Fourth of July in the air

Fourth of July came and went. We missed the fireworks. But Jan favored us with her famous federal-holiday homemade-ice-cream treat the night before -- what a nice sendoff! (I added the photo to the album linked to the previous posting)

We flew to White Plains by 9pm, got rental car, drove to our one-night-stand at Marriott Courtyard (thank you, Priceline.com!); the next day we went to friends' house at Pleasantville, for their hospitable in-law apartment. Interestingly, we forgot to ask for their house wi-fi password, so we went to the local library to review e-mail!

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EUA: tanto estrago em tão pouco tempo

As part of my effort to learn about Portugal, both the country and the language, I'm subscribing to the centrist newspaper, O Publico . There are plenty of newspapers: conservative tabloids, and socialist and communist-sponsored daily papers; I find O Publico to be most sober, with consistently interesting columnists and opinion pieces, in addition to some local (Porto) news, with just enough sporting news to keep me chatting with the taxi driver. Today's opinion piece sums up, I think, European pundits' view of the U.S. government. As the title puts it: so much damage in so little time. I shudder at the rank incompetence and corrupt behavior, demonstrating a cynical attitude toward public service, showing indeed that the cruelty is the point. What scandal, what damage will be the tipping point to collapse this government? And what will it take to recover from the damage? Who will be able to trust the US government again, ever? Only ni...

Yikes! Russian Chocolate!

The other day we chanced upon a Slavic grocery store. We went inside, marveled at all the products from various eastern european countries, from Czechia to Poland to Yugoslavia to Russia to Kazakhstan. I grabbed a chocolate bar... and now I realize that it's Russian, imported via Germany. The ingredients list is written in Russian, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek; and a separate ingredients sticker pasted over it in German. No Portuguese or Spanish or English. Hmm. How did it get here? And what sort of sanctions are imposed on Russian confectioners? The chocolate itself is just okay, nothing special.

De Montpellier à Bayonne

[25mar22] De Montpellier à Bayonne: Easy morning, clean up the apartment, walk the suitcases to Place de la Comédie , take Tramway one stop to the train station, get breakfast (regional specialties), train first class car #2 to Montpellier, changing trains is Toulouse. Second class is 2X2 seating while first-class is 2x1 seating with a bit more legroom and slightly nicer seats, but otherwise not much different. Fortunately these intercités trains have good wi-fi. Arrival at Toulouse is a bit delayed; Jeff runs to the ObjetsTrouvés office seeking his eyeglasses. Fortunately the office is open, the guy helpful; he shows me his box of found eyeglasses. Mine are not there. Disappointing, yet it's somewhat reassuring to know for sure that they are truly lost. I run back to Track #3, where our next train is boarding—we (and others) struggle to identify car #13. Even other passengers cannot find #13. Eventually I ask a worker, who...

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