Ruth and John

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The most recent entries are at the top of this page. Earlier entries follow in reverse chronological order.

31.10.2016
At sunset we went to check out the costumed kiddies and to hand out a little holiday cheer. I changed my mind about wearing the warm wig and vision-impairing red contact lenses and opted instead to wear comfy Halloween PJ's (jammies in public). We started out near Nice Etoille, worked our way to Place Massena and then down Rue de France to home. It was a little slow going at first but before long kids were coming to us to ask for treat bags. A couple of groups of kids and parents were just thrilled with the treat bags. A batch of teenagers were very excited by the witch's hats and masks. We didn't take many pics but we had a good time. Thank you, John, for joining me for my final Halloween revelry of 2016. I love you.

Also -- today is my sister's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY and Happy Halloween, Linda. Have fun in Chile. They are now at Magdalena Island, which is a small island in the Strait of Magellan, Chile. There's a photo of her in her penguin birthday hat below. The penguins there are called Magellanic penguins. Unlike Linda's birthday hat, they don't have yellow beaks, but they are still very, very cute.


Little French girl at outdoor café	Ruth giving away Halloween candy and witch's hats and masks	French Halloween kids

More French Halloween kids	Linda's Penguin Birthday Hat	It Came From Outer Space

30.10.2016
Ken brought me flowers yesterday when he came to my Halloween party. So nice. I decorated them with small Halloween decorations today. Everyone brought themed food and drinks. Salim also brought two bags of Halloween candies for the party and I've been sorting them, some decorations, stickers, toys and Halloween balloons into small treat bags to hand out to kids at Place Massena tomorrow night. I'll also give away the Carnival half masks and witches hats to anyone needing and wanting a costume. So I will again don my too warm wig and red contacts that hamper my peripheral vision a little, a slightly too small witch's hat and some bling before heading out for picture taking.

Today I learned a few new phrases in French related to Halloween. You can use Google translate to hear how they are pronounced.
Joyeuse Halloween is Happy Halloween!
le déguisement d’Halloween is Halloween costume
l’Halloween is Halloween
Farce ou Friandise! is Trick or Treat!
la citrouille d’Halloween or le Jack à la lanterne is Jack-O-lantern
fête d'Halloween is Halloween party

29.10.2016
The Halloween partiers were small in number allowing intimate conversations - a welcome opportunity to better get to know new friends in Nice. I knew that Salim is from Northern Algeria but I didn't know that Cynthia lived there for a while. I didn't know that Ken is a huge train nut (from the rider's perspective he said). My brother-in-law, Philip, who is coming to visit us in May with my sis, Linda, is ALSO a huge train nut. REALLY huge. He even has his own train engine (cute yellow thing). When Linda and Philip leave here next spring they are heading to Paris to start a trip on the Orient Express. How cool is that?

Back to the party -- My new friends already understand that Halloween is in my bones (so to speak) and they enjoyed the ambiance of the festivities. They are very nice and open people and I'm very glad I met them. I was enchanted with how very polite Salim is. He's probably the most polite person I have ever met. A real sweetie! I very much enjoy the shared perspective, especially regarding U.S. politics, that Ken, Cynthia and I have.

Back to the party ... Of course I have MUCH less Halloween stuff now than I did before our move here. But I did manage to pick up some small items at Target in Boston while I visited my friends and I got a few other things online. I also managed to bring some of my best goodies: models of Victor and Victoria from the Corpse Bride, wind-ups of Jack Skellington and Sally from Nightmare Before Christmas, really cute Halloween mice statuettes and a pill box my friend Maureen and her husband John, sent to me. Maureen gave me a ton of Halloween stuff that was all very very cool. She was a collector like me and she sent me some very nice toys. Her husband, John, sent me many more very nice things including the cute mice, after Maureen died. Thank you, John, for those gifts. My John loves those cutesy mice. He's into cute in general. I'm into both cute and the bizarre.

Speaking of the bizarre - I insisted that the Halloween guests inspect the toilet room I had decorated with circles and swirls. and 10 silver-framed science fiction monster movie postcards John picked up from San Diego Comi-Con. Just for Halloween, I added to the door an image of a creature that resembled the Martians from Tim Burton's movie "Mars Attacks!" and I added a silhouette of a monster breaking out of the toilet tank.


Bookcase	Buffet	Candy and Toys for Halloween Treat Bags

Cynthia, Ken, Ruth and Salim	Entryway	Cute mice

Jack Skellington	Kitchen at Halloween	Laundry Room

Love Story Halloween	Tommy in his kitty tower (upper right)	Messy Mantel

Toilet	Mars Attacks	Mantle detail

27.10.2016
Residence Cards
We went to Prefecture this afternoon to complete the process for renewing our Visa and carte de séjour (CDS) or titre de séjour which is the permanent residency card in France. (Note: Titre de séjour is the generic term for a carte de séjour, carte de résidente and the OFII validation in your passport that functions as a carte de séjour during your first year in France. The carte de séjour is a specific and most common type of card.) Our visa expired on October 3. Our residency permit will expire in December. Of course we were most concerned with renewing our visa. As it turns out we did not need to renew our Visa - just our residency permit. You only renew the titre de séjour. A visa is a document that allows you to enter France "for the long term (so I guess there was no expiration for the Visa? - still unclear on this) ." A titre de séjour is a residence permit - it's what allows you to stay here.

We each got our CDS today (John's letter had just not reached our home). They are now cards instead of stickers in our passport. I wondered if we could now use the CDS instead of our passports for identification, but I learned they are not considered to be identity cards, so a passport is required until we get a French carte d'identité. I haven't looked into the pros and cons of the French ID card. Obviously carrying a copy of our passport for local activities is not a big deal. I'll ask the Post Office if the residency card suffices for us to pick up packages there. The only reason to be concerned about carrying the original passport is loss or theft. "A carte de séjour is not considered a "traveling" ID...either you have an ID card, like the carte d'identité in France, or your passport".

You should note that, from what I've read, immigration laws change frequently in France and, similar to U.S. embassies, each Prefecture here can have different requirements for documents and other parameters. It is even suggested that, if you don't like the answer you get from a Prefecture worker, you should return the next day to talk with someone else. The downside with that tactic is that every visit to the Prefecture will take at least a couple of hours. Also you should note that if you arrive within an hour or even more of closing time you will risk not being seen that day. We always show up at least an hour before an office opens for the specific task(s) we need to address.


The entrance into the section of the Prefecture's Foreign Offices	Waiting in line to get our residency cards.	The lines are long, but in our experience, the French Civil Servants are very helpful and pleasant.

Ruth's Visa and old residency sticker	Ruth's residence card	John's residence card

24.10.2016
I received a letter in the mail today with an afternoon time frame during which I can come in any day to complete my paperwork and pay my fees. For some reason John didn't receive his letter. He'll go with me to the Prefecture and ask about his renewal while we are there.

21.10.2016
Last week Danny had a benign fatty tumor in his leg removed. Poor kitty! He was such a good cat enduring his twice daily applications of Betadine. He got his stitches removed today and everything looks good. He has a shaved area on his leg which is growing back and Tommy keeps teasing his big brother about his bad haircut. Those boys!


Ruth and a recovering Danny.

19.10.2016
We shared breakfast with a great Scottish woman who hated Brexit, but wanted to stay in the UK. She told us that Trump scared her and most other Scots that she knew. She said, "He (Trump) seems likely to start a war or let Putin have his way."

After breakfast we checked out of our rooms and took the Metro to Roma Termini to store our luggage. Then we took the Metro back to the Colosseum for our day of sight-seeing. We had advanced tickets to the Colosseum and the Roman Forum which helped with the waiting in line.

As we wandered through the Colosseum looking at the exhibits, John, the history buff, was enthralled. We took a short walk to the Roman Forum and waited through another line for security. John said the last time he came here - 1976 - there weren't any entrances at all. He said it was more of a city park arrangement where people could just come and go as they pleased.

Touring the Roman Forum we saw incredibly tall columns supporting buildings long gone. Most of the ruins had been scavenged in the early Middle Ages for building materials for other parts of Rome. After touring the Roman Forum we had an outdoor lunch and then took a long walking tour on our way back to the Roma Termini. We passed the Forum of Augustus, Trajan's Column, the Monument for Victor Emmanuel II and the Pantheon (once considered a monument to all gods, now a Catholic edifice with statues by Raphael and other well known and unknown artists).

We also visited the Marcus Aurelius Column and the Spanish Steps. These last two we found because John got a little lost and we walked onto them by accident. All of these buildings have fascinating histories and artwork/architecture/engineering. You should research some of them.

Near the Marcus Aurelius Column; outside the UNESCO office in Rome, about 200 people waving Israeli flags protested Italy's abstention from a recent UNESCO decision which Israelis believe favored Palestine. The demonstration was organized by the right-wing, pro-Israel newspaper Il Foglio. Among the participants were Rome’s chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni, and the president of the Rome Jewish community, Ruth Dureghello, as well as several right-wing political figures. You can read more about that here.

One of the places we visited in Rome was the Palazzo Valentini. "Palazzo Valentini is actually the headquarters of the Province of Rome and got its name from a banker, General-Consul Vincenzo Valentini who bought this building in 1827. Details about the history of this Palazzo and the Ancient Roman villas found beneath this Palazzo is best described on its website Le Domus Romane di Palazzo Valentini.

The monument in Rome that most impressed us was the Pantheon. The engineering of the dome is both structurally and aesthetically impressive. According to Wikipedia, "Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome".

In the central portion of Rome there is something to see everywhere you go; museums, ruins, galleries, historical buildings. It would take many months to see and appreciate everything. We selected a few things to concentrate on for this trip and we'll return again soon. From the Roma Termini we reclaimed our bags, bought tickets for the Leonardo Express (train), journeyed to the airport and then home.

A map of the Roman Forum

A restaurant near our B&B with images of Albert Einstein

Roman Metro trains were covered with graffiti and very crowded.

Looking up at the outside of the Colosseum.

Inside the Colosseum waiting in the security check line.

At ground level

Inside the Colosseum were many exhibits. This one displayed artifacts found during excavation (needles, lamps, coins).

Heads of nobels and gladiators.

Part of a cornice

Another exhibit with a horse's skull and a bear's jaw.

A view of the Colosseum's interior at the upper level.

John loves history.

Interesting brick pattern may be the reason the Colosseum is still standing after 2000 years.

Statue displayed at the Colosseum touting Rome's conquests.

Looking down into the lower levels of the Colosseum where the gladiators, animals and prisoners were kept.

Arch of Constantine viewed from the top of the Colosseum

Closeup of the Arch of Constantine

The Arch of Titus at the entrance to the Roman Forum

A noble's house

Bronze front door

The temple of Antoninus and Faustina

Stray cats made themselves at home in the Roman Forum

The temple of Antoninus and Faustina

Ornate stones like this were scattered throughout the Roman Forum

Wall paintings from a first century Christian church

More wall paintings from the same church

Sarcophagus from the first century Christian church

Ruth with the Roman Forum

Temple of Vespasian and Titus

John with the Temple of Vespasian and Titus

Temple of Vespasian and Titus

Some of the ruins were in excellent repair

Last column of the Rosta

Temple of Vesta

Bronze statue of Julius Caesar

Bronze statue of Augustus Caesar

Trajan's Column

The base of Trajan's Column. His military exploits are carved into the exterior.

The Monument to Victor Emmanuel II

Rome had many charming water fountains from previous centuries.

Elephant and Obelisk

Segway tours in Rome were a thing.

The front of the Pantheon

Pantheon dome. Great 2000 year old engineering!

Pantheon interior

Spanish Steps at sundown.

A wooden Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man at the Da Vinci airport.

18.10.2016
We took myDriver to the Nice airport for our flight to Rome. On the way I received a text message stating that the renewal of my residence permit had been approved and that I should visit the Prefecture next week to pay the fees and complete the application paperwork. Woo Hoo!! Another year in France.

The flight to Rome was only an hour. John still dislikes flying. I tried to explain the aerodynamics and safety of flights vs. other transportation, but he said that he knew all of that and the twisted burning metal in his imagination wasn’t very aerodynamic. He's managed to take several flights prior to this without saying a word, so his fears are manageable.

Some construction was underway at the Leonardo da Vinci–Fiumicino Airport and we had difficulty finding the trains. A nice Italian woman told us to follow her. Once again so many Europeans have been very helpful to us struggling Americans making their way in their new home. We took the Leonardo Express train to Rome, which was a 30 minute ride. We bought the tickets at a ticket office right next to the train platforms. Fourteen euros for a quick 30 km trip to the Roma Termini (main train station). The Roma Termini is a central hub for both trains and the Rome Metro. It was very convenient for us being only 2 stops from our B&B and the Colosseum. We bought a two day travel pass at a convenience store in the train station for 12 Euros each, but it turned out that individual tickets would be less expensive and only slightly less convenient. The shops at Roma Termini sold metro tickets and travel, tour and museum tickets, along with some other merchandise. With our travel passes we took the Metro to our bed and breakfast which was in sight of the Colosseum. We had a lunch of wonderful pizza and got on the Metro again to go across town and over the Tiber River to the Vatican Museums.

We loved the Vatican Museums although they have a ton of stairs. Up one flight to a room, then down two flights to another room, then up again. John said it reminded him of the staircases at Hogwarts. We saw Egyptian artifacts, mummies, Greek and Roman sculptures, some Matisse textile work and three paintings by Salvadore Dali. Of course, the best was Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. The ceiling was not only beautiful, but also had displayed his technical innovations like 3D foreshortening. Just before entering the Sistine Chapel we passed through the Gallery of Maps (from the 16th Century) which is long ornate room with maps on the walls and gilded paintings on the ceiling. A massive reconstruction of the Gallery of Maps was completed this past April. "In the days when pontiffs rarely left Rome, Pope Gregory XIII commissioned giant maps depicting all of Italy—so that he could explore the peninsula without leaving the city’s safety. By 1582, a team of top artists had painted and illustrated 40 meticulous maps, most of them measuring some 15 feet by 16 feet, onto the walls of a vast gallery. In their original form, the paintings had an almost 3-D effect, with city landmarks, mountain valleys and the white crests of ocean waves clearly visible. But the centuries were not kind to the Vatican’s Gallery of Maps, which stretches the length of a football field and is the world’s largest series of painted maps. The works were gravely damaged by dust and water over the years. Botched restorations erased or covered up key features, and a glue used in a 19th-century effort left the maps dulled by a yellow patina. In recent years, most visitors to the gallery—part of the Vatican Museums—simply ignored the maps as they rushed to the Sistine Chapel near the gallery’s far end. Some of those tourists now may start slowing down on their way to Michelangelo Sistine masterpieces. A four-year restoration by a team of more than a dozen experts has returned the gallery to something close to its original grandeur."

After stopping in the gift shop for postcards and magnets we went to St. Peter's Basilica, a beautiful Renaissance church (which is the largest church in the world, in the world's smallest country). John, being a former Catholic (now a happy Quaker), was not amused when I threatened to spit in the holy water that most visitors dabbled their fingers in and many rubbed the droplets on their forehead or (much less frequently) on their lips. eeewwwwwwwwww!!! GERMY!!

After we passed that health hazard we saw the Pietà which Michelangelo sculpted when he was only 23. The statue was commissioned by "French cardinal Jean de Billheres, who served the church in Rome. The cardinal wanted to be remembered long after he'd died. To achieve this goal, he hired Michelangelo to make a memorial for his tomb that would capture a scene popular in Northern European art at the time: the “Virgin Mary” taking Jesus down from the cross." More details about Michaelangelo and the Pieta

By early evening we were very tired (the Vatican-Sistine chapel walk is long - especially if you spend time with the art). We ducked the rain, bought some sandwiches to take to our rooms and settled in for the night.

As I mentioned earlier, I very much wanted to see the virtual reconstruction of a couple of the buildings in the Roman Forum. "The Colosseum and the major attractions in Rome are spell-bounding but with the state of art technology used together with this archaeological finding, it is in a league of its own. You get to see with your own eyes the reconstruction of how these ancient Roman houses would look like and the sound effects just added to the excitement of it all. For example, you see the ruins of a bath but with use of lasers and effects, it transports you to that particular time giving you a feel of life then." Because it rained tonight we missed out this time. We'll catch it next time and they will probably add another Forum building by then.


The view from our bedroom at the B&B.	Street art of the pope on our way to the Vatican Museums.	Entrance to the Vatican Musuems

The dome of St. Peter's from the Vatican Museums.	Lots of stairs in this 16th Century building	Egyptian hieroglyphics from 1500 B.C.

Fragentary stele from Memphis (Lower Egypt)	Sarcophagus of Amenhotep	Sarcophagus from Thebes 1200 B.C.

Canopic vases from Thebes (Upper Egypt)	Mummy in its case. 1000 B.C.	Mummy in its case. 1200 B.C.

Roman sculpture of someone tickling another's foot.	Ceiling in the Vatican Museums	Greek sculpture.

Roman sculpture	Roman sculpture of a baby wrestling a goose	Ceiling of the Gallery of Maps

Map of Italy in the Gallery of Maps (1580's)	Detail of painting in the Room of the Mysteries	Former courtyard now a parking lot outside the Vatican

Woodcut in the Contemporary Art exhibit	Chasuble designed by Matisse	Tapestry by Matisse

Tapestry by Matisse	"Angelic Landscape" by Salvador Dali	"Crucifixion," by Salvador Dali, 1954

Leaving the Vatican Museums	At the foot of St. Peter's Basilica	Looking up at St. Peter's Basilica

Holy water font inside St. Peter's	Looking down the central nave	Really enjoyed this beautiful example of Renissance architecture

One view of the transept	Central dome	Another view of the transept

Pietà (Michelangelo)	Swiss Guard	From St. Peter's Square

Back to the Colosseum in the evening near our B&B.

6.10.2016
John and I are going to Rome next Tuesday morning for another 2 day 1 night adventure. One of the things we will see there is one or two night time virtual reconstruction of Roman forums: Caesar and Augustus. Pretty cool. I'm looking into the origins of that project and it seems that a grant from NSF and UCLA's virtual reality lab might have been involved. Roman Forum Buildings. You can find more information from some of these links about Creating Virtual Reality Rome.

5.10.2016
We went to another meeting of Democrats Abroad. One of our fearless leaders, Scott, talked about past elections details many of us didn't know. We were all invited to watch the U.S. elections at a breakfast at the Negresco Hotel on the promenade. John and I will be attending. The breakfast starts at 6 AM Wednesday morning which is after the polls close on the West Coast in the states. None of the West Coast states or Hawaii or Alaska wre swing states, but post 1980 tradition has been that news media doesn't report Presidential results until all the polls close. This year that tradition will not be followed by Slate's website and possibly others. State and local election results are after the polls close in each state.

3.10.2016
Danny had surgery today for a benign fatty tumor. The vet services here operate somewhat similarly to France's human medical system. The vet will do some tests in their office but many more complicate labs need to be sent to a larger, More sophisticated laboratory. In the states our vets would send samples to thir specialist labs. Here, the vet handed us Danny's tumor in a small cardboard box and a large plastic envelope with a sticker on the front addressed to the lab. We include our payment by check for the test when we mail the tumor to the lab.

John carried Danny to the vet and back in a kitty back pack which is easier to carry than a regular carrier. We thought about getting a carrier with wheels but we thought that might be too bumpy for Danny and Tommy and so far the back pack seems to work well.

Today is our one year anniversary in Nice. John and I had planned a dinner date at a nearby restaurant, but I couldn't sleep last night and we were concerned about Danny's surgery so we put that off a day.

John likes the pizza at La Stada down the steet so that's where we will go. I much prefer Mexican food so we keep an eye out for Mexican restaurants too.

Today I met a guy in the grocery store who had spent two weeks each year at a different location in America. In the course of our conversation he raved about the Mexican food in San Diego. I LOVE the Mexican food in San Diego. Fresh veggies, tasty and not too hot spices, black beans, grilled meat -- ah -- such memories. Tex Mex tasted terrible to me when I lived in Texas (I left in 1979), but it may have improved by now. Eugene Oregon's Latin restaurant on Willamette (it's 'will- LAM - it', dammit) street at 15th is very good, but most of the Mexican restaurants in Eugene Oregon are good, but not great. Except for Burrito Boy. That is definitely low end fast food.