Recap blog coming....

Hi everyone!!!
Thanks for visiting! The 2008 recap blog is on it's way. It should be posted this weekend :) Happy New Year!!!!!!
With love,
Dave and Monica

The Rose of Persia

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to let you know that I am in another show. I actually broke my foot during our rehersal period, so I'm not too mobile in the show, but I still get to sing. The show is really funny and I'd love to see you there!


"The Rose of Persia" is a wonderful musical set into the background of the Tales of the Arabian Nights. It's got a fun story and beautiful music - it's a wonder that it has been MIA for so long!

What it doesn't yet have, however, is an audience to come see it. I encourage you to come see this show! It runs from October 4 to October 12 at the Montgomery Theater in downtown San Jose.

Order tickets via http://www.lyrictheatre.org/. The cast discount code is 'hassan''

If you come to the show, say hi to me afterwards in the courtyard and let me know what you thought. Oh yes, and pass the word, bring friends and family, share! The best part of a show is having a lively audience to share the fun with. Hope to see you there!!!

Transitions

It's been a while since we've written anything here I know. We moved back to California on April 1st, and both of us have been in a constant state of "just making it." The transition has been difficult for us. Dave has faired better than me because he has his work to focus on and that stabilizes him. My time has been taken searching for a new home to move into, and handling all the little things that need handling during a huge transition like moving and settling down in another country. For me it has felt a bit like thankless work and so I have often fallen into a nostalgic sadness, wishing I could be back in beautiful Lyon.

But good things have happened and I am starting to see the fruits of my labor. Dave told me today that on a scale from 1-10 these days life is feeling like a 9 again, "thanks to all your hard work, Monica." I'm so glad he is feeling so happy, and that made me feel really good. I've also noticed how much I am melting back into the things I love about living in California. I love the sunshine. I love my morning coffees with my wonderful friends. And I love the fact that two people I care very much about threw me a birthday party, so that I didn't need to arrange that myself while I am going through this transition. I felt so taken care of. And oh yes, I absolutlely love being with family again. How I missed that!!! All that wonderful love :)

A friend of mine recently asked me if I miss Lyon. My answer was definitively yes, but I also explained that the truth is I just wish we had had a chance to stay until I felt "done." I don't think I would have wanted to live there forever. France has it's positives and negatives, just like the US does. But I wish the dream hadn't been taken away from me. If we had been able to stay a few years, I probably would have been ready to come home, and probably would have rejoiced at returning to my home. Since it didn't happen that way, I feel incomplete, and long for that feeling of completion.

And so I have moved full swing into reintegrating into life in the US, realizing that there will be many times when I ache to be back in France. But those relapses are happening less frequently these days, and I find that I am loving California more and more. Yeah!!! :)

Life is fascinating, isn't it? The adventures we have in our lives, teach us so much about who we are. Even though this transition has been hard for me, I am loving watching myself deal with it all. Sometimes I feel like a fly on the wall watching my own life. Dave and I have grown so much together through all of this. I am looking forward with excitement to what the next days, weeks, and months will bring.

Urban Birding

Lyon, like a lot of older European cities has a lot of pavement and not a lot of wildlife outside of parks. We actually haven't seen any spiders (Monica hates spiders) or ants or a lot of the typical natural pests we got back in California. So, what kind of birding can you do in Lyon? Well, there are plenty of pigeons... But one particularly unique bird we noticed was indigenous to Lyon. This is the googly-eyed graffiti bird.

Graffiti in Europe is something we just don't get. Rather than fight the problem, Europeans in general seem to have given up. There's simply too much flat concrete around. Sometimes, the best way to fight 'em is to join them. See if you can read the word scrawled on this graffiti - and notice the fries?



Well we had noticed a particular bird painted on train electrical boxes around the Lyon area. This became the way we knew we were almost home from a long train trip. We'd see the birds long before we saw signs for Lyon.



So, rather than get annoyed at graffiti, we adopted the googly-eyed graffiti bird as our home turf symbol. We even wanted to get a good picture of one for our scrapbook, but it is hard because normally when you see one, you are zooming by on a train.





To really get some good pictures would require a day of birding - urban style. Our friend Mark was game, so he and I went out on a sunny day to see if we could capture any shots of the elusive bird. The trouble was, the best way to see the bird was from a train. Finding a place to spot the bird on foot was not so easy. We eventually found a way on to the tracks and walked along a service path. We weren't sure if this was strictly legal... but we hadn't seen any signs saying it wasn't allowed. We trudged for quite some time with no luck when suddenly we hit paydirt!



We were suddenly up close with the Googly-eyed bird! I noticed the attention to detail! The vandal had even carefully painted the lock on the box in two colors so as to preserve the look of the bird. If you zoom in you can see the lock in the center.

At this point we knew that if we found no more birds, we still could call the day a success. But, we found more! Even a brown cubist-version!





The birds range quite far from Lyon and we've even seen them on the highway heading to and from the airport (but not other highways). So we think they are there for the travelers. Strange to think how we've gotten used to them saying hello and goodbye when we travel. See you later birds! We'll miss you too.

Morocco on the cheap

With our time running out in France, we may have been a bit hasty with this idea. With cheap flights to Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey - why not book a last minute package deal? Monica went ahead and booked one online through French rail SNCF - like Yahoo travel etc. they have those ads saying "Why not pop down to Marrakesh for 8 days, 7 nights?" So we did. Soon after charging our card we got an email saying (in French) we were all set and details would follow. Gee, I hope soon - since there are only 2 days left before the flight. At this point, I, Monica had an revelation. It hadn’t occurred to me until this very moment, although it should have been obvious, that this whole tour was going to be in.....FRENCH! OMG! I don’t even know French very well! I pointed this out to Dave and he grinned. Well, it’ll be another adventure! The next couple of days, as we were going about our days, not understanding people as they spoke to us, as usual, we kept saying to each other "We are so dead!" This one was definitely going to be one of those "What the heck were Dave and Monica thinking" vactions.


The day before departure, we get an email giving the flight time. OK... Wow, we'll be arriving after midnight and we don't even know the name of the hotel or flight number! Clearly this was a moment when Monica's stress meter entered the red zone, so we set to scouring the details of the offer and email to see what we could discover. Our hotels on the trip "sea to desert loop" were 3 & 4 star, the company handling it was Marmara, and we had "pension complete." That meant we were supposed to get fed 3 times a day, although the discount French breakfast, minimum by law I suppose, can consist of toast, coffee, and a slice of cheese and ham so thin you can see through them. When you see a fancy hotel ad that boasts a "free continental breakfast" remember that technically means a breakfast with basically nothing.

So we arrived at the airport for a late night flight on an unknown plane to a third world country where hopefully we'd have a room somewhere and a way to get there. Plus it would be Sunday. A long time ago we had arrived in a small town in Italy to meet a relative on a Sunday. They couldn't make it and we found everything was closed, ATMs didn't work and so we couldn't get Lira, pay phones only took lira phonecards which we couldn't buy since it was Sunday etc. Now we could face the same thing except it would be 1:00AM and everyone speaks Arabic.



We needn't have worried as upon arrival tour agents swarmed the arriving group. After consulting a clipboard for our name we were told (in English!) to take "bus number C".

Thus began our own unique "mini adventure." The tour was like a 70's style all-inclusive tour; surrounded in a tour cocoon where every move is dictated by a guide. We're told when and where to eat, where to drop off and pick up luggage, and we never see an admission ticket as our group descends en masse at each attraction. For us the adventure would be that everything would be in French. Indeed, several times people thought some mistake had been made - how did two Americans end up in a French group? In fact, Americans were very rare in southern Morocco, I guess they prefer Casablanca to Marrakesh.




As members of a French tour group, we would receive French treatment. So, every room came with a bidet of course and that rotten bolster pillow (but we found real pillows in the closet), and all meals had dessert - French, not Moroccan. We had to sneak away to taste the local specialties. The French don't like spicy food, the Moroccans do - so the intersection of their cuisine was... Couscous. We had couscous every day! Even the other tourists were starting to grumble after 5 or 6 restaurants in a row had decided the perfect meal for us was couscous... yet again! What other "frenchified" Morocco awaited us? Coffee? Well only if you didn't want the mint tea. Croissants? Yes, with every breakfast. What about... wine? Well, as Morocco is 99.8% muslim you would think it would be scarce, but apparently haram status doesn't mean they don't happily vint their own and serve it to us infidels.



What else would be French? Perhaps our first hotel would serve as an example. We arrived exhausted at 1:30am and are told to be packed and on the bus at 6:30am - then the hotel disco kept the whole place thumping until 5:00am. This is a vacation?? The hotel looks incredible - like the 5 star Mexican resorts. Fabulous luxury with the scent of poverty just beyond the manicured lawns and groomed beach. Agadir, our starting city, is dedicated to tourism with fishing a distant second industry. It was totally destroyed in an earthquake and rebuilt with all modern buildings and thus was "no place to see any cultural heritage." But, on the contrary, these buildings all snuck Moorish arches or crenellations into their design. They were all still apartment buildings, glossy hotels, mini-malls, etc. but they DID show their cultural heritage.

I won't go into everything we saw and did during the trip except to say that the schedule was packed and the 6:30am bus was typical since we also covered a lot of miles. The rest of the group took us under their wing assuming we must feel lost and confused. Actually with our large group it was impossible to get lost. We just flowed along talking to the others and copying whatever the group did.



Sometimes that wasn't the best idea - like one time a bunch of the group bought dates from a street vendor and handed them around. We popped some into our mouths without thinking - whoops! Fortunately we stopped there, but some others got sick that night. OK, I will mention that the Essaouira "flying goats" don't actually fly. But they have learned how to climb trees!



We did meet plenty of French folks on the trip who invited us to visit or swap houses in the future. We had the same experience when we joined a Spanish group touring Egypt. Maybe we should do this more often and we could build a worldwide network! Then in our old age we can wear out our welcome around the world! I can hear them already:
"Psst! Honey? Who are these people?"
"We met them on a trip back in 2008. Remember? You invited them to visit."
"Yeah, well I never thought they'd take us up on it!"

Achmed

Okay, I know I shouldn't post this because it so unPC, but I can't resist. This is so funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go

And some dreams come to an end too....

Well, the end is near. We have tickets to fly home to California on March 31st, and no return tickets to Lyon booked this time. It's been difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that this dream is coming to an end. My emotions over the last couple months have run from up to down, happy to sad, excited to stressed, very depressed to hopeful. You name it, I've been there!!! :) But I must say, it is really good that now there are plenty of happy good feelings mixed in with the sad ones.

When I first heard from Dave that we were not going to be able to stay longer, I have to admit I cried for 2 days straight. I'm so glad Dave was traveling and wasn't here to witness that breakdown. He'd have felt so bad. But we knew this was temporary and that it had to come to an end. And so, we've spent the last couple of months really enjoying our time in France. We've gone to all our favorite restaurants, spent lots of time with friends, and taken some fabulous trips. We spent Valentine's day in Geneva (that's the 3rd V-day in a row in Europe...sounds like a tradition doesn't it?). Then last week we booked a last minute 7-day trip to Morocco. I'm planning another trip to Paris, and we might even go to Corsica if we can fit it in. So, it's not over til it's over for us. And we don't plan on leaving Lyon without shaking the last drop of wine out of the bottle ;)

What's in Essen?

When we planned our trip to France, we figured one of the cool things about being in Europe is that we're so close to things in Europe. So, when our friend Ted said he was going to have a booth at Essen, Germany, we said "Hey, why don't we pop over and help you out?" Monica has had booths before and we know that you really need at least two people to run a booth. Otherwise, bathroom breaks, lunch breaks, irritating customer breaks, etc. are kinda difficult. Plus, we'd be interested in seeing the new games announced at Essen and playing a few games ourselves. Actually Essen's show, simply called Spiel (Game), is the biggest and best board game, card game, and collectable card game show in the world. It's a monster and we wouldn't have time to see even a tiny fraction of the new games announced at the show.



And so it was that "Essen" crept up on us and we suddenly realized we (ok, Monica) would have to get travel tickets and a hotel room. We actually ended up taking a plane over Essen to Frankfort and then taking a train back to Essen to save money, but we forgot how friggin' expensive German trains are! OK, so we didn't save there, but for the hotel we got a room at the Holiday Inn (normal) as the Holiday Inn Express was actually more expensive! When we later compared with other gamers we found we had the cheapest room and the largest room. HA! We're winning!

OK, so we've arrived in Essen, we've taken the metro and popped up at the stop closest to the Holiday Inn, but where is it exactly? Pulling our luggage behind me, I stick my head in the nearest Quicky-mart. Without a pause, the guy says "Looking for the Holiday Inn Express, right? Keep going down the street, take a right, then the next right, and you'll see it ahead on the left." Got it. We go straight, take a right, and hold on... here's the Holiday Inn right here! Dazed, we walk in and sure enough, they have a reservation for us. Wow, the room is huge! But, let's just drop the bags and head over to Ted's room. He's at the Holiday Inn Express and he just text'ed us saying they are about to start a long-ish game, how much longer are we going to be? Hmm, we need to find the metro route - but the front desk guy should know how to get there. "Holiday Inn Express? It's easy to get to," he says. "Just go down the road, take a right, and it's on your left." Monica and I look at each other - you mean we're within walking distance? Hey, the guy at the Quicky-mart DID give us correct directions, he just assumed we were going to the Holiday Inn Express! Now, why did he assume that? Do we LOOK like Holiday Inn Express people?? Humph!

Walking in to the H.I.*express* we spot Ted and some other guys sitting in the restaurant around a table with some games splayed across it. In fact, now that we look around... EVERY table in the restaurant has at least one game on it. The entire hotel is filled with game players! This is really weird. Introductions are quickly made and immediately some game pieces are pressed into our hands as the first of many games are launched. No games are repeated and the rules come rapid fire, but somehow we manage as dinner and conversation interweave with the games. Luggage space is the only thing keeping people from maxing out their credit cards. Since everyone bought at least a dozen games today, Monica and I realize these guys must have had to made some agonizing decisions about *which* games to play tonight. We'll only have time to play 4-5 games tonight. Unplayed games on your shelf at home is a definite sign of gamer mania. With the exception of us, everyone at the table admitted to having several dozen to several HUNDRED (!) unplayed games at home. And here they were buying more. A lot more!

The next day, Monica and I join Ted at his booth. Ted arranged free admission for us and best of all - we have bright green polo shirts with his company name emblazoned on it waiting for us. Monica can now officially be our booth babe!



However, diagonal from us is some tough competition: Miss Canada. She is the real Miss Canada (wearing her sash and crown even) who happens to be friends with someone in their booth. Jeremy, who is also helping in our booth, doesn't miss any chance to hang out with her even though he has a girlfriend back home. Although we all agree she isn't *all that* I figure this is an irresistable opportunity to make his girlfriend jealous. Just starting his sentences with "So, I was eating lunch with Miss Canada when..." or "Miss Canada asked if I could give her a ride back to the hotel from the show and on the way..." has got to make her turn red in the face. Nevermind what her real name is, it's more effective to just call her "Miss Canada" all the time. Ted decided the thing that threw him is that just talking to her you find that she is really intelligent and really nice and you just can't help liking her even if you didn't want to. Someone like that must violate some law of the universe. One girl wearing a very convincing white elf/enchantress costume came up to her and said "nice costume." "Well thank you, but it's not a costume," she replied, "but your's is very nice!" and even the ice witch was charmed. "Damn, she's good," whispered Ted.

During our breaks we got a chance to wander the halls and just soak in the atmosphere. As we go from one exhibition hall to another we're amazed at just how BIG the show is. It's a good thing our apartment is small and foreign - we're extremely reluctant to buy anything we'll eventually want to bring back to the US. Even though I am the game player, Monica gets more into shopping at these events. It must be the excitement of the crowd and the smell of new merchandise. The fever is contagious. She even started to plan next year's Essen trip!



Ted told us about his visit to Ludo, a giant German manufacturer who dashed off a couple thousand of his games. As he got into describing the massive machines, towering warehouses, and the smell of fresh cut cardboard and ink, we thought we'd need to splash some water on his face! Whoa there!

After a weekend of massive Essen crowds, noise, merchandise, and gaming sessions we were ready to return home. Monica had one last thought though - even though you would expect the crowd to be made up of the geekiest of the geeks - how many people want to travel to otherwise unremarkable Essen to see the new releases in board games - the crowd was mostly made up of families, with lots of women and kids in the mix. I guess the Germans really do love board games.

Merde!

Sometimes nothing seems to go right. Monica's good friend Jen came to visit us (but that's not the part that went wrong) and we all had a great time. One blustery night I was working at my desk, while Jen and Monica worked together to solve complicated knitting problems when the trouble began. I got up to go to the bathroom, and while turning my bike around, I heard a tremendous *crash* from outside, followed by a tinkle-tinkle. "That did not sound good!" I shouted out. What kind of knitting were they up to out there?

I returned to the bedroom-cum-office and had to stop at the threshold. The girls were at the other door by the living room looking at the same thing: the floor was covered in broken glass. Next thing to hit us was the freezing wind blasting through the destroyed storm blinds and double-paned glass. For a moment we all gazed stupified at how our evening had changed course.

Then the bitter chill galvanized us into action. Photos taken, glass hauled in bucket brigades to the garbage bins, a new bed set up in the living room, radiators adjusted, and the bedroom sealed off with books, towels, and other crap. Looking down from our balcony you could see the remains of a scaffold from the construction site across the street that had smashed hard into our wall and tumbled into the awning of the restaurant below and finally into the street, blocking traffic. And the internet went out. I think I've finished office work for today.

OK, next for the phone calls. I found 2 glass places that offered 24/24 hr 7/7 day emergency service. Wow, that doesn't sound very French, I thought we'd have to wait until Friday morning to call. The first place was answered by a woman who thought it was a personal call. Blah, blah... I can't hear over the background noise... "Êtes vous Vitrerie Lyonnais?!" I asked, and the phone was passed from person to person until someone said yes, yes. But, they are closed, please call back tomorrow. OK, that sounds more French. The next place answered and said they could send someone around right away. Tomorrow morning at 10 to measure and then, you know since it is an emergency, they could install the new window on Monday. Looks like all of us were going to spend the next 4 nights sharing our front room listening to the wind hissing around the door frames. Maybe we could even tell ghost stories!

The internet guys arrives first, surprising us early in the morning while the girls are still padding around in their nightclothes. Quickly assessing the situation - two beautiful girls, an exotic beauty from India, the other a gorgeous redhead - he shoots me a look which says "I tip my hat to you, sir!" Our internet situation is not so pretty however and he can't fix it, so I'll be spending the day using the local bookstore's internet.

After measuring our window, the window guy gives us the good news that he can be back tomorrow to replace it, but he can't fix the blinds. The blind guy (well you know what I mean, he can see) quotes us $1300 to replace that. The glass is $400 and the curtains unknown. I'm glad I'm not paying for it!

Just as life is returning to normal, Jen has left, the window is fixed, and we decide to try the restaurant right below us, the next disaster hits. I realize I left my key chain dangling from a USB port. Monica doesn't have hers either... Uh oh. Our landlord told us we had the only 2 keys, but surely... Uh oh, our cellphone has just run out. The restaurant owner lets us use her phone and call our landlord and the building concierge and confirm that really those are the only keys. Locksmith? The other options are to get up to our balcony somehow and re-break the window (at least we know how much that will cost to fix) or get to the small open window of our bathroom which is 40 ft above nothing. I could reach our balcony from the neighbors' and climb over the metal security spikes - if the neighbors were home.

Next, the bathroom approach. Nobody we know has a ladder remotely tall enough to reach it directly, but the window has a ledge only 5ft away from it which you can get to from the landing. It's just the last bit that is certain death. There is a horizontal metal spar from the elevator to the building wall high above the bathroom window... With some rope which we don't have you could throw it over the spar and swing Tarzan-like over to the window, assuming the spar isn't just a stabilizing brace and can support some weight. Otherwise, you're back to that 40 ft fall again. The restauranteur and her husband the cook call locksmiths for us because they can really charge a ransom. Well, for $225 they can be here in half an hour to let us in. Hmmm, it's cheaper than breaking a window...

Two hours later after much banging, sliding, and re-assuring of neighbors, the locksmith and his partner conclude our lock is too resistant to all their tricks and they'll have to drill and replace the lock. That will cost $1300. Aack! No, we're not going to make that decision tonight. We're cold and we need to sleep and regroup. We can call Rita, she's just 2 blocks away, maybe we can crash there, but the cell is out. No wait! There's an automated way to recharge it with a CB card (which we have- it's a Visa/ATM with a smart chip on it). Success! And we call Rita who isn't home... Probably visiting her boyfriend in Aix-les-Bains this weekend. Next, we try Mark, and he says sure come crash at his place, his date with Isabel is just finishing. Oh no! We didn't ruin his date did we? No, he had to leave in a sec anyway if he was going to catch The Last Metro. Ack! The Last Metro! Run!! Hey at least we don't have any change of clothes, toiletries, or other things to slow us down. Puff, puff, stairs down, and wham! Metal rolldown doors have sealed our nearest entrance. Quick! The big entrance! Yeah! It's open! And there's the crowd waiting for The Last Metro. We made it.

At Mark's we talk about the game plan. We could even take the tram to one of the giant building centers at the edge of town and buy a tall ladder - it would be cheaper than replacing the window. We could even return it afterwards. Plus, we could buy stout rope for safety or the tarzan trick. Monica and I think we still won't find a tall enough ladder, but she proposes I use the ladder to climb as high as I can and then climb up the rope the rest of the way. Mark wants to see everything firsthand before committing to a plan and will bring his camera to take pictures. As for sleeping, Mark's place is a Parisian style studio. Very cute, cute being the operative word. There's enough room in there for him and one ant and the ant sleeps in the bathroom. So, um, where are we going to sleep? We all look around, look at each other and well...we're all grown-ups, scratch that, *despite* being grown-ups we just all squeezed into the one bed and fell asleep.

The next day after fresh coffee and croissants we felt more confident and returned to our apartment. Monica suggested we ask the construction foreman for a ladder and Mark used his superb Aussiecized French to get him to give us a super tall extension ladder! Bringing this around to the bathroom window we found that it still left us short. The elevator has a ledge about 4 feet up, what if we put the ladder up there? "Absolutely not!" shouted Monica. But the boys overrule her and, whimpering, she and Mark (who is not whimpering) hold the ladder on the ledge while I scramble up, and reach the top. But I'm at the top and still can't quite reach. Mark calls out "There's no more rungs!" But the sides go up just a little higher than the top rung... The next sound is laughter. Monica and Mark looked up and all they see is a pair of legs sticking out of the window. I'm in!



It actually took a while after that as I hung in the window moving things and taking apart the shelving so I could ooze into the bathroom without causing a lot of damage. Then the celebrations: beer for the foreman and a kiss on the cheek from Monica which made the gruff guy turn shy for a moment, then off to a swishy place to treat Mark to lunch. The place was decorated in hot pink and black with every picture on the wall being an Andy Warhol-ish series of naked butts. Nevermind the buts or the butts... Here's to success! (Clink! Clink! Clink!)

Go (B)lues!!!

Our Christmas trip to England started off with a 5hr. delay of our flight. Not the types to miss an opportunity, we seized another couple and forced them to play Ziegen Kriegen with us to pass the time. As it was a flight to England, it wasn't surprising to find out they spoke English. The hapless couple, Ané and Jeandré from South Africa, hadn't been in Lyon very long (Ané just one month) so they weren't very good at avoiding eye contact with weirdos. This is a skill you MUST develop if you are to ride the buses and metro a lot. Both of them proceeded to clobber us at the game as we chatted and passed the time. Jeandré, it turns out, plays rugby for the Lyon team and on Sunday Ané called us up to ask if we wanted free tickets to see a match with them. You bet!!!

That evening it started raining lightly, but then turned heavier as we got our hot wine, hot chocolate, and hot dogs and settled into our seats. The stadium wasn't huge and all the seats were covered so everyone had close, comfortable seats. Jeandré had an injury so he couldn't play, but that meant we got to sit with both of them - and it was fun being with a star as he shook hands with fans in the crowd.

In one France guide I had read you can always shout out "Allez les bleus!" (Go Blues!) for sporting events. But, what if your team isn't blue? Our team colors were black and red - yet I could hear people shouting what sounded like the traditional French sports chant. Aha! The team name is Les Lous. Very clever! In case you are wondering here are the words to the chant:

Allez les bleus! Allez les bleus!
Allez! Allez! Allez les bleus!!!
(repeat ad nauseum)

Now if you are in Lyon, even after a couple of gallons of hot mulled wine, you can reasonably modify this to fit the local team name. In fact, slurring may help!

Meanwhile, down on the field, the rain continued to fall and you could easily spot the substitutes as they went in from their clean uniforms. I was reminded of when I was back in school on the wrestling team. On rainy days we'd sometimes head to the field and play "rugby." Our version was mostly just an excuse to pound on each other in the mud - we rarely, if ever, passed the ball and nobody ever told us about kicking it. Our games ended when one team no longer had the strength to stop the other team from scoring at will. Something like that was happening down below, as our team gradually began to wear the other team down. Finally we started scoring field goals and then as time went on the score went up quicker and quicker until in the end the score was 34-0. Whoo Hoo! Allez Les Lous!

Assorted Stuff

Hi everyone,
During the year, every so often we'd see something unusual that reminds you that you are in a foreign country. If I had the camera, I'd try to snap a picture. Here are some of those assorted pictures from the past year....

Right by my office there is a building with this sign. What the heck is "jorkyball?" It doesn't even have a very French sound to it.



Food shacks vary tremendously from place to place as this snailmobile shows. I don't think he'd see many customers in the US.



We see a lot of bad ads here. Here Quick jumps on the spiderman bandwagon in a disgusting looking ad. Bleech!



and you get the names where you wonder if they checked their English






A block away from us is a bar called "Le Spleen."

What do you think of this house sir? Excellent floorplan and location, just one minor nit. There's a gigantic billboard in your front yard.


The floor numbering in Europe can be confusing at first. The first floor is our second floor. The ground floor is 0 and so on. I guess it is better than buttons like "mezz" but is this kind of arrangement helpful?



Then we sometimes see signs of our friends






For fans of Red Hat Linux, why not work on this street?


Finally, the French love to poke fun at the Germans, and why not? As a temporary France resident, here's two pictures of mine from Germany that make me smile. Ha ha! Those Germans!



Dangerous Street...