ASCII art

I remember making posters on a line printer, a long time ago. A bit of fun at picascii.

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Lunch hour

Searching for inspiring photo opportunities in the Washington DC metropolitan area.

Arlington - The view from my window

After two years in France I moved back to the States. I'm living in Arlington Virginia.

Travels to and living in France

My first trip to France was for nine days in September 2000. After many years of travels in France I moved there. I lived in La Rochelle from July 2009 to December 2010 and Paris from February 2011 to June 2011. Here's a map of all the places I've visited. Click here for a list of the names.

The last hurrah

The dilemma: how to see the best of Croatia with not a lot of time available before I leave Paris and return to the States. Turns out flying from Paris to Dubrovnik is kind of complicated. The solution - take a cruise out of Venice.

Here's the itinerary starting tomorrow for the next seven days: Dubrovnik Croatia, Athens Greece, Izmir Turkey, Split Croatia, and return to Venice. There's a couple of days at sea.

A stroll through Paris

Today's pics at Flickr. Have a look!

Learning French culture from the inside

I was admitted 2:00AM Sunday, April 10th, to the hospital via the emergency room for diverticulitis and discharged 12:00PM Tuesday, April 12th. This is not what I had in mind when wanting to learn how to live in France.

Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital

Où sont les toilettes ?

Selon moi, l'état des toilettes en France est très différent de ce qu'on avait l'habitude d'avoir aux États-Unis.

D'abord, il est difficile de trouver des toilettes lorsque le besoin s'en fait sentir. Par exemple, en faisant des courses, on découvre que beaucoup de grandes surfaces n’ont pas de toilettes publiques. En revanche, aux États-Unis tous les grands magasins et tous les supermarchés ont des toilettes publiques.

Ensuite, en France, il faut garder de la petite monnaie parce que les toilettes sont souvent payantes. Ceci se démarque fortement de ce qu'il est la situation aux États-Unis où des toilettes sont toujours gratuites.

Enfin, soyez prêt à être choqué quand vous tombez sur des toilettes à la turque. Dans les années 1950-60, ces toilettes étaient les plus communes en France. C'est tout de même étonnant qu'on puisse encore en trouver une par hasard à Paris, par exemple, dans le restaurant Polidor dans le quartier latin.

En résumé, je pense que la situation concernant des toilettes en France devrait s'améliorer.

English translation

The Paris walks week

Early February before classes ramped up I took five walks in seven days around Paris. The Orange route is about 5.5 miles. Non-stop it would have been two hours but I managed to make it five hours with sightseeing and going café to café.

There were to be others during the coming months but I grew tired of mapping each of them. There were too many.

Paris - The view from my window

I moved to Paris to take French classes at the Sorbonne.