Hiking in the Vosges

A little behind on this one, but better late than never. In mid-May, Esther and I took a long weekend to go hiking in the Vosges Mountains in eastern France, near the border with Germany. It's a beautiful part of the world, though not always known for its beautiful weather, an aspect that we got to experience first hand. Despite getting lost in the fog on one of the days, it was a great few days hiking around and experiencing the local culture (an enjoyable mix of French and German).

Here is a brief collection of photos:

Hiking in the Vosges

Catching Up

The bad news is that it's been a few months since I last posted anything here. The good news is that ti's been a pretty busy period meaning that I've taken plenty of photos. Let's do this chronologically:


Thanksgiving in Michigan

Thanksgiving in Michigan 2009

Esther and I went back to Michigan for Thanksgiving and enjoyed not only ten (more or less) relaxing days but also several gustatory delights including Thanksgiving dinner (of course) as well as Lazybones Smokehouse BBQ. Hands-down, the best BBQ I've ever had. It's enough to turn a vegetarian.

Christmas in Paris

Chistmas Breakfast 2009

Normandy - December 2009

It was a quiet Christmas in Paris this year. Esther and I enjoyed a delicious brunch at our house (first album) before heading out to Normandy for a few nights. In the larger town (Deauville) near the village (Villerville), there was something of an inexplicable parade. It had to do with the 150th anniversary of Deauville, but I have no idea why there was a guy riding a giant carousel horse. It made for interesting pictures though.

Day Trip to Strasbourg

Travels - Strasbourg 2009

While I had the week between Christmas and New Year's off from work, Esther did not so I had to keep myself busy. One way of doing so was to enjoy two of my favorite things about France, the high-speed trains and the diverse regional cultures. I booked a round trip ticket to Strasbourg (on the border with Germany) leaving early in the morning and returning late in the evening. The two-hour train ride was blissfully uneventful and much quicker than the four-hour drive (and with my young person's reduction card, a wash in terms of cost). I really enjoyed the city and the photos are all fully captioned, telling the whole story.

Into 2010
The new year has started without much change though it has been the occassion to think about my mid-term plans. As those develop, certain aspects will certainly be shared here. I'll do my best to keep this updated more often and wish everyone a very Happy New Year.

To Versailles, Finally

Thanks to college friend Adam coming to explore Paris, I finally had an excuse to go see Versailles. Esther and I were thinking about going when I first visited her in 2005, but I had already seen another château and was getting frustrated with the ridiculous displays of wealth.

My impression after having seen the palace and its grounds is that I made a good choice in 2005. It is a pretty incredible on the part of Louis XIV to have responded to social unrest due to the injustices and excesses of his government to build an even bigger, less sustainable palace outside of palace. The guy had already been living at the Louvre, how much more can you want?

Apparently much more. Here's some photographic evidence:








It was, understandably, extremely luxurious, but it left me wondering what the ultra-wealthy are doing these days. There, at Versailles, the floors creaked, there was no impressive technology on display, it was all very traditional. What are the moderns doing with their disposable income?

More than anything, it made me want to go to Las Vegas to see what that example of excess and unsustainability looks and feels like.

Here's the full album:

Versailles with Adam

Never in America, or, The French and Taxes

As part of the economic stimulus package that the French government has put in place in the wake of the global recession, part of it was the reduction of the VAT (a sales tax, almost) from 19.6% to 5.5% for restaurants.

Naturally, most restaurateurs were ecstatic and went to the trouble of printing up new menus with the "Before" and "After" price. Not bad marketing all things considered, consumers like to know how much they're saving.

One evening while sharing a bottle of wine with a friend at a bar in the Marais called Les Philosophes, however, I noticed something curious. They had indeed printed up new menus, or at least a new front page, but it wasn't what I was expecting. The title read, "Restaurant contre la baisse de la TVA", or, "Restaurant against the lowering of the VAT."

What followed was a full page diatribe (Garamond, 10pt. type) on why they thought the lowering of taxes was a bad idea. I was already a bit too far into the bottle of red to be bothered to read the entire thing, but it really struck me as uniquely French: the government lowers the taxes and the citizens refuse.

Just like home, right?

It's About Time

What, dear reader, is this shockingly sub-par photo a representation of? Indeed, it is a train ticket for the French TGV. You see at the top that it starts at "Paris Mont 1" (that would be the Paris Montparnasse 1 station) and ends in two little words, indicated by the red arrow. What nice words indeed.

Yes boys and girls, it's time. It's been nearly three years that I've been in France and I've not yet made to the mecca of French motorsports events. It is time to rectify this rather serious oversight. Next weekend, two friends and I are off to Le Mans, to enjoy all of the insanity that a 24-hour auto race has to hold.

Thankfully, I'm going with a seasoned veteran who will be able to lead us around. I'm anticipating something like the Daytona 500 crossed with the Paris Metro during rush hour: pure insanity, so it will be good to have a guide. I will take plenty of pictures and, undoubtedly, bring back plenty of stories.

And yes, I do recognize the tension between my passions for renewable energy and for cars which get 6 mpg. It's just the way I is.

Inaugurated

It was a bit of an adventure to watch the inauguration yesterday. I had planned to meet with Greg at Harry's New York Bar, a moderately famous little place about 25 minutes from our house. Greg was bringing some friends from UNESCO and it was supposed to be a jolly old time. However, Harry's was a bit crowded:


So we made the split decision to run back to our house to watch it there. The deciding factors were the presence of CNN (not guaranteed at other bars) and beer (not guaranteed at UNESCO). This ended up being a really great time as we all watched the inauguration together:


It was a great mix of people and I can't help but feel that the new millennium is only now getting under way. Oh, and to top it all off, we had really good pizza later:

Esther liked it.

Obama Inauguration 2009

A King's Life

We've seen the luxurious side of life and we can report this: It's boring. The Pavillon Henri IV was indeed very nice, but definitely not the sort of thing that we would ever spend our own money on.* The room was nice, though the comfort of the Louis XIV era furniture left me wishing for our IKEA bead instead.

The highlight of the trip was the dinner. I had an appetizer of langoustine (mini-lobster) spring rolls followed by an excellent plate of sea bream in a wild mushroom foam. Dessert was figs roasted in a caramel sauce with cinnamon ice cream, all washed down with a delightful 2007 Brouilly.

Now that I've exposed myself as having completely converted to the ways of the cheese-eating surrender monkeys, I think that it's perhaps best to simply post the photos. I didn't take any pictures during the dinner; it was an awkward, whisper-only environment (as the 9 year-old next to us announced to everyone, before being shushed by his mother, "Ambiance: zéro!") and I don't think the other diners (average age: 67) would have appreciated it.

Pavillon Henri IV

*Interestingly, this is actually the mark of a good gift, something that we enjoyed but that we wouldn't have gotten for ourselves. Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution puts it this way:

The bottom line? If you want to please the economist in me, send me cash. If you want to please my wild self (I know, not many of you, but you know who you are!) use your imagination.

Adventures in Luxury

After a successful defense in Paris against the Undead Invasion last night, Esther and I are off to the Pavillion Henri IV to finally use a gift certificate that we received over a year ago at our wedding.

The site is famous for being the birthplace of both King Louis XIV of France and Beranaise sauce. I hope they have the latter on tap.

Naturally, you can expect pictures of our brief escapade into luxury to be posted soon.

The View from France

It shouldn't come as any surprise, bu the French are following the American election very closely. Every night there are updates on the evening news and several times per week there are in-depth analysis pieces. Compare that to how many times you heard the names Ségolène Royal and Nicolas Sarkozy in 2007.

It should also not be any surprise that, like the rest of the world, the French vastly favor Obama. Where I and the average French person disagree, however, is in the the likelihood that Obama will actually be elected. Some of this skepticism is based on the national reporting that implies that the race is far closer than it actually is. Earlier this week, the anchor on one of the major national evening news broadcasts did an overview of the state of the race (Obama way ahead in the polls, massive turnout for early voting, etc...) and then reminded the viewers that "at this point in 2004, Kerry was said to be winning." First, look at this data and you will see that they must have been a bit too optimistic in their poll reporting to have given the lead to Kerry. Second, and more importantly, the equivalence that he is drawing between 2004 is absurd. Compare the 2004 data set to this year's (and this is coming from RealClearPolitics, a site with a Republican bias) and it's obvious from the numbers alone that any equivalence, even any comparison, between the two years is totally off base.

In addition to this inaccurate reporting on the state of the race, you have certain stereotypes and misconceptions held by many French people about the United States that cloud their vision of reality. (I should put two disclaimers here; first, American have plenty of inaccurate stereotypes of the French and, second, many Americans hold similar stereotypes about other Americans.) The most commonly reported concern is that the polls are overstating the average American's willingness to vote for a black man, the famous "Bradley effect". The second is a more generic belief that has been learned over the past eight years that the United States can't possibly elect a decent President. Bush's reelection in 2004 really drove this point home when much of the French had their hopes dashed on November 3rd (the French media misrepresenting the polling certainly had something to do with this).

Looking at this, I realize that the French position is not that far off from many of the Americans that I've spoken with. I routinely find myself being the only person in a group to be confident that Obama will win, the common response is this very French skepticism of, "Well, I certainly hope he will, but I just don't know..." I wrote about my confidence way back before the conventions and perhaps it's time to revisit. Suffice it to say, that nothing has really changed, I take the lead from fivethirtyeight and am more than 90% confident that Obama will win (based on current polling).

Un match de foot !

Through his dark magic, Ilan was able to get free tickets to the exhibition match between the national teams of France and Tunisia. Given the colonial history and the current immigration situation between the countries it was expected to be a bit tense. It didn't dissapoint.

Tunisian flags outnumbered French flags by at least three to one and suffice it to say that the Tunisian supporters were more vocal than their French counterparts. (Just to be precise, most of the Tunisian supporters most likely have French nationality; they identify, however, much more strongly with their country of origin when it comes to soccer.) They were vocal not only in support of their team, but against the French team going so far as to boo all of the French players and the Marseillaise, the French national anthem. Apparently this last part didn't go over so well with Sarkozy and the Minister of Sport announcing today that any future match at which the Marseillaise is booed will be immediately canceled.

Despite the overall tense atmosphere, our experience was very good. We had good seats and, although the young guys in front of us were standing for a lot of the match, we saw the game quite clearly. I was even able to follow the action since the rules of the game are mercifully simple when compared to popular American sports like football and baseball. What was surprising, however, was the level of intensity in the crowd. Sure, this was probably more lively than a Paris-Lille game that ends in a tie, but I really can't compare the intensity to anything that I've seen in an American stadium. In short, it lives up to the stereotypes that we have for European soccer matches hold true. Here's a short video (sorry, no sound from my six-year old compact camera) of the crowd reaction to the first and only Tunisian goal.

In the end "Les Bleus" pulled it out with a 3-1 victory that left the crowd rather subdued at the end. It also needs to be noted that the public transportation system that got us and the vast majority of the other 74,000 spectators to and from the stadium was really extraordinary. Not only did we not have to wait for a train, but we even got to sit down inside. It was orderly, efficient and cheap. French infrastructure never ceases to impress.

Here are my photos from the game. Again, they're coming from my old compact camera (big cameras aren't allowed) so the quality isn't what it normaly is:

Match de foot!

Order of Operations

I'd imgaine that there is a much lower incidence of bank cards being left in ATMs in France. One simple reason: they return your card before your cash. Leave the ATM without collecting your card, maybe. Leave without taking your cash? Very unlikely.

Photo of the Day

A Question of Scale - Jardin du Luxembourg

Photo of the Day

River Seine from Pont L.S. Senghor

I'm going to do my best to post a photo every day. It will, most likely, not have been taken that day, rather it is simply something that I've seen that I'd like to share. Enjoy!

Relativity

I told Esther yesterday about the Edward's affair and it's implications for his future political career (in short, there's not much left). I was met with a certain incomprehension on her part, aren't politicians supposed to have mistresses? Isn't it just part of the job?

Right, of course, things are different over here.

Tour de France - Come and Gone

OK, it's been two weeks, would you believe me that it has taken this long to recover from the intense excitement? Well, you shouldn't I just haven't gotten around to processing the photos until now.

I feel that the Tour de France is the closest that this country gets to NASCAR, especially in la France profonde. There is intense excitement, press coverage, and pre-partying followed by a relatively boring passing of events. Keep in mind that in all of the stages except for the last few miles in Paris, you wait for several hours to witness the group pass your position one time. If it's a mountain stage it may last 20 minutes, but in a faster stage they will have come and gone in five minutes or less.

In Paris, where we were, of course, they pass eight times giving you three to four hours of waiting for about ten minutes of watching the riders spread over an hour. I have to admit that, for me, it has little more appeal than comes from the curiosity of watching a large, public spectacle. At the very least, it gave me the chance to test my new lens (NIKKOR 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S DX VR: OMG!!! Look at all those letters, it's so awesome!!!) under somewhat challenging conditions. It performed admirably.



We put ourselves at the corner of the Tuileries garden at the end of the Louvre and had a commanding view of the corner. Here's where we were standing:

View Larger Map

This level of cycling is similar to motorsports in another respect; the precision and speed of the "pit crew" which is, in this case, the chase Skoda. One of the teams suffered a rear wheel flat and swapped it out in a matter of seconds, it was over before I realized what was happening.


All in all it was a pleasant experience, it's always impressive to see athletes at the absolute top of their skill.


Full album:

Tour de France 2008

Obama à l'Elysée

Friday marked the closest I would get to The Man Himself during the course of the campaign as he made an abbreviated visit to the Elysée Palace to have a short meeting with President Sarkozy followed by a press conference.

Given his popularity here, from all levels of the French population up to Sarkozy himself who, in the days leading up to his visit, remarked, "Obama? He's my buddy!" There was no public interaction scheduled but I felt that it would be worthwhile to go to the presidential residence just to see what could be seen. Clearly I wasn't the only one to be motivated as such:

I would estimate the crowd at several hundred, though separated at different street corners.

It was an incredible mix of people, perhaps 30% American and 70% French all from a variety of origins. I talked to a guy from Gabon for a while. His take was that Obama represented the rêve américain which remains an extremely powerful concept here, especially among immigrants and minorities.

There was a general mood of uncertainty and anticipation. No one, not even the journalists working the crowd, knew much about the itinerary or whether Obama would interact with the public at all. About ten minutes after I arrived, three large buses glided into place and dropped off journalists and campaign staff. I'm pretty sure that I saw Reggie Love, Obama's "body man" and, perhaps, the guy with the coolest name in the history of political aides. A few minutes later, what looked to be a diplomatic procession arrived and a black Cadillac with deep tinted windows slid into the gates of the palace.

I decided to wait until the end, just to see if there would be anything else. During that time more and more people arrived and the scene became more and more animated. The guy from Gabon harassed the police officers block the street a bit and an AFP photographer took in the scene.


At one point, about an hour and a half after the Cadillac entered the palace people started chanting "Obama! Yes we can!" Remembering that I live in the twenty-first century, I took a video with my camera phone. Watch out, it's a bit loud:


Two hours after the anti-climactic entrance, there was an efficient and anonymous exit. The police started their motorcycles, the Crown Victoria with GPS receivers got in position. The crowd got excited and the security personnel got anxious.


The gates to the palace opened, the dark Cadillac rolled out, turned towards the east and, like a hive mind creature, all of the vehicles accelerated away in one large pack; French motorcycle police, French security, black Crown Victoria, black Cadillac, Explorer with Secret Service hanging out, French security, and a few more motorcycles. Here's the best view I got, Obama was on the other side:


I was on my feet in the sun for the better part of three hours, crammed in with a bunch of other spectators trying to steal a sighting of one politician. It seems like it shouldn't be worth it but, in the end, I'm happy to have gone if only for the community aspect of it. Once again, paraphrasing the Gabonese man next to me, a lot of Obama's strength comes not from shockingly new positions, but from his style and his symbolism. It's a style and symbolism that has the power to bring people out of their houses, into the streets and to believe in a better future. As far as a national leader goes, that is an extremely powerful ability. To criticize Obama because he speaks well and draws huge crowds is missing the opportunity that such a capacity presents. In short, these three hours were my "Yes we can" moment and it felt damn good to be there.



Full Photo Album:

Obama at Elyesee

Track and Field

Esther convinced me that it would be a good idea to a major track meet at the Stade de France last week and she was certainly right in doing so. Here's some of the photographic results, more detail and story can be found in the captions of the full album. (That's my way of communicating that I'm too lazy to write the story in coherent, complete sentences. I hope you all don't mind too much.)


Pure effort


A moment of grace


...followed by disappointment.


Flailing


Fear of heights


The first hurdle


The Steeplechase: Not just for horses anymore.

Travels in the South of France

Esther and I had the good fortune to be invited to a wedding in the Mediterranean port city of Toulon two weeks ago. Since her uncle lives about a hundred miles north near Montélimar and I had not yet seen this part of the country, we decided to make a short vacation out of it. For me, the region has since taken a commanding lead in the race to the top of my mental list of "Ideal Retirement Location." Here's why:

1. Climate It's really, really pleasant. The air is cool and dry but the sun is intensely hot. That makes for delightful days on the beach followed by cool evenings sitting outside.


2. Landscape It's dry but fertile land, covered in patchwork fields, conifer stands, lavender fields and miles upon miles of vineyards. It's beautiful to look at whether you're strolling by on foot or tearing past in a car.
   


3. Cuisine The French have a phrase, légumes du soleil, which translates to "sun vegetables" and it pretty much sums up the local fare. Tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, and eggplant show up in various combinations with fish, rice, olives, and great desserts. It's pretty much what we eat at home, but prepared better.


4. Culture The area has been settled for a long, long time. The result is the overlap of various cultures with clear influences going back to the Romans.

In short, it's a really great place to be and we had a great time down there. Esther's aunt and uncle were incredibly welcoming and we made an effort to see as much as we could in the surrounding areas.

Avignon is a medieval city that was the seat of the papacy for several decades in the fourteenth century. They lived here, in the Palace of the Popes:

It also has a bridge, le pont d'Avignon, which is very famous in France if only because, as far as I can tell, it's the subject of a popular children's song. I was impressed by many aspects of the city (history, annual theater festival, etc...) but seriously disappointed by this bridge. Qua bridge, it's useless, as it doesn't completely cross the river. Now it's just some sort of promenade into the water that is a site of pilgrimage for French of all callings. Have a look for yourselves:

See what I mean? Totally useless.

Orange is another interesting city. In addition to being named after my favorite color as a child (actually, it's Wikipedia article specifies that that is not the case), it is home to an incredibly well preserved Roman theater. It still has the backing wall of the stage intact, making it the only roman theater in Europe and one of only three in the world to be so well preserved.

The wall was used as a common backdrop for all of the productions, as well as an opportunity to remind the populace of the omnipresence of the emperor, given his niche at the top. Totalitarianism = scary.

Finally, we went to Montélimar, a great little city known for its nougat. It's not the "nougat" that you find at the bottom of your Milky Way, but a white confection that varies in consistency from gooey to marshmallow-like to crunchy depending on your preference. Full of pistachios and with a flavor of honey, it's made in factories that are straight out of Willy Wonka.


The south has worked its charm on me, for better or worse. It was a fantastic trip that I hope we can recreate soon.

Travels - Southern France

Weekend Update

It was a nice weekend in Paris which included the annual Fête de la Musique on Saturday night. Every 21st of June, all sorts of musicians play in the streets of Paris and throughout France. Since the 21st fell on a Saturday this year, things were a bit more raucous than usual.

A few favorite pictures from the evening:






Today, Esther found the opportunity to do some traditional dancing before we went to her parent's house to have some belated cake for my birthday. Again, some more favorites:









And, of course, the full albums:

Fete de la Musique

Esther Dances

Kurt's Birthday Cake

Happy Birthday to Oma and Pete!