenic patios, and quiet shady sidewalks, so the quality of the coffee has to be mind boggling to overcome any of these disadvantages in ambiance. This city, I am afraid, has no coffee with that kind of stature. Montpellier had something so amazing I still think about it, but the cafe that made it was still a nice place to be in.

To make up for it all we went for a second coffee in the old city on our long walk home. There is a lot of prevarication before we sit down at places, but once we do there is this kind of immaculate stoned feeling that overcomes us, a weird bliss. It's as if all the flowers here are intoxicating poppies.

Hmm, I think we already covered this.

It is starting to get hot here, with tomorrow in the mid eighties. I have a little bit feared Summer here since we arrived in the Fall.  But if we could possibly do even less, and sit in the shade more there is perhaps hope. If we are up to this stupefying spell, I am ready to go under it.

Flowering trees

 

The flowering tree situation in this city has gotten out of control.

Since we moved here in November there has always been one kind of tree at a time simply bursting with flowers. I don't know how to explain these trees. They're big. Sometimes they're standing with astonishing picturesqueness in front of some gorgeous belle epoque building. And they look like they are on fire with flowers.

One comes around the corner and involuntarily halts and cries "Holy crap!"

And then one carries on with their day, because that's just how you do it on the Cote D'Azur.

But it was merely one or two kinds of trees at a time throughout the late Fall, the Winter, and even the Spring. So it didn't come up that often. We could handle it.

But now, as we crash into Summer, all of the sudden it is happening all at once with many different kinds of trees. 

It is a bit much. 

Sometimes we are stopped dead in our tracks gawping until one of us says "Wait, are we seriously thinking of leaving this city?"

We are. But we may not make it.

The trees and the coffees on the beach may do us in.

Just lately, thinking about telling you all this, I started taking some pictures of these trees. So this is hardly a comprehensive list, just what I could come up with in the last couple of days. Also, they are radiant,  but in the teeming chaos and tumult of the city, it can be challenging to capture their sheer shock and awe.

Nevertheless, I have done my best and present just a few of the trees as they are now, around town. If they look a little ridiculous, well, believe me, it is even more overwrought in person.

And here, I have gone wide screen to give the full all-at-once effect

World cup preparations

 

Whether I watch a lot of the world cup or not is an open question. The timing of the matches (all very late for me in Europe), the quality of the streaming service I can buy to watch it, and the way it fits into my lifestyle are all open questions I can't answer very well until the games actually begin. But I can say that I have, for reasons I'm not fully clear on, obsessively studied for and know a lot about this World Cup. I don't want to burden you, my kindly readers, with too much information here, but I was thinking I could provide you a kind of idiosyncratic primer to this tournament. Maybe the best way to do this is to present it in five sort of simple topics that will allow you to dazzle strangers with your knowledge and perspective on this greatest of all sporting events.

But before we start, I have decided not to discuss the politics of the World Cup in my list because it is too long and complicated of an issue. So we'll leave that for another day. Just tell me when you're ready to hear about the apocalypse of capitalism and how sports are its last dying argument, nevertheless doomed like us all.

Onto the soccer fun!

1. The group stage is just for you to have a good time.

With 36 of the 48 teams going through to the elimination rounds (first place, second place, and even most of the third place teams will go through) this is not the tense, meaningful, and exciting part of the games. This is the get your feet wet part of the cup. Probably no team that is talked about as an even mildly serious contender is likely to go out after their little mini tournament of three games. This is where you can drop in and see if you're interested at all. Or maybe pick out a team or two, favored or not, and size them up. You can root for miracles or just ignore most of the vast sea of matches. Someone hopeless is probably going through despite what anyone thinks, which will be utterly thrilling for that team and its fans. One or two mediocre teams might go out and by some miracle a good team could too, which will be an emotional spectacle but not the likely or key point of this period. Here everyone is just establishing position and conditioning for the great race to come.

2. The old mens' cup

Seven players who are 40 or older are playing in this cup! The first players ever to play in their sixth world cup are doing so, including Messi and Ronaldo who I need not explain or this basics guide will already be beyond you. Clerkmanifesto reader favorite Axel Witsel of Belgium is 37. Messi will turn 39 during the tournament. Can people this old make a difference in these games? Probably a couple of them can, and even if none are able to, their presence looms so large that such failures will be one of the singular down note stories as the cup progresses.

3. Terrible teams and miracles

With the wider inclusion of 48 teams there are some wild stories about some of the teams that have made it. For instance did you know that Haiti, because their home country is so messed up, have not played a game in Haiti in over four years!! I am personally enchanted with Curacao, a tiny country that's smaller in population and possibly even in physical size than the city I currently live in! There are 156,000 people in Curacao, they have a famous coach and absolutely zero chance. What a thing to root for!

4. Enjoy an extra elimination game!

To make up for a far more neutered group stage, take pleasure in an extra round of do or die football. Yes, the round of 32 match ups will be uneven, but everyone in it will have proved to be capable of winning at least, and here is where we can see something wild happen, and probably will. Plus, good teams' slip ups in the group stage can set this round up for some surprisingly key and competitive games.

5. It was always going to be the favorites, but which ones?

Bizarre miracles and shock eliminations aside, as a student of the pundits, it is almost impossible to find someone willing to predict even a mild dark horse making it to the finals here. The good teams have some freakishly disporportionate talent here. If a team as brilliantly talented as France or Spain wins there will be pleasure in seeing such good football being played. Any of the maybe five beyond them who could seriously win will bring the thrilling frisson of the unexpected, the glorious return, or the long sought historical achievement. In the end the winner always will have seemed inevitable, but enjoy now that no one knows.

Favorites yes, but no one knows! The book is blank and ready, and it is about to be written.