I am alive and well. I will continue to post personal items here, but that line between "personal" and "writing fodder" is a bit blurry. My "official" travel/France blog is at richardblock.blogspot.com. I guess what I'll be posting there will be, obviously, dispatches from cool places, as well as longer more structured entries, whereas here I'll ( Read more... )

So here I am. St. Raphael, France. It's kind of a resort town at the western end of what is formally considered the French Riviera, though it is east of St. Tropez by about 15 miles. It's really nice here, I've already made a bunch of friends whom I see all the time, and my job is pretty laid-back. I am making an effort to be on the ball and ( Read more... )

Just four short weeks ago I had all but given up hope that my Galaxy would make the playoffs ( Read more... )

I was in Nice from the night of Sept. 25 to the night of Oct. 2, and mostly I walked around, gawking at buildings that were old and pretty, as well as the ones that were newer but also pretty. Most of them seemed to have shutters on the windows, and many have elaborate decorations carved in stone. You just don't see that on, for example, a medical ( Read more... )

I bought a mountain bike at the semi-annual used-gear sale at Decathlon, which is like Sport Chalet in France. It's a Giant, and all it needs is a new rear-derailleur cable and (soon) maybe new tires and brake pads. Feels totally sturdy, should serve me well on trips up and down the coast etc. I also got a library card -- 8 Euros for six months. ( Read more... )

SUCK:

• Paperwork. Too much of it. You can't do much by mail or Internet, it seems; I had to clear out a day of work and train it down to Toulon to get my residency papers yesterday. But that's OK; it beats waiting in line all night at the INS office, which certain friends have had to do. I guess immigration paperwork is awful wherever you are. But ( Read more... )

Today began around sundown, as before that I didn't get much accomplished. Around 3:30, my roommate, Matt (from New York), our friends Sophie (from England) and Eleonora (from Italy), and I met up at the Café Valescure for coffee and a chat. After that, I checked some e-mail, took my clothes out of the washer and hung them up to dry, gathered some ( Read more... )

Since I've arrived in St. Raphael, a little coastal town between Cannes and St. Tropez, a number of things have struck me as being worthy of cataloguing. So I hereby present:

Things that are awesome and things that suck here in France.

Beware, the following includes things you've certainly heard about before; if they're here, though, they're here for ( Read more... )

So the cat's out of the bag, the money's out of my bank account (airfare, yo), and I'm out of here ( Read more... )

Re: my Big Plan for Life, which I am now forced to reconsider ( Read more... )