Waking up in a castle

Woke up this morning at the very lovely Chateau d’Igé, a hotel in the tiny village of Igé, outside Macon. Linda and came down Monday afternoon on a TGV, were met at the station by friends David and Ricky Perry who spend a few months a year in a house at Ameugny, near Taizé, […]

Walking the straight and narrow

One of Paris‘ pretty secrets is the Promenade Plantee, one of the last of the railroad trestles that once girdled 19th Century Paris. Many of the trestles are gone, but this one has been turned into a narrow, rose-filled park high above the streets running from Place de la Bastille to Bois de Vincennes.
Linda discovered […]

4-mile walk to Parc des Buttes Chaumonts

This morning’s challenge was a not-quite-4-mile, uphill walk from Place des Vosges to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont, a charming Hausmann-era park that occupies high ground northeast of the center of Paris. Sweet spouse Linda walked slowly, neither breathing hard or breaking a sweat as I made my way, doing both.
Good exercise for me, and […]

Parking in Paris

I read somewhere that Mercedes and its partner (the company behind Swatch, I think) were not happy with sales of the tiny Smart car. But, it seems like every other car in Paris is a Smart car, particularly in older, cramped districts. The one above is so tightly parked I can only imagine the owner […]

The Chef et moi

Chef Antoine Westermann takes a moment to pose with me at his Alsacian restaurant, Le Viel Ami on Ile de la Cite on Sunday. I am continually amazed by the productivity of the compact kitchens at even Paris’ most famous restaurants.
Antoine served perhaps 40 diners who arrived by 1:30 for lunch at Le Viel Ami […]

Paris Eternelle

Ever since I first tread under the pretty arches at Place des Vosges (and we’ve been coming to Paris for more than 30 years now) there has been, on weekends, particularly in tourist season, a swing jazz band playing near where Rue Bearn intersects.
Every year the personnel (and often, the band’s name) are different: […]

Paris

Shortly before 8 A.M.  on Friday, Linda and I boarded UAL’s flight from SFO to Dulles in DC: about 16 hours later we stepped out on Place des Vosges in Paris’ Marais district, at Le Pavillion de la Reine, my favorite hotel in Paris as we speak.
We’re on vacation - PTO in Adobe parlance (Personal […]

The Garden

Very busy day today: my last day at Adobe before a 10-day break in France. Given current processing speeds, I got up at 6:00 AM and stayed at my VPNed post, with only a few breaks for a Dr. appt. and food until 9:00 PM. I made most of my meetings (AM, anyway), got a […]

Fire drill

Just what we needed: Adobe pulled one of its biannual fire drills today while I was on the 15th floor. One of the emergency response team guys promply showed up and offered me a ride down on the ’special’ elevator, but I was too stubborn and walked down the 15 floors with colleagues. He kept […]

The new ‘perch’

So we dragged ourselves off the 5:46 CalTrain last night after a full (and bit longer) day at work. Yup, we were tired, exhausted, really, but that’s not entirely a bad thing - I did get one project done that’s been ‘hovering’, and advance on a number other fronts. We had promised spouse grilled salmon, […]

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