Today we started another game of monopoly. So far, none of the three of us have gone bankrupt, but I feel that one bankruptcy is just around the corner.  I have one full monopoly (yellow) Eryn has the first set past go, and Mother has the railroads.

We only played for an hour, and in that hour, not much has happened, so we can’t see a clear winner. The future is foggy, and as the Artful Dodger might say, the fog is sometimes very helpful. See Terry Pratchett’s Dodger for full details.

In any case, we played monopoly today, and hope to continue tomorrow and maybe see a winner by tomorrow, and have that winner have won by the next day.

That’s all for now, Folks!

The modest bell tower in the title that my mother mentioned while ‘guiding’ us through a UNESCO World Heritage site seemed more of budget cut to me than being modest. The reason for that is that the bell tower was barely a tower; it barely came up above the ridgeline of the roof from which it was protruding.

We saw all of that when we were walking through an abbey this morning. The abbey is named L’Abbeye de la Fontanay, which I think means the abbey of the Fountains, which is an apt name indeed because the use of the natural supply of water to keep fish and to turn a waterwheel which in turn made a hammer hammer a block of wood to help the monks craft iron.

We first went and saw the Church, which was a traditional church with barrel arches and not much fluff. It used to have enameled tile flooring, but now the floor is only dirt. Inside the church, near the alter, are two tombstones that depict a knight and his wife, both of which are not carved ultra-well. We then walked up to the monks dormitory, which also had a dirt floor, and learned that the monks lived in close quarters, with only a small screen separating them from their comrades.

We then went outside and saw the boiler room and other rooms. We also saw two gardens with fountains in them, hence the name of the whole Abbey. We finished off by looking through the museum part, which pictured broken sculptures, video, and a shop.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Looking back upon it now, Paris seemed like a very novel place. As we have had several rainy days here, I have decided to go back in time in my mind and posts to tell my many readers what I learned about Paris and what I thought about it, besides the fact that the Eiffel Tower is really tall.

One issue that I think some people have is the expense. Paris is expensive, but I am wondering if the occupants and laborers of the city get paid respectively to the city prices, as in, they get enough to match the prices. I think that, though, one of the reasons that we were surprised by the prices was our time in countries that had currencies that were worth less, and so we were used to have a dinner be in the 100s range of that currency. In Paris, it is 40, and twice or three times as much.

Another thing that I learned about Paris was how nice the people were. They seem nicer out in the countryside, but even in the crowded city, people on the street greeted a passerby with a cheerful ‘bonjour,’ even if they had never seen the person before.

In all, I think that Paris is a great place to live, even if it is a bit expensive; the people are nice and there are enough ways to get around, aka Metro, Bus, and taxis.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we lounged around inside and relaxed, as there wasn’t much that we could do with the rain pouring down outside and the river bursting its banks. And so we spent much of our time sitting around inside, playing Scrabble and working on the puzzle, which is almost finished.

Later in the day, we went out under our four umbrellas of four colors and got some ice cream. I got a good selection of two scoops of chocolate, one scoop of vanilla, covered in chocolate with a deluge of whipped cream on the top. It was very good.

I am thinking that most of us are hoping that the rain stops sometime, as the height of the waterline of the river is getting higher and higher, not to mention the fact that we have been stuck inside for two days, not counting my daily runs to a boulangerie.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today, when we woke up, it was precipitating slightly, but by the time that I left to get some items from the boulangerie, it had stopped. However, once I got back, it started again, and it hasn’t finished since. The rain came down in torrential amounts, washing the streets of debris and making the river flow higher than usual.

However, since it is spring in France, the rain is expected, so we have anticipated it with some dread. Once we get to Switzerland, though, the rain will be frozen and in the form of snow, so we will be thoroughly chilled.

Today, we mostly stayed inside, with the notable exception of going out to dinner, which we did at two restaurants. The first one was not to our culinary tastes, so we went to the place that we had gone to on our first night in Semur.

That’s all for now, Folks!

I think that I mentioned yesterday how we saw, in a museum, a decapitated statue head that had interesting hair. Well, odd life, but we saw the real thing today. The real thing, actually is still a statue, but it is downsized some. It is in the traditional form of Gaelic looks, as in, what people thought they looked like during the reign of Napoleon III.

The form of a Gael back then looked like what we called a Viking. They wore horned helmets. That is about where the similarity ends. The statue of the defeated king in fighting with JC has long, shoulder length, unkempt hair, a face like Napoleon III, a long mustache, and a pearl necklace. All of which have been proved to be falsehoods about the Gaels.

We saw the statue near Alesia, an ancient town of ruins in eastern France, where we are now. Alesia was place number 5 on the list of our things to do. The first was a town, in which we walked, the second one was the source of the Seine river. We then went to several more towns before arriving at Alesia.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went out into the village where we are now residing to explore. Eventually, we came upon the Museum and went in. It was free, which was nice, and the giant head near the door had a neat hairdo. We walked down the aisle and looked at statues.

Most of the statues had what looked like warts coming out of odd parts, and we deduced that that was for more effectual 3D imaging. When we finished looking at statues, we arrived in a room in which Eryn and I tried out a bow and felt the weight of a heavy shield.

We continued with the museum until we got to the top level, which had paintings and several other statues. When we finished, we walked back to our nice house along the riverbank.

That’s all for now, Folks!

We are now in the Burgundy region of France. Ah, the countryside at last. After a week of hectic activity in Paris, we now will wind down and warm up in this ‘quaint’ little village. We drove most of the morning today and finally arrived in the late afternoon. We got into our place and unpacked a bit before going to dinner.

At dinner, my mother and I decided to share a several dishes, and when I asked her about pizza, ‘Do you want a margarita?’ she said ,’No, we are getting tap water,’ and I replied, ‘Mother, I was talking about pizzas!’ She agreed and dinner was good.

Our house is right on the river, and from it we can see the ramparts of the city. I think it is a good location, and so did the marketers.

That’s all for now, Folks!

If you remember, in Cusco we had a sewer problem. Today, my family and I descended down into the sewers of Paris and experienced the same smell, though more acute. We were walking around in the underground sewer museum.

The sewer museum was built a long time ago and it still works today, though there have been a few additions. The original sewer system was designed and directed by a man of the name of Eugene Belgrand. He designed contraptions to keep the solid waste from clogging up the tunnels, including using the pressure of the water to push the sand and other buildup out of the way.

After we finished that, we took the metro to a shopping mall underneath the Louvre and looked around. I spent most of my time in the Apple store looking at iPads, iPods, and iPhones. When we finished with that, we left and went to spend some time in the Luxembourg Gardens before looking at the Pantheon.

That’s all for now, Folks!

…Notre Dame. Again. Notre Dame means ‘My Lady’ in French, and today we climbed up the towers today. We didn’t see a hunchback, but he could have been hiding. Or he could also be dead because the ‘Hunchback of Notre Dame’ was written in the 19^th century.  Notre Dame is, this year, celebrating its 850^th anniversary, so there are lots of building and bleachers out in front with which to admire the view.

As we ascended, we went around and around a central column, like the stairs on the cathedral on the hill overlooking the City of Paris. We kept on going up and finally arrived on a balcony that connects the north and south towers. We took pictures for a while before climbing the stairs up to the top of the south tower. From there, we walked around, took pictures, and then waited to be let down the stairs.

We eventually got out into sunlight again, and had walked about statues before returning home, back to our apartment on the banks of the Seine River.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Notre Dame,
Is the claim to Fame,
Of Paris,
On the River Seine

Today we,
Up and went to see,
The church,
With big pink trees

Later then,
We went there again,
To hear,
One play an organ

In other un-rhyming words, today we went to Notre Dame. We went on a tour in the afternoon, and in the evening came back to hear a man play an organ.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went to the Louvre. The Louvre is a timeless art museum located on the banks of the Seine River in Paris. In it are well known pieces of art, including the Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa. As I already said, we went there today.

We met our guide under a small arc in the front courtyard of the museum. We went under I. M. Pei’s glass pyramid and started our tour. This wasn’t one of those ‘here are the facts about so-and-so, made in year such-and-such, and made by the great artist ______.’ This was a Louvre tour ‘dedicated’ to young teenagers, presenting a quest at the beginning of the tour, with smaller sub-quests.

Our guide, Laura, was something like Gandalf the Gray, a guide that knew its stuff. She took us through galleries upon galleries of art. She showed us the development of movement in statues, from one small step made by a bronze statue of Apollo (11). Then she showed us a statue of a man about to be flayed alive hanging by his hands, with all of his muscles stretched. He had picked up an enchanted lyre and had won in a contest in Apollo, and Apollo sentenced him to death by being flayed.

We continued, on, eventually seeing painting that showed stories, not just sculptures, and saw many, including Leonidas I at the Battle for Thermopylae. In any case, it was a fun tour that I think we all enjoyed.

That’s all for now, Folks!

My sister is different. She may be absolutely brilliant in math and science, but when it comes to photography equipment, she is sometimes absolutely clueless. A prime example of that is when my father is taking a picture of Eryn and I in front of some interesting scenery (the Eiffel Tower) and he told us to look at the lens, my sister asked, ‘What is the lens???’ I answered her question, and she said, ‘Oh yes…I knew that!’

Today we went to the Arc de Triomphe, which is on the western end of the most expensive street in the world; Champs Elysses. We climbed up the spiral staircase on one side, took some pictures from the top, and climbed down the other side. On the other end of the 1.9 kilometers of Champs Elysses, we popped out of the metro system at the Plaza de Concorde. On the south end of the plaza is La Seine, the river that runs through the central of Paris.

We then went to the Eiffel Tower. After waiting in line for a while, we bought our tickets and worked our way through another line for the elevator halfway up. After we got out of the legs and about halfway up, we switched elevators to one that had four skylights and rode up. When we got off, we were on the top of the Eiffel Tower. We oohed and aahed for a while before taking the straight elevator down. My father and I took the stairs down one of the legs, while my sister and mother took the elevator. They arrived at the bottom before us.

About that time, my father started taking more pictures and Eryn asked the aforementioned question.

That’s all for now, Folks!

In this case, unlike in the case of Arthur and his company of brave knights trying to vanquish the rabbit in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, the ‘holy hand grenade was actually a fruit. It might not have been holy, but it fit in one’s hand and was called a grenade.

Today, we woke up early in Fez and hopped into the van with Majeed and all of our stuff. We went to the Fez airport, checked in, went through passport control and security, and waited in the departure lounge for our plane to arrive, empty, and then start to fill with passengers for the flight to Paris, with us being four of those passengers.

Eventually, we saw the orange tail of the EasyJet aircraft destined to take us to Paris without harm. We eventually arrived in Paris after several hours of flight time, some of it occupied by a screaming toddler in the seat right in front of us. When we got to the CDG airport on the northwestern corner of Paris, we hopped on the metro and rode it to the stop nearest our flat. Excusez-moi, apartments.

Later, when we went shopping for some things, mainly stores and Orange shops, we found a supermarket, and, in the fruit and veggie section, there was a fruit that said ‘Grenade’ from ‘Uran.’ We think that that means that those are grenades from Iran, but you can never be too sure.

The Holy Fruit Grenade of Uran

That’s all for now, Folks!

Tonight, when we were sitting on the rooftop balcony of the Clock Café, my father and I looked out towards the west, towards the sunset, and saw an interesting hill and cloud formation. There was a purple-ish hill in the front, and then a purple-ish cloud in the background, with light orange and white wisps of cloud vapor in between.

That created the look of a large volcano caldera, with the wisps of vapor steaming up from the lava. My father commented on how it was tilted towards us, but when my sister and mother looked, they couldn’t see anything that resembled a round mountain a couple of minutes later.

Today, we mostly stayed home, though my mother and I went to her last PT. When we got back, my sister was the only one home and my father and Alami were at the PO trying to ship our packages home. When my father got back, he told the story of all the complications that were needed to be gone through in order to ship a package to the US. We then sat around some more before I went outside and played with my friends one last time, said goodbye, and then went with my family to dinner at the Clock Café.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Tonight, when we were walking home from dinner, there were sections of the walking-only road that were very congested, and others that had very few people on them comparatively. I say comparatively because when my mother and I go to her PT early in the morning, there is almost no-one out there, save a few early-risers.

Anyway, the people came in pockets, and they came every 10 meters or so. For those of you using the imperial system, that is about 32’ 9.703125” using www.metric-conversions.org. So, in other words, the pockets of people were about 30 feet apart.

Today we went almost nowhere. My father and I went out and got doughnuts late in the day, and then I played soccer out in the alleyway with some of my friends. Then, I went inside and got ready to go, did some stuff on my kindle, and then we left to Tommy’s, and on the way home, we encountered the pockets of people.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went to the Café Clock for breakfast. Three of us had the Ricotta Pancakes while my mother had scrambled eggs. We then immediately left and didn’t stop at home so that we could get to a fort on a nearby hill as soon as possible.

We first weaved our way through crowd filled streets, crossed a major one, and then started up a dirt path. We went up, headed towards the fort that was at the top of our field of vision. We kept going up until the trail ended except for a small ledge that extended about a foot before dropping off down onto some partially burned garbage some 50 feet below.

We walked along the edge, clambered up an easy slope, hopped over a small fence, and were right down the road from where we wanted to be. We walked up the road, into the place, and then found out that it was 8 minutes too late to go in, as it closed at 1200 hrs, and it was 1208 hrs. Too bad. We looked around for a while on top before descending a different way.

That’s all for now, Folks!

That is my mother’s suggested title for today’s post, and Eryn says that she (Mother) is getting illiterate. I don’t know. I just work here. Today we, excuse me, I went on three trips out of our house in Fez. The ferst one was one going to Mother’s physical torture this morning, the second one was out on a shopping expedition to get food and sweets, and the last and final one was to dinner at Le 44.

For the PT, my mother and I went, and while she hissed, I did schoolwork. Then, I went with my mother to Marjane to get some chocolate bars for deserts before hopping in a third taxi and heading back to the ancient Medina, where we stay.

For food, we went out and bought sweets, bread, eggs, oranges, and several other things that are around the house after going down to see if the doughnut place was closed. Sadly, it was, so we had to make do with sweets.

For dinner, we went to Le 44 and sat up on the roof terrace, at the farthest away possible table from the kitchen. My father says that the waitron used to be overweight, but with tourists that sit up on the roof, he has gotten skinnier.

That’s all for now, Folks!

For those of you who don’t know what rock management is, it is when a manager asks an employee to get them a rock, and is never satisfied with the rock that is brought to him. That is about what happened today to my father and I at the Post Maroc office today.

When we arrived, we pressed the button for a slip and it rolled out. When our number was buzzed, it stayed on for a split second before being replaced by another number held by someone else. The security guard then made us his personal project and started looking at boxes for us. The first one was too small, and the second one was too big. We finally decided on the first one. And we hope it will work.

The rest of the day was mostly filled with schoolwork, naps, car shopping, laundry, and other such things that happen on such a down day.

That’s all for now, Folks!

This morning, my mother and sister went to PT, while my father and I stayed home and did techy stuff. When the women in my family came back, we sat around for a little bit before heading out on a shopping expedition. We left our house and walked down the street, turned right, then right, and then walked down the hill on the way to some stores that we had been to before.

First, we went to a scarf shop that Eryn had been to previously, and my mother bought a scarf, after bargaining of course. After we left that specific shop, we walked down the street to the brass shop that we had gone to on our second day in Fez. We looked around in both outlets of the shop, and then compared different models. If this sounds like car dealings, I have, by the way, been looking at cars as well today.

We looked at the three different sizes, outlawed one, and continued on the last two. We decided to only get the small one, and we bought it for roughly the correct price. My father then went to an ATM to extract the amount of money needed for the purchase, and we were on our way. On our way home, we bought delicious doughnuts. Yum.

That’s all for now, Folks!

We got up early this morning and walked bare-footed across tile flooring on the roof of the hotel and watched the sun rise above the horizon. Then we went back to sleep. We did things that did or did not need to be done, and then, in the middle of the afternoon, we saddled up on our camels and rode away. We rode for about an hour on the dunes of the Sahara desert before arriving at a camp. My father and I climbed up a nearby dune, and my sister and mother followed soon thereafter, and we watched the sunset from the summit.

We then went down and ate dinner, and after dinner, Amy, Autumn, and Andrew went with Eryn and I to the top of the dune again and we sat up there while everyone else sat by the fire and listened to drumming. The three As were Americans from Italy on holiday, but soon they will move to Oahu on Hawaii. Later, we went down, got into our tent, got into our beds, and went to sleep.

The Next Day…

We woke up this morning and rode camels away after watching the sunrise from the large dune near camp. We rode back to the hotel and cleaned up to eat. Then, Eryn and I hung out with Amy, Autumn, and Andrew (ages 11, 16, and 14, respectively) and the pregnant cat. We then left in the car with Majeed.

Later, when we stopped to look over the edge, men with horses trying to get us to ride apparated on site, bring with them horses, and laying siege to us in our car. When we got back to the car, another man had appeared with his portable store, so there was a shop outside our window. That reminded us of yesterday, when we were at a lake, and out of nowhere,  8 guys appeared with wares, trying to sell us stuff.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Our driver today at first called the monkeys ‘crazy monkeys,’ but by the time that we left the place with the monkeys, he was calling them chimpanzees, which also didn’t sound right. Barbary Macaques is the correct name of the monkey, and it is also the type found on the rocks in Gibraltar where we had gone in 2004. This time, however, we saw them on the side of the road while going through the Middle Atlas Mountains while driving south from Fez to the Sahara, where we are now.

We got in the car with Majeed early this morning after breakfast, and then got into his car and drove away. After driving for a while, we got out at a monkey stop and walked around for a bit, but didn’t see any monkeys. I amused myself by punching out the ice in little bird baths by some picnic tables, before we were in the car again. Majeed had just turned the key in the ignition before he saw monkeys coming towards us. We stayed for a while and fed crackers to the monkeys and watched them nibble on them. After a while, the crowds started to arrive and a monkey hopped onto our car, and we stayed for a bit longer before the monkey got off and we left.

A bit later, we looked out the window, and right outside was a snow bank. We got out to see the snow and take pictures, and I threw a snowball. Later, we stopped to look at the beautiful scenery, with storks in the foreground and snowy mountains in the background, with a green wet field in the front.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went to gardens. Well, one of them was officially a garden while the other one was debatable, as it was also a park. The first one had an attached museum that we also saw. In the museum there were old clothes, old clothes, and old weapons and instruments.

The first garden was small and not very well maintained. There were overgrow hedges and bees by the dozen. However, the fruit trees had heavy branches, laden with ripe fruit. The oranges were ripe and everything was in bloom.

The second garden was much better cared for; the fountains were running, the hedges were trimmed, and the flowers were all in rows. Sounds a lot like French garden. Not surprising considering that Morocco was a French colony, so at least it isn’t too much of a surprise. We will be able to enjoy gardens like that in the rain in France. FUN!*

That’s all for now, Folks!

*Not

On other days when there has been PT, my mother has hissed her way through the time, in an effort not to scream, cry, or in any other way embarrass herself overly. Today, however, her PT was relatively devoid of any hissing, though there was the occasional squeak from her physical therapist.

I went with my mother to her PT this morning after waking up early and having a not-warm-enough shower. After eating a small breakfast, my mother and I went out. On our way home, we swung by Marjane and got some groceries, ice cream, and cake.

When we got back, we let ourselves into the house and went around doing regular tasks, and when the rest of the family got home, we sat around some more. Eventually, I went out and played with Mohammed and his friends with a ball, while the rest of my family went on a shopping expedition. Later, we went to dinner at Le 44 and then came home and ate a chocolate bar.

That’s all for now, Folks!

My father read in a guide book that the people in Morocco believe that male sheep meat is more tender than female sheep meat. To prove that their meat is take from rams, the owners of butcheries have ram legs that have one testicle hanging off the end, to prove its sex.

We have seen several of those male sheep legs hanging from the knee from a rail above the counter at a butcher’s, and had always wondered what they were. Know we know, and it is an interesting tidbit of information that might be useful to pass on in stories, as it might be funny, interesting, or gross to different people.

Another thing that is sometimes displayed in meat shops is the decapitated head of a camel, complete with wet and bloody hair on the lowest bit and something throaty hanging down by a small amount of tissue. Not exactly my favorite sight.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today was mostly spent indispensable while we listened to the pitter-patter of rain drops in great multitude upon the roof of our Dar in Fez. As in India, this is a hot country and the rain always seems to find us. I still have a sneaking suspicion that we take rain wherever we go, something interesting in light of the episode of ‘I Dream of Jeanne, My Master the Rainmaker,’ that we watched this evening.

In any case, in between droplets, my mother and father went out for PT, while Eryn and I stayed home. Eventually, after the parents had come home, we all went to the Clock Café. Eryn and Mother shared a chocolate pudding souffle, while I had an orange and almond cake. Both were good, and when we finished, my sister and mother signed up for cooking classes tomorrow morning.

In the end, we left the Café, and my mother and I went out to get supplies for dinner. When we got home, we did some stuff for a while before getting ready for supper. After a supper of soup, bread, and strawberries, my parents and I ate the remainder of some ice cream that we had, and then we worked upstairs on finishing up what left we had to do to go to bed, including writing this post.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Today we went back to the leather souk that we had gone to with our guide for our walking tour a few days back, and this time we seriously looked at the products. My father and a looked at ‘poofs’ which are like small beanbags, while my mother and sister looked at slippers and shoes. Eventually, when we were about to leave, I convinced my family to at least look at the leather jackets, even if we weren’t going to buy any.

When we got to the jacket floor, I looked through some styles and picked the one that I like the most; a black leather jacket with 5 pockets, 4 on the outside and a small one on the inside. I poked around at some other things while my mother tried on a red jacket, decided it wasn’t what she wanted, and then found one that she wanted that was also red. We didn’t feel like buying, but we just wanted to know the prices, and it was a lot.

The guy at the counter convinced my father to state a price, and they agreed to it and now our family’s wardrobe now has the accoutrements of two new leather jackets from Fez, Morocco.

That’s all for now, Folks!

Salad: The traditional Moroccan salad, we think, is chopped up tomato, cucumber, and onion with some sort of sauce. However, we have had other types that are more about six different tapas that are shared around the table.

Bread: The traditional bread here is buns 1 inch tall and about 6-10 inches wide. The bread comes in different varieties; with grains on the top, white bread, and whole wheat, but in essence, it is mostly the same thing.

Fruits and Veggies: Mostly the same as home, though they do like to give eggplant a bit of a smoky taste when cooked.

Meals: The meals are good and cooked, and the curries are delicious. There are many varieties of tapas and falafel like things that someone can try.

Escargot: I decided to leave a section entirely for snails because there are stalls along with the street with vats full of live snails, crawling over each other in the futile quest of getting out and saving themselves.

That’s all for now, Folks!