Winding down our trip to France

I enjoyed visiting with my brother and sister in law today and getting to know their Parisian home. Great place, good food and excellent company. A bit of reminiscing about our life in the Alps when we were kids and the good and not so pleasant times that came with these early days.

A lot of emotions that got turned up and that sent their usual, bittersweet messages. I guess there's no way avoiding this and conjuring the past always has its share of good and painful...

After walking Paris, some climbing!

The same folks that suggested we should walk in Paris, instead of using public transit, also suggested that we should climb stairs instead of riding elevators. This is something we did religiously, starting at the Eiffel Tower, then the towers of Notre-Dame and the Arc de Triomphe.

Each time a solid effort, followed by a rewarding point of view, not to mention the aerobic benefits. What's ironic though, is that one has to pay for climbing by their own muscular force; well, why wouldn't we do to stay fit at any cost!

Paris via surface

The few times I was in Paris always saw my travel via the stinky, subterranean “metro.” So far, this visit has been vastly different has we have stuck to the surface, literally walking the streets, following the wise advice of some good friends from the Morzine valley in France.

I've finally discovered Paris the way pigeons see it on a daily basis; in broad open-air! Much better, healthier and visually appealing. I'll think twice before I bury myself again inside the bowels of this great city. Long live Paris in the open air!

Mental fatigue at the Museum

There probably is no better place than an excellent museum to test our capacity to withstand “information overload.” This was the case today when we visited the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and I couldn't help but scrutinize everything and miss not one single bit.

The end result was total drainage of my mental capacity and of my physical abilities by shear extension. This experiment validated once more the reason why my computer heats up when I ask it to do too much within a limited time-frame!

Stay #5 in Paris

This will be my fifth long stay in Paris. I began visiting the French capital when I was 10, stayed at the famous Hotel Lutecia then. Later I spent a couple of weeks teaching skiing on the Galleries Lafayette rooftop and have fond memories of it.

My next sojourn was for one month in the spring of 1973 as a ski salesman for my friend Michel Duret who used to manufacture boards branded to his last name. Tough to sell something no one really wants. It was a baptism by fire. The last time we were in Paris for three days was in 2002.

This is stay number 5. Do I know the French capital? Not really. Do I love it? Somehow, I think it's terribly polluted and crowded. Perhaps this stay will change my mind.

Avoriaz vanguard architecture

When I still was a teenager, I was raptured by the contemporary architecture used in building Avoriaz, a brand new ski resort that sprang out of nowhere near my hometown.

While it was conceived in the mid sixties, it was inspired by the contemporary American architecture of this era. It looked radically different at the time and because of it, I kind of liked it.

Was it functional as well as good looking? Not really, the living space was restricted, to extract as many Francs as possible out of each square meter sold and the concrete construction made it all but impossible to alter the rooms as time went on.

Does it still looks good? Not really; this alas is the worst part. The wood siding looks old and in a permanent state of disrepair. Am I still infatuated with it? No, the love is definitely gone.

A note to my Senator

My senator Mike Lee is a good communicator, but as an extremist, Tea Party member, what he says is not something I like, so when he tries to explain to me how bad Obamacare is for the country, I respond along these lines:

“Your thoughts are grossly misguided. Your Tea Party and GOP colleagues are thinking in the Past, with the Past and for the Past. Your cause is a lost one and you will witness your ideology crumble and wash away, but alas, at great cost to our entire country.

I thought Senator Bennett whom you replaced was bad, but you are much worst..”