A day in Paris

I spend a lot of time in Paris walking around the city, enjoying the ambience and surroundings.  Most of the time, I am by myself as Stephen puts in long hours at work.  However, every now and then we actually find a day to do a little sightseeing in the city.  I never tire of the views, and I sometimes have to pinch myself that I have this opportunity to experienc life in Paris.

Stephen, in Place St.Michel

Inside the Maritime museum....

Street entertainers....

And, of course, how can you have a blog about Paris without a picture of the Eiffel tower?

 

Looking for a larger flat

As you may know, Stephen's flat is Paris is very small and we have been trying to find a larger unit.  Thought you might enjoy seeing some of the available real estate:

comes furnished...

Every sitting room needs a suit of armour

Perhaps this unfurnished model is more to your liking:

Lots of stairs

Nice views

But maybe too much lawn to cut.

Here's my favourite:

Not a very good picture because the property is undergoing some renovation.  Here's how it really looks.

Furnished....

With a well-appointed kitchen

With a good size fireplace

Overlooking a lovely garden...

Complete with a maze

And a nice, quaint neighbourhood

Okay.... so maybe these places are not within our budget. 

Actually, we spent a lovely day touring some of the castles in the Loire Valley.  It was interesting but maybe our next tour will be a wine-tasting tour.

Going, going, gone

For those of you who live in the North, this blog will probably not interest you.  I am writing this for Stephen, who seems to be experiencing snow withdrawal.  Not that he misses the snow.... he just wants to see it melt and watch Winter turn into Spring.  Actually, I think he secretly wishes that he could be here, digging little trenches to steer the melting snow to the street and sewer.  I believe the correct term for this activity is "engineering", as coined by Joan, Stephen's mother (who probably is responsible for introducing him to this activity). 
Anyway, Stephen, here are the pictures you wanted to see.  I'm sorry that you couldn't be here to speed along the melting process.

Jan 9

Mar 3

Mar 7

Mar 14

Here are some images of the back yard:

Mar 3

Mar 7

Mar 14

England...and Spring Maybe ?

Posted Sunday March 14th, 2010

I was over in England this weekend. While my travel on Thursday and work day Friday were rainy, Saturday was lovely, a beautiful (almost) Spring Day. After my meetings in Cheltenham, I went to Susies for a short weekend by train.  The trip to Susies was interesting. Regular readers of this blog (all 8 of you..) will recall I have driven from Cheltenham to Bloxom a few times, and it is a grand total of about 50 miles. Well, by train, it is about 2 1/2  hours. First I had to catch a train from Cheltenham to Birmingham, a hour trip north. I then waited an hour (was supposed to be 1/2 hour but this being Friday...well, lets just say my next train was 26 minutes late).The 2nd train went south east and took about 35 minutes to get to Banbury, with 4 stops in between. I really need to think thru travel modes when I come to the UK.  I still have a romantic image of trains in England. I recall the trip Genya and I took on the Royal Scotsman from London to Edinburgh. It was about 5-6 hours, but I remember it as  very relaxing. I think we had a table seat, just the two of us, and the lovely english countryside went by as we read, dozed, noshed on biscuits, crisps and cups of tea.  That is vacation travel. Friday evening was commuter travel. Both trains were standing room only, getting into the aisle was impossible, let alone making it to the car with the snack counter. It was raining so everyone was dripping. And, my ticket was expensive, about  36 BP. 

 Add the 6-7 BP in both Cheltenham and Banbury for taxi and the total is over  50 pounds. I need to get more comfortable driving in this country. For what I am paying for train travel, (which I agree is way more eco friendly), I could rent a car for less, be there sooner and have a lot more freedom.

This week the government introduced plans for a high speed rail line linking London with what they call the north, Birmingham, eventually to Scotland. While the travel will be faster, unless they figure out a way to make it cheaper, I am not sure who will take the train. It is actually quite interesting reading the plans for the high speed rail. The press points out that England "invented" rail travel,  (I must Google that factoid), yet it is the last major country in Europe to have high speed rail. Of course, as soon as the government announced the plans for the rail line, and where it would go, immediately there was a reaction from everyone. As there is an election pending, the opposition critized the plan as it did not go to Heathrow. (The conservatives oppose expanding Heathrow). And as expected, every local County and Village Society for the Preservation of ___________ (fill in the blank), was up in arms as the rail line would go thru some rare gerbil habitat, old forest, historical site or cut across a 1000 year old footpath. In England it seems you cannot go 50 yards without coming across something that is historical or 1000 years old.


Cheltenham Station

 I have a lot of wonderful memories of March in the Cotswolds. When the three kids were in college, I had the opportunity to bring Geoffrey, Peter and Stephanie to England during the March break of their junior year. Each trip was different and each was very special for me. While each visit started and ended with time at Susies, they all were unique and different.  Looking back, perhaps now I think of  traveling with them to England (and France with Peter and Stephanie)  was the time I saw them as passing from childhood to adulthood. Probably because we spent a lot of time in pubs. We did a lot of sightseeing . How can anyone forget Stow on the Wold, Borton on the Water, Traitors Crossing, and of course...The Falkland Arms.

Thanks kids...I remember those trips well.

England, like Europe, has had a colder than normal winter, so I am told by Susie the flowers are later than usual.  However I did manage to catch a few pictures of snowdrops and daffadils trying hard to bloom. The picture above is some Daffys on a sunny corner neat the center of Bloxom. (Most of you know Bloxom is not very big, so, yes, there is grassy areas in the "center of Bloxom".

As I was walking by the Church, I noticed the snowdrops were really spectacular, and seemingly allowed to spread without tending or trimming. Crocuses in a sunny spot below.

My trip back to Paris on Sunday was mostly uneventful. I had forgotten that lovely phrase "Engineering Works"  In England this means we are working on the track and you may go from Banbury to London via Lands End.  In my case I only had to take a bus to station about 30 miles, away. Quite pleasant actually as buses travel the roads, and you see more than one normally sees from the train.

When I got to London, the London Underground was also engaged in Engineering works. As a result, my 3 stop change from Marleybone to St. Pancras took about an hour. The PA system in the subway kept blaring announcements that served only to confuse and panic tourists. It sounded something like

"We terribly regret the inconvenience to passengers but today we are upgrading the London Underground system. Today the (unintelligible)  from Paddington to (unintelligible) will be closed from 7:00 am until (unintelligible) and the Circle Line is closed from Baker Street to (unintelligible.)

I stopped to take a picture (below) of what I thought was an interesting sign in the subway. Not 3 minutes later there was an announcement over the PA System "The London Underground reminds travellers it is forbidden to use flash photography anywhere in the system" !  WOW. Big brother is watching.  I am not sure why flash photography is not allowed. Are they worried the flash will fade the lovely sooty , grafitti covered 100 year old brickwork???

Today (March 14th) in England is Mothers Day, or as they sometimes call it "Mothering Sunday". In England it is the 4th Sunday in Lent. As a result, the trains were full of young, and not so young, clutching flowers, cards, pressies etc.  heading to Mums for the day.  Felt a little sad, as I remember my mom, and not being able to do that anymore. The picture below left is my journey today.

Well, this blog is way too long, so I will close. Thank you Susie and Mike for a wonderful, and too short weekend.

Question for fellow bloggers "What happened to Spellcheck "?  I cannot find spellcheck any more.   Help !

Sick and Tired...and Immigration stories

February 28, 2010

As I finished my last blog I was dreaming of Morocco, warm sun,  lamb...couscous.   Sorry, no stories, only one  picture..

Sick and Tired
I went to Morocco and came back sick.  I came back to Paris sick as a dog. I have heard the term"caught a chill" but never understood it before.... until I caught a chill in Morocco. Morocco was not warm, it was cold and wet and on my 2nd day there I got very cold at work, and could not get warm. I went back to the hotel and sat in a warm, no a hot tub of water for 1/2 an hour, and could not get warm. The next day I was sick. I came back to Paris feeling awful. Genya  was in Paris for a visit, and she spent 3 days trying to nurse me back to health.  (I was still dragging myself to work, then spent the weekend sleeping). Finally I realized this was not getting better and called Kohlers international health number and was told to go to the "American Hospital in Paris".  Genya escorted me and waited for me, part of her vacation in Paris. She probably got postcards from the hospital gift shop :).

 I was there from 9:00 am until about 2:00 pm, had x-rays, blood and multiple other tests. The Dr. must have thought I had pneumonia but it turned out to be a bronchial infection. (as predicted by Susie).  I got a prescription for 2 antiobiotics, and finally in a few days I started to feel better. I was under the weather for about 10 days (the only good thing is I lost another 4 pounds). My tiredness lasted into the 2nd week, so in Kohler last week I was not a lot of fun. The experience at the American Hospital in Paris was OK, took a bit long, but in the end they got it right. I had to pay cash for everything, hopefully my insurance will re-imburse me.

Immigration

Morocco Immigration

I have been traveling internationally now for about 4 and a half years. In almost every country I go to the immigration inspection is, to be generous, prefunctory, brief and always without any conversation. (OK, Canadian Immigration sometimes hassle me, and the US usually say 'Welcome Home")  Outside of english speaking countries, I stand on the yellow footmarks, I smile, I look into the the camera, I get my passport back and proceed to baggage claim...except on my last trip. In both Morocco and Spain, I had some conversation with the authorities...first Morocco.
As I was coming into Morocco, the officer asked me if I was Labanese. "No, I am Canadian". Silence. Then he asked me if my father was Lebanese. "No, my father was Canadian". Silence. Then perhaps he suggested hopefully, my mother was Lebanese (maybe my parents did not marry?). "No, my mother was Irish". Disappointed, but blocked at every turn, he admited me to the Kingdom of Morocco. No doubt still thinking that somewhere in my background is a Lebanese relative.  This got me to thinking, is Inman an Lebanese name?  I Googled the name. As a first name it is rare. As a last name, more common (comes from the English, Inn Keeper). In the 1990 US census it is # 1352 out of over 88,000 last names. When you Google the name all the references are English (we have a Crest, but it costs $15.00 for a PDF, so you will have to google it yourself)

http://www.houseofnames.com/xq/asp.fc/qx/inman-family-crest.htm

No where when I Google "Inman" does Lebanon come up....  Any suggestions?

Spanish Immigration

I am not even sure why I had to go thru Spanish Immigration, I was in transit returning from Morocco.  However I had to go between terminals in Madrid, and ended up going thru Immigration. The two terminals in Madrid are about a mile apart, I have never seen such a disconnected airport. 

 I guess it is my fault. On the form they give you on the plane, when it asked for permanent residence I put down my US address. When I got to the officer, he asked me, "where do you live". Paris I said (remember, I was sick, probably sweating, bleary eyes). He looks at me and says "You said you lived in the US?".  I tried to explain, but at  this point he has reason to be suspicious and begins to thumb thru my passport. "Why were you in Thailand last month " he asks. "Why for only 3 days"? 'Why did you go to India, who did you meet there, did you bring back anything"  I am thinking to myself, he is figuring I have been in Morocco, India, Thailand....three drug centers of the world in two weeks. I did bring back chocolate covered dried mango from Thailand, nothing from India and from Morocco only a damn cold. I do have drugs...Tylenol cold medicine  However in the spirit of experienced  travelers worldwide who know a mad immigration officer is a recipe for a missed flight and a full body inspection, I just smiled and  shrugged.  After more slow thumbing of my passport, he finally took out his stamp, stamped my passport and handed it to me with no more questions. The look in his eye seemed to say "move on", so I did.

However, the Madrid Airport is beautiful (I can almost hear my sister saying" Airport...beautiful ?  Bro, get a life. Oceans are beautiful, forests are beautiful, babies are beautiful....but airports...?"). However it is bright, sunny and full of reds and yellows.

I promise my next blog will be more cheerful....

Losing Weight and other thoughts...

Posted by Stephen - February 6th, 2010

I have been thinking about  a number of things....


Thinking about my weight

Like my sister confided in her last blog, I have gained weight and it is all around the tummy. When I went to Asia I lost a lot of weight, so much that people kept asking me if I was "sick". I actually thought it was pretty cool, fitting into pants 4 sizes smaller. Of course I went out and bought a lot of new clothes for my new shape...as a result Peter now has a lot of new clothes. OK, rice and diced pork is one thing, try losing weight on cheese, bread, European beers and authentic made in France French Fries! (not to mention butter croissants) I have gained back only a few pounds, but two pant sizes..that is not fair. Why does it not go to other places ? Anyway, I was on the verge of losing even the two pant size advantage so the past month I have worked very hard to reverse this trend. I  exercised more and basically starved my self. I replaced my high carb diet with veggies, replaced beer with wine and eliminated bread, except whole wheat toast for breakfast. OK,...to be frank, I must admit that occasionally I do give in to a croissant, but only occasionally, like on the weekend, or maybe one other day in the week, unless it is raining and then I might take one to cheer me up. Or when it is cold. Sometimes on the way to work...

When I run in Paris I think I pass at least three bakeries and 2 chocolate shops. I think that bypassing  a bakery while running should count for a higher calerie loss. The 50 calories fro running past and the 250 calories for not stopping and eating a butter croissant. Right ?

Anyway, I can now wear my trousers and breathe at the same time. Unlike China I do not have access to a health club and gym in the building, so I have to rely on the exercises Mr. Thorton taught us in grade 10 gym. class at Glebe. Push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks and running. As I was going to and from work this week, I started thinking that I must be walking a lot on those trips, twice a day. And as anyone who has taken any european subway knows, there are a lot of stairs.

So this week I counted the number of paces and the number of stairs it took on a typical trip to work. I had figured it had to be about 2 miles walking plus enough steps to climb 10 stories. So, I counted coming home one night. It was hard, I kept mixing up steps (stairs) and paces. Sometimes I forgot and I had to go back down a set of steps to recount. (feeble minded but strong legs...). I finally had to take out my blackberry and make notes after each leg, office to train, train to subway, subway to apartment. Took me two days. Some of my fellow commuters must have thought I was crazy counting, blackberrying, stopping, starting....

 

Finally the result. (drum roll please....oh, never mind) It is a measly .55 of a mile, and 203 steps. Barely a mile a day. Hardly enough to burn a couple of hundred calories!  Back to Mr. Thortons gym routines.  



A bakery window....

 Thinking about blogging

When I started this blog I figured I would have lots of  witty and inciteful observations about my new life. . And for awhile I did. (well, I had new things, if they were witty etc. is up to you to judge) But, it is winter. Days are short., it is cold, wet. Now I have  learned that complaining about living in Paris gets no sympathy. But  I really have a dull existence. (or as Genya would say, no balance in my life). I go to work in the morning, it is barely light, and I come home in the dark. I have travelled every weekend since the first week of January, so any free time I have is doing laundry or sleeping (...see, I am complaining already). Genya comes next week, and we are trying to get away for a weekend to another city in Europe, so perhaps we may have a blog worthy topic.I wanted to do more blogs but I kept thinking I had no pictures. Well, who says all blogs need pictures. So this is a minimal photo blog.

I leave tomorrow for Morocco for 3 days, supposed to be sunny and 60F. Couscous and mint tea..., lamb kebobs.

Back in Paris

January 31, 2010

Posted by Stephen

Since January 15th I have been traveling. I got back to Paris yesterday, tired after a 9 hour flight and nursing a cold. The trip took me to Shanghai, Bangkok and New Delhi. While it was great to connect again with the teams in Asia I have worked with for the past 4 years, it is clear that I am now a visitor. I have been gone 8 months and they are functioning without me. This trip reminded me of what I did not like about Asia, distances are too long, time is too far..A new perspective is needed. Hopefully this was my last trip.

The picture below shows a session we had in Shanghai, (Note the traditional Chinese food lunch of KFC and Pizza Hut). The two westerners are now taking over some of my responsibilities, at least until we hire a replacement)

Bangkok was a short trip, Saturday to Tuesday.. but it was nice to have a Sunday to walk around in shorts and a t-shirt. I ended up this trip  in India for a series of meetings. On this portion of my travels there was some excitement, caused by fog. The morning of the day I was to leave Bangkok, I received an e-mail from our travel provider advising there were delays at the Delhi airport and  I should check with my airline. I then e-mailed the office in India and was told that it was not that bad and I would be "OK if my aircraft had a CAT 3 navigation system". Not sure what this meant, so I checked with Cathay Pacific and they said they were flying as usual, no delays. I had a scheduled 5:00 pm departure. We left Bangkok on time, but ended up having  to circle Delhi for 40 minutes. On the first approach we had an aborted landing attempt, ( the pilot came on casually after we had made what seemed like an abrupt power up as we were on final approach and stated the obvious "we had to abort our approach as there was another aircraft on the runway"). Seems like he made a good choice.  Anyway, it was only when we landed and exited the airport that I saw the fog.It was absolutely the worst I have ever seen, how we landed I do not know. The picture is of the front of the  terminal, I am one lane away from the entrance! It took us about an hour driving 20 mph with all blinkers on to get to the hotel.  Two other colleagues of mine coming to India from Shanghai direct took 28 hours to make the trip. They were diverted to Mumbai, sat on the tarmac for 10 hours, then allowed into a transit lounge, then re-boarded, then 2 more hours waiting, then the flight to Delhi and another 3 hour wait as the airport was overloaded with planes when the fog cleared.

Back in Paris....

Back in Paris I am getting back into my routines. I SKYPED people yesterday, read all the blogs I follow (I cannot get blogs while in China). One of my favourite routines is Sunday in the market and a home cooked dinner. (mostly home cooked) . The local open market is open Sundays and Thursdays.  I usually buy a  1/2 cooked chicken, or occasionally a whole chicken when Genya is here, veggies, fruit, bread, cheese eggs. The eggs I hard boil for eating during the week, they go well with baguette and cheese. For Christmas Santa brought me a silicone egg poacher. So I thought I would try it out today. As a typical male I had of course thrown the directions away, so I went on line to find some guidance. Luckily this seems to be a topic that has generated some web chat. Simple really, dab of butter, drop in the egg and cook with the lid closed. (for the picture I tool the lid off) . It was delicious.

It is good to be back in Paris.