tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75338634278562911792024-03-13T00:38:31.887-05:00Julie FarrarTraveling Through. . .the world, the second half of my life, and my own mindJulie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.comBlogger223125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-82007714400976354842016-03-31T06:06:00.000-05:002016-04-07T06:33:58.896-05:00Why I Continue To Travel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">The university in Sfax, Tunisia. I can't imagine living with that sky every day.</span></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">“Please be careful.” A friend’s Facebook message popped up
on my computer as I sat in my Dijon apartment eating lunch and reading about
the terrorist attack that had just happened in Brussels. I remember last November
when I was the one doing the checking with friends scattered throughout Paris
while I sat safe at home in St. Louis, having left an extended stay in France
only a week before the tragedy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now it’s just a few days before I leave Europe again and
head home. It’s not fear over terrorism that occupies my mind. Not in week when
the street markets are bursting with spring bouquets for sale. For this
traveler, it comes down to the most pedestrian things like “Will a terrorist
threat shut down public transport in Paris?” or “How will this affect my
flight?” or “Will it rain the whole time I’m in Paris. After all – April?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As I watched the news reports on France24, an urge welled up
to call my husband on Skype and talk to him about mundane household affairs. I
can’t say it was fear. My apartment was safe and warm. There was soup de
courgette cooking on the stove. The sun had been out all week. These were not
signs of imminent danger. Yet my sense of security wavered by a small
increment.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">
When the terrorist attacks
happened in Paris last fall, many people in the U.S. cancelled their overseas
travel plans. I was thinking ahead to my next trip. After the tragedy of 9/11
in New York made many want to stay close to home, I bought plane tickets to
take my children to London. For a week we explored a country that had survived
Roman invasions and German bombardments. We experienced the world. I fed their
love of travel.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4uR_oTj-Jdikv5MIB4Zx0mksa21dOBhtpQB9DFIu-d9erTVKkjBjk97LMINB-c8x5BbZQRW1vPLR-fvMHFdGuyWgdrHo-oIJhcRxohlek9BTl42NT_PTzbDXdOaXAPakZnxvnQUhR6w3/s1600/DSC08597.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjc4uR_oTj-Jdikv5MIB4Zx0mksa21dOBhtpQB9DFIu-d9erTVKkjBjk97LMINB-c8x5BbZQRW1vPLR-fvMHFdGuyWgdrHo-oIJhcRxohlek9BTl42NT_PTzbDXdOaXAPakZnxvnQUhR6w3/s1600/DSC08597.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> <span style="color: blue;"><i>Dougga in a verdant valley of Tunisia, an isolated ancient Roman town</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><i>and <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/794" target="_blank">UNESCO world heritage site</a></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">My daughter crosses oceans frequently for work at a time
when a plane seems to fall out of the sky at least every month. But she’s young
and adventurous and sees amazing opportunities to shape her life. And as her
mother I worry. Because that’s what mothers do. But I also worry about my son
whose job requires a long commute in highway traffic right in our own hometown.
Isn’t he playing the odds – the more miles traveled the more likely to be in a
crash? It’s a mother’s job to worry. Yes, I admit it. Sometimes I make up
reasons to text him to make sure he’s alive since he’s busy with two jobs and
friends and doesn’t call enough.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">On
Good Friday evening as I arrived at l’Eglise Notre-Dame de Dijon, two armed
soldiers were standing on the steps outside. The battle between love/hope and
power/hate rages on. But in the dim light of the sanctuary the music of
Gregorian chants rose a couple of hundred feet into the vaulted arches and
floated over the crowd as the congregation followed the choir past the
multitude of stone columns, stopping at different stations in the church to
listen to the songs of love and sacrifice that had been heard there for 800
years. By the time the service was over, it was fairly easy to believe
"Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est" -- Where charity and love is,
there also is God.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">The
world can be a dangerous place whether I stay where I was born or strike out on
unfamiliar roads. I’ve met more wonderful people and had more enriching
experiences on my trips than I’ve encountered bad ones. As I get older I feel a
sense of urgency to see more of the world before I can’t any more. Travel
reminds me that I’m not always in charge. And I’m ok with that. It reminds me
that my way of doing things is not the only or best way. It forces me outside
of my comfort zone, which is scary and good (can anyone say “Atlanta highways”?).
It makes me feel at home in the world, not just my own neighborhood.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black;">All of this is to say that I will keep on traveling. There
is more beauty and joy out there than danger. I hope you feel the same.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2SohwIhwUa1oKEYAOBQ1_fmF5cifHF3aVoIEtxkp8DoCRqlJ4yqnfXETOmYi1Rdj3oUwdgpDmWPNdzg8WHKk4fYx8tTdV_4Hwkt-pKystVNsLpGUzKB3Lh1SZ4k175rkXCdmft-wgedhe/s1600/DSCN1236.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2SohwIhwUa1oKEYAOBQ1_fmF5cifHF3aVoIEtxkp8DoCRqlJ4yqnfXETOmYi1Rdj3oUwdgpDmWPNdzg8WHKk4fYx8tTdV_4Hwkt-pKystVNsLpGUzKB3Lh1SZ4k175rkXCdmft-wgedhe/s1600/DSCN1236.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: blue;"><i></i><span style="font-size: small;"><i>I'm always wondering what's behind a closed door . . .</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><i>. . . Or around the next bend</i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU4RNY6hwcte5LLt3eE6YaHNXbEbuaSWL3VicarPIaTqXCxz6bJALnM64EqKe2Ttf1P5gaPNxVRv2eAB7s5qfVYNqoGjvwkALT86v-NQjjj0Kr_XqdHaO8Mfi3BQxo2OuNplS3AUEydURA/s1600/DSCN1245.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU4RNY6hwcte5LLt3eE6YaHNXbEbuaSWL3VicarPIaTqXCxz6bJALnM64EqKe2Ttf1P5gaPNxVRv2eAB7s5qfVYNqoGjvwkALT86v-NQjjj0Kr_XqdHaO8Mfi3BQxo2OuNplS3AUEydURA/s1600/DSCN1245.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: red;"><i>Since I’ve been out of
touch for longer than I had intended, let’s reconnect by you telling me the
most interesting or life-affecting place you have been, whether close to home
or at the ends of the earth. Click <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2016/03/why-i-continue-to-travel.html" target="_blank">here</a> to comment.</i></span></span></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><i> </i></span><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><i><span style="color: blue;"> </span></i></span></span><br /><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"></span></span></span></span></div>
Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-21393884578885256282015-01-10T06:00:00.000-06:002015-01-10T09:12:28.219-06:00What I Want For You in 2015<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDPR8LypQwiXQnvKxZS5FEa3l1Ai9pezXgsguM1IDzhIrnrPpHJWWhm-YivKXM5hYfa2qza92ykfL8mVLCRZA11eQm0_bEPAMjvWOl3pIh6EgGx_20cGnf7B9NtyeRC4dIQQfWdQxMD_OW/s1600/1:9:15_What+I+Want.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDPR8LypQwiXQnvKxZS5FEa3l1Ai9pezXgsguM1IDzhIrnrPpHJWWhm-YivKXM5hYfa2qza92ykfL8mVLCRZA11eQm0_bEPAMjvWOl3pIh6EgGx_20cGnf7B9NtyeRC4dIQQfWdQxMD_OW/s1600/1:9:15_What+I+Want.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">Life that was holding on in my neighborhood in France even as winter was closing in</span></i></span></div>
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Sometimes it seems the whole world is on fire. Last month I
had vowed to turn off the news and change my home page on the Internet from an
aggregation of news horribleness to <a href="http://icanhas.cheezburger.com/" target="_blank">I Can Has Cheezburger</a>, the home of snoring bulldog
puppies and cats who are not amused by their owners. Each day I’d obsess over
yet another example of inhumanity worse than before and there was nothing that
I could do to change it simply by watching television or reading every online
article about every injustice or attack. Just a couple of weeks ago, <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/dijon-terror-attack-11-injured-4851540" target="_blank">a crazy person</a> in my adopted city of Dijon drove through my own neighborhood – a block
from my apartment building – running over people on the sidewalk in the name of
his religion. It turned out that he was certifiably mentally unstable, so that incident
seemed like a one-off. Whew.</div>
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This week, though, I found myself glued to cable news
reports again. The attacks by home-grown French jihadists on cartoonists at the
French satiric magazine, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Charlie Hebdo</b>, has
left me worried about friends living in Paris as well as peaceful people I know
throughout the world who just happen to be Muslims. Will my Paris friends be
safe? Will the world be able to distinguish between Muslims who want to live in
peace to raise their children and coach the grade school soccer team or work
endless hours at my local kebab sandwich shop and those extremists who think
they can kill everyone who doesn’t agree with them? Just as relevant -- is it
necessary to direct such sharp humor toward something so sacred to a large part
of a country’s population? With free speech also comes responsibility.</div>
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At home, my own community of St. Louis still wrestles with
the death of Michael Brown and whether those in authority are setting up a
system that privileges those in power and continues to oppress those who are
disadvantaged by race, economics, or education. About the only change that
seems to occur is that people “unfriend” others on Facebook because they
disagree over another’s position. Or someone shows himself so rigid and
outspoken about his own view that you can’t even begin to start a reasonable
discussion about the issue and search for common ground. Why do we still seem
to be fighting the same fights in my own country we fought last century? From which direction will the next protest come? Peace
and Justice seem to require an eternal struggle.</div>
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And so I’ve gained an encyclopedic knowledge about cat
videos as an escape.</div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">But what I know about
the world</b> is that there are more people who work each day to build it up
than there are people trying to tear it down. I think of the <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/27/366811650/a-nationwide-outpouring-of-support-for-tiny-ferguson-library" target="_blank">Ferguson Library</a>,
which, during the worst days and nights of protest in St. Louis, kept their
doors open because children needed a safe place to go since the schools had
closed down. I think about those people out there on these frigid winter nights
searching for people who need a warm place to stay. I remember the wonderful
people at my vet’s office who loved and helped my dog until her last day. I
think about the people at the farmer’s markets my husband frequents who work so
hard every day to be good stewards of the earth. I think about every teacher I
ever had in public schools and every single one I know who stands in front of a
classroom, willing to fight ignorance in children and over-interference by
politicians. I think of the checker who I only knew as Mary who worked the
early morning shift at my grocery store (and who died much too soon) and said
to me at the end of every transaction, “Now you have a blessed day.” I think of
all the people I’ve met as I’ve traveled who welcomed me and who’ve been open
to all that was new and different, not taking new and different as an assault
on who they were (although my French friends and I will eternally disagree
about stores being open on Sunday).</div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">In the medina of Hammamet, Tunisia.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">What beauty we find when we open ourselves to something new</span></i>.</span></div>
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year 2015 has not begun on a great note. It’s probably still a good plan to
wean myself off of cable news and do more than exchange it for cat videos. This
will be a writing year for me because my MFA thesis is due this spring (yikes,
I have to <u>finish</u> a book, not just talk about finishing one!). I miss
writing my little stories for all of you on the Internet and connecting with
you through them. It’s time to exercise more than the finger that pushes the
“like” button on Facebook. I need to push many different keys on my keyboard to
see what I can bring to the world. For now, though, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">what I want for you</b> <b>in this new year is that you find kindness
everywhere you turn and that you have a blessed day</b>. I’ll see you back here
soon.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">Yet sometimes it's good to rest your heart with the internet</span></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "MS 明朝"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-fareast;"><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>How has your New Year been going so far? What are you most excited about in 2015? Are you a resolutions-type person? <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2015/01/what-i-want-for-you-in-2015.html" target="_blank">Tell us in the comments box </a>about what 2015 will mean for you.</b></span></span></span></i> </span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-53953177981463749272014-09-26T05:00:00.000-05:002014-09-26T10:31:52.681-05:00No Love For Paris?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2zli3vwiRhckZ-BaUxLfrWihPIh-T7L8XpqJpXhqeVy_LCJ9945OjdlP0ro8t-BnH1sEybkqymAAqJZq-zeYnItmkIMp1D9rtF8pXBueI8Mfc_ppS7KoHjlz8qjB9Dt0izLGC02MRIV2/s1600/9:26:14_Parislovelocks1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh2zli3vwiRhckZ-BaUxLfrWihPIh-T7L8XpqJpXhqeVy_LCJ9945OjdlP0ro8t-BnH1sEybkqymAAqJZq-zeYnItmkIMp1D9rtF8pXBueI8Mfc_ppS7KoHjlz8qjB9Dt0izLGC02MRIV2/s1600/9:26:14_Parislovelocks1.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Love along the Seine in Paris</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Paris is collapsing under the weight of too much love. You like Paris. I like Paris. The food, the art, the fashion. <i>L’amour</i>. Yes, <i>l’amour</i>. The City of Lights has also had a reputation as the City of Love. On my flights over to there, sometimes it feels like half the people on the plane are on honeymoons or anniversary trips. There is love on the streets and along the rivers. The tiny café and bistro tables seem to be perfect invitations for two lovebirds to snuggle up close. However, all this love is slowly killing one of the most beautiful large cities in the world.<br /><br />This summer, an iron panel from the Pont des Arts — one of the most famous bridges across the Seine and located near the Louvre — collapsed into the river below because of the weight of all the “Love Locks” tourists and locals had attached to the metal panels. The Seine River, its riverbanks, and the bridges over it make up a UNESCO <a href="http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/600" target="_blank">World Heritage Site.</a> Yet around 2008 padlocks started appearing on bridges in Paris as a supposedly romantic gesture. Couples write their names on a lock, attach it to the bridge railings and then throw the key into the river below to signify their eternal love. However, with over a million locks on bridges (and now starting to adorn the Eiffel Tower), the beauty that is Paris is literally collapsing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">Locks on one of the bridges below the Notre Dame in Paris </span></i></span></div>
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<a href="http://nolovelocks.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/dsc_0106.jpg?w=584&h=878" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://nolovelocks.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/dsc_0106.jpg?w=584&h=878" height="640" width="424" /></a></div>
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<i><a href="http://nolovelocks.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/dsc_0106.jpg?w=584&h=878" target="_blank">Source: No Love Locks</a></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The <a href="http://nolovelocks.com/" target="_blank">website</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NoLoveLocks" target="_blank">Facebook</a> page <b>No Love Locks</b>, started by two American expats living in Paris — <b>Lisa Anselmo</b> and <b>Lisa Taylor Huff</b> — document the destruction of centuries-old architectural structures in Paris (a trend quickly taking hold in other countries as well). The city officials of Paris were very slow to take action, and any action they try to take now is met with extreme resistance by the tourists, lock sellers, and others. After the ancient panel collapsed into the river from the weight of all that metal (thank heavens no one on the river boats was injured) they removed other panels supporting literally tons of locks and replaced it with plywood. Which was immediately defaced with graffiti.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">Standard graffiti on the walls of France</span></i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBAgymyyg6u6eMSF5_VwN7cx7S3TdpP7m7-Uo85dtrXZFVOuOBTW_CjRdBhpvVVNaKv7S_3aI8KOnI0GXV8Jt7GNHc4aJcaVw9C7qEd_qmKyMQpl_KlN36mVRMMXIM5-lLe5jFpxP9XxkL/s1600/9:26:14_Parislovelocks4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBAgymyyg6u6eMSF5_VwN7cx7S3TdpP7m7-Uo85dtrXZFVOuOBTW_CjRdBhpvVVNaKv7S_3aI8KOnI0GXV8Jt7GNHc4aJcaVw9C7qEd_qmKyMQpl_KlN36mVRMMXIM5-lLe5jFpxP9XxkL/s1600/9:26:14_Parislovelocks4.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In all of my travels, I’ve never once had the urge to place my mark or stake my claim on any place I’ve visited. Yes, I’ve taken shells from beaches (but no living sand dollars or starfish), perfectly smooth rocks from trails I’ve hiked, and one coin from Tunisia last year even though the law states no currency can be removed from the country. Places live eternally for me in my photos and memories. I travel to see what I can get from a place, not to impose myself on it.<br /><br />When I visit ancient churches in France, sometimes back behind the main altar somewhere past the choir stalls I can find a bit of graffiti scraped into a massive column holding up the magnificent arched roofs — “Jacques 1742.” Perhaps it was the work of a bored altar boy. Throughout Paris — and my second home of Dijon — I see bits of art painted in out-of-the-way places as social statements. We could discuss whether leaving any marks on anything that doesn’t belong to you is acceptable. But one drawing on the side of the building is not the same taking cans of spray paint to the entire Acropolis. Would tourists go to the Lincoln Memorial with a chisel and chip off a chunk of Lincoln’s boot as a sign of how much they admire him?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">Dijon and Paris walls are plastered with announcements of political uprisings.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">But by the next time I visit, the weather has worn them away.</span></i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9WlzaJdv19mQW51Tu_uM137HEyxGlw37V8LE4VRTj-R7qjN-RdUXVZWTIuQprplpMXXxnkCR3OYddcMznTlPgwWHVXpeH-IGb0lGEDCsuIwpC_H1CaZJI-MBtDcAgEFeRPLIOmpG87H5F/s1600/9:26:14_Parislovelocks2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9WlzaJdv19mQW51Tu_uM137HEyxGlw37V8LE4VRTj-R7qjN-RdUXVZWTIuQprplpMXXxnkCR3OYddcMznTlPgwWHVXpeH-IGb0lGEDCsuIwpC_H1CaZJI-MBtDcAgEFeRPLIOmpG87H5F/s1600/9:26:14_Parislovelocks2.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWEPJXghXUox4_V9T3SFn_4oVKcSz0H8fMpH6dJy_MX0aT5qKknVoVa0eODjlvUpaF7TP7RHpG_FchyphenhyphenYD4F1FFfv48YXR069AmXjAfX0pfwdD9fKHy6PXysqEa0L48S5KYGurtUzOuFwHJ/s1600/9:26:14_Parislovelocks3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWEPJXghXUox4_V9T3SFn_4oVKcSz0H8fMpH6dJy_MX0aT5qKknVoVa0eODjlvUpaF7TP7RHpG_FchyphenhyphenYD4F1FFfv48YXR069AmXjAfX0pfwdD9fKHy6PXysqEa0L48S5KYGurtUzOuFwHJ/s1600/9:26:14_Parislovelocks3.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">What makes the state of the Paris bridges so depressing, though, is that the city of Paris cannot move faster than social media, as millions of couples place their locks, snap their pictures, and then Instagram, tweet, and update it to every person they know and by effect to every person that those people know until a million more people think that this is a great way to celebrate their love. Every space the city clears of locks is covered again in a matter of days.<br /><br />What is more important to me than brief romantic acts is history. And culture. And architecture. And the uniqueness of the places I visit. Now that the Paris officials have decided to say “No, we will not let you do this anymore to our city,” the tourists blast them for trying to ruin their moment of love. But their gesture really only lasts a click of the lock for them, while the city will have to live with the destruction forever. What a shame these visitors can’t love the city more.<br /><br />Forgive me for a small lapse into revenge fantasy. I wish I knew where some of these people lived so that I could go to their house and under darkness of night cover their houses with thousands of locks as they slept. All in the name of <i>l’amour</i>, of course.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: red;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Share in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2014/09/no-love-for-paris.html" target="_blank">the comments box </a>situations where you saw signs of visitors running rampant and drastically changing a place to the point of ruin. Or tell us about the favorite small thing you brought home as a memento.</span></span></i></b></span></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-69620790240688273172014-09-23T05:00:00.000-05:002014-09-23T05:00:03.558-05:00What's Growing In My Garden<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTVW0pNoflXmYrIPCE1bKDnWUPuYt1z4n2rveXzHBHMlbuUfJGnVGCtYTnEmqubp-EU4lLHzH5uECiG-pfdyTBpfagZ5bRpRlSvaHIYn4Ue4WWOWvr_-DVhWKM5INjLa42-Yxaa9NY3kmv/s1600/9:23:14_growing+garden1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTVW0pNoflXmYrIPCE1bKDnWUPuYt1z4n2rveXzHBHMlbuUfJGnVGCtYTnEmqubp-EU4lLHzH5uECiG-pfdyTBpfagZ5bRpRlSvaHIYn4Ue4WWOWvr_-DVhWKM5INjLa42-Yxaa9NY3kmv/s1600/9:23:14_growing+garden1.jpg" height="426" width="640" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">"Bloom Where You Are Planted" -- oh, the lessons a garden can teach us </span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">(Ashland County, OH)</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">Summer seems to resist letting go this year. We’re reaching the end of September and still the sun bakes me as I weed like a madwoman and begin preparing the garden for some of that end-of-season moving and shuffling of plants. The lilac that was planted in the spring just doesn’t have as commanding a space as it deserves. It needs to be advertised more and thus will be move next week. My anemone that grew and smothered a lot of my spring-blooming plants as the summer progressed did get moved, but now I realize that small runner plants are exploding out of the ground like a million little volcanoes. The whole anemone must be ripped out and destroyed before it takes over my entire front garden.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><i>My aenemone blooms glow in the night</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><br />On the other hand, my zinnias seem to dance continually on their tall, arching stalks, having made a deal earlier in the summer with the butterflies and hummingbirds that they would stay as long as needed. My impatiens have patiently waited out the heat of July and August and are as fresh as the day I planted them.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9xpa3N6REWJVuF9ySQzIv4wuDXcSmqGIsLDURf2KeRSWIb-YFiUkbDsdkuWWTmkoX4tuKbtXc2yxvYJJRfOLg4YZzWY4Ao6NJZeNQh898AMeRtsRUBYm3QZbKoKW4SocpcmFyGpIYNPuy/s1600/9:23:14_growing+garden2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9xpa3N6REWJVuF9ySQzIv4wuDXcSmqGIsLDURf2KeRSWIb-YFiUkbDsdkuWWTmkoX4tuKbtXc2yxvYJJRfOLg4YZzWY4Ao6NJZeNQh898AMeRtsRUBYm3QZbKoKW4SocpcmFyGpIYNPuy/s1600/9:23:14_growing+garden2.jpg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">Almost-opened zinnia and friend</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">I seem to be blest with a late summer yellow columbine, a plant I thought was strictly about spring’s cool weather. This week an iris bloomed in the most beautiful pale lavender. I love it but don’t understand its untimely appearance. The same with my delicate evening primrose — as pink and hardy as it should have been in the spring but wasn’t. It’s these unexpected surprises that spur on a gardener.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"> </span></span><i><span style="color: blue;"> Unexpected gift of autumn</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">As I’m tending to my garden, I’ve also been paying more attention to my life. Hence, my long absence from my online world. I don’t know if it’s been the reduction of carbohydrates in my diet or the beautiful weather we’ve had this summer, but I’ve experienced a drive to de-clutter my mind and re-arrange my life in an attempt to gear up full speed ahead to a writing life.<br /><br />My summer residency at Ashland University’s MFA program left me exhausted, confounded, and exhilarated. Just when I thought I had defined my writing path, they introduced me to new strategies, fabulous writers I hadn’t read, and new perspectives on the work I had thought I had finished. So now I feel like I’m at square one because I want to pour everything I’ve learned into the first draft of my thesis, which is due in December. But I can’t do it all.<br /><br />To clear my mind for writing, I’ve become overtaken with an impulse to purge spaces in my house (clean house, clean mind?) and start making phone calls on that whole-house renovation project I’ve threaten to do for too long. Now that I’ve more fully embraced the writing life I’ve wanted for so long, energy for other things seems to lift me and carry me along with house projects, tackling French again, organizing my books (although I admit that it only lasts until about 9 o’clock at night, at which point it’s a cup of tea and TV).<br /><br />Surprise, surprise. When I tend to my life as energetically as I tend to my garden I seem to be rewarded with unexpected blooms of words, feelings of accomplishment, and creativity. It’s going to be a good autumn, I believe.<br /><br /><br /><b>Meanwhile, a some books I’ve enjoyed and hope that you might:</b><br /><a href="http://www.alibris.com/Making-Toast-A-Family-Story/book/11844898?matches=175" target="_blank"><b><i>Making Toast</i></b></a> by Roger Rosenblatt — When his daughter dies unexpectedly Rosenblatt and his wife move in with their son-in-law to help raise the three young children. His story of dealing with his own grief and the more important job of helping his grandchildren grow is told in a series of vignettes in the spare, beautiful, fluid language that Rosenblatt has been known for in his lifetime of essay writing and as a political columnist.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?browse=0&keyword=kayak+morning&mtype=B&hs.x=0&hs.y=0" target="_blank"><b><i>Kayak Morning</i></b></a> by Roger Rosenblatt — the follow-up to <i>Making Toast</i>. The style is just as spare and beautiful as the previous book as Rosenblatt continues to reflect on the new direction his life has taken.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.alibris.com/booksearch?browse=0&keyword=bonnie+rough&mtype=B&hs.x=0&hs.y=0" target="_blank"><b><i>Carrier: Untangling the Danger in My DNA</i></b></a> by Bonnie J. Rough — Rough and her husband are ready to begin a family, but her biological legacy sits heavily on them. As she begins to research her family’s medical history she begins to unravel something deeper in their past. Steeped in scientific research and family stories, she and her husband must face modern personal dilemmas in their own quest for a family.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.alibris.com/Safekeeping-Some-True-Stories-from-a-Life-Abigail-Thomas/book/5860503?matches=37" target="_blank"><i><b>Safekeeping: Some True Stories From a Life</b></i></a> by Abigail Thomas — Thomas eschews straight narrative technique as she examines her life. Through vignettes and stories she tells, with vivid style, the life of an ordinary woman who made mistakes and had successes, who had failed marriages but tended to her ex-husband during his last days with the help of her current husband. She goes from an 18-year old single mother to a doting grandmother who always finds cooking as the answer to many life problems. It’s a confession and a universal story about a woman who figures out who she is and holds on to that.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;">Tell me in the comments what’s growing in your garden. Have you tackled any new projects or completed any old ones? What’s giving you energy these days? What have you read?</span></b></i></span></span></span><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></b></i></span></span></div>
Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-35561934744661252762014-04-12T05:00:00.000-05:002014-04-12T07:36:37.995-05:00Is There Such a Thing as a "Last Dog"?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;">When I was a child I’d lie awake each night listening for the burglar to come up the hall and into my room to get me. He was a very sneaky burglar. I’d hear the floorboards creak and then silence. Of course, he knew I was awake and so he was just waiting until I fell asleep to take that second step. Then … creak … and I’d then be awake until early morning hours. Other nights I knew there was a witch in the closet. She, too, was waiting until I was dead asleep to creep out of the closet and snatch me away.<br /><br />That all stopped, however, one Sunday when we got home from church and my dad was waiting on the back porch with the most beautiful dog I had ever seen. Our allergy doctor had said “no dogs.” I think my mom had said to Dad, “Small, with short hair.” And there he was with a dog the size of a collie and the long flowing hair of a collie and the markings of a Brittany or English Springer Spaniel. For reasons I was too young to know, our grandma told us to name her Pandora. Such a special name for such a special dog, I thought. We called her “Pandy” for short.<br /><br />And from that day forward I was a dog person. And nobody ever tried to snatch me away in my sleep ever again.<br /><br />Over the years all the dogs I’ve brought into my home have given me more joy than I’m sure I have given them. They soaked up my tears and made me laugh. They frustrated me but also took me out of any moments of self-absorption. They made even the most bare apartment or house a home. They were usually satisfied with anything I gave them, and they were even content when I had little to give them.<br /><br />It’s pretty hard to find any research that identifies negatives about dog ownership. It improves both physical and mental health because a dog gets you out into the world to exercise and because most dogs are social the owner meets more people. <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/12/110746/research-shows-how-household-dogs-protect-against-asthma-and-infection" target="_blank">Research is even showing</a> that having dogs in the family when children are young reduces allergies and asthma. Because dogs carry so many mites, tiny bugs, and dirt in their fur, the people they live with develop more immunity and have fewer colds. And I can happily report that my sisters and I never showed any allergic reactions despite our doctor’s dire warnings. <a href="http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/07/life-with-a-dog-you-meet-people/%20https://www.avma.org/KB/Resources/Statistics/Pages/Market-research-statistics-US-pet-ownership.aspx" target="_blank">Over 35% of households</a> own dogs, and I believe that at least ten million of those dogs live in my neighborhood. In fact, I think it’s in the HOA bylaws that you can’t move into a house here unless you have at least two dogs or one dog over 50 lbs.<br /><br />But now I’m dogless.<br /><br />My last dog, my goofy girl Skyler, went to chase tennis balls in heaven this week. She was originally my kids’ dog. After a previous dog had passed on, in true dog person fashion we went out to find another. Brad and I had chosen the smart and calm Millie (who died too soon), but my children feared she would not be fun enough. We took a deep breath and let them choose a second one. And play Skyler did. Incessantly. The tennis ball was her thing. But she also was champion at marathon sessions of squeaking dog toys when we were trying to watch television. She got me out every single day, no matter the weather, to run across the golf course at the end of the street. And everyone who walked past our gate stopped to give her love (and sometimes dog treats).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"><span style="color: blue;"><i>Skyler in her prime</i></span> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"><br />When the children grew and moved on, she stayed with Brad and me. And eventually even walking around the block was too much for her. The care and time I wanted to give to her was one of the reasons this blog has been dark for so long. So this week she found peace and a life free from pain while surrounded by people who loved her.<br /><br />I’m dogless. It’s a strange feeling because I’m actually contemplating the possibilities of a life without dogs. My dogs have averaged lifespans of 16-17 years. In that amount of time in the future I might be looking for someone to take care of me instead of me carrying a dog up and down stairs to go out like I did with Skyler for months. I’m a true emptynester with the freedom to take off and travel without having to make dog arrangements. I have free space in my life to support family and friends who might need it. If I don’t ever bring another dog into my home am I taking five years off of my life? Will I become more social because I have the time to do more? Or will I meet fewer people because no one is stopping to pet my dog?<br /><br />If Skyler was my last dog ever, I was lucky. But can I really make it without one?<br /><br />And what will protect me from things that go bump in the night?<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b>Tell me about your favorite animal family member in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2014/04/is-there-such-thing-as-last-dog.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a>. If you were a dog person who chose to go dog-less, tell me how you did it.</b></i></span></span></span></div>
Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-61506194700845000002014-02-05T05:00:00.000-06:002014-02-05T05:00:06.029-06:00Time-Traveling in Tunisia -- Pt. 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Just one of many jarring encounters. I read the menu outside and didn't see a single taco or burrito mentioned.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: black;">When a flight starts with stairs being rolled up to the back exit of a plane so the police can board and remove a man arguing loudly in a language you don’t understand and ends with the plane bouncing down the runway as someone sounding suspiciously like a flight attendant exclaims “<i>Hamdoulah</i>!” (Thanks to God), well then, you know that you’re about to experience something new. You’ve left the straight up and down world of American/European culture and entered a world as different and mesmerizing as the narrow streets of the medinas that define North Africa.<br /><br />In December, my husband Brad had a math conference in Tunisia. This would be the first time I joined him because, among other stupid reasons, I was a bit afraid I couldn’t survive on my own in such a foreign country while Brad was doing his math thing. Traveling in Europe, even if I don’t speak the language, is no problem. I see much of my world in theirs. North Africa, though? Language, food, habits, everything would be different, I thought. What if I accidentally offended someone? I wouldn’t be up to it. So I had to conquer my silly fears and head to Tunisia finally.<br /><br />While the trip only lasted five days, I have more to talk about than can be contained in a single blog post. Since this country is probably not on the radar for most of you, let me bring you up to speed.<br /><br />Tunisia is a small (tiny) piece of land along the Mediterranean Sea wedged between Algeria and Libya. Population is a little over 10 million, most of the people living in the capital of Tunis or along the east coast. It has verdant farmland as rich as Missouri’s bottomland, rocky mountains providing building materials for Roman ruins, and the Sahara. An educated country, even your porter at the hotel can speak Arabic, French, and one other language. While 98% of the people are Muslims, the modern government has been secular, perhaps because of its position as a French colony until they gained their independence in the 1950s. And if the word “Tunisia” rings a bell, it might be because this country was the site of the Jasmine Revolution that began what we now call the “Arab Spring.” The people we met, however, didn’t want to be connected to the Arab Spring because their revolution is <a href="http://rt.com/op-edge/tunisia-arab-spring-democratic-transition-579/" target="_blank">more or less over and done with</a>. They’ve had a change in government, they voted on a new constitution, they work hard to convince the tourists to return to their resorts along their gleaming beaches -- <i>Inshallah</i> (Allah willing).<br /><br />Our driver sped down the highway toward our resort community of Yasmine-Hammamet with the full moon blinding us through one window and billboards of Cameron Diaz selling watches, Jennifer Lopez selling shampoo, and George Clooney selling coffee makers whizzing past the other. And Coca-Cola. Always Coca-Cola. It has to be the most universal brand, the taste around which feuding nations rally. Is there a country that doesn’t sell those red cans?<br /><br />As we left the lights of the historic city of Tunis (ancient Carthage) behind and my eyes adjusted to the dark, I squinted and tried to get a sense of this country. About all I was sure of was that the lines in the highway were mere suggestions for where cars could drive. Things I saw along the highway were so unfamiliar at times that I was suspected they were mirages.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: blue;">A short list of what I think I saw in the dark:</span></b><br />-- a lot of cars and trucks pulled over by police (that many lawbreakers? that vigilant a speed trap? or something else?)<br />-- huge convoys of trucks just sitting on the side of the highway; I think our driver said that’s just where they stop and sleep for the night<br />-- grapes-of-wrath style flatbed trucks with hay or vegetables piled as high as a 2-story house, held by a single rope<br />-- a man pushing a bicycle along the shoulder with belongings stacked higher than his head. Was that a goat walking beside him?<br />-- on second thought, that was a donkey, not a bicycle<br />-- French road signs and French toll booths; Tunisia may have thrown off the shackles of colonialism, but why fix what ain’t broke<br />-- me, in a car, under the brightest moon of my life, driving through North Africa<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Come back soon for more stories of my time in Tunisia. Meanwhile, tell us in the comments box where have you visited that you felt the most out of place. Or, what was the most exotic place you’ve visited and why did you go?</b></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Camels were absolutely everywhere. Unfortunately on this trip I didn't have the chance to get close to one.</span></i></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-26368072554129895622014-01-28T08:59:00.000-06:002014-01-28T09:00:46.010-06:00Is It Too Late For New Year’s Resolutions? Or Am I Doomed?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <i><span style="color: blue;">In cleaning out my basement (more about that later) I discovered this clock,</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">covered in dust, that my mom had lovingly cross-stitched for her sister.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;">I don't know where I'll hang it, but I'll make time to do that.</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;">It’s not too late to make a New Year’s Resolution is it? Isn’t the statute of limitations the end of January? So quick, before the year gets too far gone let’s talk about what will make this year better. And how can I get it to stick because, let’s be honest, “lose weight” is not exactly original or successful.<br /><br />I wish I were one of those people who didn’t eat when I’m stressed or unhappy because then I’d be back to my 6th grade weight over all the depression that begins each November when I’m staring down the Mt. Everest of unmet resolutions. Weight, unfinished and unsubmitted manuscripts, a basement that could qualify me for an episode of hoarders, the third copy of that Jane Austin novel dug out of the bookshelf because I never made an inventory of my books.<br /><br />This year will be different, though. (Cue the Rocky theme music!) Even in mid-life it's good to keep trying.<br /><br />The problem isn’t which resolutions to make. It’s – ta-dah! are you ready for it? – my mindset on my life. In December <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/23/new-years-resolution-theme_n_4480554.html?ir=Healthy+Living" target="_blank">I read about</a> defining <b>THEMES</b> for the year, rather than making resolutions. If I said, “Lose Weight” that’s an outcome that I achieve or don’t rather than a way to guide me each day. It’s so much easier to fail. However, if I were thinking in terms of themes I might say “This year I’m going to <b>NOURISH MYSELF.</b>” With that theme, every day you’d make food choices that are healthier. You could also extend the theme to other nourishing directions. How can you nourish your mind? What about taking that beginner’s knitting class or learning French? You could nourish your soul and body at the same time by taking a gentle hatha yoga class each week. The ways to follow this theme are only limited by your imagination. To follow any of these directions would make your year better.<br /><br />What would be my theme this year? Since the new year was already speeding by and – yikes! – it’s the last week of January, I didn’t have a lot of time to contemplate this to find the perfect one. I went online. No there’s no Wikipedia entry for themes. I did find find a couple of <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathycaprino/2013/12/30/a-new-kind-of-resolution-that-will-make-you-happy/" target="_blank">websites</a> that followed this same principle and had some <a href="http://myoneword.org/" target="_blank">suggestions</a>. But none of them felt right. Time was moving quickly when I remembered that author <b>Gretchen Rubin</b> had divided the chapters of her book <a href="http://www.gretchenrubin.com/books/happier-at-home/about-the-book/" target="_blank"><i>Happier At Home</i></a> into themes for each month. “Pay attention” or “boost energy” were good concepts, but I didn’t see how they would work for me for an entire year.<br /><br />As this month rushed on I just didn’t even have time to think of that one word that would shape my year. I got sick. Our furnace broke during the week of the national snowpocalypse. My dear, sweet dog Skyler is quickly reaching the end of her days, so I’m running a doggy hospice in my living room. She’s clearly not ready to go, so I have to give time and energy (carrying her up and down stairs) to her care and end up saying “why bother?” about so many other things in my life. And we won’t even talk about that weight thing. Time sucks were taking over my life.<br /><br />But isn’t that craziness when I need a guiding theme the most in order to get back on track when life throws me off?<br /><br />And that’s when my theme hit me. TIME. I need to be mindful of my time. While I can’t control my life train jumping off the tracks, I can control how long I let it stay down. I can control how long I sit like a zombie watching “Love It or List It” marathons as a distraction. How long I read home improvement magazines instead of improving my own because I’m too tired today. How long I stay away from the computer because “I don’t have time to write” because life is crazy this week and I can't concentrate.<br /><br />This year I’m going to be more mindful of how I use my time. To help me in that process I’ve found this <a href="http://lifehacker.com/print-this-four-week-calendar-to-use-seinfelds-product-1491809191" target="_blank">great calendar </a>that will give me an incentive. I’ll choose three or four areas where I want to be mindful of time every day. The idea is to fill this calendar solid with checkmarks. While it’s not a sin to Facebook each day, I have to first make sure that I’ve used my time well in other areas of my life. And so I need to know that each week, for example, I’ve spent more time communicating with you on my blog than I have searching for or “liking” cat videos. I’ll post this calendar in an obvious place.<br /><br />I’ve already given some time to that basement. You can see that I’m back to writing as well. I’ll let you know how I’m doing. And for the sake of full disclosure, you can see other stabs at self-improvement <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2012/01/its-not-exactly-up-there-with-climbing.html" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2012/01/so-you-say-you-want-resolution.html" target="_blank">here</a>. None of them were unworthy. They just didn’t stick.<br /><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">So Happy New Year. And tell me in the comments box how you’re faring with the horrible winter weather and if you are a resolutions kind of person. And I promise I’ll see you soon in another blog post. Because now I will make time for it.</span></span></b></i></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: blue;"><i>Time doesn't move very fast here or change much. More about this in the future.</i></span></span></span></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-7723717958836117712013-12-24T05:00:00.000-06:002013-12-24T05:00:12.526-06:00Joyeux Noël et Bonne Année<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I’ve been absent from this space this fall for a variety of reasons, but a big one was because I had been traveling. When I was on the ground, I frequently had bad internet. In between the bad internet I was taking care of the business of new situations. But now it’s Christmas and I’m back in Dijon. Europe is know for its Christmas markets and Christmas celebrations. One day I’ll get to Strasbourg, France - the self-proclaimed <a href="http://www.noel.strasbourg.eu/" target="_blank"><b>Capitale de Noël</b></a>. For now, though, I’m happy with the local festivities.<br /><br />The explosion of Christmas lights, the <i>vin chaud</i> (hot wine) stands, the carrousels, and the crowds strolling down the streets window shopping make you so much more eager to head out on a cold December night than does the traditional American last-minute trip to the malls or Walmart. Dijon makes it a public affair by lowering the price of its public transportation. It sells a special pass for 3€, that lets 2-5 people ride the trams and buses for a day in order to shop everywhere then come back later for the evening events. Luckily for me, it was all just a short walk from my apartment.<br /><br />Have a safe and relaxing holiday. To start it off, here’s a look at the one here in Dijon, France.<br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>The area of Place Wilson</b></span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>The Christmas Market at Place Republique</b></span></span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Hot wine, hot orange juice with honey and cinnamon, pralines and marshmallow dipped in rich dark chocolate all keep you warm as you browse the little booths of both schtick and crafts.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Activities at Place de Libération</span></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A temporary skating ring and Christmas animations projected on the walls of the Dukes’ Palace makes this a lively place.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Here are a couple of teasers for what I’ll be sharing after the new year. You’ll have to wait to see where in the world they are.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_N0y1YH-Mx4KPSsc_9N52o8oM2Y-bw-jUHFVGXILvqogiRWvDMSY9Y7ufE7jq9oL3-2Ky-RoA1Y6bvqanZYHJjs4D-kukQOyBsAmfP291VnfY-KKTtsDQ7NrfpDtA_52Xc-3P0hWPJK8L/s1600/12%253A24%253A13_xmasDijon12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_N0y1YH-Mx4KPSsc_9N52o8oM2Y-bw-jUHFVGXILvqogiRWvDMSY9Y7ufE7jq9oL3-2Ky-RoA1Y6bvqanZYHJjs4D-kukQOyBsAmfP291VnfY-KKTtsDQ7NrfpDtA_52Xc-3P0hWPJK8L/s1600/12%253A24%253A13_xmasDijon12.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: large;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Please share in the comments box your favorite Christmas activities. Or your favorite activities of the most important holiday for your family. See you in 2014.</span></b></i></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-55949820209669711302013-11-27T07:45:00.000-06:002013-11-27T07:46:01.964-06:00A Thanksgiving For Those Who Fought On The Beaches of Normandy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivMUW0eHVOtqbh_tvDUtXJxLnOC5CErlnV5surwY5gnoA4hnOfr-6cOX5arRHmeJMGivQQC3SFksLq8WeaHktoicjSnBqzUGqdx1kedUnVS-xZf_YWqGSk1vdhNjfA9waRAN9-q3rJYn6h/s1600/11:27:13_Normandy1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivMUW0eHVOtqbh_tvDUtXJxLnOC5CErlnV5surwY5gnoA4hnOfr-6cOX5arRHmeJMGivQQC3SFksLq8WeaHktoicjSnBqzUGqdx1kedUnVS-xZf_YWqGSk1vdhNjfA9waRAN9-q3rJYn6h/s1600/11:27:13_Normandy1.jpg" /> </a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i><b>Crosses reaching out to sea over Omaha Beach. Almost 10,000 men rest here. More died. The thin,</b></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i><b>mishapend trees give you an idea of the harsh weather along Normandy beaches.</b></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This Thanksgiving, while I’m still thankful for family, friends, enough food to eat, the ability to see a doctor when sick, and all the other things that make life good I am grateful for something new. Unexpectedly, I found it in France.<br /><br />Part of our river cruise was to see the D-day beaches in Normandy. Their images were imprinted on my brain, especially with the marathon war documentaries and movies on The History Channel every Memorial Day. I thought it would be like when you finally get into the room with the <i>Mona Lisa</i> at the Louvre and say, “That’s it? That little thing? What’s all the fuss?” I was eager to get to the American Cemetery because I have loved the beauty and serenity of National Cemeteries ever since, as a Girl Scout, we hiked the Civil War battlefield of Shiloh National Military Park in Tennessee and at the end had the land open up into V’s of white crosses that stretched to eternity. For my own father and grandfather at Jefferson Barracks in St. Louis, I love to go just before closing as the deer come out at dusk to feed amid the headstones.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But as we drove down country roads that hadn’t changed much except for the paving, the tour guide pointed out that there weren’t many old buildings. The Germans forced the townspeople out and demolished the towns so Allied troops would have no place to hide. What used to be centuries-old villages now were little pink weekend vacation cottages risen from the ashes of war. We saw farm fields instead of Norman cows grazing because so many had been killed by battles or eaten for survival that they no longer filled the neatly, walled parcels of land.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjke6whjbKFQ0MzoO3SGpZsJb1k0iN-Gaj2nHIqF4xrdoNOOyDdWlB3mbue8vJIG1C0cuIt8C9y9Z_nHWPSarnwHA-wI0fElMUoil_7WQLZyJrwDRSQXtMck6_vGpweLxTBT7EaLdzb6s0N/s1600/11%253A27%253A13_Normandy2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjke6whjbKFQ0MzoO3SGpZsJb1k0iN-Gaj2nHIqF4xrdoNOOyDdWlB3mbue8vJIG1C0cuIt8C9y9Z_nHWPSarnwHA-wI0fElMUoil_7WQLZyJrwDRSQXtMck6_vGpweLxTBT7EaLdzb6s0N/s1600/11%253A27%253A13_Normandy2.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i><b>Brad next to the remains of war at Arromanches</b></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;">The full impact of the invasion swept over me when we hit the beaches at Arromanches. While all the mines the Germans had planted have been removed, the hulking, barnacle-covered pontoons of landing forces and the temporary harbor that had been constructed immediately after the invasion remain to give some perspective of what it took to get those soldiers and tanks across the English Channel and to shore. The beaches were so wide that they seemed to stretch all the way to England. The Germans thought that the Allies would come at high tide to avoid the open space, so they had planted and wrapped with explosives large, sharp obstacles of wood, cement, and steel to tear out the bottom of landing ships. As a result, for the invasion the soldiers had to hit land at low tide and make their way across this minefield in the early hours of dawn. I can’t even imagine what physical and emotional strength it took for the young men to run onto the beaches and keep moving forward as the Germans sat on the high ground, picking them off like the proverbial shooting gallery. There really was no way but forward.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKovIiE-2jtAPn8rHCuoxnW2C8uWmOP1uqJsP5GhMzGWGbLE3Or5O5iLKes5GPkvamJVxz-Yr763rbBImJCaGC6JJoR-e5ZdGhrPVIpj-aeep7aEsTOi1-KZvxVHZWZfOdSXlHrvgYP69V/s1600/11%253A27%253A13_Normandy3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKovIiE-2jtAPn8rHCuoxnW2C8uWmOP1uqJsP5GhMzGWGbLE3Or5O5iLKes5GPkvamJVxz-Yr763rbBImJCaGC6JJoR-e5ZdGhrPVIpj-aeep7aEsTOi1-KZvxVHZWZfOdSXlHrvgYP69V/s1600/11%253A27%253A13_Normandy3.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i><b>Windsurfers next to decaying landing pontoons</b></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;">As I strolled calmly along the beaches among the windsurfers, joggers, and parents playing with dogs and children, I knew something of the distance, and the wind, and the rain that made this attack even more dangerous, for bad weather is constant in Normandy. They say it rains twice a week in Normandy, first for three days then for four. And the rain was coming down as I tried to keep my camera dry, whipping it out for a quick picture with one hand while holding my hat with the other before sticking it back under my scarf. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><img border="0" height="291" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhqS2mB1vaiYKe7rqXHX08jB36aFEECp3uzInDmvaYzQW8_37MFbKQ3L3G_m2aD5YXJ2dgENBnpGsOC9hhCzsFxahWB9SwopDZ3gNq2NVj5N3bdMpCRZZpcQraVoNA6v2lcsJZdYH18AEg/s1600/640px-Bocage_country_at_Cotentin_Peninsula.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;"> </span><i><b>Aerial shot of bocages that men and tanks had to penetrate to fight</b></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The hedgerows - or <i>bocage</i> in French - that still line many of the roads in Normandy were for centuries a utilitarian feature in daily life. For the stone and thatch homes they served as windbreaks from the incessant ocean wind of Northern France. Or they provided privacy for the courtyards of village farmhouses. They marked fields for the small crop acreage or to keep the iconic Norman cows contained. During the war, however, they turned sinister and deadly. Planted atop raised mounds of earth, the tightly woven thickets provided perfect cover for the Germans to hide and pepper the Allied troops who had just landed on the beaches as they moved down the dirt roads closely hemmed in by the village buildings. It was impossible to escape. And still they stand, silent witnesses to the man-made chaos and horror of war.<br /><br />Our guide was from the Norman area. Her family had lived there for generations. When she spoke of the Vichy government during that era she almost spit in her disgust. She had tales from older relatives of lives turned upside down when all they wanted was to fish and tend farms. They evacuated their Norman villages and kept on the move, hoping to find safety. Her grandfather, she said, rarely spoke of the battles that now make that region a tourist mecca. While I had no family member who had fought that battle, many on the bus had the same story to tell. They were there for their soldier fathers and grandfathers, trying to understand what they had experienced because they had said very little about that battle once they came home.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwsOTq92_KS560dsZQwBwfnWxrYkhzvCrCtORJhs7b5fGbKS7WXFHdPl2Ji_B9QwL0BI68q2191fbOj48mflhyMGFxMPUnrpbiw5GczFYuvHRCElkL1nvICrJcg4XtAzYsbAwlgK1q30nd/s1600/11%253A27%253A13_Normandy4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwsOTq92_KS560dsZQwBwfnWxrYkhzvCrCtORJhs7b5fGbKS7WXFHdPl2Ji_B9QwL0BI68q2191fbOj48mflhyMGFxMPUnrpbiw5GczFYuvHRCElkL1nvICrJcg4XtAzYsbAwlgK1q30nd/s1600/11%253A27%253A13_Normandy4.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUxpptNTCkTgK8AZIdAKyCmjPqz9iDkGLo3Z0ChZRitt6qsX0Qb0tbghqZzlHddRgT1oIGEYQxybIj4Sur3lSZuUpNL7OlnMKqQdS6n5ORVDcxCx6wDnxxoRq-vYX-YsQHZvGHjPzt_l6n/s1600/11%253A27%253A13_Normandy5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUxpptNTCkTgK8AZIdAKyCmjPqz9iDkGLo3Z0ChZRitt6qsX0Qb0tbghqZzlHddRgT1oIGEYQxybIj4Sur3lSZuUpNL7OlnMKqQdS6n5ORVDcxCx6wDnxxoRq-vYX-YsQHZvGHjPzt_l6n/s1600/11%253A27%253A13_Normandy5.jpg" width="400" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><i><b>From outside and inside the bunkers overlooking the beaches of Normandy</b></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;">Only by standing on the beaches, driving through the claustrophobic hedgerows, or visiting the cemetery and listening to the stories told in the words of the soldiers in visitor center movies did they begin to understand why their fathers and grandfathers said little about one of the most significant days in world history.<br /><br />“The Greatest Generation” has been thrown around so much that its meaning had become a bit diluted. But standing on the beaches of Normandy I comprehended the all-or-nothing risk that the Allied troops took on to capture those concrete bunkers hurling fire and death down on them. I understood that “The Greatest Generation” was not an exaggeration. The level of cooperation among nations, the boldness of thinking, and the degree of sacrifice to literally save the world is something we see today primarily in movies with Will Smith or Bruce Willis single-handedly fighting aliens in space.<br /><br />I stood on the beaches realizing that there was not one speck of cover. When the ramps of the landing craft lowered the soldiers had no option but to race forward across the wide beaches of Normandy -- beaches that now hold thousands of holiday revelers on a summer weekend. They pushed forward, often dragging their injured comrades with them as they sought cover. They climbed the cliffs to the bunkers and kept fighting against all odds.<br /><br />For that I’m truly thankful.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="color: black;"><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What are you thankful for this year? Tell us in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/11/a-thanksgiving-for-those-who-fought-on.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a> and then get to baking those pies for your family. Happy Thanksgiving.<br /><br />If you’ve never seen the opening to Steven Speilberg’s movie Saving Private Ryan, you need to <a href="http://What are you thankful for this year? Tell us in the comments box and then get to baking those pies. If you’ve never seen the opening to Steven Speilberg’s movie Saving Private Ryan, you need to watch it to understand what it took for the soldiers to cross the distance from sea to land and up to the concrete bunkers of the Germans." target="_blank">watch it</a> to understand what it took for the soldiers to cross the distance from sea to land and up to the concrete bunkers of the Germans.</span></span></b></i></span></span></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-92118377303616276752013-11-22T12:30:00.000-06:002013-11-22T12:30:44.112-06:00Taxonomy of Life On A River Cruise. Or Who Do You Think You Are?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When Brad and I walked into the dining room for the first time on our first-ever cruise, we both had the same thought: why does this seem so familiar? Yes, it was just like we were starting high school and trying to figure out where to sit in the cafeteria. If we sat at a table for two, would that mean we’d never meet anybody? But what if we sat at a table for four and nobody ever joined us? Wouldn’t we look like a couple of losers? Would we wander the dining room seeking a spot to land, isolated outsiders and clearly newbies in the cruise world while everyone else started on their first course?<br /><br />Happily, none of those worst case scenarios happened during our week on the Seine River. The thing about a ship with only 150 travelers, though, is you quickly encounter everyone and figure out who to avoid and who could tell a good story, especially for those daily dinners, which were always open, rather than assigned, seating.<br /><br />The first evening taught me about a special genus called <i><b>competitive cruisers ad nauseum</b>.</i> Even from across the main lounge you can hear them name-checking the places they’ve visited and which ships they took. If someone asks a question, they’re the first to answer because they know everything even though they’ve never been on this ship or this tour. Don’t bother sitting with them at dinner unless you’re somebody who likes to listen while someone else talks.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In a small space like a river boat you can’t avoid the second group of people, i.e., <i>c<b>ruiser queribundus</b></i>. The complainers, they’re the same people on dry land who always find fault with the smallest thing. They’ve perfected their grumble. The cruise director isn’t as animated as their last cruise director. This gourmet food selection and unlimited wine at every meal wasn’t as exciting as back home in their town with four Michelin star restaurants. Nobody told them in advance where the most famous paintings were in the museum we visited. Meanwhile, the entire country of the Philippines has practically been wiped off the planet by the largest storm in recorded history AND you have chocolate on your pillow each night and a 24-hour espresso bar. PERSPECTIVE, people!!<br /><br />Sigh, we find the <b><i>indecoris Americanus</i></b> still exists. This group and the cockroach will continue to exist after the zombie apocalypse. While no country produces perfect tourists, I still feel like I need to run up and apologize when I see the performance of an Ugly American in the flesh. A woman from the cruise walked up to a guard in a museum and said, in English (in her outside voice), “Where’s the bathroom? I haven’t been able to find it anywhere.” Yes, in English. As if she assumed the guard should speak English just for her. No <i>bonjour</i> or <i>s’il vous plais</i>, or <i>merci</i>. No attempt to use the most basic travel word, <i>toilette</i>. On my first trip to France I clutched my phrasebook like a lifeline. The best part of owning a smartphone is the dictionary/translation app. But people still assume the world bends to their comfort zone.<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In true high school fashion, this cruise offered an example of the genus <b><i>cool kids</i></b>. They didn’t take Latin, hence the modern title. They travel in a herd. The whole lot of them booked the cruise together and have no use for the rest of us. They eat together, they tour together, they sit together on the tour bus. My close encounter with this high school royalty occurred early in the trip when after dinner I took my computer aft to the “quiet” lounge to complete my MFA homework. The cool kids had set up camp with bottles and bottles of wine and a laptop playing party music at top volume. Never mind that music, dancing, and drinking were happening in the main lounge. “Do you hear that sound? That’s not how the engine on our last cruise sounded. That doesn’t sound right. This boat needs an overhaul. Those glasses on the table shouldn’t have moved like that. That engine needs an overhaul, I tell you.” Repeat a dozen times, each iteration louder and louder to sound over the music and successively slurred as bottles empty. They never even acknowledged my presence. I wasn’t part of the cool club.<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><i>Gaudium est</i></b> - life is a joy. And we found plenty of this type throughout the week. There was the couple where the husband surprised his wife with the trip just a couple of weeks before they were supposed to leave. “Thank heavens my sister and I had just made a shopping trip to New York,” surprised wife laughed. Or the couple whose suitcases never arrived until just before dinner on the last night. The ship kept moving and the luggage was always one day behind. They appreciated the crew doing their laundry each day and joked about the situation because, well, what else could they do. The joyous set said <i>c’est la vie</i> when the flooding Seine meant some of our cruise was cruisin’ down the highway in a bus, and the cold and rain of Normandy made us feel like we were going to grow mold. There was the group united by knitting on rainy afternoons and others, like me, who thought the espresso machine that also delivered steaming, foamy milk for hot chocolate was worth the price of the cruise.</span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">If you’ve done group travel, what categories have you encountered that I’ve overlooked? Share with us in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/11/taxonomy-of-life-on-river-cruise-or-who.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a> your own close encounters with any of these kinds of creatures on your own travels or your own taxonomies.</span></span></b></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>The photos are the colors of Honfleur, the French port town that played an important part in the Hundred Year’s War and that I remember being mentioned of in Shakespeare’s history plays. This was one of two days of the trip we had some sun. It was also a favorite subject of Impressionist painters.</b></span></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-62741724256915461332013-11-18T04:25:00.001-06:002013-11-18T04:25:32.192-06:00On French Terroir - Or Something Close To It<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_uYR9CG2D7-Ulsns6zkKNRtQWe-fhlOAnxJSRvSeYBAabNBwnl1sWqESp9sxCe44MNvkHiBilFxrvwfd2ARNui-6xOzLrgLYhXDkneQ_ZQghwbNjHAAuQhXewDGOxtwfMoUl1VQpnYWD/s1600/11%253A18%253A13_terroir-07583.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5_uYR9CG2D7-Ulsns6zkKNRtQWe-fhlOAnxJSRvSeYBAabNBwnl1sWqESp9sxCe44MNvkHiBilFxrvwfd2ARNui-6xOzLrgLYhXDkneQ_ZQghwbNjHAAuQhXewDGOxtwfMoUl1VQpnYWD/s1600/11%253A18%253A13_terroir-07583.jpg" /> </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <span style="color: blue;"><i><b>My own impressionist version of life along the Seine </b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><i><b>(I promised my nephew I'd try Lightroom for my photos)</b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I’m an old vine. And that’s not a bad thing. At least that’s what I heard last week when I was rolling down the Seine River, drinking wine beginning at 9:30 in the morning.<br /><br />Brad and I have been on a wine cruise down the Seine from Paris to Honfleur and back. At least some of the week was cruising. You see, the rain they’ve been having in northern France raised the level of the Seine so much that no boats could fit under the famous Paris bridges. We were lucky that our ship got stuck outside of Paris. The first part of our cruise consisted of getting on a tour bus and driving for a long time in rush-hour traffic to meet up with the ship in Conflans-Ste.-Honorine. Thank heavens the the bridges from here on out were new and tall enough to handle ocean-going vessels. At the end of the cruise it was back to Conflans where all kinds of river boats were tied up four across at the dock, waiting out the water.<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <span style="color: blue;"><i><b>The high Seine in Paris</b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">But back to my viney old self. Or rather, wines and old vines.<br /><br /><i>Vigneron</i> <b>Jean-Marc Espinasse</b> (<a href="http://a-la-recherche-du-vin.typepad.com/mas-des-brun/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/jm_espinasse" target="_blank">here</a>), who came up from his warm Provencal vineyard to cold and rainy Normandy to teach us, was asked “When is a vine considered an old vine?” He said many might say 40 years, but he felt it was closer to 60. And with the older vines the roots are sunk deeper, so they can endure more. After hearing that, I didn’t feel so bad about this old body getting creakier by the month. Because I fell -- again -- and am feeling as ancient as the vines that produce the wines we’re drinking.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><i>Jean-Marc Espinasse</i></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I keep trying to tell myself that being an old vine is the best thing, that I’ve still got some <i>grand cru </i>life left in me. Jean-Marc told a story about how when he ran over one of his old vines, his babies, with his tractor he cried. Nobody cried when this old vine went down on the bus steps, though the bus driver was very solicitous the rest of the day like I was an old grandma who wears orthopedic shoes and reindeer sweatshirts. <br /><br />Whatever Jean-Marc talks about, he always gets back to the French concept of <i>terroir</i>, or the influence soil, geography, climate, and other natural elements have on the wine or food from a certain place. Since he’s an organic winemaker, terroir defines everything he does. On a previous trip to France, another winemaker did an experiment and showed us how different wines that came from grapes grown just on opposite sides of a road could taste so different. Perhaps this plot had a little more sun, or that plot was a little closer to some lavender. “Without good <i>terroir</i>,” Jean-Marc told us, “you can’t have a good wine.”<br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While sometimes in France I just want to go the the Picard store and buy a week’s worth of frozen dinners (salmon on a bed of puréed broccoli - yum!), I love shopping at the weekly market and see where my food is from. Every merchant has labels on everything telling you if the dates come from Tunisia or Algeria. I prefer the clementines from Spain over the ones from Provence. Most of my vegetables come from within an hour of Dijon, my chickens come from Bresse-en-Bourg and my beef is Burgundy Charolais cows.<br /><br />During this time when we can’t even get the U.S. government regulations to label if our food has been genetically modified, I like to come to a country where the origin of food is so essential (although not universal, I admit). On the bus tour to Honfleur the tour guide pointed out some stunted corn in the field. She said that the corn plants don’t produce ears of corn because it’s too cold and wet; however after the buds fade they mow it down and save it to feed the Normandy cows in winter, along with the peas, beans, and other crops they grow for the cattle. France escaped the mad cow problem, she said, because they don’t feed them much commercial food.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><b><i>Even the houses in Normandy are about "terroir" with thatch roofs and irises growing on top</i></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">France can be maddening sometimes, like when you want to go to eat dinner before 7:30 p.m., or if you have to deal with paperwork. But I do love the idea that nourishing our body begins with all the centuries of plants and minerals that have inhabited a small plot of land. The circle of life and all that.<br /><br />Unfortunately, I also like French fries, French ice cream, and French chocolate. Sigh.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">More stories from Normandy will be coming. Have any of you been to Normandy? What is your favorite part? Wherever you live how much do you know about the origin of your food? If you buy organic or local, what particular food do you try to always buy organic or local? Share your Normandy and food thoughts in the comments box.</span></i></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>We sailed on the Amallegro with <a href="http://www.amawaterways.com/" target="_blank">Amawaterways</a> and all of our arrangements were made by the über efficient Susan Boehnstedt of <a href="http://www.criticschoicevacations.com/" target="_blank">Critics Choice Vacations</a>. Thanks to everyone who made our first cruise so relaxing and interesting. More stories to come.</b></span></span><br /><br /></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-19466859355620901082013-11-05T05:00:00.000-06:002013-11-05T11:22:11.597-06:00Postcard from Dijon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNnOM54DJVdfZ8x0tmX8k8lt0pcVY18o1gjRKX2hkeT0MnraVJPz3ppSBIzrrj7wacA_BHmohaXN2xQS2vZlKys8fX1zR1fSEtIkD9MDu2Uyfo-97QO9i4p64sUw9w1UDTLEaDFeVkevUy/s1600/11:5:13_dijon+postcard1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNnOM54DJVdfZ8x0tmX8k8lt0pcVY18o1gjRKX2hkeT0MnraVJPz3ppSBIzrrj7wacA_BHmohaXN2xQS2vZlKys8fX1zR1fSEtIkD9MDu2Uyfo-97QO9i4p64sUw9w1UDTLEaDFeVkevUy/s1600/11:5:13_dijon+postcard1.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><i><span style="color: #444444;">the geraniums</span></i></b></span><b><i><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> I planted this summer still blooming.</span></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">You know those times in your life when everything is running so smoothly that you will be a front page feature in the HOME section of your local newspaper, star of an article full of tips about how to do everything better than anyone else? Me neither. My life always feels like herding cats.<br /><br />Somehow I’ve made it back to Dijon. After my disastrous trip in the summer, I didn’t even know if I’d be able to walk onto the plane, let alone lift anything into the overhead bin. After my fall two days into the July trip, I got back into physical therapy the day after returning home, sticking with it until the day before heading back to France this fall. Steroid shots got my knee moving, but I probably will have to have rotator cuff surgery sometime next year. That meant that nothing in the house got cleaned. The garden was never finished. Brad was out of the country in Germany since September. I had the new challenge of keeping up with all my MFA homework (I’m reading and writing a lot - just not blogs).<br /><br />To add injury to injury, neither arm nor knee has done well because each day I had to lift and carry my 40 lb. dog who was in worse shape than me. Skyler’s arthritis is making it hard for her to stand, plus she decided not to eat the food she’s eaten for years. I never know what the day will bring in her condition. Even though she’s on multiple pain meds and is playing food roulette, every day she still wants her walk (now reduced to three houses up and three houses back then -- alley oop -- lifting her up the front stairs). I almost cancelled the trip this time, but Brad and I have a special event planned you’ll hear about later. So when the <span style="color: red;">GREATEST FAMILY MEMBERS IN THE WORLD</span> (hi, Melinda and Laurie) stepped up to take care of my old girl and get her to her vet appointments I put my aching body back on a plane.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> And when I started breathing the air of France, I exhaled. I sat and had tea at my favorite <i>comptoir</i>. See that book I was reading? Be good to yourself -- run to whichever place you get your books and get <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Tender-Land-Family-Story/dp/0618340742/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383614248&sr=8-1&keywords=kathleen+finneran" target="_blank">Kathleen Finneran’s, <i>The Tender Land</i>.</a> It’s one of the most beautiful pieces of writing you’ll ever read. It’s an exquisite memoir about a St. Louis family that must carry on after tragedy. Find a quiet corner and read this weekend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdrHpGiLSF6vjA-cyUCojsBzYcv3Sy4qOdqeg1I32lLjywaJ0VW7aAthNmga72vG45ghyphenhyphenxP-dTWm5CkF-Sht1ZlDmo8DGOduNUMtmyn-RDZ8xVhJmHHcSzffJMhvHN2P2PH0j-AwEQoDMJ/s1600/11:5:13_dijon+postcard6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdrHpGiLSF6vjA-cyUCojsBzYcv3Sy4qOdqeg1I32lLjywaJ0VW7aAthNmga72vG45ghyphenhyphenxP-dTWm5CkF-Sht1ZlDmo8DGOduNUMtmyn-RDZ8xVhJmHHcSzffJMhvHN2P2PH0j-AwEQoDMJ/s1600/11:5:13_dijon+postcard6.jpg" /> </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I took a walk down Cours du Parc and wondered how many Sunday mornings this couple had walked this path after buying their daily bread. What other streets were part of their long lives in this historic city?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This was definitely not on the menu when I went to the market to buy the meat for our first dinner party in our new apartment. No thank you. In my very French Dutch oven I made a recipe I had saved on my computer ages ago - <a href="http://www.thekitchn.com/dinner-recipe-french-onion-chi-144744" target="_blank">Braised French Onion Chicken with Gruyere</a>. It was a wonderful night with good friends Didier, Francoise, and Claire -- even if we did have to get up and wash dishes and silverware between courses. We started with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kir_%28cocktail%29" target="_blank">kir</a> and ended with Vanille Pecan Caramel Beurre Salé ice cream and chocolate.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As evening approached this past weekend, I was racing around to find a screwdriver, expandable curtain rods, a book light, and other sundry items sold uniquely in who-knows-which specialized store. When I heard these guys laying down some smooth jazz up ahead of me I slowed down to listen and breathe. And I <u>always</u> drop something in the pot when I take pictures of street artists.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This is a short trip because I need to get back to my baby. At the end of this week Brad and I leave on an adventure outside of our little Dijonnais sanctuary. Uncertain of internet access. But if it’s there I hope to bring you stories and photos of places new and interesting (and probably filled with rain). Meanwhile, if you have any questions or any requests on what you’d like to see or read about this country I’m still trying to figure out, leave them in the comments box and I’ll see what I can do.</span></span></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Come to think of it, I do have a handy tip. If you’re having something from IKEA delivered that’s bigger than a breadbox, make sure you pick the option where they bring it up the winding stairs to your third-floor apartment and not the one where they leave it in the street or on the sidewalk. Trust me, it’s worth the extra 30 euros. </b></span><br />
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<br />Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-21195107008632020892013-09-27T17:00:00.000-05:002013-09-27T17:00:13.829-05:00Let Us Now Praise Famous Women . . . Writers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNBJpYayhsfv02FReiVfIjNt2vl-RnSJvIwobVueTOdDFTLp_yYczrvQ5fJyGMJIZiE0fgndu8Bll3Ln1OrZ8tHawPAR1Z8KgWdb96RQai5bKHohdH5YjzbZQRUTWcO5dJ0yM4QktEn4b-/s1600/fragonard-91063_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNBJpYayhsfv02FReiVfIjNt2vl-RnSJvIwobVueTOdDFTLp_yYczrvQ5fJyGMJIZiE0fgndu8Bll3Ln1OrZ8tHawPAR1Z8KgWdb96RQai5bKHohdH5YjzbZQRUTWcO5dJ0yM4QktEn4b-/s1600/fragonard-91063_640.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Oh, the irony that at the same time we’re celebrating <b>Banned Book Week</b> a well-known male writer declares that he will never teach women writers in his classroom. “I teach only the best,” David Gilmour said in an <a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/david-gilmour-building-strong-stomachs" target="_blank">interview</a> about what he reads and what he teaches. Apparently women’s lives and ideas are banned from his classroom because for him “the best” is defined as “[s]erious heterosexual guys.” He’s all about manly men.<br /><br />I know, I know. “Banned” is probably too strong a word to describe this situation because he’s not fighting to get all women writers stricken from the department curriculum. He’s happy to allow someone else to handle the lesser, estrogen-influenced literature. However, his students are aware enough to realize at some point that they’re not reading any contemporary female authors in his class. Their education is missing something. To that he explained, “I say I don’t love women writers enough to teach them, if you want women writers go down the hall.”<br /><br />When social media and book bloggers went crazy over this admission he tried to hide behind the standard jerk’s response of “my words taken out of context.” In its defense, the website that posted the original interview immediately came back with the <a href="http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/gilmour-transcript" target="_blank">complete transcript</a> of their discussion.<br /><br />So why should you care that one writer-teacher has such a Neanderthal approach to his classes? Over on <b>Book Riot</b>, one columnist wrote a <a href="http://bookriot.com/2013/09/26/david-gilmour-shallow-misguided-wrong/" target="_blank">thoughtful response</a> about the danger of this limited vision coming from a teacher. The classroom is where we explore a wider world-view, not study only what we like. How can we allow a classroom instructor to declare from the beginning that the ideas of women as a whole are not worthy? That talents of an entire gender are particularly lacking?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">While I know that Gilmour doesn’t care what I think about anything, my first thought is that if we can’t find female writers whose works will live for centuries to come, is that because they’re inherently lesser writers or is it because there are great writers not being given the chance? <b>Virginia Woolf</b> (whom Gilmour places on the lower rings of not-a-hetrosexual-guy purgatory) ruminated on this exact question in her essay, <a href="http://egophelia.free.fr/2femme/woolfroomsister.htm" target="_blank">“Shakespeare’s Sister.”</a> Who knows what “Judith” Shakespeare could have accomplished if cultural prejudices hadn’t held her back?<br /><br />In a more modern method, the VIDA organization tracks the role of women in the literary world by maintaining statistics on how many females have their books reviewed by heavyweight book review sources and how many females are published in literary journals. The <a href="http://www.vidaweb.org/vida-count-2012-mic-check-redux" target="_blank">numbers they’ve charted</a> can cause sleepless nights among those of us women who want to be published. Is this because women don’t write as compelling pieces or because there are a bunch of male editors who hold an opinion similar to Gilmour? Or because of the age-old problem of not enough women in the decision-making roles at the office?<br /><br />This week I was originally planning on telling you about a book I’m reading. <b>Mira Bartók's</b> <i>The Memory Palace</i>, a mesmerizing book about family and love, and forgiveness. After leaving for college she and her sister sever all ties with her mother, who had once been a promising classical pianist but who had sunk deeper and deeper into mental illness. The book tells about reconciling as a family when Bartók receives word that her mother is dying in a homeless shelter. There are many memoirs about dysfunctional families, but Bartók stands out because of the “memory palace” she created to tell her story. After a car accident, she’s left with extreme memory loss and inability to remember things from one day to the next. A Jesuit priest told her how to build a memory palace, where everything she wants to remember has an image. Each image has a particular place in this palace in her mind. Throughout the telling of her story, she returns to her memory palace often, guiding us through her rooms and making connections for us between the abstract images that make her memory. Bartók teaches us how to map our lives, how following the path backward through landmarks can lead us forward to reconciliation with the present.<br /><br />More than once a man has said that they don’t read women writers or books with female protagonists because they just can’t relate to the story (go ahead and ask your guy friends; I’ll wait). But you rarely hear women say they don’t read male authors.<br /><br />And so I’m also reading Norman Maclean’s <i>A River Runs Through It</i>. I know nothing of murder, or fly fishing, or the rough characters of bunkhouses in the West, or of the wild outdoors. But that’s why I read it. I want to understand. And I want to soak in the clean language: “I am haunted by waters.” Ultimately, both Maclean and Bartók talk family -- something which we all experience.<br /><br />Maybe that male inclination to avoid what they just can’t relate to explains a whole lot in the world.<br /><br />So in recognition of Banned Book Week, pick up one of many books by women writers who have enough trouble getting the literary respect they deserve from a bunch of people whose minds are the size of lentils. They just don’t need Gilmour disrespecting them, too. Here are a few to get you started:<br /><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>Harper Lee</b></span> <i>To Kill A Mockingbird</i><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>Alice Walker</b></span> <i>The Color Purple</i><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>Kate Chopin</b></span> <i>The Awakening</i><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>Lois Lowry</b></span> <i>The Giver</i><br /><span style="color: red;"><b>Isabel Allende</b></span> <i>The House of the Spirits</i></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">in the comments box. Or just share what you’re reading now.</span></span></b></i></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-47655409782431988722013-09-20T10:38:00.000-05:002013-09-20T10:48:41.025-05:005 Random Thoughts On Travel<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: red;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">The whimsy of French windows</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I’m a month away from hitting the road, or rather hitting the river since Brad and I will be boating it up the Seine north to Normandy in France (more about that when the time comes). But already my head is full of travel. “Travel” is one of my favorite words because it’s so expansive. Travel expands my mind, my connection to the world, and my circle of friends. I’m up for it whether it’s an overnighter just down the highway or another country. Whether city or country. It means I’m about to bring something new to my life. <br /><br />Here are 5 random thoughts on travel. I hope they might spark random thoughts of your own that you’ll share.<br /><br />1) Today my better half, Brad, leaves for a research trip and won’t be back until after Christmas. First Germany. Then France. Then Tunisia. The transportation logistics have been a challenge. The packing for changes of weather over that extended time hasn’t been easy since he always does the “one suitcase plus a backpack” thing. There’s the “not speaking German” thing, of course. Mostly, though, I wish I could be with him for the entire trip.<br /><br />Sometimes, though, there are things that tie me to home. And my furry girl, Skyler, is that. She is getting old and had a bad summer when I was gone. At this stage of her life I can’t abandon her. I couldn’t enjoy such a long trip from worrying about her. I’ll just join Brad for a short time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="color: red;"><i><b>A French dog, not Skyler</b></i></span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="9/20/13-5 travel thoughts2 photo 92013_5travelthoughts2_zps5602d2bc.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/92013_5travelthoughts2_zps5602d2bc.jpg~original" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">2) I’ve become enthralled by several travel blogs since I myself started blogging. However, there are two I never miss. <b>Kristin Espinasse’s</b> blog <a href="http://french-word-a-day.typepad.com/" target="_blank">French Word A Day</a> convinced me that France wasn’t such a scary place. She introduced me to the day-to-day life of the country beyond Paris and taught me something about the personality of the place that made it seem manageable. She offered her American take on her adopted homeland with great good humor and enviable photographs, all of which you can see in her two books <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743287290/mdj-20" target="_blank">Blossoming in Provence</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1467929794/mdj-20" target="_blank">Words in a French Life</a>.<br /><br />The second blog that is a staple in my week is <a href="http://www.southernfriedfrench.com/blog/" target="_blank">Southern Fried French</a> by <b>Lynn McBride</b>. Most blogs about France focus on Paris or Provence. I was so glad to find Lynn’s because it was based in the Burgundy region, which is my home away from home. She chronicles all the little village festivals, tells us about people we’d love to have as neighbors, and like Kristin she teaches us a thing or two in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0987454897/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0987454897&linkCode=as2&tag=soutfriefren-20" target="_blank">her book</a> about learning language as an adult. But most importantly, she ends most posts with a creative recipe that melds the culinary elements of her American Southern background with her new country’s love of food.<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">A marquise - I learned the word for this glass cover from Kristin Espinasse</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">after so many years of loving and photographing them.</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="9/20/13-5 travel thoughts3 photo 92013_5travelthoughts3_zpsf02e588f.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/92013_5travelthoughts3_zpsf02e588f.jpg~original" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">3) When I’m in France I’ve become addicted to watching the video channels. First, it’s because American pop culture is everywhere, so it gives me a chance to hear a familiar language. But I also love to see what other cultures are obsessed with. For the most part the French videos don’t do much for me. The females are waifs who sing in little girl voices and float around in something gauzy, longing for an impossible love (at least that’s what it seems like because I don’t understand all the words).<br /><br />However, the French pop singer <b>Zaz</b> just blows them all away in my book. Her influences range from Edith Piaf to Ella Fitzgerald. She has a unique jazzy vibe that makes you want to stop what you’re doing and bop to her tune. I ask myself how Zaz can have over 17 million views on one video, yet her fame never spreads to this country. Whether you understand the language or not, her talent is universal. Get your weekend off to a good start by listening to her most popular song, “Je Veux” (I Want). <a href="http://youtu.be/Tm88QAI8I5A" target="_blank">This version</a> is the original video. <a href="http://youtu.be/RZUOZIXMQJI" target="_blank">This version</a> is live with English subtitles for the lyrics.<br /><br />4) I’ve fallen in love with <b>Henri, Le Chat Noir</b>. This tuxedoed cat covers both the sublime and the ridiculous as the premier French cat philosopher on the internet and winner of the “<a href="http://youtu.be/Q34z5dCmC4M" target="_blank">Best Cat Video</a>.” Can you say <i>ennui</i>? From <a href="http://www.henrilechatnoir.com/" target="_blank">his website</a> you can access his videos, his Facebook page, and his tweets.<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Paris graffito</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="9/20/13-5 travel thoughts4 photo 92013_5travelthoughts4_zps8e651f2b.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/92013_5travelthoughts4_zps8e651f2b.jpg~original" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">5) And finally, travel for me means photography. And I’m already trying to come up with a photo theme for my next trip to France. I’ve done dogs. And windows. And flowers. And doorways, And street art.<br /><br />What have been your best photo themes when you travel? I’m taking all suggestions.<br /><br /><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Share in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/09/5-random-thoughts-on-travel.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a> what travel means to you. If you’re more of a homebody, I’d love to hear about that, too.</span></span></b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: red;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">French doors and flowers in one photo</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="9/20/13-5 travel thoughts5 photo 92013_5travelthoughts5_zpsc915bd5d.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/92013_5travelthoughts5_zpsc915bd5d.jpg~original" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Today's post is part of the <a href="http://www.aruraljournal.com/2013/09/random-5-friday_20.html" target="_blank">Random 5 Friday</a> theme. Click on over to the site to see other interesting takes on randomness. </span></b></span></div>
Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-44792074084940303232013-09-18T15:25:00.000-05:002013-09-18T15:25:22.330-05:00What's In A Name Change, Mrs. Justin Timberlake?<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="9/18/13-Names2 photo 91813_Names2_zps69d29eb3.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/91813_Names2_zps69d29eb3.jpg~original" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Even the cars are fashionable for French weddings</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">When I was young and so full of optimism and a sense of empowerment I made a decision that I was so certain put me squarely in the world of the new normal. Now I’ve found that I’m living in the world of dinosaurs. Or maybe it’s the world of the Giant Panda – there are some others like me, but we’re in danger of extinction. And we owe it all to Jessica Biel, the new Mrs. Justin Timberlake.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-duca/jessica-biel-timberlake-a_b_3915843.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular" target="_blank">She just announced</a> that she’s officially (as in paperwork and everything) changed her last name to “Timberlake.” She’ll continue to use her original name professionally, though, since she’s created quite an extensive body of mascara commercials under it. Maybe she’ll use her last name to take up the role of backup dancer in The Mrs. Carter Show of another name-changer, Beyoncé (aka Knowles-Carter) <br /><br />And so I ask myself as part of the <a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/news/changing-last-name" target="_blank">measley 8%</a> who maintain their last name after marriage why so many women continue to go down the traditional route when generations of women who came before fought so hard that we could join country clubs under our own name, and own property, and vote without our husband’s permission, and be on the verge of perhaps becoming the first female president. (Alas, I’m aware of the whole <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/27/rodham.poll/" target="_blank">controversy</a> when Hillary went from “Rodham” to “Clinton” to “Rodham Clinton.” What a shame.) Why do more than <b><span style="color: #cc0000;">60% </span></b>of the people in <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/14/changing-your-last-name_n_3073125.html?utm_hp_ref=weddings&ir=Weddings" target="_blank">a poll</a> – men and women – think that women <span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>should</b></span> take their husband’s name when they marry?<br /><br />It didn’t take much effort to decide to keep my name. When I got married and was spending all my time in a bastion of liberal progressiveism, i.e., the university, keeping my name put me in extensive company. I already had started down a professional life and thought it would be too complicated to notify colleagues across the country or to connect past articles I wrote with future ones. Plus, -- and more importantly – I liked my name. I liked the family it connected me to. It wasn’t any kind of political stand. However, it seemed that by that point in history more women would be staking claims on their own identity.<br /><br />At first, my husband-to-be tried to convince me to change it, but then I said, “If having the same last name is so important, then why don’t you change yours to Farrar?” That pretty much closed that discussion. I had no problem giving our kids his name without any fancy hyphenation (although in college I knew a couple who hyphenated their names and then both took the new name). All of the friends of my kids called me Mrs. C instead of Ms. F, but I was fine with that. When relatives we rarely saw addressed Christmas cards to Mr. and Mrs. C, I could let that go. However, when telemarketers call asking for Mrs. C, I can honestly say, “There’s no one here by that name.”<br /><br />However, finding that the women in my kids’ generation are <i>still</i> opting for the traditional route, with only 8% changing compared to 23% in the decade after I got married, I’m confused. This generation does nothing traditional, from the careers they follow to the technology they adopt to the styles they wear. Yet young American women – who are now marrying in their late twenties and have careers of their own – are still willing to do all the paperwork necessary to do what women did back before they had the vote or owned property under their own name. One researcher theorizes that name changing is a <a href="http://www.cosmopolitan.com/celebrity/news/changing-last-name" target="_blank">symbol</a> of unity and commitment. Since I’ve been married 28 years I don’t think that reason flies. I’m sure actress Demi Moore was envisioning long-term commitment when she set up the now-abandoned Twitter account @MrsKutcher.<br /><br />This issue of a different last name has stalked me doubly recently. Ever since we bought property in France we’ve had all of the France-related mail showing up in our American mailbox addressed to “Mme. Farrar.” This means “Mrs. Farrar” because the <a href="http://www.npr.org/2011/09/29/140931817/french-feminists-say-non-to-mademoiselle" target="_blank">French have yet to develop any word</a> or abbreviation the equivalent of “Ms.” <i>Madamoiselle</i>” is for unmarried women while “<i>Madame</i>” is for married ones, no matter your age or name situation. One rebellious town in that country, however, has <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16503341" target="_blank">passed a law </a>that proclaims nothing but “<i>Madame</i>” should be used when dealing with adult women. It’s not a perfect solution, but at least they’re taking a stand while the rest of their country continues to dither over this language issue into the 21st century.<br /><br />And so here I remain, a symbol of the Boomers generation, realizing I'm practically extinct.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo 91813_Names1_zpsba518ad9.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/91813_Names1_zpsba518ad9.jpg~original" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b>So what about you? Are you a name changer? What were your reasons for whichever direction you went? What are your theories as to why young women continue on this traditional path? Talk to us in the comments box about what’s in a name.</b></i></span></span></span></span></div>
Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-2560009658852973752013-09-06T17:06:00.001-05:002013-09-06T17:07:09.560-05:00Back To School With Random 5 Friday<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo 9613_Random5school1_zpsa7c7f2b2.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/9613_Random5school1_zpsa7c7f2b2.jpg~original" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Fall is in the air in the Black Forest of Germany</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Fall is so quickly blowing in. During the day it may be almost 90˚, but I take my dog out at night and I see dried leaves curled on the sidewalk and the air feels like I should build a bonfire. Soup weather is quickly approaching. I need to find some Jonathon apples and make my first pie or apple crisp of the season. Of all the signs of fall, none signal it more than the march of children back to school.<br /><br />And so as part of <b>Random 5 Friday</b> I offer five memories of starting school each September when I was young.<br /><br /><b>1)</b> Mom took us to The Model, a clothes shop in downtown Kirkwood. This was before shopping malls, or boutiques, or national chains. We got to pick out our first-day-of-school dress – always a dress per 1960’s dress codes – and our saddle shoes, sometimes black and white, sometimes tone on tone. My oldest sister recently told me that she had found out at some point after our mom had died that Grandma <i>always</i> paid for our shoes. With four girls in the family, paying for so many shoes a year was an issue. Grandma paid for a pair of school shoes and a pair of Keds for summer. If we were good and patient while all four of us tried on the clothes, sometimes Mom would take us to The Velvet Freeze ice cream shop across the street for a scoop of the world’s best ice cream.<br /><br /><b>2)</b> We walked to school. There were no buses except for students who lived on the far edges of the suburban community. So all the kids on our cul-de-sac gathered by 8 a.m. in the morning and walked together, down Wilson then half a mile straight uphill on Simmons then right on Peeke to cross at the crosswalk on Geyer guarded by Pete, the retired policeman. He lived on Evans, across from my Brownie leader, who held meetings on Tuesdays. And we reversed it on the way home after a quick stop at the gas station across the street to buy some Bazooka gum. Often I walked alone because I dawdled or because I had Brownies. We only got a ride if it rained hard. Not even in the cold winter months. We didn’t live in a world of “stranger danger” and “Amber Alerts,” unlike now when parents are buying GPS trackers for their kids, anticipating every possible horror.<br /><br /><b>3)</b> The best part of starting the school year for me was buying the supplies. Such a cornucopia of folder and notebook choices! Even down to the small spiral assignment notebook. Oh, the colors and themes. The perfect color for each subject. And the excitement when I finally was allowed to switch from wide-ruled to college-ruled. From fat #2 pencils to thin ones – even to mechanical ones in high school. And then blue Bic pens. I never have outgrown my obsession with just the right notebook. I will buy them now assuming before I die I will have filled them all with writing. And I’ve started buying even more when I’m in France because, well, they have different kinds.<br /><br />When I started back to school to earn my MFA this year, I stocked up on notebooks for writing, found my best pens (2 – one in purse, one by computer), and wandered the aisles of Office Depot hoping I would spot some special school paraphernalia that I absolutely had to have. This go-round for my education, though, it’s just going to involve taking my student ID to the Apple store and getting a new computer. Not half as exciting as new notebooks.<br /><br /><b>4)</b> The buying of the metal lunchbox (with matching thermos, of course) took more mental space than anything else I ever did in grade school. I’m pretty sure of it. I gravitated toward animal themes over teen heartthrob themes.<br /><br /><b>5)</b> We actually carried everything to school each day. Like, in our hands, unless we rode our bike, at which point we put stuff in the metal basket on the handlebars. We didn’t carry it in a car, or in a backpack, or on a computer. We carried actual stuff in our actual hands and shifted the books from side to side in response to that biting ache that came from keeping the wrist bent just so and arm straight to hold it all tight against your body to keep it from tumbling to the ground. Which it did on several occasions, so you hoped that you were with friends who would help you chase down handouts, permission slips, and homework that needed signing as it blew down the sidewalk and into the street.<br /><br />Most schools around here start long before Labor Day now. However, for me it’s the early part of September that always brings out the nostalgia. It also is my emotional New Year’s Day. Perhaps that seasonal cycle became so deeply ingrained because I also taught school for so long. So all I want to say today is Happy New Year!</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The tiny notebooks I carry in my purse on a daily basis for writing ideas, taking notes at the doctor's, or jotting down the name of a contractor someone recommends. The Moleskine notebooks are for travel because they're lightweight and flexible. The larger Mead are for writing at my desk.</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt=" photo 9613_Random5school2_zpsf0edbe5c.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/9613_Random5school2_zpsf0edbe5c.jpg~original" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">What memories do you have about the start of school for you as a child or when you were a parent sending your own children off to school. Share them with us in the <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/09/back-to-school-with-random-5-friday.html" target="_blank">comments box</a>.<br /><br />And you can find other wonderful Random 5 Friday writing <a href="http://www.aruraljournal.com/2013/09/random-5-friday.html" target="_blank">here</a>. </span></span></b></i></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-32310346408649014162013-09-04T05:00:00.000-05:002013-09-04T07:46:50.654-05:00I Could Kick Diana Nyad's Butt<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It's important to keep your eye on the goal . . .</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I could easily kick the butt of sexagenarian <b>Diana Nyad</b>. Yeah, over the holiday weekend she took a little 100-mile swim from Cuba to Florida protected only by a small electrical current to keep the sharks at bay and a head-to-toe rubber suit to avoid the jellyfish that doomed her last attempt while I floated around my sister’s pool sipping on a strawberry margarita. But I could so totally beat her in the complaining-about-getting-older contest. Hands down.<br /><br />This has been one of those years when I’ve considered throwing in the towel when it comes to fighting the aging process. I’ve fallen twice, which has meant that much of my weekly socializing has been done in my physical therapist’s office. For the first time since July I’ve lifted a big 5 lbs.! But my shoulder hurt, and my rebuilt neck hurt, and my arthritic knee hurt after “chasing” my arthritic dog down the sidewalk. I finally broke down and hired landscapers to whip my garden into shape because I’m not really good at the kneeling or pulling thing. I huffed and puffed when trying to put an elasticized slipcover over my couch cushion. Yes, I made enough noise when putting on a slipcover that my husband came in to see if I needed help.<br /><br />So I could totally beat Nyad at a getting-older-sucks complaint contest.<br /><br />This complaining about age is new to me. And frankly, I think I’m finally getting as tired of my complaints as everyone else is who’s had to listen to me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><i><b>even when the goal seems out of sight at times . . .</b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I wonder what Diana Nyad complains about? Certainly not jellyfish or she would just decide against jumping into the wide ocean. Does she complain about Miley Cyrus twerking? She probably is too busy laying out the steps to accomplish grand goals to watch <i>Entertainment Tonight.</i><br /><br />Diana Nyad is example to all of us in mid-life or later. The example of this daunting feat, though, does not imply that we all have to set extreme goals to become the best on the planet in something. If that’s what you want, fine. Go beat some 20-something hipsters at their own game now! Nyad’s example is more simply that we should never stop setting goals. Chasing dreams and achieving specific goals gives us direction. It gives us focus to our day. It brings us peace because we know what we want each day.<br /><br />But as we get older and give more thought to family, work, aches and pains we probably begin to sabotage ourselves. Or maybe we can just <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5928698/how-our-brains-stop-us-from-achieving-our-goals-and-how-to-fight-back" target="_blank">blame it on our brains</a>. Psychologists have found that the more we fantasize about our ambitions, the less likely we are to achieve them. We visualize the success so completely, that we let up on the motivation to actually achieve it. Furthermore, our mind loves robotic motion, i.e., busy work. It gravitates toward work that gets “something” done, but not the kind of work that produces measurable results.<br /><br />And that’s where, again I say, I could kick Diana Nyad’s butt. I’m such a champ at busy work that I’ve branched off into the related sport of complaining that I can’t accomplish any of my dreams because I’m just so “busy.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"> <span style="color: blue;"><i><b>or you feel about to go over the edge</b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Instead of those young literary or technological upstarts who were already on the way down by the age of thirty I’m going to join the ranks of <a href="http://www.careerchangepathways.com/late-bloomers/" target="_blank">those who followed dreams</a> after mid-life. It’s really not that hard, I decided. Today after spending half the day researching phones, phone plans, and the process of switching from one provider to another, then researching it all again after lunch because, well, you know, choosing the perfect phone can make or break a life, I was all ready to put hand to head in a dramatic fashion and say (although there was no one but the dog to see), “Oh woe is me! I’m too tired/there is not enough time left in the day/my mind is too muddled with phone business to sit down and get any writing done. I guess I’ll make a frozen pizza and go to bed.”<br /><br />But then I pulled up my big girl panties and decided Ms. Nyad didn’t get to be the only one to have an aim in life and follow through. I sat down at the computer and sketched out bits and pieces for essays, THEN followed it up by writing the blog piece I should have published Tuesday.<br /><br /><span style="color: magenta;"><i>(and the crowd goes wild! cheers cheers cheers!)</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Share in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/09/i-could-kick-diana-nyads-butt.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a> what gets you off track from setting or achieving goals. How do you regain that motivation?</span></span></b></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I’m finally getting around to watching the Netflix series “House of Cards,” starring Kevin Spacey and a terrific cast. Seriously – it’s a reason to subscribe to Netflix. He recently gave a speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival about the future of mainstream media. And what does this have to do with being Diana Nyad? Nothing, really. Except perhaps it reminds us how much people with vision can accomplish. You really should watch him say many smart things that matter to all of us.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></span>Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-83708393404209861862013-08-30T20:05:00.000-05:002013-08-30T20:06:00.354-05:00It's Random 5 Friday<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><i><span style="color: blue;">Please, Mom, can't we go out again?</span></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Sometimes life doesn’t come together into one well-organized thought. I guess that’s why <b>Random 5 Friday</b> was born. According to the rules on Nancy Claey’s beautiful blog, <a href="http://www.aruraljournal.com/2013/08/random-5-friday_30.html" target="_blank">A Rural Journal</a>, each Friday I’m supposed to share 5 random things about me, my week, my dog, anything. Friday is almost over, but I’m not letting another week slip by without jumping into the game.<br /><br /><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">1. Today I talked to landscapers about bringing my seriously overrun and under-performing gardens back to life. Everything got out of control because I haven’t been able to kneel, lift, or pull much this past year. I wanted to cry because if someone else is doing all the work, then what right have I to call myself a gardener anymore?</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #351c75;">2. I was desperate enough to think of stopping for a fast food hamburger for lunch this week, until I saw the drive-thru line. Really? Why would anyone wait 20 minutes or more in 100˚ weather for that? I decided I could wait until I got home.</span><br /><br /><span style="color: #274e13;">3. Skyler, my dog, ran away from me this week. You don’t realize what this means unless you know that she 16 years old and is having laser therapy on her legs and back for arthritis and I’m doing physical therapy for my arthritic knee. And she doesn’t hear very well if I try to yell out a command. So she went loping at a fast clip down the sidewalk because she felt good enough for a second walk after therapy that day. Two steps after I tried to chase her down, my own knee felt searing pain. Thank heavens her legs gave out sooner than mine so I was able to limp up to her and corral her. We both slowly made our way home.</span><br /><br />4. I’m reading Lia Purpura’s beautiful collection of essays, <i><a href="http://search.isp.netscape.com/nsisp/boomframe.jsp?query=independent+books+online&page=1&offset=0&result_url=redir%3Fsrc%3Dwebsearch%26requestId%3Dede0978de8813ecd%26clickedItemRank%3D3%26userQuery%3Dindependent%2Bbooks%2Bonline%26clickedItemURN%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.indiebound.org%252F%26invocationType%3D-%26fromPage%3DNSISPTop%26amp%3BampTest%3D1&remove_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.indiebound.org%2F" target="_blank">On Looking</a></i>, for my MFA class. And kicking myself. I’ve seen many of the things she’s seen, but I’ve never written about them. Shame on me.<br /><br /><span style="color: #4c1130;">5. I had a weekend of Keith Urban concerts. Good friends, good music, and good cheesecake by my friend, Edna. I always feel rejuvenated after a Keith Urban road trip. Days go by . . . .</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="color: blue;"><i>He goes even lower, but this is when I grabbed the shot</i></span></b></span></div>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Please tell me one random thing in your thoughts or your life recently. Share it in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/08/its-random-5-friday.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a> then head over to <span style="color: #cc0000;"><a href="http://www.aruraljournal.com/2013/08/random-5-friday_30.html" target="_blank">A Rural Journal</a></span> to see what others have shared.</span></span></b></i></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-32548766322805130942013-08-28T05:30:00.000-05:002013-08-28T07:42:55.900-05:00Why We Really Should Be Mad At You, Miley Cyrus<div style="text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="color: blue;"><i><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Is this a young Miley in the making?</span></i></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Miley, my objection to your performance on the 2013 VMA show was nothing about covering the eyes of our adolescent music fans for fear they’d become over-sexed by watching a not-quite-adult girl dance suggestively with large fuzzy bears in a cry for attention. It’s not about all the ways you found to pleasure yourself with a large foam finger. It wasn’t that you engaged in one suggestive move after another on the leg of a man almost twice your age. For me none of that mattered compared to the ultimate sin.</span><br>
</div><a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/08/why-we-really-should-be-mad-at-you.html#more">Read more »</a>Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-48875157662076627882013-07-29T05:00:00.000-05:002013-07-29T06:41:34.515-05:00What Do You Do For A Living? Reasons To Fear Office Parties And Doctor's Offices<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Whatever job I don't have, at least I wasn't chauffeur to a turkey</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Name?<br />Address?<br />Occupation?</b><br /><br />I guess beginning today I can officially put “writer.” If I say it, it must be true?<br /><br />At what point does a woman who loves to put words on paper shift from being a language hobbyist to someone whose occupation is “writer”? I’m still trying to figure that out. Trying on the word for size.<br /><br />This week begins my <a href="http://www1.ashland.edu/cas/majors/master-fine-arts-creative-writing" target="_blank">MFA program in Creative Nonfiction</a> at <b>Ashland University</b>. Two school years and three summer residencies of writing writing writing. And more writing. I’m pretty sure at the end of it all I would have earned the title of “writer.” But if a writer writes in the woods and nobody publishes her, is she really a writer?<br /><br />What to call myself has been a point of distress of many years. I spent two decades teaching college students. I had a title and a desk and a place to go to at 8:00 a.m. every Monday. On this strength of these circumstances I could request free books from publishers on the pretext that I might teach them in some future class. I had an unending supply of pens. I had a paycheck. I had something to say on our annual income tax forms.<br /><br />After I stopped teaching to care for those in the family who needed my attention more than college freshmen I suddenly found myself Nobody. Time after time I would hit that dreadful line on some doctor’s registration form, or income tax form, or someone would ask at a party “What do you do?” and I’d stumble. What did I do?<br /><br />As a female raised at the height of feminist struggles, it grated to think of putting down “housewife.” Even my mom had gone to an office every day since I was in grade school. She may have been one of a pool of secretaries – imposed upon, ignored, underpaid and over worked, without whom the school could not operate – but at least she could tell people, “I’m a secretary.”<br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">My aunt was one, too. Only she worked for a High-Powered Executive in a major corporation in my hometown. According to the rules, secretaries were allowed to earn only so much. Their salary was capped and there they would stay until they retired. However, the HPE for whom she worked thought she was worth more than that. So to get her justly deserved raises, he would give her new titles every couple of years. He understood, being a HPE, that a title had weight.<br /><br />But I had no title. No weight in the world. I had nothing to say when people asked the inevitable get-acquainted question. I couldn’t bear to say “I’m a housewife” because I knew that’s not really who I was inside. Yet I had nothing out there to mark the passing of my day or week. No schedules kept. No meetings to make with other people who wore suits and had schedules. No promotions or raises or people to give external validation. Plenty of work to keep me busy, but no job.<br /><br />A few years ago when this little thought of trying to be a writer bubbled up, I started putting “self-employed” on those forms. It wasn’t exactly like I had a job and made a salary and contributed significantly to any line on our income tax form. It wasn’t a phrase that committed me to any particular profession. But I was writing. If a writer writes in the woods and nobody publishes her, is she a writer?<br /><br />Writer and social media guru for writers <b>Kristen Lamb </b>recently <a href="http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2013/07/26/the-personal-apocalypse-when-are-we-real-writers/" target="_blank">told her own story</a> about claiming the title “writer.” She takes us through all of the “failures” she experienced which just happened to look like “success” to everyone else. By her definition, a failure is a direction that doesn’t fulfill your specific destiny. To find her success she had to say no to everything else and just write. “I had to let go of amateur thinking,” she said, “and take my job seriously, even if no one could walk into a bookstore and buy my book (yet).” She bravely called herself a writer before anyone else did.<br /><br />As of today I’m in a writing program surrounded by other people putting words to paper until someday somebody out there might call them writers. But whether or not somebody out there says that to me anytime soon, I’m officially claiming the title.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;"><b>To be continued . . . .</b></span><br /> </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Clearly he's not concerned at the moment with what labels he might carry</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Do you have a label or title that you love or hate? Are you searching for a new one? What one word would you most like to put on the “occupation” line of any form – circus bareback rider, astrophysicist, professional chocolate tester? What do you think when you think success? Share who you are in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/07/what-do-you-do-for-living-reasons-to.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a>.</span></span></b></i></span></span></div>
Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-32727341790297908082013-07-08T04:44:00.000-05:002013-07-08T04:45:27.689-05:007 Tips For Looking Like the Average French Woman<div style="text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">When talking French fashion, it’s usually all about what’s on the Paris runways or Hollywood red carpets. There are plenty of blogs, magazines, and style television programs to make most of us feel like abject fashion failures. After spending enough time in Dijon (“The Midwest of France!” should be its official motto) I’ve realized it’s not that hard to be that French woman you meet on the street, as opposed to that one on the runway or in Paris.<br /><br />If you thought you might like to try on a bit of French style without dieting down to size 00 or strutting through the supermarket in 4-inch stilettos, have no fear. Just pick a couple of these tips (#5 is the most difficult) and soon you’ll be showing that certain <i>je ne sais quoi</i>. Your friends will start to wonder if you have a secret second home on the Continent.</span></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">1) Comfortable doesn’t have to be dull</span></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">The unofficial motto of Dijon is “<i>A Pied</i>” (“on foot”) because it’s citizens walk everywhere, except when they take the bus or tram. However, that doesn’t mean the women clomp around in Nikes all day. I firmly believe that these women have feet of steel from all that walking because none of their shoes show the slightest bit of arch support. Ouch.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">2) Black is the best color</span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Black may be the go-to color in Paris or the other larger cities, but around here variations of taupe work all year round (or gray in winter). It seems to be the favorite of women past their twenties. Like black, everything can go with it but it’s not as depressing. Or you can just go wild with color and pretend you’re strolling along the Mediterranean.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">3) The right accessories are essential</span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="7/8/13-7tips10 photo 7813_7Tips10_zps073fdc57.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/7813_7Tips10_zps073fdc57.jpg~original" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">4) There’s never an inappropriate place to wear a wedding dress</span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Most weddings in town are held on Saturday. The official marriage takes place at the city hall, then all the couples disperse throughout the city for church ceremonies. It can be a wonderfully festive day, what with brides filling the streets as they walk to the marriage court and bells pealing all afternoon and into the evening after the church weddings.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">5) Eat this for lunch</span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="7/8/13-7tips13 photo 7813_7Tips13_zpsa3352fe7.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/7813_7Tips13_zpsa3352fe7.jpg~original" /></a> <a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="7/8/13-7tips14 photo 7813_7Tips14_zpsf6570179.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/7813_7Tips14_zpsf6570179.jpg~original" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Not this </span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="7/8/13-7tips15 photo 7813_7Tips15_zpsb82d4a27.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/7813_7Tips15_zpsb82d4a27.jpg~original" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">6) You don’t need high-tech moisture-wicking fabric and expensive footwear before you get up and move your body. Or a gym membership. You can even ride your bike in a flowing skirt.</span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="7/8/13-7tips16b photo 7813_7Tips16b_zpsf890a529.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/7813_7Tips16b_zpsf890a529.jpg~original" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;">Sunday afternoon is the day for <i>promenades</i>. Everyone gets out and walks somewhere. Or rides their bike. It’s a family thing. And it doesn’t require changing clothes or heavy sweating.</span><br /> </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #351c75;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">7) Start the training young.</span></span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://photobucket.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="7/8/13-7tips17 photo 7813_7Tips17_zpsb6c49dde.jpg" border="0" src="http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt71/travelingthrough/start_July2013/7813_7Tips17_zpsb6c49dde.jpg~original" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><span style="font-size: large;">What’s your favorite bit of style advice? Or what’s your worst experience from being a slave to fashion? Tell us in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/07/7-tips-for-looking-like-average-french.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a>.</span></i></span></span></b><br /> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">And I’d like to direct everyone’s attention over to a special post written by one of my favorite bloggers. <a href="http://www.annettegendler.com/2013/07/my-grandparents-house.html" target="_blank">Start on Annette Gendler’s blog</a> to see photos of her grandparents’ home in the Czech Republic before World War II, then click over to her essay in the <i>Wall Street Journal </i>to get the full story. It’s a touching memory of a place she had never been until long after her grandparents were gone. Well worth your time. </span></b></span></div>
Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-33267338975993214482013-07-02T07:08:00.000-05:002013-07-02T07:09:34.338-05:00Emergency -- Restrain Your French Snuffbox Now!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc-zVKdF4okKXTJ9sLvsmHw-OSBpv9Bi4fhHuxH3ceHX6wul39JLJz8JdVw4V9IHrzrSdlUN7w42nD4VAIbqE2_SfahDYrxRPijfqyVnY8P5ha7MpqtLk5zZZpTXkMvd74BnhksxMS315W/s600/7:2:13_Emergency1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc-zVKdF4okKXTJ9sLvsmHw-OSBpv9Bi4fhHuxH3ceHX6wul39JLJz8JdVw4V9IHrzrSdlUN7w42nD4VAIbqE2_SfahDYrxRPijfqyVnY8P5ha7MpqtLk5zZZpTXkMvd74BnhksxMS315W/s1600/7:2:13_Emergency1.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><b><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Paint could never improve this scene</span></b></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: #674ea7;">“souche enduite sur cour (la face de la souche, situé à l’aplomb du pignon, est en bon état et n’est donc pas concernée par les travaux”<br /><br />“suppression de tabatière<br />depose du chassis existant”<br /><br />“Suite à chute d’enduit chez le voisin côté rue Berlier il est aussi nécessaire de procéder au travaux de réfection du pignon et des cheminées situées à l’aplomb et ce afin d’éviter de nouvelles chutes d’enduit qui pourraient se reveler dangereuses ou occasionner de dégâts aux biens situés en dessous (verrière) – <b>11 000€</b>”</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />Nobody ever told me it would cost so much to learn French. And I still don’t understand a thing.<br /><br />Soon after Brad and I arrived in town one of our neighbors encountered us on the stairs and started waving her arms and spewing out French with such urgency that it sounded like the apocalypse was coming. She slapped her hand, hard, several times on the wall of the apartment building and said, in English, “see – not falling down.” She repeated often “<i>tres cher, tres cher</i>,” then asked in broken English if we were going to be at the meeting.<br /><br />Meeting? What meeting? We hadn’t even had time to stock our refrigerator and put sheets on our bed.<br /><br />Lucky us. We arrived in town just in time for a condo association meeting, otherwise known as <i>Assemblée Generale</i>. Oh, yeah. The fun doesn’t end once you buy that dream apartment in France. Apparently while we were on the plane heading to France, a folder of documents an inch thick was taking its own trip across the ocean in the opposite direction with all the questions of order for the meeting. So we went to the <i>syndic</i>, or property managers, to get a copy and prepare ourselves.<br /><br />And so that’s one reason why I’ve not been keeping you up to date with life here. I’ve been translating descriptions of renovations requested, both <i>d’urgence </i>and <i>idéal</i>. I’ve been trying to understand vocabulary I never got in a single French class, like what exactly is a <i>souche</i>? It’s either a stump or a person of “pure French origin” – neither of which I see standing in my courtyard, but at least it was <i>pas concernée</i>. Whew!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">It took awhile to discover that we didn’t have an urgent need for suppression of a snuffbox on the roof, but rather needed to do something about a skylight. But that matter was reserved for a vote at a later time, so I have a few more months to figure out why it’s a threat and needs to restrained.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><i><b>There's more than one way to brighten an old window</b></i></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNRWekRq_CBMHf2xLPBkyrmAuUucQgr-QH_ZdAeQ9IWpjvXbWeUk0rj6F7Nb7kC1iINVBMJ1iSIz4JTz-yw0QU73KfnWNqVBQK2mjqzTo1S5s5sE0naW_NHFoEwRdp4Vb5xCqYttzwbLTH/s500/7:2:13_Emergency2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNRWekRq_CBMHf2xLPBkyrmAuUucQgr-QH_ZdAeQ9IWpjvXbWeUk0rj6F7Nb7kC1iINVBMJ1iSIz4JTz-yw0QU73KfnWNqVBQK2mjqzTo1S5s5sE0naW_NHFoEwRdp4Vb5xCqYttzwbLTH/s1600/7:2:13_Emergency2.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">French language flew at the meeting. My brain held on by its fingernails, but with French people talking over French people and debate happening up front and in the chairs all around me it took every degree of focus not to collapse into a language meltdown. Brad understood about every third word, which was two or three times better than me.<br /><br />Votes for action are divided according to how many square meters you own in the building. That means that we wield tremendous power, the second highest of all property owners. Which can be fun if you want to throw your weight around and bend the world to your will. Not so great if you don’t know the issues, don’t understand the language, and every vote “yes” will cost you more money than your neighbors. So we were stuck between the American mindset of fixing things now so they don’t become a bigger problem/expense later and wanting to be good neighbors with these people we hadn’t met (except for the one who we knew was very much against all renovations).<br /><br />Since we also vote in order of our power (theoretically), Brad made a request to vote last. If he could understand where the majority stood, that’s where we were going, too, for our first meeting. Not as easy as it seems, however, since questions were thrown up for votes before we even could figure out that the debate was over. The meeting leader would then say “<i>Et monsieur</i>?” -- leaving Brad to quickly calculate which way everyone had voted.<br /><br />My one contribution, aside from – well, nothing much – was to insist we vote <i>oui</i> to fund repairs to a pipe that seemed to be causing problems in a downstairs neighbor’s space. The cost was small compared to goodwill we could build.<br /><br />So after all of this, <i>pignon</i> is still a mystery to me. We received dark, grainy photocopies of a picture of the chimney taken from the ground, so I still don’t know where the gear is that is so essential to keep part of the roof or chimney from falling off and creating chaos on the sidewalk below. However, that’s in the category of <i>d’urgence</i> and it costs 11 000€, about 2 000€ of that covered by us. The <i>facture</i>, or bill, will show up in our American mailbox later.<br /><br />And so this mid-life love affair comes with a cost. The American side of me wants to call a work day where we all roll up our sleeves, rent some tall ladders and a power washer, and get to work painting the ironwork with anti-rust paint, cleaning the walls, and scraping/repainting the wood window frames and historic shutters. I’ve already pulled a few weeds in the courtyard and plan to do some more before I leave. But I’m not sure that’s the French way (especially since no one suggested it).<br /><br />So it’s back home to learn the language of <i>marquise, echafaudage, protection sur chantier </i>(a big one since we’re in an historic district), and maybe – just maybe – <i>souche</i>. When they all vote <i>oui</i> at least I’ll know what it’s for. And maybe, eventually, I’ll have enough language skills to be brave enough to vote whatever way I think is best.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /></span><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Are you a do-it-yourselfer? Tell us in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/07/emergency-restrain-your-french-snuffbox.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a> any home renovation stories you have -- at home or abroad. Or language stories from when you were in over your head.</span></span></i></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><b>Roses improve everything</b></i></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGq3Evt2V2UxeC1ON7-UHNV_ai6WNRa5_p16zrdULLFLJt0bsLqm4R7K2g_904cCCCOIL79lRZ2XIkW2s7fjCQEv22rED3pc-MRIJgM6RBwOxhQN0dIGDjz_2CTNIh5KVDCBHZu0Hv8XF-/s500/7:2:13_Emergency3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGq3Evt2V2UxeC1ON7-UHNV_ai6WNRa5_p16zrdULLFLJt0bsLqm4R7K2g_904cCCCOIL79lRZ2XIkW2s7fjCQEv22rED3pc-MRIJgM6RBwOxhQN0dIGDjz_2CTNIh5KVDCBHZu0Hv8XF-/s1600/7:2:13_Emergency3.jpg" /></a></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-56266735889030835352013-06-26T03:55:00.001-05:002013-06-26T03:56:43.256-05:00Food For Thought In Dijon <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0TmudZ8QmHnVEESs4VVzGAJ4zvyv9lG5vnCb2QiZKCSAC87JMOw-Cw_RebxHbIBzN5a1oyT7Ufl5NobmCN-rfR_LlKzjPPcGKpV3HdyQhxWh15ZSGEjwcCQEjakK5A6kwgfKoS-3a9Oz5/s1600/6:26:13_food+for+thought1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0TmudZ8QmHnVEESs4VVzGAJ4zvyv9lG5vnCb2QiZKCSAC87JMOw-Cw_RebxHbIBzN5a1oyT7Ufl5NobmCN-rfR_LlKzjPPcGKpV3HdyQhxWh15ZSGEjwcCQEjakK5A6kwgfKoS-3a9Oz5/s1600/6:26:13_food+for+thought1.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Just a simple salad in Dijon</span></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">The French are competitive eaters. It’s not like the United States, though, where we stuff ourselves in a grotesque show of gluttony and speed-eating insanity at state fairs. No, they are way more serious about food than that. This seriousness has even caused a bit of a food crisis. Now this may be hard to get worked up about if you come from the land of McDonald’s and Applebee’s, but – brace yourselves – <b>French restaurants have begun to serve packaged or frozen food reheated in a microwave.</b><br /><br /><i>Quelle horreur!</i><br /><br />First there were Michelin stars. Now, as food lover and Burgundy resident Lynn McBride <a href="http://www.southernfriedfrench.com/blog/2013/04/is-french-cuisine-in-a-downward-spiral.html" target="_blank">explains</a>, a committee of French chefs are proposing a new label to post on restaurants announcing that all food is prepared fresh and on-site because the dirty little secret is out that French restaurants have started using packaged food. Imagine that! Restaurants are supposed to hire people who know how to cook. I sure was raised wrong because in the U.S. I always thought it was about which one had the best 2-for-$20 special or which one’s servers worked the hardest at being my BFF even if they couldn’t get my order right.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i><span style="color: blue;"><span style="font-size: small;">Another simple salad</span></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Imagine a world in which food is cooked fresh. On a stove. For people who appreciate food. And no one starts pushing you out the door after 20 minutes of eating so they can turn over your table to the next people and make more money. Ninety minutes for lunch, reflection, conversation with friends. Absurd!<br /><br />Since the traditional French meal and the whole philosophy surrounding the routine of it, its art, and its community-building essence have qualified it for a UNESCO list of the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/16/AR2010111604112.html" target="_blank">world’s intangible cultural heritage</a>, the idea that a restaurant dessert may have come from <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/06/5-reasons-i-love-dijon-and-france.html" target="_blank">Picard</a> is a scandal.<br /><br />But not only do the French give restaurants seals of approval. Apparently entire cities earn special designations as <i><a href="http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://www.citedelagastronomie-dijon.fr/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcites%2Bde%2Bgastronomique%26rlz%3D1G1GGLQ_ENUS331" target="_blank">Cite de la Gastronomie</a>.</i> And that’s what just happened to my city, Dijon. The honor is not about how many Michelin star restaurants a city has (they do exist here), but how fully it represents the food culture of the country. Dijon hosts a huge International Gastronomy Fair each autumn. It’s mile zero on the wine route in Burgundy. It’s surrounded by farms that produce that mustard you may have heard of. It’s the home of <a href="http://www.burgundytoday.com/gourmet-traveller/food/beef.htm" target="_blank"><i>Charolais</i> cows</a> that can make boeuf Bourguignon melt in your mouth. You can’t walk down a street without tripping over a chalk menu board every twenty feet or so.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">On Saturday my husband, Brad, and I decided to grab lunch after shopping in the marvelous outdoor market. We picked a side street off of the main plaza, wound through the narrow passages of this ancient city and picked at random a small restaurant behind the Palais de Justice we had never tried. At <a href="http://www.restaurant-carpe-diem.com/index.html" target="_blank">Carpe Diem</a>, I had a simple Burgundian meal of beef cooked to perfection and vegetables, completed with a small chocolate pastry topped with two inches of fresh chantilly (whipped crème). You could tell it was fresh not just by taste but because the menu was very small – whatever was in the market that week. It reminded us that even lunch is a meal to be savored.<br /><br />The scandal over packaged restaurant food and new labels showing cities and restaurants that retain the experience of the meal grows out of a recognition that the French are beginning to eat like the rest of us. Fast. On their feet or at their desk. Sans home cooking. On the run. With a sandwich. Cheapcheapcheap. At a French chain restaurant or the American fast food creeping across the landscape. Not as entertainment or to appreciate community but as a necessity to keep from fainting due to hunger.<br /><br />I’m here to plead – don’t do it, people! <i>Asseyez-vous</i>. Please sit yourself down and appreciate the wonder that is the French meal. It’s just a short step between accepting that <a href="http://www.fodors.com/community/europe/is-flunch-food-good-food.cfm" target="_blank">Flunch</a> is an adequate break for dinner to welcoming American Olive Gardens and KFCs and Cracker Barrels on every corner. <i>Don’t let correcting strangers’ grammar and pronunciation become the last cultural tradition by which you’re known.</i><br /><br />While at home in the U.S. I have many unique restaurants I love (“unique” meaning not a chain) and I love all the ethnic options, the basic food culture is fast-cheap-easy. But pretty soon I’m rushing through the drive-thru on my way to somewhere else. Our box of takeout menus is overflowing. We slide back into eating in front of the television. And that casual lunch in a hidden, quiet corner of a French town is a fading memory. I vow to do better this year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: blue;"><i>Poulet Gaston Gerard -- it's named after a popular mayor of Dijon and it's served in a miner's pail because the restaurant is at Place Emile Zola, which recognizes the writer who brought light to worker's rights in France. Everything about their food recognizes French history and culture.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i><b>Tell me in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/06/food-for-thought-in-dijon.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a> about your favorite unique food experience anywhere in the world. When do you sit down to savor a meal? At home or only at restaurants? Is it only on special occasions? What’s your favorite food city and why?</b></i></span></span></span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i>And if you like reading the little things I say about France in my blog, you’ll love reading about life, family, food, wine, and all things French from an American perspective on <a href="http://french-word-a-day.typepad.com/" target="_blank">French Word A Day</a>. Spend time with</i> Kristin Espinasse<i> and understand the country just a little better. Or just revel in her fabulous photographs of the South of France.</i></span></b></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-66152126972216763092013-06-21T12:14:00.000-05:002013-06-21T16:45:55.720-05:005 Reasons I Love Dijon and France<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMjifJHkBskbW448NJqVaWwo_Nj0qoAeNVo9kSeboG7cHzh4XnZ8sysHYNecHs-S_cNTFjn52qHOyrzKGpKUcysqRRZ4ghTohZ6THnVz8-HmPemSwfPVzcDKyO8GzZns1WWvU7wu8GfhZ0/s1600/6:21:13_5+reasons1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMjifJHkBskbW448NJqVaWwo_Nj0qoAeNVo9kSeboG7cHzh4XnZ8sysHYNecHs-S_cNTFjn52qHOyrzKGpKUcysqRRZ4ghTohZ6THnVz8-HmPemSwfPVzcDKyO8GzZns1WWvU7wu8GfhZ0/s1600/6:21:13_5+reasons1.jpg" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Today I bought a chunk of hot, freshly roasted pork smothered in its juices to eat at dinner tonight with a side of cheesy heaven – <i>gratinée</i>. Someone gave me a beautiful free apricot I think because I remembered to smile and say <i>bonjour</i> before placing my order for four bananas. Tonight is <i>La Fête de la musique</i>, which means 50,000 people dancing in the streets. Tomorrow I buy red geraniums for my window boxes. Sunday morning we rent bikes to ride out to the canal.<br /><br />Another wonderful weekend in one of my favorite places in the world – Dijon, France.<br /><br />In the Atlanta airport on my way to France I met a man who said he had been in 92 countries between his family’s travels when he was young, his military service, and now his government service. And he didn’t seem the least little bit tired of the travel. I understand his love of having a piece of every part of the world. As for me, though, I do like the balance of home and road.<br /><br />That’s why France has become one of my favorite places. I’ve been lucky enough to achieve a home and road balance that rivals my attachment to St. Louis, where I was born and raised, left, came back again, and where my suitcase is stored in between all my other trips.<br /><br />I love the weirdness or Portland, OR. I love the breathtaking beauty of the natural places of the United States. For a long time I thought London and the United Kingdom would be my favorite place. Nothing beats barbecue in The South. There’s hardly a place I’ve been (even Des Moines) that I haven’t like it. But let me give you five reasons why France holds that special place for me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><b><span style="color: #cc0000;">5) They understand that grocery shopping is always made better with a short break for wine.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">4) Flowers, flowers, and more flowers. I know a lot of big cities in the U.S. promote their green spaces. I, too, proudly tell visitors that I live next to Forest Park, which is larger than Central Park in New York. But flowers spilling out of every window is something completely different. It’s like the city has put on a jaunty summer bonnet.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">3) The food, from a simple kebab shop on every corner to Michelin restaurants. My favorite, however, has become <a href="http://www.picard.fr/" target="_blank">Picard</a>, a shop the size of a basic U.S. 7-Eleven store filled with frozen food and only frozen food. However, it puts even gourmet supermarkets to shame with its offerings. I could skip the fancy restaurants and just make all my meals from Picard. Their selection is jaw-dropping. And most of it is preservative free.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>2) <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2009/07/strawberry-ode.html" target="_blank">Their strawberries.</a> I fell in love on my first trip to Dijon after my first trip to the market.</b></span><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>1) My apartment. It’s small, but it’s filled with the most important furnishings – light and the sound of foreign voices outside my open windows. There’s quiet when I seek it and action when I’ve sat a little too long. I may not understand the directions for retrieving messages from my French phone, but the bells of Saint Michel ring at seven every evening in my neighborhood and there is no translation needed for that message. My heating system may be temperamental, but the people have been warm. Today I got FOUR French cheek kisses this morning from <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2011/08/trois-beaux-garcons.html" target="_blank">my dapper friend, Mohamed</a>, to welcome me back to one of my favorite places.</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span id="goog_1535160175"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b><i><span style="font-size: large;">And so, I never tire of asking this question: What is your favorite place - whether a park bench in your neighborhood, a country, or a room in your house? or, if you prefer, What is your </span></i><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: large;">least</span></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"> favorite place? Share it with us in <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/06/5-reasons-i-love-dijon-and-france.html" target="_blank">the comments box</a>. And while I’m here for a few weeks, tell me what you’d like me to show you or what you’d like to know about France or my town of Dijon. I’ll see what I can do about it.</span></i></b></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>If you have a traveller’s love of new places, visit the websites of these other writers blogging today about places they love.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://coraramos-cora.blogspot.fr/2013/06/how-far-will-you-go.html" target="_blank">Cora Ramos - How Far Will You Go </a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://thefitnessmoms.com/2013/06/21/who-am-i-dorothy/" target="_blank">Kim Griffin - Who Am? Dorothy?</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="http://ellenvgregory.com/2013/06/21/whats-your-favourite-place/" target="_blank">Ellen Gregory - What's Your Favourite Place?</a></span><br />
<a href="http://siripaulson.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/wana-friday-your-favourite-place/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Siri Paulson - Your Favorite Place </span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br /><span style="color: #351c75;"><b>If you if you think it’s too late to learn to speak Italian or Arabic or Gaelic, check out all the fun ways to make it easier in fellow Burgundian Lynn McBride’s new e-book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CPOH8H2/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00CPOH8H2&linkCode=as2&tag=soutfriefren-20" target="_blank"><i>How To Learn a New Language With A Used Brain.</i></a></b></span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CPOH8H2/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00CPOH8H2&linkCode=as2&tag=soutfriefren-20" target="_blank"><i><br /></i></a><br /><b>And if you want to experience my favorite place for yourself,<a href="http://www.dijon-rentahome.com/" target="_blank"> check out great accommodations in the heart of the city.</a></b><br /><br /><span style="color: #cc0000;"><b>FINALLY, DON'T GET CAUGHT IN <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/06/the-great-google-reader-apocalypse-or.html" target="_blank">THE GREAT GOOGLE APOCALYPSE</a></b></span></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7533863427856291179.post-69781076529492388092013-06-15T05:00:00.000-05:002013-06-15T07:17:06.963-05:00The Great Google Reader Apocalypse, Or France Beckons Again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Today’s post was going to be filled with lovely photos in anticipation of my upcoming return to France.<br /><br />But then <b>POW! BAM! AAACK!</b> I realized that I was only a little over two weeks away from the <b><span style="color: red;">Great Google Reader Apocalypse</span></b>. “What’s that?” you may ask. Well, it’s total annihilation of my on-line life. If you’re an obsessively regular reader of a large number of websites like I am, you’ve become quite familiar with that little RSS feed symbol. Click on that and you immediately add another website to your long list of continuously updating feeds that you could never finish reading, even if you took a year-long vacation to, well, France. Yeah, that’s how it is for those of us addicted to words.<br /><br />But the king of feed readers will soon be no more. For all you Google Reader addicts out there, don’t forget that <b>it dies on July 1</b> and you’ll risk becoming an RSS orphan. No amount of protests in forums or online petitions could melt the heart of “The Google” and stop its pell-mell rush in a direction away from the if-it-ain’t-broke-don’t-fix-it compulsion.<br /><br />So I finally acted on the task, “<i>change reader</i>,” that had been popping up in my smartphone’s task widget every day for three months. Having successfully migrated to my new home for my extensive list of websites, let me tell you where and how to find some alternatives to Google Reader. That way you’ll be able to keep receiving my blog feeds just as I head off for another few weeks in France.<br /><br />If you just search “google reader replacement” you’ll find hundreds of discussions about the best options. You could expend hours reading every comment on every web page to make sure you’ve considered every possible option. But you really don’t have to because, believe me, I have. I’ve reduced the options for those not technically astute (me) to just two RSS feed machines.<br /><br />If you still want to review the options for yourself here are two informative articles for you. The <a href="http://moz.com/blog/an-rss-reader-a-week" target="_blank">The Moz Blog</a> is testing a different RSS feed each week and reports on how easily they function. In addition, it gives simple instructions on how, first and foremost, to save all of your subscriptions to your computer. The <a href="http://lifehacker.com/5990456/google-reader-is-getting-shut-down-here-are-the-best-alternatives" target="_blank">Life Hacker</a> website also has a helpful review of alternatives.<br /><br />But let me cut to the chase. Unless you’re an extreme techie, the consensus is to go with either <span style="color: red;"><b>NetVibes</b></span> or <span style="color: red;"><b>Feedly</b></span>. Transferring your RSS subscriptions is simple. For <a href="http://www.feedly.com/publishers.html#keep-subscribers" target="_blank">Feedly</a>, it’s a one-click deal for getting it on your computer and easy integration for your other devices. Through your Google account it can access your list and immediately open up on your Feedly page. <i>It also preserves your starred items under the category “saved for later.”</i><br /> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Netvibes transfers with only a couple of clicks. As explained <a href="http://blog.netvibes.com/easily-migrate-from-google-reader-to-netvibes/" target="_blank">here</a>, first you save all your subscriptions to a zip file. Then you export them easily to your Netvibes account. I’ve not yet found any evidence, however, that Netvibes preserves any of your starred Google Reader items. You could do that manually by opening your “starred” list in Google and find the items in Netvibes “reader view” where you can click on the little clock for “read later.” I do have to admit, though, that I have NOT figured out yet how to search for an individual item in Netvibes if I remember a key word but not which blog where it appears. For that reason alone, I’ll be more likely to gravitate toward Feedly.<br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><i><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-size: large;">I’m still playing with both, so I can’t say which I’ll settle on. Mostly I’m in early mourning for the loss of Google Reader. If you’ve already made the change, <a href="http://www.traveling-through.com/2013/06/the-great-google-reader-apocalypse-or.html" target="_blank">tell me in the comments box </a>which new reader you prefer. And be sure to act on this before you lose your online life. I’m off to France next week, </span></span></b><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-size: large;">so if you like </span></span></b><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-size: large;">the photos or the food or the music or the scenes of my French life, get me in a new reader stream soon. A bientôt!</span></span></b></i></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><i><b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: small;"><span style="color: blue;">Here's hoping there's light at the end of the Google Reader Apocalypse tunnel</span></span> </span></span></span></b></i></span></div>
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Julie Farrarhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08810771028650707072noreply@blogger.com6