Today it’s about 97°F, which has been typical this August in Paris. We have bright sun and not much wind. Since most apartments don’t have air conditioning, it’s pretty miserable in most places. The French call this weather une canicule, which comes from the latin canicula for small dog. In English we call days like […]
Sight Seeing
What did you do in 2016?
Joyeux fête de fin d’année! (Happy new year’s eve celebration!) Friends in the US and people we meet here ask us what we do in France. When we tell them we are retired, the French always wonder how we could possibly have chosen France, since our dream is not necessarily their dream. The Americans ask, […]
Eisenhower in Paris
The only President I’ve ever seen in person was Dwight Eisenhower. It was 1956, and we lived in Peoria, Illinois. You might think that a 5 year old would not remember much of what happened back then, but I already knew who he was and what he looked like. He was revered in our family […]
Running into John Paul Jones in Paris
Brenda and I were on our way to dinner with our French friends Catherine and Jacques when Catherine was talking about her decision years ago to give up a good paying job and start her own small business in France. She acknowledged that there was risk in starting her small business, but she said it […]
Trip to Barcelona
In early May we took a trip to Barcelona and spent three days exploring the town. Our Kitsap County friend Don Merry joined Brenda and I as part of a bigger European vacation Don had planned. This was a good deal for us because Don did most of the planning and research and passed on […]
Trip to Provence
In early March our friend Laurie Greig called from Marseilles to let us know that she had just landed and would be spending a few weeks house sitting near Aix-en-Provence. The house was owned by some friends of hers. Did we want to take a trip to Provence for a few days? Yes! With little […]
