This Side of the Lens (A Year in French) One American's perspective of living in France

Boston Bloom

as i struggle with both catching up and deciding what exactly I’m doing in this blog, I am confronted with the fact that if I don’t start throwing stuff down, I’ll soon be buried under a mountain of photos and days, weeks, months in french. So what is this? What ever it is, it needs to get a little closer to the present. So I’ll try a little harder to condense time in this issue. I’ll throw in a little of this and that to try and bring you readers up to speed. . .
Our family activity director initiated a charming canoe excursion on the river.
We also had some Quality hang out time with the family while ‘expecting’

Can you see the no parking
sign in this photo?

No? Neither did we.
Do you think we could
find someone that could take
care of the ticket?
How about Mr. D?

I learned that the flight I had expected to take out of Philadelphia had been canceled, so I changed my other flight arrangements and decided to stay at Bro’s house. This photo was taken during my last night in the hotel.

The last day we spent walking around Cambridge.

I’ll just throw in a few more photos here as I’m running out of steam….

In the morning we headed of to Providence Rhode Island to catch my flight to Philadelphia. Except for a goofy suggestion from Susan (My GPS) we made it to the airport Where the next phase of my journey began. . .my year in french
Until the next issue
-G

Reflecting sunset off the building across the Charles

o.k. more catch-up. . .

After settling in to the hotel my brother and I took a quick tour of the facilities before heading off to Taiwanese food at one of bro’s favorite local dives. We met up with my sister-in-law’s parents, nephew and brother-in-law and ate up a yummy belly full. Afterward we headed back to my brother’s house to check in on the mother to be.

With no child on the way yet, we went out to meet up with some of the locals.
After that, homeways was bestways and i went back to the hotel for a bit of spatchka
goodnight droogies. . .

A view of the Boston skyline from my hotel room in Cambridge Massachusetts

Still working backwards at this point, so to catch you up. . .

The furry one and I stayed at my Aunt’s new house in chico, CAlifornia our first night out on the road. We got to see our cousin and meet some other interesting travelers. We got to do some catching up and some of us retired earlier than others. In the morning, after breakfast, her furriness and I got back on the road to portland.

We arrived in portland that same evening and began the process of acclimating my 15 year old four-legged bed warmer to her temporary home and being around her cousins. (See Pack Mentality) They seemed to get along alright, so the following day the plan was to help my sister’s seriouso fix their roof leak, which started with a partial tear-off to asses and address the damage. A day and a half later, with the roof looking like it would shed water properly I had an afternoon to gather my belongings, make sure they were well packed and under the weight limit for the airplane. I realize there were plenty of opportunities for photos and other media in this time period, however, it was apparently just not meant to be.

Once all my stuff was by the front door, and I had changed into my flight gear, I was ready to begin the next leg of the journey; Cambridge Massachusetts to see my brother, mother, cousin, uncle, aunt and the in-laws (no offense, but the list was getting long.) I said goodbye to my precious hair maker, thanked and blessed my benevolent babysitters and scurried off to the Portland airport guided by my dyslexic GPS unit. (A tense necessary fuel refill aside, I caught my plane which brings me to the title and photo of this post.)

My bro picked me up at the airport and off we went to cambridge. My bro has connections (though the boston mafia can not be confirmed) and I received a VIP guest card and a sweet room at the Hotel. **I need to get going now, so I’ll continue in the next episode. . .

Three days left before I hit the road. Just the WiFi and a few essentials left to pack up...

This is sort of a retro post to get the ‘year in french’ blog started. I took this photo to bench mark my progress in getting the house emptied out for the year in France, after christine had left to secure our house in aix-en-provence. Even though we had known and planned for this trip for a year, the last 5 days before I left were long, hot, exhausting and anxious. To top it off there was a heat wave cooking the county to 106ºF.

After moving the majority of our possessions to storage and the left-overs to the garage, I ran out of time and had to hire a cleaning lady to help me get out of the house on schedule. I had planned on driving to Ashland Oregon, stopping to see a friend on my way to Portland Oregon, where I had made arrangements to drop off my Furry four legged companion. Well even though the cleaning lady kicked serious @ss cleaning out the house while I finished up with the last remaining items and details, I got too late of a start to make it to Ashland, so I decided instead to drive to Chico and visit my aunt for the night.

As I drove out of Sonoma towards Hiway 80 I passed what was the start of several california wild fires that i hear had caused a lot of damage. The sky was an eerie orange color as I drove through fairfield, however, I was unable or unwilling to grab my camera so there were no more pictures until I reached Boston, where I was finally able to let the adventure begin.