13eme

Today I went to the 13eme with Pascale to satisfy my craving for Vietnamese food. We went to Lao Lane Xang on rue Ivry. It really hit the spot. I took some photos of the soup, the green papaya salad, and the rice pancakes.

Then we went on to Tang Freres to look at the food. Of course a lot of what's for sale at Tang Freres, I can probably get in San Francisco, but I like looking at it in this environment, anyway. And of course I snapped a few pictures.

Then we went on to the Institut du Monde Arab, and then back to the Gibert Jeune bookstore. It was raining, and we had wet umbrellas, so maybe a bookstore wasn't the smartest idea, but...

Then on to the Bastille, where we had salads and drinks at Cafe des Anges. Now it's almost 2:30 a.m., and the street is filled with the sound of shouting, drunken young males -- the same thing I seem to hear on Saturday night in any European city, for some reason. This will be my last Saturday night here for awhile...

A few notes about 2009...

I have mixed feelings about 2009. In some ways it feels like a lost year. It went by really quickly and I feel like I'm in the same place that I was last year...only with more clutter and less money.

Good things happened, but bad stuff happened, for sure. Let's get that out of the way first.

On the personal level, some of my friends died, some of my friends' parents died, I got ripped off by an evil businessman, I had family issues, I was often sleep-deprived due to a noisy downstairs neighbor, and my workplace was a tempest.

On the larger front, lots of people suffered financial hardships this year while others ran off with the money and got away with it. The war in Afghanistan got bigger. Services got cut everywhere while prices kept going up, and the "change we could believe in" from 2008 turned out to be barely noticeable nuances brought to us by the same people who gave us the last 10-15 years.

But now here's a few good things from 2009.

* Creative Commons music and netlabels are really flourishing. Take a look at Phlow Magazine's advent calendar (with guest music curators) for 2009 and sample the vast amount of good music that's coming out on the 'net. You really don't need radio anymore.

* My city (San Francisco) implemented a law that requires you to separate your trash from your compostable food waste with separate bins. I found this practice really easy to adjust to (though messy!) and along with recycling plastic, paper, and cans every week, I feel less wasteful. It was really easy to do.

* Several people that I know found their groove this year. They finally pursued their creative dreams and started doing what they felt passionate about, and it worked for them financially and psychologically. Kudos... I raise my glass to you.

* iPhone apps! Thank you for the second year in a row to the developers who made cool applications for iPhone...I can conjugate verbs in French, look up bus/train schedules, play word games, read Facebook and Twitter updates, tune my guitar, monitor my calorie intake, manage my project database, discover new music on Last.fm or Pandora, check news around the world, and of course send email, find maps, and all the usual wonderful stuff from the same little device.

* Farmer's markets -- they're nothing new, but in 2009, they started popping up in more neighborhoods and more towns than previously, and it's been a wonderful thing to go back to the basics and buy real food when it's in season from local growers.

These are just a few things I can remember that made 2009 look better than 1999 for me.

So here's to 2010, whatever may lie ahead. Onwards!

art, rain, food, etc.

Yesterday John and I walked around from museum to museum in London. We went to an incredible Warhol exhibit that displayed his films and videos and some memorabilia in an environment that made me feel like I was being transported back to his loft in the sixties. It was really great....the ultimate Warhol exhibit.

It was raining, and we popped into the Tate for awhile and the Design museum, too, and took a walk along the south bank of the Thames. At Taz (apparently, a chain..but a really good one), we had Turkish food for lunch, and then, with Jan, a mindblowingly great Thai dinner in the theatre district, where I ate condiments like fresh peppercorns (still on the vine) for the first time.

We walked so much that my legs got sore....and I will probably do the same today.

Jeg er i Norge

I know you thought I was in London, and I was...and I will be again. But right now I'm in Norway, visiting some friends. Wow, it's green here. I could see healthy-looking cows just grazing by the road as we drove from Sola Airport. Last night we went to a supermarket ... and I thought I'd snap a few photos to share (because I love to look at food). This includes reindeer meat, and a large gluten-free section. There's a lot of gluten-free food here, even in a "normal" supermarket.

speaking in other tongues

I'm back in Paris, jetlagged. My French is still awful, but I do pretty well with giving cabbies directions to "my" apartment. Luckily for me, French is usually a second language for them, too.

After a lunch of roquette and fromage de buffala with my friend Geneviève, I headed for Monoprix and other shops to stock up on the stuff I need in the apartment and that I miss when I'm not here, because it's either not available in the USA, or not the same, or so outrageously expensive that I can't justify buying it...like the raw sheep's milk cheese and the pimentes stuffed with goat cheese...and the coconut yogurt.

Then had to pop on the metro and off to the BHV to look at the fall clothes, while I was still ambulatory. I didn't last long...I'm too tired.

It's good to be back.