Music, monastery, castle, and smoky food


How can you not love Dublin? On my way to find a barber, I listened to a Gaelic singer playing a harp, how cool is that? We kicked it up a notch or two in Dublin. Temple Bar is the heart of the action in Dublin, it is also the name of popular place for…

Sidelined by a microbe in Nanterre


Last Wednesday the homeless viruses of the area decided they needed a place to hang out, and I was chosen to be their AirBnb. In spite of the efforts of the Airborne that we took I succumbed to their invasion for a few days of coughing and sniffing. Thankfully for me, they checked out yesterday,…

Nanterre, with a day trip to Paris


We are in Nanterre until 3 June when we fly to Dublin. Here is our world until early July when we go back to La Thebauderie, for another chapter change in our life. We took a day trip into Paris, pretty easy: The 258 bus stops just a few feet from our apartment, we take…

Settling in to French life


We are settling in to French life. Wait, you say, you have been living in France for over two years, aren’t you already settled? In one sense, yes we are, as far as knowing how things work, or too often don’t work here. Yet, where we have been living in La Thebauderie we are surrounded…

A week back in La Thebaudiere


We have been back in La Thebaudiere, our tiny village in Normandie, for just a week – so what have we been up to? Well of course we have spent time remembering our long trip, which for me includes some sketching. One of the best hotels we stayed in was the Central Heritage Hotel in…