GOODBYE AND THANK YOU

It has been eight days since I left California. I have just started re-adjusting to the European time. I think this time my body refused to readapt to Europe :-)))

Despite a very difficult (unexpected) beginning, I can say that my trip to California was one of the best trips and even the best times of my life. I may not have seen the Grand Canyon or Hollywood, but I have had better experiences: I have met wonderful people who comforted me, helped me, spent much of their time with me, opened their houses to me, a perfect stranger. I am proud of being their friend now and I do hope I will see them again.

Thank you very much to Ed Ward, who introduced me to his Californian friends. Without his intervention, I would have really felt lost in San Francisco.

Thank you to Louis la Vache who showed me a lot of beautiful places in and around San Francisco. He took me to Stanford University and Filoli, among other marvels. Thank you to all the very nice people I met at his church.

Thank you to Tiffany, John, Cathy, Phil, Rémy, and to all the great people I met at the Green Tortoise.

A huge thank you to Earl and Giselle (designer Giselle Shepatin), from Berkeley, who did not know me from Adam (ni d'Eve ni d'Adam as we say here) but generously opened their house to me. I will never forget what they did for me. They did more for me than they will ever know: they helped me reconcile with myself and with life.

Thank you so much to Ron and his wife Joan who invited me for dinner several times and with whom I had a wonderful walk through the streets of the City of Berkeley. Ron spent a whole day showing me the campus of Berkeley, which he perfectly knows.

I was happy to meet my friend Beverly, whom I had not met in ten years.

Several other people had offered to help me. I did not have the time or the opportunity to meet them. That will be for my next trip. Thank you thank you to all of them.

I have a few regrets: I could not meet with Wanda or with Stuart. In a near future, I hope......

Pardon my English. :-)

Je voulais remercier tous les Américains qui m'ont aidée à surmonter le stress de mon arrivée en Californie (eh oui, le début a été difficile, et au milieu de centaines de gens accueillants et formidables, j'ai rencontré deux personnes, un homme puis une femme, de moins bonne compagnie). Je vais garder un souvenir émerveillé de ce séjour en Californie et je vais vivre avec l'espoir de revoir bientôt tous mes nouveaux amis.

J'ai pris la photo à Berkeley, quelques jours avant mon départ. Un magasin venait de fermer ses portes. Dans le coeur, on voit Ron. Je ne l'ai pas "encadré" volontairement. Je pourrais faire un montage incluant tous les noms cités plus haut dans ce coeur. J'ai laissé une partie du mien là-bas.

ABC Wednesday......... G is for Goose

I wanted to write about my son Gregory but I am a bit afraid of posting personal photos on the Internet now (after having problems with a crazy blogger last year). I could have posted photos of my G friends, the two Geneviève(s), Dominique Gauthiez-Rieucau, Mireille Giraud, etc. but I have so many G friends that I might have made one of them jealous :-)))

Therefore I decided to post these photos of geese I photographed near the Westport public library in 2008. I have never seen geese like these in France. I know they can be a nuisance. The young lady in the photo would not have been able to sunbathe sitting on the lawn. Some people say these birds can be very aggressive. Those I photographed in Westport were not, and they even seemed to pose for me. No white geese among them!(white geese, "oies blanches" in French, is a pejorative way to call "young innocent" girls or women - our language is full of images).

Des oies du Canada, je crois, pas des oies blanches. Photographiées devant la bibliothèque municipale de Westport, dans le Connecticut, en 2008. Elles font caca partout et elles peuvent être agressives qu'on m'a dit. Mais celles-là ne l'étaient pas et même qu'elles ont posé pour moi.

Please visit some of the
ABC Wednesday blogs.

Darien

The beach of Darien, Connecticut, after a storm.

John Seward Johnson II

John S. Johnson is an American sculptor. I saw his street art for the first time last week in Stamford, Connecticut. I love it.

Yale University

Yesterday I visited Yale University, in New Haven. I totally fell under its spell. Until what age do you think people can embark on a PhD?

Massachusetts

I have not forgotten my blogger friends and my blog but I have spent a few wonderful days in Massachusetts (this is the most difficult English word for French people to pronounce). I thought I was in heaven. To tell the truth I will be very sad, very depressed, very despaired to leave this country and return to France in a month and a week :-))

Maybe I should look for an older farmer living in the middle of nowhere in Massachusetts (which I had never been able to spell before) (lol).

The first photo shows The Mount,Edith Wharton's house in Lenox. The bunny was photographed in the park.

http://www.edithwharton.org/

Duck walk

I did not take this photo. It was published in a local newspaper. Last week, it took a duck family about 20 minutes to cross a street downtown Westport. It was reported that car drivers waited patiently.

I find that admirable. In Montpellier, some car drivers would have been too happy to run over the little animals.

Give me your hand

Give me your hand, Madam!

ABC Wednesday..... W like Winslow Park

Just a few photos of Winslow Park, a very beautiful park in Westport, which I photographed last week.

Please visit Mrs Nesbitt's Place and the blogs participating in the ABC Wednesday this week.

Summer solstice

I was in New York yesterdy. I saw the yogis and the yoginis celebrating the summer solstice in Times Square.

Rain

It has rained a lot here lately. Last night we had a big storm, a monster storm. Everybody was scared but me. I must be very brave :-)) I drove the car back home right in the middle of the storm, through the forest. That was quite an adventure.

I took the photo in New York City last Saturday. It was raining like "vache qui pisse".

For those who like French cuisine and more generally French culture, you should visit this blog, which I discovered this morning: http://dumieletdusel.canalblog.com/

Literally the name of the blog is "of honey and salt."

Zapata

I have been in Westport, Connecticut, for two days now. I love it here. Yesterday my good friend Craig took me to a Mexican restaurant, El Acapulco, in Norwalk.

Je suis a Westport depuis deux jours. Je suis passee directement de mon HLM a une vraie ville de bourgeois tres huppes. La ville est tres belle, j'adore !

J'ai pris mes DVD avec moi. Je posterai encore des photos de Montpellier mais je lui serai un peu infidele.


M. Benaut, pardon pour l'absence d'accents ! :-))

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American blogger friends....

and to everybody who celebrates it!