We live on a wandering planet.
—Saint-Exupéry
Feeling sad? Worried about the human race? There’s plenty of good reasons to feel this way: climate change, the ill tempered, feces throwing orangutang in the White House, a growing world wide oligarchy, yet another digital privacy indignity. Continue Reading
Trains, the metro, and automobile The trip began at the wrong train station. You’d think that would be hard to do. The main train station in Montpellier is, and always has been, the gare St. Roch. We were vaguely aware that a new train station was under construction nearby, and indeed, in July, 2018, that… Continue Reading
Prologue: Dawn in Montpellier It was dark when we left our apartment at five in the morning, a Wednesday in mid-July, this time of year already warm even in the early morning. Daysacks over our shoulders, we walked our rolling luggage across the white tile of the nearly deserted Place Comedie to the taxi stand… Continue Reading
We were due. I had not been back since 2014. Catherine and Annie had not been back to the United States since we moved to France in 2011, and therefore had not seen any of my family. Catherine had the first two weeks of April off for Spring break, and because this summer we had… Continue Reading
I’m taking fewer pictures these days, and the fault, in part, is Annie’s new LG phone. While her phone camera has almost no controls compared to my bulky digital SLR, it takes pretty good pictures, especially in low light, and now I’m rethinking my whole photography kit. I’d like to get the Leicia M3 or Fujifilm X100, both are… Continue Reading
The title has been used before, but happily titles are not subject to copyright. Unlike Bilbo, I did not run into any dragons, wizards, dwarves, elves, or trolls, at least in their literal form. Nor was there any treasure to be had, although something close to that was a part of my decision to visit the… Continue Reading