Right Brain Feed

We're in the final stretch, as I write this I am surrounded by fragrant French movers packing up the apartment. They've been packing since 8am (it's now 3pm), and haven't gotten to the rather large amount of glasspacks that need to happen in the kitchen. There is something very unsettling about 4 strange men handling your stuff. We've definitely got the 'B' team, since everyone (including regular movers) is on vacation. It took two of the movers over 90 minutes to pack the futon. Is packing a futon really 3 person hours of work for people who are professional movers? Hmmmmm...... One of our weekend activities was rather nerve wracking. We have been unable to find someone to take the kitchen cabinets. So at 5am on Sunday morning, we snuck downstairs, and ..... left them in a discrete place around the corner on the sidewalk. We actually see this happen a lot in Paris, and we couldn't figure out another solution. Everyone is gone in August, including people...

We are trying to solve the dependency puzzle here as best we can. We have to take the blinds down before the ladder disappears into the sea container. We have to backup the computer before the air shipment goes. We have to before event X happens. Which brings me to another piece of the dependency puzzle: Suzy has to post her "Mission Accomplished" photo summary before the computer with Picasa on it gets packed. So here they are. 80 pics from our two years here. A few of them only hold value for Sarah and I (for example, the scrappy little dog that lives next door). I have quite a few nice memories wrapped up in these. My brain now has a moveable feast to feed on for the rest of my life.  Luckily, digital photography helps with preserving so many wonderful memories. Here's the cheatsheet for my brain:  Mission Accomplished album Living in Paris main page

I'm facing reality, and I'm not so sure I like it. For 6 months, there has been a little nagging voice whispering " You have to return to the US". For 6 months I've done a pretty good job of ignoring the Voice, and focusing on enjoying our time here. I'm now having to face up to reality. Next week movers are coming to do estimates, we're been selling off appliances, getting letters together to break the lease and utilities, futzing with US Customs inventory, dividing belongings between air shipment /sea shipment / hand carry, ....etc,etc,etc. The extra fun thing about moving out of a Paris apartment is that you have to make a *huge* deposit to get an apartment, and now we have the big showdown inspection to try and get it back. Expat after expat tells me their horror story about suddenly missing $3000 from their deposit, getting retroactive rent increases after they leave the country and having $$ wired out of their French account, getting charged $1000 f...

I've been having trouble getting my photos together from our last big trip. I tend to put off blogging about a trip until the photos are organized and posted to picasaweb. We took an amazing trip in June for *two* weeks to northern Italy and southeastern France. The trip was also Sarah's birthday present. She said she wanted to be hiking on her birthday. So I planned and planned, and optimized the plan, reworked the plan, added to the plan, and finally we were able to go. The best pics on this trip are Cinque Terre and Chamonix. We started in Milan, not because we were dying to see Milan, but because that's where I could get decently priced Easyjet tickets. We had a low key day there, we toured the cathedral, walked around the city, and not much else. A few Milan pics at: Milan Album Then we took the train down to Cinque Terre. It's a National park on the Italian seashore consisting of 5 tiny villages built on cliffs over the water, with the area crisscrossed by hiki...

A few weeks ago I did the dirty deed and photographed the Sunday Bastille Market. We shop there every week.  I say "dirty deed" because the market is becoming quite the tourist attraction. While tourists tend to increase the crowd and add to the frustration of people buying food (us!), the tourists don't buy much. The crowds of the market can be a bit overwhelming as is, people with 30 years experience are pretty good at throwing an elbow when needed. There are several hundred booths, and it is a foodies delight. I'll let the pictures do the talking.... Bastille Sunday Market Album Living in Paris main page

We zipped down to Avignon last week. Our neighbors from Austin were visiting us in Paris. I knew they'd love the Chef's hosted dinner at La Mirande, so we all made a short getaway to Avignon. While the dinner was great, and the place we stayed was a treat, Sarah and I did have our plans ruffled by a French public holiday. We had planned a hike along a grand randonee (national French hiking trail) out in the country. Our first plan starting from Pont du Gard was bust because the bus schedule evaporates on public holidays. A very kind lady at the Avignon TI helped us formulate a new plan of hiking starting from St. Remy, and found a bus schedule that worked. That plan was nuked because the bus never showed up. ...sigh.... So we had to settle for a much shorter walk, but found a killer pizza joint along the river. I found the lavender in this picture blooming, and managed to get a nice shot of it with the famous Avignon bridge behind it. Dinner in the restored kitchen of La Mir...

I keep putting off a post on our trip to Vienna. Part of that is because I've been sick, and part of it is because we had so much fun in Vienna, I wanted to take some time to blog it. I'm feeling better now, so I wanted to get some memories down before they all seep out of my head. We were able to spend a full week in Vienna, and we timed our visit just right. We had beautiful brilliant early Spring sunny days. We snagged a nice Interhome appartment week long rental right in the heart of downtown. Vienna was the eastern most outpost of western European civilization, and the ruling seat of the Hapsburg Dynasty for a loooong time. Every Hapsburg king and queen seems to have built their own palace in Vienna, so the city is filled with interesting architecture, and nice gardens. Since we had a week there, we spent plenty of time hanging out in the gardens. We also got in the habit of going to coffeehouses in the afternoon, which is a popular thing to do. Suzy got in the habit of ha...

We just got back from a week in Vienna and a short nip over to Bratislava, Slovakia. Bratislava is a really bizarre place. It's a broad mixture of many different things. Elegance from the 1800 Hapsburg dynasty royalty, cute domed church towers, funky crumbling Art Nouveau, 40 years of Soviet rule (including lots of blocky concrete), sad little public transportation trolleys, and a gussied up downtown pedestrian area where there are trendy bars and restaurants. Throw in a _completely_ unrecognizable language (hello, 10 cents will buy you a vowel), fantastic cheap beer, nice hiking close by, and that's Bratislava. Of course, you are still wondering about the bizarre picture here. That was our hotel. I kid you not. We weren't to thrilled by it, it was run by supplement popping hippies pretending to be artists (mind the paint and brushes on the breakfast table). The inside of the room was..uhhh...somewhat lacking in cleanliness. We've stayed in plenty of dumps before, that ...

We zipped on the Thalys high speed train to Cologne last weekend. As an American, it's easier to fit into German culture than French culture. Germans dress down a little, aren't babuzzled by our big American smiles, and don't have the small formalities that the French have in everyday life. Don't get me wrong, we've both fallen head over heels for France. We'll be lifetime francophiles, but it is still fun to bop over to Germany. Cologne is great for a short trip. We started Saturday morning with a tour of the monstrous cathedral. The cathedral was built in spurts over several hundred years, but they did a decent job of keeping a consistent look. I had trouble picking a picture of it for the blog, I wanted something with people in the foreground, because you need that to grasp the scale of this beast. I was shocked at how grungy the poor thing was, I guess I'm spoiled by the freshly cleaned Notre Dame down the street at home. I'm wondering if they ...

Spring has sprung in Paris! This weekend Spring made its first appearance in Paris this year. There really is something special about springtime here. Everybody packs the streets, and enjoys the good weather. The picture at the bottom is the quai on Sunday, it is closed to motorized traffic every Sunday. Today it was packed. Sarah and I sat on the edge of the river for a while, soaking up sunshine and springtime happiness. Both Saturday and Sunday we had lunch guests, but we did manage to get out both days for a nice walk. Saturday's walk came with an added bonus, Suzy snagged a boules set for playing petanque. It's a game popular with older men in Europe in the park. I snapped a pic in this bakery window, they really are "workin" the patissiere artistry. The bakery (Miss Manon) isn't one that I shop at, it's all flash and no substance. But I have to admit, they have a dang good window display. Sarah and I are continuing our Wednesday night trips to th...

Last weekend we made a trip to Lyon. It's a quick 2 hour TGV ride, and it was a nice weekend getaway. Lyon is France's gastronomic capitol. Quite a feat, considering the elevated standard of food in France to begin with. So the main point of our visit was to go have a really good meal. We were not disappointed. We ate at Leon de Lyon. I mainly chose it because I wanted a place where we could do a set menu of courses, and the set menu here appealed to us. It's a Michelin two star, but it gets 4 Michelin forks. Stars rate service, how nice the setting is, is the bathroom nice, etc. Forks rates the food, so I tend to pay more attention to that. We had the sommelier chose a wine from the Rhone valley (close to Lyon), and it was a very nice Syrah based wine. It was a Saint Joseph AOC, Domain de Yves Cuilleron 2000 l'Amarybelle. The Lyon wine shop said we wouldn't be able to find that year for sale in a shop, perhaps Leon de Lyon hoovered it all up. Here is the menu: Two ...

We traveled last weekend to Nancy, France. It is a 3 hour train ride east of Paris. Nancy is where Art started at the turn of the 20th century. Sarah and I are both big Art Nouveau fans, so we enjoyed it a lot. The city provides a map with all the Art Nouveau architecture on it. We walked and walked looking at different buildings. It was really cool because there were a lot of houses with interesting Art Nouveau detail on them that weren't by a famous architect. This made the whole town fun to walk through. I've posted some pictures, but I want to caution you. If you aren't an avid architecture fan, you might have trouble wading through them. Nancy Art Nouveau album We also ate at a famous brassiere, Brassiere D'Excelsior. There is a picture posted in my album that shows the ornate interior. I had some nice profiteroles. Profiteroles are vanilla ice cream filled pastry puffs smothered in warm dark chocolate sauce. This place brought a gravy boat of chocolate sauce ...

Sarah and I enjoyed a long weekend in Amsterdam last weekend. I didn't do a lot of photography, we spent most of our time in museums and walking the canals. We got museum passes, which worked out really well. Museums in Amsterdam aren't cheap (most were roughly 10 euros). We arrived the day after a freak windstorm swept northern Europe, in fact our high speed train wasn't so high speed because of the weather. We enjoyed the food a lot, there seem to be numerous vegetarien options, it reminded us of some of the veggie places in Austin. I've posted some photos: Amsterdam album And here is a list of the places we visited: Anne Frank house Rijksmuseum - awesome Rembrant paintings Heineken brewery tour Canal boat ride Van Gogh museum Amsterdam history museum Hermitage museum Rembrandt's House Horticulture garden I think I enjoyed the Van Gogh museum the most. Van Gogh only painted for 10 years, and the museum was able to cover those 10 years in amazing detail. It was in...

Two of our closest Paris friends (Beth and Vivianne) left to move back to Sydney yesterday. We will miss them dearly. They were wildly entertaining, and we could always count on having a great time when they were involved. I caught a massive cold (probably on the flight back from Texas), so I had to miss our goodbye dinner with them. So au revoir, Beth and Vivianne. We will miss our endless bottles of Champagne, death creatures, blogging novel titles, Paris mexican food, pears and roquefort, screaming at World cup finals, The Green Fairy, Jardin des plantes, Vivianne's mexican cuisine, hangovers, the Festival of Vivianne, and long stories about Australia. The expat experience can be like this. You can meet other really interesting expats, and you easily bond over your shared experience of temporarily living in a foreign land. And then you part and go your separate ways. Living in Paris main page

Today Sarah and I made it over to the two big department stores that do incredible displays for Christmas in their windows. They were both amazing. I think Printemps gets style points, they had a theme of Morroco for all their displays, and some very stylish windows. Galleries Lafayette was the winner though, their displays really appealed to the child inside me. They seemed to appeal to all the kids as well. Each display has a raised platform in front of it on the sidewalk. The platform is for small kids only, so they can get up close and get a good view. Most things in the displays are animated: teapots walk around offering cake, dogs stage a small "bullfight", pigs scuba dive, and bears grill skish-kabobs or jackhammer huge chocolate bars. The attention to detail is amazing, everywhere you look something is going on. And you are surrounded by 5 year old kids who are bouncing around looking at everything. In between the kids displays are some rather odd non-animated displ...

Sarah and I took a great two week trip to Italy at the end of September. We went to Venice, Verona, and Florence. Venice Photo Album Venice was beautiful, as long as you stayed away from the "Follow the Umbrella" tourist groups. The back waterways were great to explore and get lost in. There were endless interesting photos waiting to be taken, and it was generally quiet and relaxed. Around San Marco/Rialto was a different story. (insert rant on cruise ship tour groups here). It was interesting watching Venetians do things by boat that we typically see done by truck: Uhaul, mail boat, furniture delivery, laundry pickup. We really enjoyed Murano, where they let you wander into glass blowing workshops and watch the guys work. We will go back in a few years during low low low season, and try to see San Marco's interior, we just couldn't face the long long line this time. Verona photo album We kicked back in Verona for a few days, it was a great place to just soak in Italy...

We just spent a lovely week in Zermatt. We timed it just right, it was at the end of August, the weather was brilliant, but the crowds were gone. The picture here is the Matterhorn (Mont Cervin to the French) from the walk to Tuferen. Zermatt is a big ski resort, which means that there is a large array of lifts and specialized mountain cog trains to drag you up the hill to some amazing hikes. While the expensive "resort-i-ness" of Zermatt didn't appeal to us, the broad range of hiking you can do under the shadow of the Matterhorn definitely was. There are also tiny little villages (count the houses with no need to remove your shoes) up in the hills that serve really decent food. In fact, there is one trail we were on called the Gourmet Weg. The food was expensive because they have to drag it all up the hill or get it airlifted in, but quite nice in the middle of a hike. I could describe each hike, but I think I'd rather get together pictures and post them. The picture...

This is a view (on a cloudy day) from Hautvilliers out over the vineyards of Champagne. Sarah and I spent a delightful weekend in the Champagne region of France. Our neighbors who live next door invited us out for the weekend to their country home. We managed very well despite rainy weather both days. They have a very cozy house in the Marne river valley, with views of vineyards on the hills out the windows. I could feel my stress level go down as soon as we got there, it was just so relaxing and inviting. Here's some of the things we did: Went on a champagne cellar tour in Epernay . They have a gargantuan wine casket from 1880's, it holds 200,000 barrels, and was taken dragged by oxen to the Paris fair in 1889. The tour also included a train tour of their underground cellars where they ferment and store the champagne. I now know plenty about riddling bottles and disgorging sediment. Drove through the vineyards, and walked around Hautvilliers (pronounced "ought vee yay...

Oh, Berlin. We got back Monday morning from our long weekend in Berlin. We had an absolute blast! This photo is taken from the roof of the Reichstag, which is the German Parliament building. This building is where the European portion of WWII ended. After the war, it was substantially changed, and this dome was added a few years back. The dome serves as a reminder that government should be transparent. It was a nice break away from Paris in the height of tourist season. We stayed in a nice quiet area of Berlin, Savigny Platz. Our hotel room overlooked the square, we were right over a few sidewalk cafes. I think we hit the timing just right. We waited until Berlin recovered from it's bout of WorldCup fever, and the city was deserted. We waited in 2 lines during our 4 days there, both of them under 10 minutes! We did some major museum hopping, the 3 day Museum Pass made it really easy to hit a lot of them: Museum of Arts and Materials - fun Art Nouveau glass Pergamon Museum- fantasti...

Usually our blog tends to reflect on fun, happier moments and memories that I want to remember 10 years from now. My intention is to do a big 'wget' on our url when we go back to the US, and have it to read over fondly when we want to go down Memory Lane. But today I'm writing about the heat, because someday I hope to look back on this and be amused. #ifdef SOAPBOX It is bloody hot here! Hello!? Would a ceiling fan kill you? It got up to 96 here today. I know you Texans are scoffing, it's over 100 in Austin today. But guess what, bucko? We don't have air conditioning in the apartment (no one here does). After several days of over 90, the thick plaster walls are nicely warmed up. Last night at 11pm it was still 87 *inside* the apartement. Ugh. At 7pm, Parisiens are awefully fragrant on an unairconditioned, overcrowded bus. Sweat just pours off me wedged into the metro, and I peel off wet clothes when I get home. Oh, did I also mention that no one here *ever* we...