Right Brain Feed

  From 2005-2007 we lived in Paris, it was the time of our lives.  I blogged during that time, and wanted to make sure to preserve the memories and photos from that wild ride. With the Coronavirus goop clamping down on anything new Travel related, I thought it would be good to republish and re-live them here. It also matches well with me reworking all my photo albums, since most of the original photo links on my original blog from 2005-7 are now dead as I've shuffled photos around.  I've created some links on the left side (or in the page menu on mobile)  to help folks navigate around.  Enjoy! Paris Fun  I tried to focus blogging on things about living in Paris that were off the beaten tourist path. Many weekends we'd start without a plan, and just head off to walk in a random direction from the apartment. We'd always find something interesting.  All the Paris Fun posts Two year Travel Frenzy We went wild with traveling. I was given the choice to keep ...

We arrived in Austin at 2am Saturday morning, after a lovely delay in Chicago. Is it mandatory that all flights out of Chicago be delayed? We're easing our re-entry shock with chips, salsa, and nice margaritas. We're also trying to save the American economy by buying 2 cars and a new dishwasher. This afternoon we make a trip to look at carpet. I am shopped out! We're sleeping on the floor, and cursing our hazy memories (I thought we left some cooking stuff in Austin...). We're still a bit grumpy from the trip, and facing a parade of workers ( A/C service, garage door fixer, dishwasher installer....).  I want my wonderful simple life in Paris back. No cars to fuss with, no weekend house projects.  Living in Paris main page

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

Paris has done it again. As if 293 Metro stations weren't enough. Paris has started a bicycle rental system called Velib. For a Euro or two, you can rent a nice shiny new bike and toodle around for a bit. There are 20,000 bikes scattered around the city, and 750 check out stations like the one in the picture. They are *everywhere*. For a yearly subscription of 29 euros, you can grab a bike whenever you want, the first 30 minutes are free. It has noticeably increased the amount of bicycle traffic on the street. They have trucks that run around and re-distribute bicycles, so that you should always be able to find a bicycle (or an empty slot to check one in). Score one more for Paris in the "We mock you with all our public transportation" catagory. Living in Paris main page

We are giving our orchid to a friend. I had to have a picture of it before it went, it's positively overflowing in blooms right now. Byebye orchid. We escaped for a few hours this weekend and went to the expats picnic in Parc Monceau. It was nice to take a break from all the moving goop.  Living in Paris main page

Today I finally got around to doing pics for selling our Fridge and Stove. I'm a bit worried about a buyer getting the fridge out of the building. They are about to start work on the lift, and it might not be finished by when we depart. Did I mention we are on the 5th floor? Dragging a fridge down 5 flights of a circular staircase doesn't sound like fun. Living in Paris main page

I realized that I had forgotten to blog my Bastille Day flyover pic. These guys with the blue-white-red exhaust came over first, followed by group after group of every type of plane the French army has. It thunders right over our apartment, this pic was taken from the quai right by Pont Sully. 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...

I'm not a big sports fan. But I decided that with the French Open happening in my own back yard, I should go see it. Some Austin friends were in town visiting, so the four of us spent the day at Roland Garros. Sarah can give you the long story about the painful long wait to get tickets a few weeks ago. I can't portray her suffering adequately. We arrived to an unruly mob outside the gates, but it moved quickly. We had great seats on court 1. Court 1 is smaller than the two big courts, but still has assigned seating. I've never seen a live tennis match, and I usually have trouble staying interested in matches on TV, so I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a blast. You really get a sense of the two players going after each other when you are there live, and it's much easier to get into the game. We watched one game that was especially good, Monfils vs Rochus. Monfils just had a blistering serve. One of his serves was 215kph (135mph). I also had a lot of fun watchin...

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...

This weekend we made a day trip to Auvers Sur Oise. It's a small village outside Paris where Vincent Van Gogh spent his final few months. We enjoyed jambon et fromage crepes with a bit of Cidre for lunch. Yum, I will miss the crepes in France. Then we visited Vincent's room above a restaurant. He died in that room after a self inflicted gunshot. While it was slightly moving, I did find it overpriced. The town has set up plaques where van Gogh painted different scenes, so we toured some of those. We also visited his grave, and took a nice walk in the wheat fields. We also visited the Absinthe Museum. Bizarre. Absinthe was a drink in the late 1800's to early 1900's that had hallucinogenic properties. Artists and writers in Paris got hooked on it, and felt it helped their art (sure, buddy). It's nickname was the 'Green Faerie'. The museum was filled with lots of absinthe stuff.... posters, ads, art, glasses, bottles.... A common theme in the posters was a...

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 ...

Last weekend we went to the new aquarium that opened in Paris last spring. I'm a big aquarium fan, and try to visit them when we travel (especially now that I don't have my own tank set up at home). We put this one off for a while, mainly because of the price. It's *outrageous*, even by Paris standards. 19.50 euros *each*!! We finally broke down and paid the inflated entry, and really enjoyed it. My new spy camera has an "aquarium" mode, which worked pretty well. I had fun taking fishy pics. While I've been to a better aquarium (Lisbon's aquarium just kicks butt), this one had it's own interesting flair. One room had a music stage in front of the 20 foot x 20 foot glass (or probably acrylic) panel with fishies swimming behind it. They arrange live music on Sunday afternoons, and had a decent band playing Cuban music. We settled into lounge chairs, grabbed some beers from the bar, and listened to music while watching fishies swim. It was quite ni...